Congressman Juan Ciscomani on the Trump Assassination Task Force and His Bipartisan Affordable Housing Bill
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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. As always, we jump right into it with our first guest up today, Congressman Juan Siscamani, represents Arizona's 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Juan and his family immigrated to the United States when he was a young boy, established roots in Tucson, Arizona, where his father worked as a bus driver to give his children a shot at the American dream. And obviously that paid off beautifully when you've got one of your sons in Congress. Yes, it did.

Folks, you can follow him on X at Rep. Siskamani. Juan Siskamani, welcome to the program. Thank you so much, guys. Happy to be on. So, Congressman, can you give us an update on the Trump assassination task force?

Yeah, thanks for asking about that. I think that was one of the biggest things that we were able to do here at the end of last week when the day actually just the week that we ended up coming home and we won't be back until September. But this was a key one. Obviously, it spun off the assassination attempt of President Trump and all the evidence coming out there of the missteps and the miscommunication and the accountability necessary for this.

So we formed a task force and there was a there had to be a congressional vote to be able to do that. And I don't know any other thing that has passed through the House this session. Maybe there are. But but this one was one that passed with not only bipartisan support, but unanimous support. So the task force has been formed. It's a bipartisan one and it includes members.

that have background in prosecution or investigation or are from that district. It's a group of serious members that want to get to the bottom of this, not to play the mudslinging or any of that. They need to get down to the facts, and these members from both sides are interested in getting to that and making sure this never happens again. And also, those that need to be held accountable will be held accountable by the findings of this task force.

Do you feel that – so what do you think the objective is here, to find out what went amiss and then to make the proper corrections within the agency? And that may require more funding. I mean, what do you hope to get out of it?

Well, yes, the accountability on where it happened, why the decisions were made. And, you know, there were a lot of knee jerk reactions and a lot of reactionary things that came out of this. People making assumptions. Obviously, an incident like that will bring a lot of perspective. This is something that happens.

that happened in a, in a, in an era of social media dominating the, the, the networks and, and also a lot of different cell phone angles. And, you know, there's a lot more that goes into this than, than, uh, this happened, this happening before. So that, that also adds a lot more information to the process. And yeah, I mean, internally, I'm interested as, as a member of Congress, of course, but also as just a, a, um,

a citizen, a person living in the United States, making sure that the department, the Secret Service, they're following proper protocol and that these things don't happen again, regardless of who it happens to. This shouldn't be happening to any presidential candidate, definitely not anybody in office either or anyone. So these are the kind of things that we want to find out and also know where that happened and the people that need to be

held accountable, they should be held accountable at whatever extent their failures were, and then move on from there to make sure it doesn't happen again. Congressman, there's a growing sense in the country that our federal government is increasingly incompetent, and this might be the most dramatic example of that.

Is that a concern as you're looking into this, that the problems affecting the Secret Service are problems that are becoming endemic and over-bureaucratized structure, inefficiencies, not just in general a lack of focus on the mission of each agency as opposed to all these auxiliary concerns about DEI and all this other stuff?

Yeah, it's, it's the, it's the efficiency. It's the bureaucracy. I mean, I'm having a visit later today with the secretary of veteran affairs. We're going to go down to the VA here in Tucson and I'm in the veteran affairs committee and also on the appropriations committee. So efficiency and making sure our dollars, the taxpayer dollars are spent, uh,

accordingly and the right way is a big, big priority of mine. And I got to tell you, a lot of these agencies have these monsters, these this beast of a reporting structure that information doesn't flow all the way to the top and things are not known. And in the mid management, really controlling the information flow. And at the end of the day, in this case, veterans don't always get the services that they they deserve and fought for. In this case,

that's exactly what we want to know. Where was the mishap? Is there too much bureaucracy here? You mentioned funding just a minute ago or so. That's something that I'm always going to be willing to look at as an appropriator. But sometimes the solution is not more spending, more funding. It's being more efficient with what's given. And that's where we want to get to the bottom of this. It's easy for...

some to have a knee-jerk reaction and say, well, we just need more money and we'll get it done. I mean, whenever the federal government is asking for more money, you should be asking a lot of questions on that because that efficiency hasn't been what describes the federal government. And this is beyond just any one party ruling it. I mean, this is when I got to Washington, I realized, my God, you know, that Washington is the problem more than any other specific point is there's an addiction to spending. There's an addiction for bureaucracy, for keeping the status quo.

That's why getting there, disrupting the status quo, asking the tough questions, forming these task force and going back to the drawing board in a lot of cases is what we need to do. Congressman, we just had some new jobs and update and update on the jobs numbers come out today. June and May jobs reports were just revised lower by an additional twenty nine thousand jobs. Five out of the last six jobs reports have now been revised lower per zero hedge. Ten out of 14 jobs reports revised lower.

Unemployment now at a three-year high and revisions are the new normal. This seems like it is the politicization of government and government data to support a narrative rather than simply reporting the truth, which is what we expect from the federal government in cases like this.

Well, I'll tell you this. Whenever people start talking about these data numbers and listen, you know, you can defend data with data or attack data with other data out there. And I respect that. But here's the thing. Whenever I talk to people and I mean, I'm coaching flag football still on the weekends with my kids. I go talk to the other parents. They're not talking about these data points. You know what they're talking about? Not being able to afford basic needs that they were able to afford before. Yeah.

You can't fight that reality. There's no way that I can convince any of these parents about what they're not living because of...

this data piece showing something rather than other. At the end of the day, that's what they're feeling. And I'm still dropping kids off at school and talking to parents there, going to the grocery store, all the things that I've always done here as a parent, as a community member, possible shopping. What people talk to me about is the border and what they're spending and the money that is not going as far as they are, as it did before. Why? Because

You know, data shows that things are way more expensive. You know, inflation has driven some cost up up to 24, 50 percent of the cost that it was before. But their their their pay hasn't gone up.

People can do the math when they're balancing their checkbooks every month on this. So that's what people are feeling on the ground. And that's where people are hurting. And I feel it myself. We've got six kids. We just went through the summer. You know, the electric bill goes up. They're at home. You know what they do all day? They eat all day. Okay.

The grocery bill goes up. Now with back-to-school shopping, it's just like we keep track of every year of back-to-school shopping, and it just gets more and more expensive every year. So these are the things that are really occupying people's minds, regardless of whatever narrative someone wants to spin. People are feeling it. You can't go around that.

So talking about cost. So the typical starter home now costs 54% more than it did five years ago. And in at least 237 cities, a starter home is a million dollars at least. Okay? And then rent, the typical one-bedroom rent is now $1,531. I mean, it's just people are moving back in with parents, multi-generations at the home. You have proposed a new bill to fast-track construction on affordable housing. Yes.

Tell us about who you're I know. I know this is a bipartisan bill. So congratulations on doing that. What does the bill do?

