In an overnight ruling blocking the Trump administration from deporting a group of Venezuelans, the justices ignored some of their protocols. Your favorite political fighter might be making you more polarized than you realize—but not for the reasons you think. Consumer confidence is plunging, bond markets are panicking, and gas prices are coming down alarmingly quickly. Southern California home prices barely rose last month, as would-be buyers weren’t able — or willing — to bid up housing costs much further.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM sixty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hey, good afternoon, Chris Merril AM six forty more stimulating talk.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Always a pleasure spending Sunday afternoons with you. Love it.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Uh, Kayla, just you got to we have another talk
aback here, Kayla?
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Is this about this? This is about student visas, this is
about animal attacks. It's a past student visas.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Okay, student visas all right, So we're just talking about
student visas being revoked. And the talkback button is always
on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Hi, Chris Hikes Cheryl from Marina del Ray.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Hello Cheryl from Marina del Rey, beautiful area. Love it.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
And my comment on the students that are getting their
visas revote and they're being sent back is because of
the fact that it's okay to protest, but when you
start destroying the school property and you start burning the
American flag and allowing well they weren't allowing a lot
(01:04):
of Jewish students going to class, then they should be revoked.
We want people that are good, but we also want
people that respect our country.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Hey, Cheryl, I appreciate that call, and I think you
and I agree on about ninety percent of what you say, really,
one small point of disagreement is that I, as much
as you might find it abhorrent, burning the American flag
is protected free speech.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
But you're right about the.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Whole destroying things and making other students feel unwelcome and threatened.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You're absolutely right about that. And if it's.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Shown that someone is doing that, we have a process
for being able to show that someone was involved in
a situation like that.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
It's called due process.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
And if we can show that someone was doing that,
then yeah, consequence might be you have your visa revoked. Yes,
And I would say, I mean, you know you're here
as a guest. You broke the rules, We're going to
ask you to leave. The problem is we don't know
that because they don't tell us. They're revoking the visas
(02:13):
of a thousand people, and they're saying, well, they were protesting,
but there's no there's no due process.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
That's my issue.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
And I believe in the rule of law, and the
rule of law states that you have an opportunity to
face your accusers. And you know, the last thing we
want to do is go into a situation where an
accusation is equivalent to guilt. It's just a bad sitch. So,
and this is real easy to fix, really easy. These
(02:41):
people who had their student visas revoked. You go, yep,
we took our visa away. Here's the evidence, boop done.
There's a process for it. We have a process in place.
We're just ignoring it, that's all. But we agree on
a lot. Also, fun fact parents told me at a
young age I was not allowed to anyone named Cheryl
(03:02):
out of fear that we would get married.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
They didn't want to share Keryl Merrill. Yeah, I got that.
That's good.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
But there was a singer in the seventies, I think,
Cheryl Merrill, and they also didn't want that.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
They thought that would bring about ridicule. So there you go.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
As far as to Cheryl's point about this, the Supreme
Court seems to think, yeah, you know what, you can't
just go sending people out of the country. Willy nilly.
We gotta we gotta take a look at what we're
doing here. And the Supreme Court did something very strange.
They moved with expediency because the Supreme Court they're all
(03:46):
very slow bad hips.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
Overnight, the Supreme Court blocking the Trump administration from using
the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans to all Salvador
or elsewhere. The High Court ordering the administration not to
deport the detainees quote until for their order of this court.
White House Press Secretary Caroline Lovitt reacting to the ruling
state and quote, we are confident in the lawfulness of
the Administration's actions, and then ultimately prevailing against an onslaught
(04:11):
of meritless litigation brought by radical activists who care more
about the rights of terrorist aliens than those of the
American people.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Yeah, that's where I'm going to disagree. But I understand
why they put that statement out.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
You know, they're gonna They're not gonna argue the merits
of their actions. They're going to argue the the personality
of the people who oppose those actions, right, I mean,
and by the way, this is an easy tactic. This
is something I do for fun all the time. You know,
(04:43):
I'm trying to think of a good example here. I
eat a chocolate Easter bag, a chocolate Easter bunny from
the ears.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Kyla eats them from the ears, Andrew eats them from
the ears.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Probably eats them from the mid section first, and so
we don't say that's strange.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Why do you do that.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
What we say is Raoul is a psychopath? Right, we
jump the conclusions and then we just point to the
other person and we just assume we assign a motivation
to it. It's called a motivational fallacy. And if you
can sell other people on that, especially people on your
own and your own tribe, it works incredibly effectively.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Well.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
The order coming amid another legal battle for the administration
after admitting it mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.
But President Trump and Cis Garcia is a member of
the MS thirteen gang and will not be brought back
into the US.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
Two separate judges are firm Garcia is a member of
MS thirteen, which is a gang that may be even
worse than trend de I.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Raqua Garcia becoming the center of.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Policy until we find a Trenda, a Ragwa gang member,
and we say they're even worse than MS thirteen. Say
it just fluctuates based on what your goals are poll
it tics.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
This week, after Democratic Senator Chris van Holland traveled to
El Salvador to meet with him.
Speaker 7 (05:56):
The Trump administration is asserting a right to stay away
residents of this country.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yeah, na dah.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Actually I've got more on him, because this is really
so anyway, the Supreme Court says, you can't just willing
nearly deport people. We got to go through the process
as per usue and the administration says, n uh. So
we did get an update on this L. Salvadorian who
was deported to L. Salvador and then thrown in that prison.
(06:24):
It took a while before the Senator was able to
see him. And when the Senator did see him, if
you saw the video, he was wearing, to Raoul's pleasure,
he was wearing a chief's hat super Bowl hat. And
although I didn't happen to see what year it was,
it might have been the year that they lost the
Super Bowl, and that may have been hats that were
(06:47):
printed and sent to third world countries.
Speaker 8 (06:49):
I was totally wondering that myself, were.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
You yeah, yeah, sure, But anyway, he looked he looked fine,
He looked healthy, clean clothes, wearing a nice hat, all
that kind of stuff. Did not look like he was
suffering in some sort of a L.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Salvadorian hellhole prison.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I wonder if that's because cameras were there Tonight, Maryland
Senator Chris van Holland back in the US after meeting
with Kilmar a Brego Garcia, who was deported to a
notorious prison in El Salvador, and what the Trump administration
has admitted was an administrative error. Yeah, I mean they
even said, oops, we weren't supposed to do that. But
now they're doubling down.
Speaker 7 (07:26):
If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you've
threatened the constitutional rights and two process for everyone else
in America.
Speaker 9 (07:36):
The White House defiant, posting on X that he is
never coming back. President Trump blasting Van Holland for visiting.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Look, he's a fake. I know him, I know him all.
They're all fake.
Speaker 9 (07:48):
And doubling down on allegations a Brego Garcia is a
gang member, a claim his family denies.
Speaker 6 (07:55):
Is an illegal alien MS thirteen gang member in foreign terras.
Speaker 9 (07:58):
Abrego Garcia is an under documented immigrant husband and father
who has been living and working in Maryland for the
last thirteen years.
Speaker 7 (08:05):
He said he felt very sad about being in a
prison because he had not committed any crimes.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Okay, see that does feel fake. He said he felt
very sad.
Speaker 9 (08:16):
Okay, But in twenty nineteen, an immigration judge approved his deportation,
citing possible gang affiliation, as Ice had claimed.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
All right, possible. Ice says, we think he might be.
Judge says, yeah, it's possible. Don't take the risk.
Speaker 9 (08:31):
It was upheld by another judge during an appeal's hearing,
which is when President Trump says, two judges.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Now, President Trump said, two judges have affirmed that he
was an MS thirteen gang member, which could be worse
than trendi agris.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
But they didn't affirm it. They just said, yeah, it's possible.