And do you see it an opportunity for this to get passed and signed into law before November, December? Well, I hope so. This is something that really tackles an issue that is impacting everyone. Many like some of the people that are your listeners. I grew up in the apartment that my parents didn't buy their first home. As you mentioned, we immigrated from here from Mexico. They work hard, but we lived in the apartment complex my entire childhood up all the way up to college. My

My parents bought their first home the summer after I graduated from the U of A, and I was about to go to D.C. for a fellowship. But you know why they rented? They rented because it was more affordable. And when they finally were able to qualify for that house, quick side note here, when I was at the polls on Tuesday, I run into the realtor that sold my parents that home. They still live in tonight. It was so odd. It was like, I know your parents. I'm like, how? And then she told me how, and I was like, Dina, is this you? And she's like, yes, I remember her.

Because, of course, I mean, you buy your first home, you know, after immigrating to the U.S., you know, decades later, it just means a lot. So, but anyways, that aside, when you talk to people now, rent is unaffordable as well. This is not only about not being able to afford that house or that first home. This is about rent not being affordable. And I've talked to some of the developers of these apartment complexes. And you know what's driving up the cost? It is, in some extent, supply chains. And we, you know, after COVID, all that got disrupted.

But it's also the regulations, the red tape of these local governments and in some cases, the federal government as well. Why? Because they have EV requirements. For every so many units, you have to have an EV charging station, even if they're not going to be used.

They have to sit there. And, you know, so all these things that are driving up costs is making affordable housing not affordable or not even possible. Because when when what we're pushing these developers to do is to focus on maybe luxury apartments where the return on investment is somewhere that keeps them in business. But right now, it's just it's tough to take care of people's needs where they can't afford a home and they can't even afford rent either.

One of the things working at the city of Phoenix, you know, you're kind of at the municipal level at the rubber meets the road end of the housing discussion. And you watch the city of Phoenix and many others. When we build low income housing using government loans, whether it's LIHTC or home loan assistance, it's costing double what it costs the private sector to build those same type of units or more.

How do we really start getting into that? Because they're I mean, for instance, they were units are required to be larger than is standard in the commercial market. They are required to have all sorts of disability features in every single apartment. I mean, there's a lot there that can be cut out that could reduce costs, but it would take a real political battle.

We have one minute left, Congressman. Go ahead. What was that? We have one minute left, so I'm just letting you know what we got. I mean, when you look at it, I mean, you can sum it up by government being more and more involved on the regulation of these buildings. There are codes that need to be met. I think, you know, when you talk about the disability access and all that, we need to meet those standards. However, the more requirements the government puts on this, the more layers there are

are on there. I held the round table where I had the private sector and the public sector. We can have these strong partnerships of lowering the regulations in the red tape that don't allow the private sector to properly invest in this. And we also have the private sector interested in investing in these areas. That's a win-win. And that is a solution that I would propose. And that's what this bill addresses as well by cutting that red tape. Love it. Thank you, Congressman Juan Siscamani. Folks, you can follow him on X.

At Rep. Siskamani, thank you so much for joining us today. Breaking Battlegrounds coming right back. Folks, this is Sam Stone for Breaking Battlegrounds. Discover true freedom today with 4Freedom Mobile. Their SIM automatically switches to the best network, guaranteeing no missed calls. You can enjoy browsing social media and the Internet without compromising your privacy. Plus, make secure mobile payments worldwide with no fees or monitoring. Visit 4FreedomMobile.com today for top-notch coverage.

digital security, and total freedom. And if you use the code BATTLEGROUND at checkout, you get your first month of service for just $9 and save $10 a month for every month of service after that. Again, that's code BATTLEGROUND at checkout. Visit 4freedommobile.com to learn more.

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We're continuing on now. Our next guest, Joe Bishop Henchman, Executive Vice President at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, leading the work to protect taxpayer rights through research, litigation, and outreach. You can learn about the National Taxpayers Union Foundation at ntu.org and follow Joe on X at JB Henchman. Chuck? Well, Joe, let's first talk about

former President Trump's proposal on tariffs. He's proposing a 10% tariff on all imports to the United States. If he did that, the United States is a high tariff country by increasing U.S. tariffs to the highest level since 1943. Why is this bad for the economy? Sam and I think it's bad for the economy, but tell our audience, be a professor for a minute, tell them why this tariff idea is a bad idea. Yeah.

Tariffs are taxes that people pay. Someone pays them. And I think... Consumers pay them, right? I mean... Yeah, consumers pay them. A lot of people think, oh, you know, well, somebody else will pay them. But how they show up in the pricing, regardless of who writes the check, is in the form of higher prices on things people buy. And...

People buy a lot of stuff from overseas. It's not just consumers buying stuff from China, it's also manufacturers buying inputs and components.

businesses buying services and goods for their streams of business. We're a fairly interconnected society on that. Now, maybe we can all have a fight over what our policy on China should be, but let's put China aside. Let's talk about all of the other countries of the world, especially our allies, countries like Japan and the countries of the European Union and

countries in Latin America that we're trying to make sure stay on our side in this global showdown.

A 10 percent tariff is going to be very problematic to those efforts, and it's going to invite retaliation, retaliation against our farmers and against our exporters. And that's going to be problematic. So all sorts of problems associated with this. Is it fair to say that China can and should be treated differently because they practice very predatory trade practices?

trade practices of their own, that they are very protectionist in many ways. So you can treat them a little differently. But realistically, shouldn't we be just using those as a lever to get them to drop those barriers on their end rather than trying to build barriers on ours?

I think so. And, you know, they can say the same thing about us because we obviously have our protectionist policies, too. We've President Biden has continued President Trump's trade policies on China and kind of added some of his own against Canada and against some of our some other friendly countries. And all of this.

It seems to be a race for higher and higher tariffs, and we seem to forget that part of like, all right, now let's get to the negotiating table. Let's do the back and forth and the give and take, and let's see how we can get these back down. And that's really unfortunate because after World War II, America was the big champion of –

freer trade across the world. Uh, I think there was a, uh, there's lots of strong evidence that the reason, uh, a big cause of the great depression and the tension that led the world war two was the, the lack of trade between countries. And, uh, you know, we got the average tariff level, uh,

by the early part of the century down to about 5.5%. Now, talking about going in the other direction, it's really unfortunate. And it's consumers that are going to be the ones that pay. Well, speaking of consumers, there was a study in 2018 that talks about tariff hikes and retaliation. And they calculated that one percentage point increase in foreign tariffs was associated with 3.9% reduction of U.S. exports. How many jobs is that equal to?

If you lose 3.9% annually of your exports. I don't know how many jobs it is, but I'm sure it's a lot. And I've been talking a lot this week with people in Nebraska, for instance, because they have a special legislative session going on right now on property taxes. And that's being driven by farmers.

who can't afford their property tax bills anymore. There's a lot of reasons behind that, but one of them is our trade wars are inviting retaliation, and they're the first on the list to suffer retaliation from foreign countries when they

when they want to go after the United States. And it's really unfortunate because they really do contribute a lot to the U.S. economy, the Nebraska economy, the world economy, and we're kind of leaving them high and dry right now. What do you think President Trump's trying to accomplish with the 10% tariff proposal?