That same year, Abrego Garcia, which is important, by the way,
I'm not making excuses. It's important as the story goes on.
Speaker 9 (08:53):
Same year Abrego Garcia applied for asylum, a judge agreed
that he had proved he feared future person acution in
his home country and barred him from being deported to
El Salvador.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Now, that was not part of what President Trump said.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
President Trump said, but there was another judge, you know,
He said, two judges have affirmed he was a member
of MS thirteen.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
He didn't say, but.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Another judge said that he had a credible threat. He
was an asylum seeker and was granted asylum. Very few
people are granted asylum. But he was granted asylum. But
we went ahead and pulled that rug out from under him,
a ruling.
Speaker 9 (09:26):
That gave him temporary legal status in the US, provided
he checked in with immigration authorities each year, which it is.
A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that Abrego Garcia is
entitled to due process and should not have been deported.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
So now another judge says he should have due process.
But we don't do that. We don't like it. So
the soap opera continues to play. You know, tune in
again next week for the ongoing adventures of It Is.
(10:01):
Why is it that we so quickly go to our corners?
President Trump said this. It violates everything I've ever said
in the past. I've always said, Democrats don't care about
due process, Democrats don't care about free speech, Democrats don't
care about blah blah blah blah blah blah. But then
President Trump doesn't. They go, well, they have every reason
to do that. This is always this is this is
okay for the good of the country. It's all these
(10:22):
other things that I stood by. I don't stand by
those anymore. We're very flexible when it comes to our
morality based on who the leader is. And by the way,
the counter argument, of course is, you know, you weren't
worried about due process back then, you weren't worried about
the freedom of speech. Back then, you weren't worried about this,
but now all of a sudden, you're worried about it. Right,
(10:42):
So it goes back the other way too, to the Democrats.
So why do we do this? Why can't we just
be consistent? It's called logical consistency. Why are we so
bad at that? And actually comes down.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
To our wiring. You're gonna hear what that is next.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Chris Merril kf I AM six forty Live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Good afternoon, my friends, KFI AM six forty. More stimulating
talk on Chris Merrill. Always a pleasure being with you.
It's weird that I would talk about immigration.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
And people be have different opinions.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Strange, but I'm learning a lot because you've told me
how silly I am.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
And I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Anybody listening on the iHeartRadio app feel free to click
on that talk back button and leave us a message,
love to hear what you think about what's going on,
including removing visas from college students, not describing why, just
sending notice visas revoked. UCLA students stopped the border held
in custody of sanmy seedrow.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Why not told just said you can't come back in?
So why listening to you live?
Speaker 10 (11:49):
And the problem I'm having with everything you're saying about
these illegal aliens is yet they are not entitled to
do process. They are not entitled to constitutional rights. Daft
(12:11):
belongs to a residence.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
And oh yeah, sorry, thirty seconds is a time limit.
What would a resident be, I.
Speaker 10 (12:23):
Mean a residence.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yeah, so the right to do process that belongs to.
Speaker 10 (12:27):
Staff belongs to to a residence.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
And I'm just gonna assume she says citizens. What is
a resident? Isn't a resident someone that has a visa?
Don't we say that's a legal US resident?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:44):
See, here's the other thing. We really easily start to
conflate things. So we say a breako Garcia. He was
here legally. He had an asylum claim that was adjudicated
and he was granted asylum, and we go, ah, but
he's an illegal. We say, we've got students here that
are on student visas. We've got graduate and postgraduate students
(13:05):
in southern California, and they're having their visas revoked without
due process right, And people go, well, these are illegal aliens,
but they're not.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
I mean, these are literally the people that are doing
it right. There's not really a gray area on this.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
There's not even a there's not even a well you
know that the system is broken, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
No following the system, that's it.
Speaker 11 (13:29):
Hey, Chris Merrill this how are you?
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Who love the show?
Speaker 11 (13:34):
Listen to you all the time.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Thanks? Man. I think that.
Speaker 11 (13:36):
We should only accept students that would bleed red for
this country.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Do we bleed other colors? Anyway? All right? Carry on?
Speaker 11 (13:47):
Sorry, We accept a lot of students, a lot of
people from overseas that are not friendly to our country.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
What are we doing?
Speaker 11 (13:54):
If it was the other way around, they wouldn't accept us,
They would look at us as spies. Why are we
taking so many people from other countries? No due process
for them?
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah? First point? Do you want to be like other countries?
Speaker 7 (14:10):
Right?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I mean, do you want to be like Russia? That
goes well, we're gonna accuse you and we're gonna throw
you in a goolog. No, we don't want to be
like that. That's why we have due process. That's the
first point. The second point is this, the justification that
we're given is that these people whose visas are being
revoked without evidence. By the way, and if there were evidence,
we wouldn't even be having this conversation. But without evidence,
(14:32):
they were being revoked because they were protesting the war
in Israel. They weren't even protesting the United States. They
may have been protesting our actions and supporting Israel, but
they're protesting about the war in Israel. So I think
this area is a lot greyer than what people want
to make it out to be. But we do want
to have due process. We don't want to be like
(14:52):
all those other countries that you say we'd throw them
in prison for being a spy.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
I mean, agreed. I just want to point out that
vices are privilege. They're not a right.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Oh, versus are a privilege, not a right. One hundred
percent agree with you, and that's why you got to
follow the rules on them.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Just show me that they broke the rules and I'll
shut up, show me they broke the rules. And it's like, well,
VISs are a privilege, they're not a right, and you
abuse that privilege, you're an outskies.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
It's just the way it goes, all right, Why are
we so divided?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
New study revealing that an unexpected twist and what drives
political division. It's not the personality traits of the people
that we hate that fuel polarization. It's the dark personality
traits of the politicians we support that widen the political divide,
specifically three traits narcissism, psychopathy, and machiavelianism. And the more
(15:47):
our leaders that we like exhibit those traits, the more
likely we are to adopt some of those traits and
then develop this hate for the other side. And by
the way, this is not this is not just about
Donald Trump. This is about others. And if you think
a number of Rabbit AOC supporters are not seeing some
(16:09):
of that, oh they are.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
They gravitate toward it.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
If you think Hillary Clinton supporters, and I know some
of you are getting angry with me for saying this,
but if you think Hillary Clinton supporters, we're just gravitating
toward everything that's great about Hillary Clinton and that they
just generally had a dislike for Trump or for whoever
else she may have been running against in the past.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
That's not it, man.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
It's that she exhibits some of those narcissism, psychopathy, machiavellianism,
and we tend to be attracted to that, and that
brings out the worst in us.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
It's not even that we don't like the other side
so much. Not weird.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Study finds at that. By the way, studyfinds dot org.
If you get a chance, fun little website, all right,
shift away from economy because or excuse me, shift away
from immigration because I know how much you guys love
talking about that.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
None of us do.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
It's the economy stupid good news, bad news. Next Chris
Merril KFI AM six forty were live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app. And there's a chance your Christmas is already ruined.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
That's next.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Hang it up, new Chris Merril KFI AM six forty,
more stimulating talk. We'll talk about your Christmas is already ruined.
It's already it's already ruined. And then it's a do
you love it or d you hate it? Situation going
on at one of our favorite warehouse stores. We'll tell
you about that here in just a few moments. First,
(17:34):
from the talkback line. Remember if you're listening on the
iHeartRadio app KFI and the iHeart Radio app, you can
hit that talkback button and leave us a message your thoughts.
We've been We talked about immigration here, which of course
it gets people riled up.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Fair enough, Hey, Chris love the show.
Speaker 12 (17:49):
Listen, man, some of these calls coming in, Man, that
just shake my head, going, Man, no, wonder we're in
the situation that we're in. Some of these people would
go to their graves before they now that they made
a mistake in any way, shape or form. I mean,
it's sad and it's scary. Keep up the great work.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, thanks man. Yeah, I don't want to condemn people necessarily.
I think that's natural too.
Speaker 13 (18:11):
What mistake is he talking about?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Well, I think his what he's saying is that Trump
was a mistake. And so he's saying that they are
going to go to their graves before they they would
ever say anything about Trump, because that would be that
would be basically admitting that they were at fault in
some way, shape or form, and I'm assuming maybe that's
not exactly what he meant. But you know, I've seen
this happen this exact same You could have the exact
(18:36):
same situation during a Democratic president. In fact, I'm positive
people called up to John Cobolt's show and we're tearing
on him for something he would have said about Biden, right,
and people would call and say, John, these people will
go to their graves before they admit Biden was a mistake.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
I mean, it's not It doesn't change. This is the same.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
These are the same arguments about people on the other
side that we've had for the last two hundred and
fifty years.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
It doesn't change.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Just don't get too worked up about it, don't get
emotionally involved, and then, you know, separate the wheat from
the chaff. I'm just throwing cliches out here. I got
nothing else to say. I don't even know what that means,
but it just sounded smart. I threw out an agro cliche,
and I feel smart about it.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
It's good. Let's see you guys shop at Sam's Club
at all? You Costco? Do you do any of the warehouses?
I do? Mostly Costco? You do Costco. I have a
love hate relationship with Costco. I love the prices.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I love that I can get a lot of stuff
because I'm somebody that likes to have things in bulk.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
God, I just hate being at Costco. I hate fighting
in the parking lot. I hate the people.
Speaker 13 (19:43):
You got to know when to go. It's it's right
now before closing time. Forty five minutes before closing time
is the ideal time to go.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I went to the grocery store this morning, and I
and I woke up early, and I go to the
grocery store at seven am, and I was thinking, this
is gonna be great. There's not gonna be anybody at
the grocery store seventy I'm on Easter Sunday, right, and
generally speaking, I was right. There were far fewer people
in normal There were more people than I expected. I
thought it was going to be me and like a
handful of you know, the people retirees or whatever, right
(20:12):
before they go to church that are picking up their
Easter Sunday supplies. And maybe maybe because it was Easter,
I was right. There were more people there because of that.
I don't know, but I found that I just can't
stand people just in general. I'm I'm such a missing throw.
I go in there and I thought, oh, there are
far fewer people. I'll be able to move down the
(20:32):
aisles of the grocery store. Nope, because the people that
are there are the people that are completely clueless, and
they leave their cart in the middle of the aisle
while they go shop up and down the aisle.
Speaker 13 (20:41):
Oh you know what my favorite is, I can't stand
that as you're leaving, they look down on their phone
and stop in the in the direct path of getting
out of the store.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
And it's a narrow it's a narrow lane between the ed,
the end of the checkouts and the wall, and they
stopped right in the middle of They must check that
receipt in front of everybody before they exit.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
It happens all the time. To make killing me with that.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Is it just a general lack of awareness or is
it because I don't think these people set out to
be rude to other people around them. I just think
they're kind of in their own little world. And I
found myself in that situation. And if somebody says then
I realized, I mean, it snaps me out of it.
And I have to get out of the way because
I hate that. I hate being that person starts to
give me anxiety. So I ran into that this morning.
(21:29):
I was a Sam's Club member up until a couple
of years ago, and then I moved and I didn't
have a SAMs Club near me, so I allowed that
membership to expire.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
But Sam's Club was introducing their.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Scanning Go and if you haven't used this at a store,
before you take the item off the shelf, you scan it,
you put.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
It in your cart, and then when you're done, you basically.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Tell the app I'm done, and it goes cool, here's
your charge, and you go pay it and you pay
it on your phone and you just show your phone
to the person on the way out and they go,
you're good. They just make they rummage through your cart
and make sure you're not putting random stuff in there,
and they go, yep, everything, that's good.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
You're out the door, right.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
And I kind of like that, except I'm not accustomed
to scanning things on my phone first, and so I
find myself picking something up off the shelf and putting
it into my cart and then realizing three items later,
uh oh, I didn't scan that, So there's certainly an
adoption process to it. Sam's Club is trying to make
this even easier using Big Brother.
Speaker 14 (22:27):
Very soon, checkout lines will be a thing of the
past at Sam's Clubs all across the country. The stores
will only welcome scan and Go, which the company says
brings a long term vision to redefine the club model
and set a new standard in retail.
Speaker 15 (22:42):
Personally, I think people will be out of jobs, but
I use scanning go as it is.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Anyways, sounds like.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
That guy's real concern, doesn't It like there's gonna cost jobs.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
But I didn't care. I wasn't use them.
Speaker 15 (22:55):
Cash is come become obsoluting anyways.
Speaker 14 (22:58):
I asked these shoppers how they think this would affect
those not as tech savvy.
Speaker 15 (23:03):
Probably the biggest concern really is because older people that
are not really up to date on moditlor technology.
Speaker 11 (23:09):
It will be better to have ANIX, I mean the
check out and also the self check up application.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
The change would Yeah, but what about the people that
park their carts in the middle of the aisle and
are clueless anyway, Now you're giving them a task to do.
Oh my gosh, there's just to be carts parked sideways
in every aisle and every Sam's Club.
Speaker 14 (23:29):
The change would also mean no more receipt checkers, meaning
AI will identify the products.
Speaker 16 (23:35):
It does this through largely through image classification. A banana
looks like a banana, coke can looks like a coke can,
and it'll look for that, and it'll it'll observe it
and recognize it, and it will charge you for that.
Speaker 14 (23:46):
Business analytics.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Wasn't somebody was doing this already, weren't they? Didn't Amazon
have some stores that you just walk in and then
you grab your stuff and walk out.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Yeah, yeah, Amazon Fresh? How does that? I never did it.
Speaker 8 (24:00):
The cart, the cart, you scan it with the car.
The cart weighs it, so when you place it in,
it already knows the way. Yeah, measures everything. It's you're
basically walking around with the scale. You're pushing the scale around.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
It, says, a smart cart that has like exactly yeah,
almost like a cash register scanner in the cart.
Speaker 13 (24:18):
There's a gas station that I go to sometimes, and
when you put your stuff on the the scale, as
Raoul's calls it, it already knows what it is.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
I've done. I use that and I love that I've
done that. Before me too. But let me tell you
what happened. I did this recently.
Speaker 8 (24:33):
It charged me for my order and it charged me
for somebody else's random order in the sto. Yeah, and
immediately I was like, oh, I did not buy all
this stuff, and it was like I like fancy organic
like uh, you know, Kala food and uh. But you know,
they gave me my money back. But I had to
you know, I had to call them like several times
(24:54):
in the hassle give me more money because that's not enough.
You took more.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Huh. I don't know if I'm down with this or not.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
I kind of like the idea of the convenience, but
I also am a bit of a curmudgeon, and I'm
kind of like, I don't want you staring at me
while I'm loading things up.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
I don't know if I trust AI.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Meanwhile, some economists are saying we're already in a recession.
Are they nuts? Well, according to you and others that
were pulled, they're jumping the gun a little bit by
how much?
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Though?
Speaker 2 (25:27):
That's the question we'll answer next. Chris Merrill, I am
six forty. We're live everywhere in the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand Chris.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Merrill on KFI AM six forty more stimulating talk.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Love having a chance to talk to you guys.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Look, I don't care if we agree or disagree, because
it doesn't matter a lick to me. I just love
that you're listening, and I appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
I do. You're the best. However, your Christmas is gonna suck.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
According to some economists, they say we're already in a recession.