I think it's been a consistent view of his, pretty much all of his public life. Way back before he was president, back when people talked about Japan the way they talk about China now. And this view that we need to punish...

stuff happening in other countries in order to help ourselves. And so, you know, I don't want to, I don't think he's doing it for some political advantage, although, you know, obviously there's some segment of the population that welcomes these policies. I think it's been a consistent theme of his for a long time. And, you know,

you know, whether, you know, whatever a foreign country is doing, whatever the state of things, I think he wants a higher tariff on them. And, you know, maybe he even thinks that that's the path towards enriching the American people, although the evidence on that shows that it's not. Correct. We have about two minutes left in this segment. Let me ask you about the Supreme Court's ruling on the Chevron case. What does this mean for consumers and American taxpayers?

the ruling so so we're the the recent loper bright decision that just came down that reversed the earlier chevron rule um what we see the big value in it for taxpayers is that uh the government doesn't always will not will no longer automatically win in cases so under chevron if an agency said oh the law is vague the law is ambiguous so we're going to come up with our own rule and if a taxpayer challenged that rule um

the government agency would win automatically.

Now the new rule that the Supreme Court has decided is you'll have the day in court, and whoever has the best argument for adhering to what the statute said, for complying with the statute, they win. So to us, it's a big win because we're always going up against the IRS for taxpayers here at National Taxpayers Union, and it levels the playing field for us because now it's about, well, what's the right answer, not just –

oh, the IRS should win automatically. Joe, we're going to be coming back. We have just about 30 seconds left in this segment. When we come back, we want to talk a little bit about some reporting the NTU has done on the staffing of the First Lady, which is absolutely incredible. Same thing with the vice presidents. Yeah, that's gotten a lot of attention. They're really sort of offensive numbers when you think about it because a lot of these –

These positions are essentially just jobs programs for young activists. We'll get into that when we come back here in a moment, folks. We're going to be talking more with Joe Bishop Henchman of the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. And then you want to stay tuned for our final segment. We have friend of the program, Alexander Rakin, coming on. He's done some fantastic work for us. Breaking Battlegrounds will be back in just a moment.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Moran. I'm Sam Stone. Folks, more and more information keeps coming out that big tech is using your phone to spy on you, to track everything you do, and to sell your information to everybody they can from private industry to government.

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We're continuing on now with Joe Bishop Henchman. He is executive vice president of the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. They have been doing some exposés lately on some of the spending inside the vice president's office, inside the first lady's office. And Chuck, it's pretty incredible what Jill Biden and Kamala Harris have done with those offices. Well, let's look at Jill Biden first. And Joe, I'm going to have you expand upon this. So

In the last year of Hillary Clinton as first lady, she had 10 staffers. Laura Bush had 16 by her eighth year. Michelle Obama had 12. Melania had eight. Jill Biden has 24 at $2.4 million a year. How do they justify this type of expansion for government employees?

Yeah, it's a very good question. The short answer is that they really haven't. They haven't really explained what all of these staff are doing. There's a series of reports that we at National Taxpayers Union put out every year where we dig into the reimbursement records and the payroll records to report on what these

offices are doing. And I mean, I was shocked when I saw the information that Jill Biden had staffed up because it was only, I think, two years ago, she only had six people. And so she's essentially quadrupled her staff over the last two years to the highest ever for a first lady. And, you know, you gave some examples of some of the recent ones. Eleanor Roosevelt got by with three staffers. And, you know, I'm not saying that

You know, we need to go all the way back to that. But we're hoping that we get some kind of explanation on what the 24 staff of Joe Biden are doing. Well, Eleanor did have a world war going on, which is amazing about that. And she did three.

Just a much more productive staff is what we're telling ourselves here. Let's talk about the perks about Joe Biden's pension. I understand he is going to get a pension of $413,000 due to his years in the Senate and his presidential pension. Is that correct? Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, this report of ours, we do it every year, but it got quite a bit of attention this year because I think people are interested to know, you know, what would Joe Biden's situation be if he left the presidency? And so what's going on there is he has these two different pensions, one for run from being a senator for many years, for many decades, and one from being a president. And you can stack them.

So in the end, he'll actually be making more retired than he will as president. So, you know, when we put this out, I don't think he had yet announced he was not running again. But I think people are all happy to learn that he's going to have a very comfortable retirement. $413,000 is a lot of money in its own right.

Do you know, is there an ongoing payment like Joe Biden? Obviously, it doesn't appear that he will. Let's be honest. He's not going to live that many years. He's not going to be a decade after he leaves office. What happens with Joe Biden after he passes away? Is there some sort of support for her going forward? Oh, great question.

Yeah, there is a way, and we don't know if he's elected this, but we're pretty sure he has. There's no reason not to elect that some portion of the payment go to a surviving spouse. So she'll be okay as well. And it's also worth noting that there are other benefits that come with being a former president and a former first lady. So I think she's going to be okay as well.

Quickly, we got about a minute left. They're revising the job numbers again the last three months. Is the federal government just politicizing job numbers now and then they come back every quarter and revise them? I mean, is that what's happening?

Well, there's always more data, and people are very interested in knowing what the latest information is. It's kind of pointing in all sorts of different directions, and that's what makes this so hard. Inflation and unemployment and unemployment

Even if the unemployment numbers are going up, is that because people are losing their job or because more people are entering the workforce? I think it's two different stories. One is...

And two is figuring out what the numbers mean and what they say.

You're not going to want to miss this one, folks. Breaking Battlegrounds coming right back. Folks, this is Sam Stone for Breaking Battlegrounds. Discover true freedom today with 4Freedom Mobile. Their SIM automatically switches to the best network, guaranteeing no missed calls. You can enjoy browsing social media and the internet without compromising your privacy. Plus, make secure mobile payments worldwide with no fees or monitoring. Visit 4FreedomMobile.com today for top-notch coverage.

digital security, and total freedom. And if you use the code BATTLEGROUND at checkout, you get your first month of service for just $9 and save $10 a month for every month of service after that. Again, that's code BATTLEGROUND at checkout. Visit 4freedommobile.com to learn more.