There are three indicators that economists are watching right now.
What we're confidence is declining, bond market is flashing a
warning sign. This the from Vox their economists laying this out,
and then gas prices are coming down. To these say,
probably not for a good reason. If the global economy
(26:16):
is sinking, gas prices drop, that's because demand drops. But
also let's keep in mind too that Opek increased supply,
and I think that was in part to try to
sink some of the US market. But it's not just
Vox in their editorial that says that economists are worried
about a recession.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
There are others that are saying, you know, we might
be there already.
Speaker 17 (26:36):
Joining us now, Axios Chief Financial correspondent Felix Salmon and
University of Michigan economics professor Justin Woolfer's Felix, I also
want to ask you about this concern. More than sixty
percent of CEOs now say they expect a recession in
the next six months. Are what indicators are they watching
and what are you seeing?
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Yeah, I just talked about that.
Speaker 18 (26:55):
Come on, I mean, there's a pretty good chance to
be honest in a recession already if you look at
the consumer confidence numbers, the inflation expectation numbers, and just
the general wealth effect of people seeing there Burrow on
case imploding. There's a lot of indication out there already
that consumers are just not being excited in terms of
(27:17):
getting out there and spending, consumers, of course, being the
big driver of seventy percent of the economy. Add On
to that the fact that businesses have so many calls on.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Their cash right now.
Speaker 18 (27:27):
They're being asked to absorb a whole bunch of the
tariffs and not pass them onto consumers. They're being asked
to invest in new plants. They're being asked to pay
higher interest costs because interest rates arising, so they need
to spend all of their cash in like three or
four different places. There's just not enough money to go around.
And if they can't spend it in all those places,
(27:48):
then you get that recession.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Is there a silver lining though?
Speaker 2 (27:54):
I mean hypothetically speaking, if if we have all this
money that's being absorbed in pras are going up and
the money's going to tariffs, shouldn't we start to see
that national debt come down? I mean that's the goal
all along, isn't it. I mean we should start seeing that,
shouldn't we? Even if we are experiencing some of this
pain and justin we've.
Speaker 17 (28:13):
Seen consumers rush out the car dealerships. My mom ran
out to get a new iPhone this weekend. Could we
see a short term boost in consumer sales and could
that offset some of this uncertainty and pain?
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, so that.
Speaker 19 (28:24):
Short term burst. The reason your mum went to buy
the iPhone is it's imported. So that means what's going
to go up is imports. You know who that's helping,
not the United States economy. And so when you're thinking
instead about things that you.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
I mean, I'll help the retailer that's it.
Speaker 19 (28:40):
Might get built in Australia.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
In America, this is why you can't have ferners on.
Speaker 19 (28:46):
Say you were thinking about in addition to the house,
that's something where you'd use American construction workers. Right now
you'd be like, well, I'm not sure where I'm going
to get steel and aluminium.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
I'm not sure what the again, it's a luminum price.
Speaker 19 (28:58):
Of lumbers going to be and those are things that
people are going to delay more than that. Remember, every
time this administration puts a tariff on later on it
takes it off. That didn't gives people an incentive to
wait longer in order to go out and spend. So
I'm really very worried about spending over the next few months.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, I think that done certainty is what's affecting the
consumer confidence as well. But I mean, one of the
things that became a big story this week was how
angry the President got with the FED chair Jerome Poll
because Powell said, we don't know what's going on with inflation,
and we are not going to drop interest rates until
we know that we're not going to have inflation. Rick
(29:37):
a very conservative approach. It was very upsetting to the
President because he wants those interest rates to come down.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
To spur the economy.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
But if we spur the economy while we're already seeing
other inflated items, that could be a recipe for disaster,
which is why Jerome Pouel wants to take a more
cautious approach. But that also means the mortgage rates aren't
coming down.
Speaker 20 (29:57):
Well is right in the middle of real estate's busiest
sea but with mortgage rates hitting their highest level in
three months, just as global tariffs threaten to drive up
the costs of building materials, Yeah, there is a lot
of uncertainty.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
It seems to be as to be a very popular word.
Speaker 8 (30:13):
In the air.
Speaker 20 (30:14):
Or Alicia Yevez is here to tell us more about
these tariffs and what it means to her home prices
right now, Alicia.
Speaker 21 (30:21):
I mean having a pre significant impact on the real
estate market and home prices, everything from you know, sticker
shock or the sticker price to the cost of borrowing.
Right you look over the last eight weeks and we
have seen interest rates in particular creep up a little bit.
Six point eight percent is where they're at right now,
six point eight three percent. Two factors really contributing to this.
Right now, you look at the Fed and the FED
(30:41):
fund rate that is connected to the price to borrow
and the interest rate that you get from your bank
or your lender. The Fed is unable right now to
bring rates down because of tariffs. Taras have this inflationary
I just said all that.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
You already know all that. She's boring, bored with it.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I already said it. I said it better. Yeah, here's
the thing, though, rent is going up. Consumer Price Index
says rent in Southern California has grown to has gone
up five point two percent, So we're already seeing an
inflation in rent, and nationwide rent is inflated about four percent.
If you take a look at Southern California, let's see
(31:19):
La Orange County four point nine percent, Inland Empire four
point nine percent, San Diego five point nine percent. Inflation
on rent, not home prices, but rent are going up.
So we got that going for us.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
And then.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Southern California home price growth is slowing. This from the
La Times. So does that mean it's a buyer's market
or a seller's market? I don't know. Average home price
across the six county Southern California region just up about
a third of a percent month over month. The average
home price now eight hundred and seventy eight dollars according
(31:59):
to ZILP, so that's up under two percent year over year.
That's the smallest game since August of twenty twenty three.
That is much better news than those rent prices.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Inflation on home prices is only up about two percent.
But you got to ask why it might be because
we're sitting on the sidelines waiting to figure out how
things are going to pan out. It could be because
when we saw these tariffs announced, we saw the mortgage
rates come down briefly before they went back up, and
we might be thinking there could be a time to buy.
And there is another factor at play here. We saw
(32:34):
this happen in two thousand and five when prices were
going wild and then they were sky high, and.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Then what happens? The bottom falls out.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Market drops to crap in two thousand and eight, two
thousand and nine, right, and it took years for that
to recover, and then it did, and then we are
wondering is that going to happen again? If we're headed
toward another recession, how bad is that recession going to be?
Will that recession cut the home values in half? As
we all remember it happening just fifteen seventeen years ago.
(33:10):
It feels like it was not that long ago. Cayla,
What were you They were like in diapers when that happened.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Weren't in seventeen years ago? Yeah? My god, Yeah I
say I was. Yeah I wasn't. But let's just say that. Man, Man,
I don't know how long you wore diapers. I don't
know what. I don't know what your lifestyle is like.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Well, so anyway, there may be people sitting on the sidelines,
which is sort.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Of stymying the home values.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
They're not rising as quickly because one, if they're buying
a house, interest rates are high, so they're going to
be looking for a less expensive house. Two, if they
can wait, they may be doing that right now because
they go, you know, the bottom might fall out of
this market, and so that house that's nine hundred thousand
dollars right now in another year or two could be
under five hundred thousand. I'm not saying it is. I'm
(33:57):
not even saying this likely. I'm saying it's a remote possibility.
But we saw it happen before, and we're not gonna
miss that buying opportunity. By paying nine hundred thousand dollars
for something that is only gonna be worth five hundred
thousand in another year or two.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
So we're sitting on the sidelines. Count me among them.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
My rent's going up, but I'm sitting on the sidelines
saying I'm not gonna buy now. Yeah, I'm gonna wait
for this to come back around, all right. Every day
we do it at six every Sunday. Excuse me, we
do it at six o'clock. There's no business like show business.
News of note from Tinseltoon and beyond. Next Chris merrill
I AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio
app KFI AM six forty on demand
You're listening to KFI AM sixty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hey, good afternoon, Chris Merril AM six forty more stimulating talk.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Always a pleasure spending Sunday afternoons with you. Love it.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Uh, Kayla, just you got to we have another talk
aback here, Kayla?
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Is this about this? This is about student visas, this is
about animal attacks. It's a past student visas.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Okay, student visas all right, So we're just talking about
student visas being revoked. And the talkback button is always
on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Hi, Chris Hikes Cheryl from Marina del Ray.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Hello Cheryl from Marina del Rey, beautiful area. Love it.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
And my comment on the students that are getting their
visas revote and they're being sent back is because of
the fact that it's okay to protest, but when you
start destroying the school property and you start burning the
American flag and allowing well they weren't allowing a lot
(01:04):
of Jewish students going to class, then they should be revoked.
We want people that are good, but we also want
people that respect our country.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Hey, Cheryl, I appreciate that call, and I think you
and I agree on about ninety percent of what you say, really,
one small point of disagreement is that I, as much
as you might find it abhorrent, burning the American flag
is protected free speech.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
But you're right about the.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Whole destroying things and making other students feel unwelcome and threatened.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You're absolutely right about that. And if it's.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Shown that someone is doing that, we have a process
for being able to show that someone was involved in
a situation like that.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
It's called due process.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
And if we can show that someone was doing that,
then yeah, consequence might be you have your visa revoked. Yes,
And I would say, I mean, you know you're here
as a guest. You broke the rules, We're going to
ask you to leave. The problem is we don't know
that because they don't tell us. They're revoking the visas
(02:13):
of a thousand people, and they're saying, well, they were protesting,
but there's no there's no due process.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
That's my issue.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
And I believe in the rule of law, and the
rule of law states that you have an opportunity to
face your accusers. And you know, the last thing we
want to do is go into a situation where an
accusation is equivalent to guilt. It's just a bad sitch. So,
and this is real easy to fix, really easy. These
(02:41):
people who had their student visas revoked. You go, yep,
we took our visa away. Here's the evidence, boop done.
There's a process for it. We have a process in place.
We're just ignoring it, that's all. But we agree on
a lot. Also, fun fact parents told me at a
young age I was not allowed to anyone named Cheryl
(03:02):
out of fear that we would get married.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
They didn't want to share Keryl Merrill. Yeah, I got that.
That's good.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
But there was a singer in the seventies, I think,
Cheryl Merrill, and they also didn't want that.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
They thought that would bring about ridicule. So there you go.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
As far as to Cheryl's point about this, the Supreme
Court seems to think, yeah, you know what, you can't
just go sending people out of the country. Willy nilly.
We gotta we gotta take a look at what we're
doing here. And the Supreme Court did something very strange.
They moved with expediency because the Supreme Court they're all
(03:46):
very slow bad hips.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
Overnight, the Supreme Court blocking the Trump administration from using
the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans to all Salvador
or elsewhere. The High Court ordering the administration not to
deport the detainees quote until for their order of this court.
White House Press Secretary Caroline Lovitt reacting to the ruling
state and quote, we are confident in the lawfulness of
the Administration's actions, and then ultimately prevailing against an onslaught
(04:11):
of meritless litigation brought by radical activists who care more
about the rights of terrorist aliens than those of the
American people.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Yeah, that's where I'm going to disagree. But I understand
why they put that statement out.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
You know, they're gonna They're not gonna argue the merits
of their actions. They're going to argue the the personality
of the people who oppose those actions, right, I mean,
and by the way, this is an easy tactic. This
is something I do for fun all the time. You know,
(04:43):
I'm trying to think of a good example here. I
eat a chocolate Easter bag, a chocolate Easter bunny from
the ears.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Kyla eats them from the ears, Andrew eats them from
the ears.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Probably eats them from the mid section first, and so
we don't say that's strange.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Why do you do that.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
What we say is Raoul is a psychopath? Right, we
jump the conclusions and then we just point to the
other person and we just assume we assign a motivation
to it. It's called a motivational fallacy. And if you
can sell other people on that, especially people on your
own and your own tribe, it works incredibly effectively.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Well.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
The order coming amid another legal battle for the administration
after admitting it mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.
But President Trump and Cis Garcia is a member of
the MS thirteen gang and will not be brought back
into the US.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
Two separate judges are firm Garcia is a member of
MS thirteen, which is a gang that may be even
worse than trend de I.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Raqua Garcia becoming the center of.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Policy until we find a Trenda, a Ragwa gang member,
and we say they're even worse than MS thirteen. Say
it just fluctuates based on what your goals are poll
it tics.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
This week, after Democratic Senator Chris van Holland traveled to
El Salvador to meet with him.
Speaker 7 (05:56):
The Trump administration is asserting a right to stay away
residents of this country.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yeah, na dah.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Actually I've got more on him, because this is really
so anyway, the Supreme Court says, you can't just willing
nearly deport people. We got to go through the process
as per usue and the administration says, n uh. So
we did get an update on this L. Salvadorian who
was deported to L. Salvador and then thrown in that prison.
(06:24):
It took a while before the Senator was able to
see him. And when the Senator did see him, if
you saw the video, he was wearing, to Raoul's pleasure,
he was wearing a chief's hat super Bowl hat. And
although I didn't happen to see what year it was,
it might have been the year that they lost the
Super Bowl, and that may have been hats that were
(06:47):
printed and sent to third world countries.
Speaker 8 (06:49):
I was totally wondering that myself, were.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
You yeah, yeah, sure, But anyway, he looked he looked fine,
He looked healthy, clean clothes, wearing a nice hat, all
that kind of stuff. Did not look like he was
suffering in some sort of a L.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Salvadorian hellhole prison.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I wonder if that's because cameras were there Tonight, Maryland
Senator Chris van Holland back in the US after meeting
with Kilmar a Brego Garcia, who was deported to a
notorious prison in El Salvador, and what the Trump administration
has admitted was an administrative error. Yeah, I mean they
even said, oops, we weren't supposed to do that. But
now they're doubling down.
Speaker 7 (07:26):
If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you've
threatened the constitutional rights and two process for everyone else
in America.
Speaker 9 (07:36):
The White House defiant, posting on X that he is
never coming back. President Trump blasting Van Holland for visiting.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Look, he's a fake. I know him, I know him all.
They're all fake.
Speaker 9 (07:48):
And doubling down on allegations a Brego Garcia is a
gang member, a claim his family denies.
Speaker 6 (07:55):
Is an illegal alien MS thirteen gang member in foreign terras.
Speaker 9 (07:58):
Abrego Garcia is an under documented immigrant husband and father
who has been living and working in Maryland for the
last thirteen years.
Speaker 7 (08:05):
He said he felt very sad about being in a
prison because he had not committed any crimes.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Okay, see that does feel fake. He said he felt
very sad.
Speaker 9 (08:16):
Okay, But in twenty nineteen, an immigration judge approved his deportation,
citing possible gang affiliation, as Ice had claimed.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
All right, possible. Ice says, we think he might be.
Judge says, yeah, it's possible. Don't take the risk.
Speaker 9 (08:31):
It was upheld by another judge during an appeal's hearing,
which is when President Trump says, two judges.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Now, President Trump said, two judges have affirmed that he
was an MS thirteen gang member, which could be worse
than trendi agris.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
But they didn't affirm it. They just said, yeah, it's possible.
That same year, Abrego Garcia, which is important, by the way,
I'm not making excuses. It's important as the story goes on.