At Overstock, we know home is a pretty important place, and that's why we believe everyone deserves a home that makes them happy. Whether you're furnishing a new house or apartment or simply looking to update and refresh a few rooms, Overstock has everyday free shipping and amazing deals on the beautiful, high-quality furniture and decor you need to transform any home into the home of your dreams. Overstock, making dream homes come true.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Our next guest up today is going to be Alexander Rakin, Visiting Fellow in Bioethics at the Center for Ethics and Public Policy. He's interested in medical ethics and bad statistics. He's going to be talking a little bit on this program about some of the

The research he's done about is Donald Trump a threat to democracy. But before we do that, before you're worrying about a threat to democracy, folks, you've got to worry about the threat to your family's bottom line. That's why you need to go to investwyrefi.com. Learn how you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return that's not correlated to the stock market. The market goes up, the market goes down. Your investment continues to return that beautiful 10.25%. Check them out. Invest the letter Y, then refi.com.

or give them a call at 888-YREFI24. So, Alexander, I was bugging you on your family vacation, but we talked and I said, I have a hypothesis that people keep saying Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. But if I remember right, reading various news stories over the last several years, couple years,

that most of the judges that he appointed ruled against him on election interference cases. And so I said, can you find out if my hypothesis is right? And from that, we have an article entitled, Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy? Fact, most judges appointed by Trump ruled against him in election interference cases. So tell us about the story. Tell us what surprised you about it and why people should not be scared of Donald Trump.

Yeah, I mean, I am with you that I was surprised at the fact that Donald Trump has... If you look at the judicial picks...

behind Donald Trump, right? We've seen, it's not just that most, right? There's been 72 lawsuits that were filed to overturn the 2020 election. Not a single Trump-appointed judge ruled in favor of overturning it. On the contrary, we've seen 35 times that accord with at least one Trump-appointed judge either ruled against the motion or declined to hear the case.

I was also surprised to know that, you know, despite the president and the vice president of the United States talking about how extreme the Supreme Court is. Right. And we've been hearing that this week and last week. Apparently, that's the reason why Biden is stepping down. Right. He wants to focus on judicial reforms for the Supreme Court. The reality of it is that 40 percent of all Supreme Court decisions of this term have been unanimous.

And even amongst those that were split, a majority of those were split along non-ideological lines. Right. So a liberal Supreme Court justice was likely to be in the majority. This term, it was 56 percent of the time. And last year, it was over 90 percent.

Right. So the Supreme Court is not as extreme as people are making out to be. And the tradition we can go into the if you look at the rest of the federal judiciary, 96 percent of them were rated by the American Bar Association as either well qualified or qualified. And they passed the Senate on a bipartisan vote. So why? So how do you go out and get the message to voters and the public that,

You know, Donald Trump, you know, look, if you're a tyrant, if you're a dictator, you appoint judges, they rule for you. They clearly are not ruling for him. Maduro just showed how this is done. Maduro and Venezuela showed. Right. But this is not happening here. And it's not happened in 72 cases. Right. So what what should what should conservatives or just the press, how should they be reporting this? Do you feel after you after you've done the study?

Yeah, well, I think that what people don't realize is it's not just that Donald Trump didn't appoint, you know, stooges to serve as justices. But, you know, he had difficulty with appointing justices to begin with, right? That the Senate did its constitutional duty. They vetted these people, right? So Donald Trump nominated an additional 100, around 150, 151 exactly, federal judicial picks, right?

these were the number of so there are a hundred and fifty one judicial picked that adult rock nominated and the pentagon boat on right so and the reason why the funding vote on them is that it wasn't going to pass right so i i think what people need to understand it is bad

You know, we live in a society of laws, right? There is rule of law. There are institutions. The founding fathers envisioned a system where there would be checks and balances. And we have that, right? Simply because a president is elected who you disagree with doesn't mean that the institutions somehow stop working. So I think part of it is that, you know, the media has been reporting on this fairly.

um... and as well the president and the vice president states both by didn't call harris i mean a corner store a cornerstone of their re-election campaign you know to essentially scare the public about the supreme court and i think that's dangerous

You know, Alexander Hamilton wrote about this in Federalist Papers, right, where he talked about the need for permanent tenure for Supreme Court justices. And he cautioned us about, quote, the arts of designing men who have a tendency to occasion dangerous innovation in the government.

Right. So, you know, if you're thinking about how should we treat the Supreme Court, right, and what should our relationship be between, you know, the president of the United States, the executive and the judicial branches? Well, I think we should turn to the Constitution instead of just making things up. And so one thing, Sam and I have talked a lot. I get very concerned hearing anybody on either side of the spectrum saying,

America is going to be a disaster. It's going to fall apart if so-and-so gets elected. And I think a lot of times, as your research has shown, we have a system of check and balances. And they're working. Developed by fine men and it's working. Is that a fair assumption? Oh, it's a completely fair assumption. In fact, I would caution to say that I think that the branch of government that is working the most effectively and the least in a partisan fashion is the judicial branch.

Right. Look, we've had very contentious judicial rulings over the last, you know, let's talk about it for the last like 40 years. Right. Yet the Supreme Court over this term and the last term and the last, you know, the last four or five terms, they've managed to make decisions that are on a whole on mostly non-ideological fashions.

Right. And they've been like, again, the fact of the matter is that 40 percent of all decisions have been unanimous this term. Right. That is a shockingly high percentage. And it is the exact same percentage as it was in the decade prior to Donald Trump was elected. Right. So all this talk about Supreme Court being, you know, made into the sort of, you know, as the.

know as uh biden has uh declared it right that it's an extreme court it's just untrue right our institutions are working um and i you know i think that we should have more politicians that we should have more journalists being able to say hey the united states is a democracy or rather i should say is a republic um we have checks and balances and we've made the system work fundamentally if the courts were as biased as as biden harris and some on the left have been claiming

Wouldn't Donald Trump be president today? Yes. I mean, if it was as biased as they're claiming, those judges would have put him in that office. That's exactly what some of the lawsuits were alleging. Right. Yeah. And the judges did their job. Right. They scrutinized the decisions. Right. They had fair hearings. These hearings took years. Right.

but they scrutinized it fairly right and in some cases you know donald trump won other cases he lost right so uh you know and so these are um uh you know so these are like the criminal and civil lawsuits have been filed against donald trump right but what we've seen right it you know the democrats seem to be surprised right that all of these uh lawsuits are taking their time right well they filed most of these lawsuits you know the year before the election right

Right. They could have filed them, you know, the first year, you know, after the election. Instead, they decided to choose, you know, to wait until, you know, the election's almost here. Right. I mean, we'll see. The Supreme Court has been extremely fair. Right. I mean, you know, it essentially kicked the ball in its most recent Supreme Court decision, the one on Trump's immunity case. Right. Where they essentially said, you know, the president of the United States sometimes is immune and sometimes isn't.

Correct. That's not exactly rocket science, right? Like this is what we would expect from a balanced court. And that's what we have. Right. It seems that what the you know, it seems that what some people are just worried about, right, is the fact that the courts aren't as partisan as they used to be. Right. And they used to be much more partisan in a liberal fashion. But that was all right. But now, finally, that we have quite literally a balanced court. Right. We have three conservatives, we have three moderates and we have three liberal judges. Right.

Right. That's the time that they start freaking out about, you know, about judicial tyranny. It's all about Dobson. It's all about terminating life. That's what it all boils down to with most Democrats on this. We're with Alexander Rakin. He is the author of an article you can get exclusively on our Substack account. Is Donald Trump a threat to democracy? The answer is no. But read it and share it. All right, Alexander, let's go back to what first brought you into our realm.