Speaker 9 (08:53):
Same year Abrego Garcia applied for asylum, a judge agreed
that he had proved he feared future person acution in
his home country and barred him from being deported to
El Salvador.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Now, that was not part of what President Trump said.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
President Trump said, but there was another judge, you know,
He said, two judges have affirmed he was a member
of MS thirteen.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
He didn't say, but.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Another judge said that he had a credible threat. He
was an asylum seeker and was granted asylum. Very few
people are granted asylum. But he was granted asylum. But
we went ahead and pulled that rug out from under him,
a ruling.
Speaker 9 (09:26):
That gave him temporary legal status in the US, provided
he checked in with immigration authorities each year, which it is.
A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that Abrego Garcia is
entitled to due process and should not have been deported.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
So now another judge says he should have due process.
But we don't do that. We don't like it. So
the soap opera continues to play. You know, tune in
again next week for the ongoing adventures of It Is.
(10:01):
Why is it that we so quickly go to our corners?
President Trump said this. It violates everything I've ever said
in the past. I've always said, Democrats don't care about
due process, Democrats don't care about free speech, Democrats don't
care about blah blah blah blah blah blah. But then
President Trump doesn't. They go, well, they have every reason
to do that. This is always this is this is
okay for the good of the country. It's all these
(10:22):
other things that I stood by. I don't stand by
those anymore. We're very flexible when it comes to our
morality based on who the leader is. And by the way,
the counter argument, of course is, you know, you weren't
worried about due process back then, you weren't worried about
the freedom of speech. Back then, you weren't worried about this,
but now all of a sudden, you're worried about it. Right,
(10:42):
So it goes back the other way too, to the Democrats.
So why do we do this? Why can't we just
be consistent? It's called logical consistency. Why are we so
bad at that? And actually comes down.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
To our wiring. You're gonna hear what that is next.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Chris Merril kf I AM six forty Live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Good afternoon, my friends, KFI AM six forty. More stimulating
talk on Chris Merrill. Always a pleasure being with you.
It's weird that I would talk about immigration.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
And people be have different opinions.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Strange, but I'm learning a lot because you've told me
how silly I am.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
And I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Anybody listening on the iHeartRadio app feel free to click
on that talk back button and leave us a message,
love to hear what you think about what's going on,
including removing visas from college students, not describing why, just
sending notice visas revoked. UCLA students stopped the border held
in custody of sanmy seedrow.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Why not told just said you can't come back in?
So why listening to you live?
Speaker 10 (11:49):
And the problem I'm having with everything you're saying about
these illegal aliens is yet they are not entitled to
do process. They are not entitled to constitutional rights. Daft
(12:11):
belongs to a residence.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
And oh yeah, sorry, thirty seconds is a time limit.
What would a resident be, I.
Speaker 10 (12:23):
Mean a residence.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yeah, so the right to do process that belongs to.
Speaker 10 (12:27):
Staff belongs to to a residence.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
And I'm just gonna assume she says citizens. What is
a resident? Isn't a resident someone that has a visa?
Don't we say that's a legal US resident?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:44):
See, here's the other thing. We really easily start to
conflate things. So we say a breako Garcia. He was
here legally. He had an asylum claim that was adjudicated
and he was granted asylum, and we go, ah, but
he's an illegal. We say, we've got students here that
are on student visas. We've got graduate and postgraduate students
(13:05):
in southern California, and they're having their visas revoked without
due process right, And people go, well, these are illegal aliens,
but they're not.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
I mean, these are literally the people that are doing
it right. There's not really a gray area on this.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
There's not even a there's not even a well you
know that the system is broken, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
No following the system, that's it.
Speaker 11 (13:29):
Hey, Chris Merrill this how are you?
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Who love the show?
Speaker 11 (13:34):
Listen to you all the time.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Thanks? Man. I think that.
Speaker 11 (13:36):
We should only accept students that would bleed red for
this country.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Do we bleed other colors? Anyway? All right? Carry on?
Speaker 11 (13:47):
Sorry, We accept a lot of students, a lot of
people from overseas that are not friendly to our country.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
What are we doing?
Speaker 11 (13:54):
If it was the other way around, they wouldn't accept us,
They would look at us as spies. Why are we
taking so many people from other countries? No due process
for them?
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah? First point? Do you want to be like other countries?
Speaker 7 (14:10):
Right?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I mean, do you want to be like Russia? That
goes well, we're gonna accuse you and we're gonna throw
you in a goolog. No, we don't want to be
like that. That's why we have due process. That's the
first point. The second point is this, the justification that
we're given is that these people whose visas are being
revoked without evidence. By the way, and if there were evidence,
we wouldn't even be having this conversation. But without evidence,
(14:32):
they were being revoked because they were protesting the war
in Israel. They weren't even protesting the United States. They
may have been protesting our actions and supporting Israel, but
they're protesting about the war in Israel. So I think
this area is a lot greyer than what people want
to make it out to be. But we do want
to have due process. We don't want to be like
(14:52):
all those other countries that you say we'd throw them
in prison for being a spy.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
I mean, agreed. I just want to point out that
vices are privilege. They're not a right.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Oh, versus are a privilege, not a right. One hundred
percent agree with you, and that's why you got to
follow the rules on them.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Just show me that they broke the rules and I'll
shut up, show me they broke the rules. And it's like, well,
VISs are a privilege, they're not a right, and you
abuse that privilege, you're an outskies.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
It's just the way it goes, all right, Why are
we so divided?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
New study revealing that an unexpected twist and what drives
political division. It's not the personality traits of the people
that we hate that fuel polarization. It's the dark personality
traits of the politicians we support that widen the political divide,
specifically three traits narcissism, psychopathy, and machiavelianism. And the more
(15:47):
our leaders that we like exhibit those traits, the more
likely we are to adopt some of those traits and
then develop this hate for the other side. And by
the way, this is not this is not just about
Donald Trump. This is about others. And if you think
a number of Rabbit AOC supporters are not seeing some
(16:09):
of that, oh they are.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
They gravitate toward it.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
If you think Hillary Clinton supporters, and I know some
of you are getting angry with me for saying this,
but if you think Hillary Clinton supporters, we're just gravitating
toward everything that's great about Hillary Clinton and that they
just generally had a dislike for Trump or for whoever
else she may have been running against in the past.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
That's not it, man.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
It's that she exhibits some of those narcissism, psychopathy, machiavellianism,
and we tend to be attracted to that, and that
brings out the worst in us.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
It's not even that we don't like the other side
so much. Not weird.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Study finds at that. By the way, studyfinds dot org.
If you get a chance, fun little website, all right,
shift away from economy because or excuse me, shift away
from immigration because I know how much you guys love
talking about that.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
None of us do.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
It's the economy stupid good news, bad news. Next Chris
Merril KFI AM six forty were live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app. And there's a chance your Christmas is already ruined.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
That's next.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Hang it up, new Chris Merril KFI AM six forty,
more stimulating talk. We'll talk about your Christmas is already ruined.
It's already it's already ruined. And then it's a do
you love it or d you hate it? Situation going
on at one of our favorite warehouse stores. We'll tell
you about that here in just a few moments. First,
(17:34):
from the talkback line. Remember if you're listening on the
iHeartRadio app KFI and the iHeart Radio app, you can
hit that talkback button and leave us a message your thoughts.
We've been We talked about immigration here, which of course
it gets people riled up.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Fair enough, Hey, Chris love the show.
Speaker 12 (17:49):
Listen, man, some of these calls coming in, Man, that
just shake my head, going, Man, no, wonder we're in
the situation that we're in. Some of these people would
go to their graves before they now that they made
a mistake in any way, shape or form. I mean,
it's sad and it's scary. Keep up the great work.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, thanks man. Yeah, I don't want to condemn people necessarily.
I think that's natural too.
Speaker 13 (18:11):
What mistake is he talking about?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Well, I think his what he's saying is that Trump
was a mistake. And so he's saying that they are
going to go to their graves before they they would
ever say anything about Trump, because that would be that
would be basically admitting that they were at fault in
some way, shape or form, and I'm assuming maybe that's
not exactly what he meant. But you know, I've seen
this happen this exact same You could have the exact
(18:36):
same situation during a Democratic president. In fact, I'm positive
people called up to John Cobolt's show and we're tearing
on him for something he would have said about Biden, right,
and people would call and say, John, these people will
go to their graves before they admit Biden was a mistake.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
I mean, it's not It doesn't change. This is the same.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
These are the same arguments about people on the other
side that we've had for the last two hundred and
fifty years.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
It doesn't change.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Just don't get too worked up about it, don't get
emotionally involved, and then, you know, separate the wheat from
the chaff. I'm just throwing cliches out here. I got
nothing else to say. I don't even know what that means,
but it just sounded smart. I threw out an agro cliche,
and I feel smart about it.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
It's good. Let's see you guys shop at Sam's Club
at all? You Costco? Do you do any of the warehouses?
I do? Mostly Costco? You do Costco. I have a
love hate relationship with Costco. I love the prices.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I love that I can get a lot of stuff
because I'm somebody that likes to have things in bulk.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
God, I just hate being at Costco. I hate fighting
in the parking lot. I hate the people.
Speaker 13 (19:43):
You got to know when to go. It's it's right
now before closing time. Forty five minutes before closing time
is the ideal time to go.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I went to the grocery store this morning, and I
and I woke up early, and I go to the
grocery store at seven am, and I was thinking, this
is gonna be great. There's not gonna be anybody at
the grocery store seventy I'm on Easter Sunday, right, and
generally speaking, I was right. There were far fewer people
in normal There were more people than I expected. I
thought it was going to be me and like a
handful of you know, the people retirees or whatever, right
(20:12):
before they go to church that are picking up their
Easter Sunday supplies. And maybe maybe because it was Easter,
I was right. There were more people there because of that.
I don't know, but I found that I just can't
stand people just in general. I'm I'm such a missing throw.
I go in there and I thought, oh, there are
far fewer people. I'll be able to move down the
(20:32):
aisles of the grocery store. Nope, because the people that
are there are the people that are completely clueless, and
they leave their cart in the middle of the aisle
while they go shop up and down the aisle.
Speaker 13 (20:41):
Oh you know what my favorite is, I can't stand
that as you're leaving, they look down on their phone
and stop in the in the direct path of getting
out of the store.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
And it's a narrow it's a narrow lane between the ed,
the end of the checkouts and the wall, and they
stopped right in the middle of They must check that
receipt in front of everybody before they exit.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
It happens all the time. To make killing me with that.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Is it just a general lack of awareness or is
it because I don't think these people set out to
be rude to other people around them. I just think
they're kind of in their own little world. And I
found myself in that situation. And if somebody says then
I realized, I mean, it snaps me out of it.
And I have to get out of the way because
I hate that. I hate being that person starts to
give me anxiety. So I ran into that this morning.
(21:29):
I was a Sam's Club member up until a couple
of years ago, and then I moved and I didn't
have a SAMs Club near me, so I allowed that
membership to expire.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
But Sam's Club was introducing their.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Scanning Go and if you haven't used this at a store,
before you take the item off the shelf, you scan it,
you put.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
It in your cart, and then when you're done, you basically.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Tell the app I'm done, and it goes cool, here's
your charge, and you go pay it and you pay
it on your phone and you just show your phone
to the person on the way out and they go,
you're good. They just make they rummage through your cart
and make sure you're not putting random stuff in there,
and they go, yep, everything, that's good.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
You're out the door, right.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
And I kind of like that, except I'm not accustomed
to scanning things on my phone first, and so I
find myself picking something up off the shelf and putting
it into my cart and then realizing three items later,
uh oh, I didn't scan that, So there's certainly an
adoption process to it. Sam's Club is trying to make
this even easier using Big Brother.
Speaker 14 (22:27):
Very soon, checkout lines will be a thing of the
past at Sam's Clubs all across the country. The stores
will only welcome scan and Go, which the company says
brings a long term vision to redefine the club model
and set a new standard in retail.
Speaker 15 (22:42):
Personally, I think people will be out of jobs, but
I use scanning go as it is.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Anyways, sounds like.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
That guy's real concern, doesn't It like there's gonna cost jobs.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
But I didn't care. I wasn't use them.
Speaker 15 (22:55):
Cash is come become obsoluting anyways.
Speaker 14 (22:58):
I asked these shoppers how they think this would affect
those not as tech savvy.
Speaker 15 (23:03):
Probably the biggest concern really is because older people that
are not really up to date on moditlor technology.
Speaker 11 (23:09):
It will be better to have ANIX, I mean the
check out and also the self check up application.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
The change would Yeah, but what about the people that
park their carts in the middle of the aisle and
are clueless anyway, Now you're giving them a task to do.
Oh my gosh, there's just to be carts parked sideways
in every aisle and every Sam's Club.
Speaker 14 (23:29):
The change would also mean no more receipt checkers, meaning
AI will identify the products.
Speaker 16 (23:35):
It does this through largely through image classification. A banana
looks like a banana, coke can looks like a coke can,
and it'll look for that, and it'll it'll observe it
and recognize it, and it will charge you for that.
Speaker 14 (23:46):
Business analytics.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Wasn't somebody was doing this already, weren't they? Didn't Amazon
have some stores that you just walk in and then
you grab your stuff and walk out.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Yeah, yeah, Amazon Fresh? How does that? I never did it.
Speaker 8 (24:00):
The cart, the cart, you scan it with the car.
The cart weighs it, so when you place it in,
it already knows the way. Yeah, measures everything. It's you're
basically walking around with the scale. You're pushing the scale around.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
It, says, a smart cart that has like exactly yeah,
almost like a cash register scanner in the cart.
Speaker 13 (24:18):
There's a gas station that I go to sometimes, and
when you put your stuff on the the scale, as
Raoul's calls it, it already knows what it is.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
I've done. I use that and I love that I've
done that. Before me too. But let me tell you
what happened. I did this recently.
Speaker 8 (24:33):
It charged me for my order and it charged me
for somebody else's random order in the sto. Yeah, and
immediately I was like, oh, I did not buy all
this stuff, and it was like I like fancy organic
like uh, you know, Kala food and uh. But you know,
they gave me my money back. But I had to
you know, I had to call them like several times
(24:54):
in the hassle give me more money because that's not enough.
You took more.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Huh. I don't know if I'm down with this or not.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
I kind of like the idea of the convenience, but
I also am a bit of a curmudgeon, and I'm
kind of like, I don't want you staring at me
while I'm loading things up.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
I don't know if I trust AI.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Meanwhile, some economists are saying we're already in a recession.
Are they nuts? Well, according to you and others that
were pulled, they're jumping the gun a little bit by
how much?
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Though?
Speaker 2 (25:27):
That's the question we'll answer next. Chris Merrill, I am
six forty. We're live everywhere in the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand Chris.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Merrill on KFI AM six forty more stimulating talk.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Love having a chance to talk to you guys.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Look, I don't care if we agree or disagree, because
it doesn't matter a lick to me. I just love
that you're listening, and I appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
I do. You're the best. However, your Christmas is gonna suck.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
According to some economists, they say we're already in a recession.
There are three indicators that economists are watching right now.