What's going on in Canada this week with their euthanasia program? Well, there's been a recent case where there's been a recent, it was just published yesterday, a peer-reviewed article that looked at all of the cases of assisted suicides where the person who requested it was on the basis of an eating disorder.

And it turns out it's not just Canada, right? And they found cases in the U.S. as well. New cases, by the way, some of them that I didn't even know about in California, in Oregon, in Washington, Washington State, I should say. And as well, of course, it's in Canada, too. And, you know, this is, you know, the eating disorder specialists that I've spoken to are horrified by what is happening. Right.

They don't believe that there's such a thing as a terminal case of anorexia. Yes, of course, anorexia can...

sadly lead to the death of a patient. Right. But at any point during an eating disorder, it's possible to get to to be better to get help. Right. And to get treatment. Right. So they're against this entire idea that, you know, you can just write off people with eating disorders as terminal. You know, Alexander, I want to pause you for one second. But I mean, so this is being used for anorexia.

But we know also one of the basis of what they're doing is cost containment. And one of the highest cost segments of every society is those who are obese, as a person who's already fat myself. I mean, when are we going to get to the point when Canada is like, you know, you're too fat for us to keep paying for you, so we're going to off you too?

Close.

saying that there's been cases where patients are old, they have diabetes, they have some sort of treatable medical condition, and that would presumably include some of the diabetes that's associated with obesity and other things like that. And there's been cases where those people have qualified for euthanasia.

On that basis, it is absurd. It is insane. And it is happening. And it seems that despite her, you know, this is again, this is someone who is a physician that provides euthanasia. She does this, right? She warned about it. And no one seems to listen, at least not in Canada.

I'm going to heart attack out on my own terms. Thank you, Canada. Exactly, exactly. So basically Canadians are known for maple syrup, hockey, and being nice people. I think we have to take the third category away from them pretty soon. Is the public even aware what's really going on up there? I mean there seem to be news stories, but it seems to be all these alternative news sites that are reporting it. So is it being covered up like Joe Biden's diminished mental state here in the United States? I mean are people aware of it?

It's tough to say, right? It's definitely being covered up, right? People are now warning about it left and right. Disability organizations have wrote a collective letter to all the party leaders saying that we know, as they know, that the law around euthanasia in Canada is not working. We have faith-based groups that have been warning about this from the beginning.

we have eating disorder groups and specialists now claiming, now saying, hey, we're now targets too. So it's kind of difficult to understand why the public in Canada is so desensitized to it. It could be now that

law. Right now, you have the Supreme Court of Canada saying that, hey, this is a constitutional right. And you've had now years of all of these explosive stories. It could just be that Canadians have just given up. I mean, I'm worried that that's what's happening, though I hope that it isn't the case. Well, we'll keep yelling about it on the show because it really ticks Sam and I off. Jenna sometimes too, but Sam and I really

Yeah, this is one of those things. The more you hear about it, the more ghoulish it becomes. It's evil. It is. Absolutely. Alexander Rakin, thank you so much for joining us again. We always love having you on the program. Folks, you can follow him on X at Alexander Rakin.

Breaking Battlegrounds is going to be back on the air next week, but make sure you stay tuned for the podcast because as always, we have lots of great content. We have Kylie's Murder and Mayhem Corner. We have some sunshine moments. We have a few things Chuck and I want to get off our chest. So stay tuned for that, folks. We'll see you back on the air next week.

Hi, folks. This is Chuck Warren of Breaking Battlegrounds. Do you want to prepare for a secure retirement? Grab a pen and paper right now and write down 877-80-INVEST. As our loyal listeners know, Breaking Battlegrounds is brought to you by YREFI.

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The 2022 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2024. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the web with a yourname.votewebdomain from godaddy.com. Get yours now. Welcome to the podcast portion of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Warren and Sam Stone.

Up first today, are we going to jump right in with Kylie's murder and mayhem today, Chuck? Or did you want to start with the incident? I guess it is murder and mayhem. So Kylie, we can bring you in on this also. But the plea deals came down today in the case in Nevada where you had a bunch of 17-year-old teenagers at a school stomp a classmate to death. And then today it was announced that the state made plea deals with them

They were all 17. They will serve their time in a juvenile correction facility and for no more than two years. And the mom of Jonathan Lewis, who was stomped to death, which millions saw due to X. You would never see it. You would never see it otherwise. Again, I don't think people understand how much Elon Musk buying and losing money on Twitter, now X, has really changed conversations in the world. Her quote was,

Letting them get away with murder. And that's exactly what they did. It's abominable.

I almost fell off the couch when I saw that this morning. They should have faced the death penalty. They should have been charged as adults and they should have faced the death penalty. See, I mean, look, I'm not sure you can go with murder one because it wasn't premeditated, but you could definitely do murder two or some sort of aggravated manslaughter. This is a 10 to 20 year minimum sentence to me. Minimum. I was going to say it wasn't premeditated, but they had agreed to go out into the alley and fight both sides.

So the attorney, Gianna Robinson, who apparently is an idiot, we were able to evaluate all the evidence as a whole and reach this mutually beneficial negotiation. It's not mutually beneficial for the family, right? No, it's certainly not benefiting the kid who was killed. It's for a lazy prosecutor. Obviously what occurred is a tragedy, but convicting these young men of murder would be a second tragedy. Hell, they brutally beat them.

No one stopped. Yeah, they beat him to death. As a matter of fact, there's a great video on Instagram where two otters are fighting and another otter stood up and got in and broke the fight up. So the otters are breaking up fights, but there's not one normal human being in Las Vegas in high school who could break up people stomping some guy to death?

Exactly. Yeah. And none of the people filming are getting charged with anything as well. The whole thing's gross. It's just beyond – it is a tragedy, and it was caught by multiple cell phones. The press has not really pushed this. Vegas – the Las Vegas Review-Journal has done a decent job with it, but it's just unbelievable. Mark my word. These four people will be back in jail again when they get out sometime over the next 10 years. Oh, totally. Oh, totally because that – They're thugs. They're thugs.

That attorney also had another comment that said, let them just get rehabilitated and move on with life. Like, really? Move on with life? We'll finish on this particular gruesome subject by his mom saying they knew that when they were stomping on my child's head.

that he was going to die as a result. When you jump in the air and land with both feet on someone's head, you're trying to kill them. They are letting them get away with murdering my child. That's what they did. I feel awful for the mom. Shame on the prosecution. Shame on the judicial system in Las Vegas. What a joke. The state of Nevada, this is an embarrassment for you. This is an embarrassment. 100%. Well, Kylie, let's talk about what you got on board for us today at Kylie's Corner.

Well, absolutely. Really quick before we get into that, I actually was looking into that case and found another case in Nevada. So it maybe just might be a Nevada case, but or a Nevada situation. But there's four members of a Nevada family that are facing child abuse charges after a seven-year-old boy was found outside with his arms and legs bound and three masks over his face.