What we're confidence is declining, bond market is flashing a
warning sign. This the from Vox their economists laying this out,
and then gas prices are coming down. To these say,
probably not for a good reason. If the global economy
(26:16):
is sinking, gas prices drop, that's because demand drops. But
also let's keep in mind too that Opek increased supply,
and I think that was in part to try to
sink some of the US market. But it's not just
Vox in their editorial that says that economists are worried
about a recession.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
There are others that are saying, you know, we might
be there already.
Speaker 17 (26:36):
Joining us now, Axios Chief Financial correspondent Felix Salmon and
University of Michigan economics professor Justin Woolfer's Felix, I also
want to ask you about this concern. More than sixty
percent of CEOs now say they expect a recession in
the next six months. Are what indicators are they watching
and what are you seeing?
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Yeah, I just talked about that.
Speaker 18 (26:55):
Come on, I mean, there's a pretty good chance to
be honest in a recession already if you look at
the consumer confidence numbers, the inflation expectation numbers, and just
the general wealth effect of people seeing there Burrow on
case imploding. There's a lot of indication out there already
that consumers are just not being excited in terms of
(27:17):
getting out there and spending, consumers, of course, being the
big driver of seventy percent of the economy. Add On
to that the fact that businesses have so many calls on.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Their cash right now.
Speaker 18 (27:27):
They're being asked to absorb a whole bunch of the
tariffs and not pass them onto consumers. They're being asked
to invest in new plants. They're being asked to pay
higher interest costs because interest rates arising, so they need
to spend all of their cash in like three or
four different places. There's just not enough money to go around.
And if they can't spend it in all those places,
(27:48):
then you get that recession.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Is there a silver lining though?
Speaker 2 (27:54):
I mean hypothetically speaking, if if we have all this
money that's being absorbed in pras are going up and
the money's going to tariffs, shouldn't we start to see
that national debt come down? I mean that's the goal
all along, isn't it. I mean we should start seeing that,
shouldn't we? Even if we are experiencing some of this
pain and justin we've.
Speaker 17 (28:13):
Seen consumers rush out the car dealerships. My mom ran
out to get a new iPhone this weekend. Could we
see a short term boost in consumer sales and could
that offset some of this uncertainty and pain?
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, so that.
Speaker 19 (28:24):
Short term burst. The reason your mum went to buy
the iPhone is it's imported. So that means what's going
to go up is imports. You know who that's helping,
not the United States economy. And so when you're thinking
instead about things that you.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
I mean, I'll help the retailer that's it.
Speaker 19 (28:40):
Might get built in Australia.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
In America, this is why you can't have ferners on.
Speaker 19 (28:46):
Say you were thinking about in addition to the house,
that's something where you'd use American construction workers. Right now
you'd be like, well, I'm not sure where I'm going
to get steel and aluminium.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
I'm not sure what the again, it's a luminum price.
Speaker 19 (28:58):
Of lumbers going to be and those are things that
people are going to delay more than that. Remember, every
time this administration puts a tariff on later on it
takes it off. That didn't gives people an incentive to
wait longer in order to go out and spend. So
I'm really very worried about spending over the next few months.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, I think that done certainty is what's affecting the
consumer confidence as well. But I mean, one of the
things that became a big story this week was how
angry the President got with the FED chair Jerome Poll
because Powell said, we don't know what's going on with inflation,
and we are not going to drop interest rates until
we know that we're not going to have inflation. Rick
(29:37):
a very conservative approach. It was very upsetting to the
President because he wants those interest rates to come down.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
To spur the economy.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
But if we spur the economy while we're already seeing
other inflated items, that could be a recipe for disaster,
which is why Jerome Pouel wants to take a more
cautious approach. But that also means the mortgage rates aren't
coming down.
Speaker 20 (29:57):
Well is right in the middle of real estate's busiest
sea but with mortgage rates hitting their highest level in
three months, just as global tariffs threaten to drive up
the costs of building materials, Yeah, there is a lot
of uncertainty.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
It seems to be as to be a very popular word.
Speaker 8 (30:13):
In the air.
Speaker 20 (30:14):
Or Alicia Yevez is here to tell us more about
these tariffs and what it means to her home prices
right now, Alicia.
Speaker 21 (30:21):
I mean having a pre significant impact on the real
estate market and home prices, everything from you know, sticker
shock or the sticker price to the cost of borrowing.
Right you look over the last eight weeks and we
have seen interest rates in particular creep up a little bit.
Six point eight percent is where they're at right now,
six point eight three percent. Two factors really contributing to this.
Right now, you look at the Fed and the FED
(30:41):
fund rate that is connected to the price to borrow
and the interest rate that you get from your bank
or your lender. The Fed is unable right now to
bring rates down because of tariffs. Taras have this inflationary
I just said all that.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
You already know all that. She's boring, bored with it.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I already said it. I said it better. Yeah, here's
the thing, though, rent is going up. Consumer Price Index
says rent in Southern California has grown to has gone
up five point two percent, So we're already seeing an
inflation in rent, and nationwide rent is inflated about four percent.
If you take a look at Southern California, let's see
(31:19):
La Orange County four point nine percent, Inland Empire four
point nine percent, San Diego five point nine percent. Inflation
on rent, not home prices, but rent are going up.
So we got that going for us.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
And then.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Southern California home price growth is slowing. This from the
La Times. So does that mean it's a buyer's market
or a seller's market? I don't know. Average home price
across the six county Southern California region just up about
a third of a percent month over month. The average
home price now eight hundred and seventy eight dollars according
(31:59):
to ZILP, so that's up under two percent year over year.
That's the smallest game since August of twenty twenty three.
That is much better news than those rent prices.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Inflation on home prices is only up about two percent.
But you got to ask why it might be because
we're sitting on the sidelines waiting to figure out how
things are going to pan out. It could be because
when we saw these tariffs announced, we saw the mortgage
rates come down briefly before they went back up, and
we might be thinking there could be a time to buy.
And there is another factor at play here. We saw
(32:34):
this happen in two thousand and five when prices were
going wild and then they were sky high, and.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Then what happens? The bottom falls out.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Market drops to crap in two thousand and eight, two
thousand and nine, right, and it took years for that
to recover, and then it did, and then we are
wondering is that going to happen again? If we're headed
toward another recession, how bad is that recession going to be?
Will that recession cut the home values in half? As
we all remember it happening just fifteen seventeen years ago.
(33:10):
It feels like it was not that long ago. Cayla,
What were you They were like in diapers when that happened.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Weren't in seventeen years ago? Yeah? My god, Yeah I
say I was. Yeah I wasn't. But let's just say that. Man, Man,
I don't know how long you wore diapers. I don't
know what. I don't know what your lifestyle is like.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Well, so anyway, there may be people sitting on the sidelines,
which is sort.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Of stymying the home values.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
They're not rising as quickly because one, if they're buying
a house, interest rates are high, so they're going to
be looking for a less expensive house. Two, if they
can wait, they may be doing that right now because
they go, you know, the bottom might fall out of
this market, and so that house that's nine hundred thousand
dollars right now in another year or two could be
under five hundred thousand. I'm not saying it is. I'm
(33:57):
not even saying this likely. I'm saying it's a remote possibility.
But we saw it happen before, and we're not gonna
miss that buying opportunity. By paying nine hundred thousand dollars
for something that is only gonna be worth five hundred
thousand in another year or two.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
So we're sitting on the sidelines. Count me among them.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
My rent's going up, but I'm sitting on the sidelines
saying I'm not gonna buy now. Yeah, I'm gonna wait
for this to come back around, all right. Every day
we do it at six every Sunday. Excuse me, we
do it at six o'clock. There's no business like show business.
News of note from Tinseltoon and beyond. Next Chris merrill
I AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio
app KFI AM six forty on demand
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