So a neighbor had actually stopped by their house to see why their horses didn't have shade in the summer heat and saw the boy. So immediately called the cops. And when the cops showed up, they said the boy was obviously still tied up. It was 105 out. He was flush and very dry. When they interviewed the boy's mom and asked why he was tied up outside, he said that he had peed his bed on purpose. So she had to bound his arms and legs and place him outside to teach him a lesson. Jeez.

What is wrong with people? And even after being her Miranda rights, being read her Miranda rights, she still spoke to the police and said that she would tie him up and put him in a crate at night to prevent him from harassing the other kids in the house. It does seem like there's a lot of kids in the house or a lot of people in the house because investigators actually are charging criminals.

So these are his sisters, right?

Or half sisters? Or foster kids? Yeah, these would be hit. They didn't specify if they were sisters. They just said the woman, Jodi Tracy, they said that they were her daughters. But she was also married, Michael Tracy. He's also being charged. He said that he knew about the abuse and also participated in it. Not sure why these people aren't.

you know, why they're admitting to this stuff right away. The only person not being charged is Sean Tracy who lives in the house and he's mildly autistic, but he had, he told the police that she ties him up every day and she would fight against, he would fight against it to get her to stop tying him up. But that she would not, not stop. I don't know. I have no comment on this. This is just insane. Yeah. It sounds like she can't keep quiet. It sounds like she can't keep quiet.

Well, it doesn't sound like anyone in the family can. No, no. Sometimes I'm like, where's the people's comments? No secrets there. This is not an Italian family with a coat of omerta.

It's definitely not. Anyway, the case I wanted to talk about was I actually followed this a couple weeks ago, but I never talked about it because there wasn't much information about it. But there was a 17 year old Michigan girl named Penny Wise. That's her name. Penelope. Penelope Wise. She went missing on May 31st. Well, she's been found alive.

just on Sunday. Police, so when she went missing, police released footage of her voluntarily leaving her house around 6 p.m. on May 31st. After that, there had been nothing, no sightings, nothing really. And so it was just,

She was missing, so I didn't really talk about it because there wasn't much information on it. Yeah, I remember this from the news. Okay. Yes. So according to the Kent County Sheriff's Office, the teen was found alive on Sunday after an aware neighbor and her daughter spotted her packing her bike at her neighbor's 44. She knew the neighbor.

was 44 years old. So she was like, that's weird. No family. So she stopped, asked if she was okay. She said, yes. She said, did you need help? She said no, but she called the cops anyways. Cause she was like, I had been following this case and I'm pretty sure that that's her. So it turns out she did leave her house voluntarily and she actually did not know this man at all. And she had met him at 2 AM on June 1st. And that same night they got engaged. How old is this girl? How old is she again?

She's 17 and he's 44. So she met at 2 a.m. Yep. She's 17. He's 44. And they got engaged that night. And they got engaged that night. And he is not being charged with anything. He can't be charged with anything because so the age of consent is 16 in Michigan. Right. And also he to be charged with anything like delinquency of a minor or harboring a runaway, you have to be 16 years old.

Wow. Well, he probably also would have had to to not be just someone she ran into at 2 a.m., which is reinforcing my theory that nothing good happens after midnight. But he would have had to participate in her leaving. Right. To even if she was 16, I think. Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah.

I think, yeah, maybe they would have had to know each other prior. So, but his past criminal record, he has a felony and domestic violence involving a pregnant individual, a misdemeanor child abuse and assault with intent to do great bodily harm. He's not like he'll be a great son-in-law. What the hell? Really? Seriously? What the hell? I know. I know. And if, yes.

If folks, if you wanted to know how messed up most people are, just listen, tune into Kylie's segment here every week. Or just Google. People make you feel really good about your own life. Or just Google Canada. Right. Yeah. Or Las Vegas justice system. I mean, my goodness. My goodness. Well, Kylie, that was interesting today. I love.

Well, I want to talk, Sam, I want to go back to this job numbers. So E.J. Antoni is a Ph.D. in economics. He wrote more than half the jobs added in the last year were either in government or paid for by tax dollars. Like when the government gives a grant to a hospital. Right. Which then uses the money to hire a nurse. It's essentially indirect hire of a government. Right.

This is something we've talked a lot about this show, that these job numbers – look, I'm glad people are working. Do not get me wrong. I'm glad people are working. No, but they should be bifurcated between private and government funded. Government funded jobs should be bifurcated exactly as you're saying because while jobs are good and I'm glad people are working, at the end of the day, you got to pay for them. So it's like when you did the research on Maricopa County's budget increasing 56 percent in the last four or five years, right? Last three years. OK. Yeah. Last three years.

A lot of that was COVID money for the expansion. The COVID money is over now. So how are they going to pay for these new job hires? Well, and they're doing it by raising taxes and they're doing it by fees and all sorts of stuff. We don't raise taxes. It's a fee. Right.

But fundamentally, I mean, the problem with a government job, even those grant jobs, right? And we saw this at the city of Phoenix all the time. We would get a grant, let's say from the federal government through the city of Phoenix, where they would hire someone from the university, from Arizona State University to do some sort of, you know, they're going to be our new city arborist, right? Mm-hmm.

And they say, well, it's a grant-funded program for three years. What happens at the end of three years? They find an excuse to put them on the full-time payroll. Exactly. That's how those things work. Yeah, and it just simply means you have to keep taxes or you're taking money from programs or things of that nature to pay for this personnel. It's amazing. You're constantly robbing Peter to pay more Pauls. Jeremy, do you have that clip on Kamala on Christmas? Can you play that for us? Will you please play that for us?

The Grinch at Christmas? The Grinch at Christmas, yeah. And when we all sing happy tunes and sing Merry Christmas and wish each other Merry Christmas, these children are not going to have a Merry Christmas. How dare we speak Merry Christmas? How dare we? You know, I understand what she's saying.

But she's an idiot. I mean, she's so stupid. I mean, like one thing I think is real with Kamala Harris is that she is a communist. Her father was a communist professor. I don't use that word lightly. I'm not using it facetiously. She's not a northern European style. No, she's literally a communist. She is literally a communist. And this is a very communist philosophy around Christmas. Exactly. Exactly.

It's not only that. She's a horrible manager of people. We know when she ran for president, she never made it to a primary. That Time magazine – I think I shared with you the time in the Time magazine how they're just doing this glory betrayal. Then you find out that staff was leaving in droves. She's a horrible manager. Her vice presidential staff has turned over like 90-plus percent. And today the New York Post is reporting, which you've heard for quite a while, and the problem is ABC, CBS, others will not report it.

Bully Kamala Harris berated staff, left them in tears after berating them with F-bombs. Intern told to never make eye contact with her. She also had people stand up when she walked into a room. See, the funny thing is for me, and you know me, folks, I can be a little bit of a profane guy.

The F-bombs are one thing, but telling an intern don't ever make eye contact with me or demanding that people stand up when you walk in the room who are your personal staff that you're working with, get over yourself. That's just ridiculous. According to this intern as attorney general – and by the way, this intern –

was the son of a prominent Democrat donor. So it's not like some kid who had an ax to grind, right? As Attorney General, Harris instructed her entire staff to stand every morning as she entered the office to say, good morning, General. Now, Jenna requires that of us, but, you know, for the AG in California, no. I just...

I'm telling you right now, as you know, I've never believed the election 2020 machines retained it. I've just not gone there. You and I may differ a little because I think Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were absolutely ballot dump stolen. Nonetheless, and we can go a long time on that. But.

But what I do believe they do, the press in 2020 allowed Biden to run a basement strategy and not ask him any serious questions. Which they're doing again. And they're doing basement strategy 2.0 with this woman. They are not asking her to be held accountable for flip-flopping on things like fracking.

universal employment, all these communist type things you were talking about, these green energy government controls everything. And I'm telling you- Confiscation. And I'm telling you- Firearm confiscation. The only thing that's going to save this if Trump does win is the fact that Elon Musk bought X and allows people to keep posting this stuff. And it forces these propagandists who claim they're journalists-

to actually face the issue. But she's not being asked the questions and it's crazy. Well, I did a little experiment on Facebook over the last couple of weeks. I post a lot. I tend to use my Facebook more for nonpolitical things now. So I post a lot of joke memes and things like that, right? I posted a joke meme

three days in a row. And on the fourth day, I posted one of our Breaking Battlegrounds pieces. Now, I didn't post it directly. I put a photo. Then I put the link in the comments so that it would have the same algorithm settings as all these joke posts, right? Yeah.

How many people on average see those? I have 5,000 followers on Facebook, whatever. On average, my joke posts, 700, 800 people see them if you look at the reach. You are blocked. I mean viewers are blocked seeing it, aren't they? The Breaking Battlegrounds thing was seen by four people. Yeah. No, no, no. You're one of the four by the way. Yeah. Facebook is absolutely hiding these posts and so forth. Yeah.

Google, I mean, they are literally erasing the Donald Trump assassination. I know. And, you know, they try to make it sound like this is an innocent mistake. There's no way that's an innocent mistake. That's a lie. No. It's a lie. This is deliberative. This is – we have reached a level of Orwellian information control coming from big tech, from the media, from government.

that dictators like Stalin and Mao could only dream of. They didn't have the technology to deliver this level of censorship. Before we go to our sunshine moment, I want to read you a couple. Thanks to the great folks at the other L's, Defiant L's. So Brian Krasenstein, who's prominent Democrat paid pimp online. Okay.

Good description. Wrote in July 23, newsflash, the popularity of a politician cannot be proven by a bunch of people at a rally. I agree. You agree. 100%, yes. Yeah.

This week, Brian Propagandist Krasenstein said, wow, wow, exclamation point, exclamation, I mean, a bunch of exclamation points, massive crowds. Vice President Kamala Harris is holding a rally in Atlanta. Over 15,000 people have registered to attend. Check out the lines to get in. This is more than a political campaign. This is a movement that has swept the nation like a tidal wave in just over a week. That's literally smaller than every rally Donald Trump holds.

Oh, I know. I mean, I went to the J.D. Vance one this week. He's in a basketball arena at Arizona Christian College. Look...

I think they allowed 5,000, 6,000 people in. They had to cut it off. People wanted to come in. It's J.D. Vance. There was no big – and by the way, no one – I can guarantee you the Kamala rally was bussed in by teachers' unions. Oh, for sure. For sure. Government employees. There was no one bussed in for this J.D. Vance thing. One other point I want to make on that J.D. Vance thing. So we've been in politics a long time. I've been to lots of rallies, right? So I was sitting there.

And I remember doing Trump rallies during the 2024 election. We were responsible for advance and stuff for his Tampa. Drew Ryan, a friend of ours, we were there. I remember they had the crowd. It was very college Republican, very country club Republican, right? I mean, it's what it was, right? A lot of khakis and golf shirts. Tons of khakis and golf shirts. I even had a golf shirt on. No khakis, but a golf shirt. I looked at this crowd. I looked at this crowd.

This was working class. Yeah. I mean, there is no country club Republicans. It doesn't mean Trump doesn't have it. They're just not going to go to rally. These were working people.

They were excited about it. They feel that he fights for him. And I think regarding this polling – and I'm not – look, I think Kamala Chan's – I think it's a flip of the coin on this race. We've discussed this. We've always thought, though, it was very close in that regard. I'm telling you, these are people who are not going to answer a pollster. No. No.

And I think this – if he wins, it's because these people just said, here's my five-finger salute, minus four fingers, and I'm just going to vote for this man. They were there. They were excited about it. And you can tell people got work. I mean there was guys there with grease on their fingers. They had worked all day. These are calloused hands. These are calloused hands. And it's really –

It's really amazing. It is. It's tapped into something that I think Republicans needed even if there are portions of the party that are uncomfortable with that bent, with the more populist blue-collar focus bent. But at the same time, those polls – and I've been digging very carefully. You're going to get a bump. It's obviously Kamala Harris is a better candidate than Joe Biden at this point given his dimension, all that kind of thing. Right.

But they're oversampling Democrats by about 3 percent now, 4 percent. Is that what they're doing? Is that what they're doing in the polling? That's what they're doing in all of this polling. So if you look at, for instance, the New York Times morning consult poll, they went up – they added about 250 Democrats and subtracted about 175 Republicans from their previous poll sample. So if you look now, that alone accounts for basically the entire shift they're showing.

Why don't you write a piece on that and we'll get it published this weekend. Yeah. It's good stuff. All right, Jenna. Well, we're going to have a little sunshine moment here. I know you're a little under the weather, but hopefully you'll perk yourself up here. Yeah. Well, I have an interesting article that we found about friendship. Researchers have divided the types of friends you can have throughout your life into seven different categories.

um and so this is a very well researched article a lot of different um psychologists have weighed in um but you know especially following covid loneliness has become a serious issue for different people or we all recognized what what that meant being in quarantine and things like that um and so uh it's uh it's been found that um

Not having enough friends can be almost as detrimental as smoking cigarettes. So it makes it really, really more important to make sure that you foster those friendships. So I'm just going to touch on a couple of the categories of friends that they've found. So the first is workplace friends.

So work friends keep our spirits up, validate our complaints about our job or industry, and provide much-needed predictability in our work lives. And that's by Lauren Napolitano. I think workplace friends allow you to have snark during the day. Yes. They're your friends you can be snarky with. It's an outlet. It's a release. I do miss Friday mornings at the water cooler talking about ER and friends and all those great signs. It's a different type of friendship, but it's an important type of friendship.

And that's what remotes not benefit people. No, you miss that tireless. Yeah. And data actually found that people who have a work best friend are more likely to be productive, innovative, and willing to share ideas. Well, that's because you're excited to go to work. Right. Right. Yeah. Right? You're excited to see someone. You're not unhappy to be there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And so those are very important friends in your life that come into your life. Another are close friends. So those are the ones that are there for you through it all. They're your biggest cheerleaders, trusted confidants. And a lot of times those are the longer term relationships. So people who, you know, really they take it takes a lot of energy to maintain and cultivate those friendships. And, you know, you're really sharing a lot. So a lot of people have around three to five close friends. But.

That actually strikes me as high. I would have thought two to three. Well, I think when people – there was an article today while posted on social media talking about a gentleman who grew up Jewish but he moved to an Orthodox Jewish community because of –

It has a community. People do things for each other. And I think that was 20 years ago. Look at our parents. Right. Right. You're part of the community. Yeah. Right. You did civic things together. You if you went to church, you develop this community. So I think that was more realistic than it is today. I think it's more, you know, shallow today.

I would tend to agree. I really think that's a two to three, maybe even a one to two number in reality. I think people may be overestimating in talking to the reporters or the – The closeness they think someone is. Yeah. Yeah. OK. All right.

Well, but you also have your lifelong friends as well that you can categorize in there. So they've also put that as, like, those are the people that you spent time with as a kid. They know your parents as well. So, I mean, you can join a community and create close friends. And your lifelong friends, they'll know how your parents were. They'll know, you know, go say hi to mom and dad if they go visit you. And you're young, but you will realize this when you get older. When you have those lifelong friends, the conversations...

Go deeper. How is your ex-sibling doing? How is your mom and dad? I mean, they know certain things that people, that you work friends or other people don't know. Right, yeah. There's a depth to a longtime friend.

Yeah, I've definitely started to find that. I'll meet up with an old high school friend and, you know, I'll get really tired and they'll be like, oh, you just need a snack. And they'll go get me ice cream or something. They'll feed me and it's a little scary. What's interesting when you get older and you have these lifelong friends is when they've accomplished something, you're thinking –

How in the hell did you get there? I never saw that coming, right? I mean, that's one interesting thing about life. Am I wrong on that, Sam? No, not at all. I mean, it's just like, what the heck? And me being LDS, friends who become bishops, like, really? What's going on there? Look, my best friend I grew up with, Travis North, he's a firefighter. He's a fire captain in Tucson, right?

This is not a guy I ever growing up with would have assumed would have been any position of a government authority of any type at all. Not on the classroom union bingo card. I would have put much higher odds on him burning down a fire station than running one. Well, but it's that quality and talent that led him to his job. It is, yes. All right. What else we got? Another category, they said are older friends, so friends that are older than you and –

Those are important. Now, you'll know this because your boyfriend or you are in politics. Sam and I are in it. Mackenzie, who's my chief of staff, she's commented that, you know, it seems like you have a lot of friends who died. But when you get involved in politics, like your situation, Sam and I, people are 20, 30 years older. So they do. You get a certain wisdom for them, but you start going to a lot of funerals when you get to your 50s.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I mean, those relationships are so important. Like, I know I've gotten advice from a lot of older friends recently as I've, you know, graduated college and started involving myself. Something about somebody who's been to a couple rodeos is fairly important for all of us. And there's so many life lessons there as well. Like, it can be really inspiring as well to hear from people. Correct.

Yeah. And then so on the other side of that are younger friends, which they said that there's a phenomenon also known as reverse mentoring, which I think is just where a mentor provides support to somebody else. And then in that it's fulfilling, I think, to help to help someone else in that way. And so that can co-occur. And, you know, your help like it's giving the younger person a lot of help and it's also, you know, helping and supporting.

supporting the older. Well, Kylie, how long did it take you to teach me what a tropple was? Because I kept calling it a triple or something else, right? You can't even get it right. It's a thropple. See? Thropple. See, I still can't get it right. Six months later, I'm still not doing it right. All right, what else have we got? Um...

We've thrown her totally off her damn. Well, it is. It's like Kylie's always bringing these new gems up to me. I'm like, what the hell is that? Or like now if you're on Instagram, they have these people magazines. So-and-so did X. Well, who is this? What did they do? Right.

I feel so old now. I hear about new stars all the time and I'm like, who the hell was that? The problem is they're not stars. It's based on a reality show. They're not real. I'm going to sound like an old man here. They're not stars. Look, if you've got a... You know what? Leah from Love Island is a star. I agree.

I check on her every day. I don't even know what Love Island is. What else do you got, Jenna? Yeah. So we also have friends of convenience. So there's that quote that, you know, people are with you for a reason, a season or a lifetime. And, and,

you know, friends of convenience. I hate to call it convenience because it's, it's like friends who are there with you with, in your hobbies and different things that you're pursuing. Um, and so they can create, uh, like a sense of belonging support during periods of adjustment transition. Um, and, uh, you know, uh,

a 2023 meta-analysis in this awesome article that we found. It included data from 93,000 older adults found that people with hobbies reported being healthier, happier, and more satisfied with life. So if you have people to go, I mean, I've started to pick up country dancing. That's been my thing recently. And I go with a bunch of friends who are ballerinas. Well, that's fun. That's fun. Yeah, no, that's great. Hobbies are important. I think they're especially important as you get older.

Exactly. I have a friend who about three months ago decided to pick up wood carving. Still have his fingers? No. He literally chopped one of his fingers. I believe it. I believe it. Yeah. No. So maybe not that one. That seems like something when your eight grandpa teaches you. Yeah. You needed to start that young. Yes. Yes.

That's one of those. And then the last one is same stage of life friends. So people who are going through a similar period with you, you can kind of share different experiences and bounce things off of each other. That seems like a head on the shoulder type friend. Yeah. We're going through the same battle. I mean, I think it almost sounds like these support groups of people who've lost a loved one or something. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Which, you know. Which is important.

But I could also see where that becomes a very narrow relationship based on the tragedy or the crisis of the moment versus an all-encompassing friendship. So it doesn't mean they're important. But I would be interested to know the statistic of how many people who have these – like these help groups, right? How long they stay friends after. It seems like it has a time limit on it to a lot of degrees because you're bound by one very important subject. But do you have the other –

I would bet those are very rare to carry on. I agree. I agree. I agree. Yeah. Like, depending on how you can develop that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because you probably have other friends for the other categories, right? You have X amount of time. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, our categories that they said were workplace friends, close friends, lifelong friends, older friends, younger friends, friends of convenience, and friends that are in the same stage of life as you. That was wonderful today. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.

Appreciate it. Call your friends. Well, folks, this is Breaking Battlegrounds. You can listen to us and share wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote where we have all of our interviews online. You can also subscribe to us via there on Substack. On behalf of Sam, Kylie, Jenna, Chuck, and Jeremy, who does a fantastic job, have a fantastic weekend, and we'll see you next week.