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July 12, 2024 - Doug Collins Podcast
55:17
Will Biden Make It To The DNC
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You want to listen to a podcast?
By who?
Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
How is it?
The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
I could not believe my ears.
In this house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't gonna be that fun.
Good morning, folks.
My name is Chip Blake, and I will be your guest host today with our esteemed producer, James, who we're going to welcome here in just a minute.
It is Friday, July 12th, and we are one day closer to the beginning of the Republican National Convention, which starts, I guess it officially gavels in on Monday, but unofficially, all the delegates and alternates will start but unofficially, all the delegates and alternates will start to arrive tomorrow and Saturday.
There will be a full slate of activities for them on Sunday.
So we'll talk a little bit about that.
We are, I think, within 24, 48 hours away from Donald Trump announcing who his vice presidential candidate is.
And then we have to talk democratic politics.
It's been two weeks now, two weeks to the day since the debate, the most important debate in presidential history happened between President Biden And former President Trump.
And the fallout continues.
It won't go away.
And I'm convinced it won't go away until Joe Biden agrees to step aside.
And I'll walk through why I think that here in just a minute after the break.
So we'll talk about that.
We'll talk about who I think are the two candidates that are sitting in the catbird seat to be VP and why I think they're there.
And then James.
James is with us every Friday.
On Friday's Finest, and James has embarked on an adventure.
And it's a pretty exciting adventure, and I don't know that we've really taken the time here at the podcast to talk about what James has been doing with himself the last six weeks, what he has in store the next couple months.
So we'll talk about that.
So stick with us after the break.
We will be right back, and we'll get started.
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Okay, folks, thanks for sticking with us.
As I had mentioned, today is Friday, July 12th, and it very well could be today.
It could be tomorrow when Donald Trump announces who his vice presidential candidate will be.
My My take from kind of what I see, and I don't have any insight into it, is that I think the two favorites for the job are U.S. Senator J.D. Vance from Ohio and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.
They're very similar, but they're very different.
We'll talk a little bit about that.
I think that where they're different...
Hold on one second before I get there.
Where they're different is in age, obviously.
Doug Burgum is 68 years old.
A governor, a businessman.
Governor of North Dakota, as I had said.
A very successful businessman.
He started a software company.
Oh, wow.
Back in...
1983, 1984, and then took the company public in 1997. Then in 2001, he sold his company, James, to another company that is based in the Pacific Northwest, which is where you're about to be.
I guess you're technically there, but you're really about to be there.
A company called Microsoft.
Purchased this company for $1.1 billion in 2001. So Doug Burgum ran for president, got out pretty early.
I don't think Doug Burgum stayed in long enough for people to start voting in Iowa or New Hampshire.
Yeah, it didn't last very long, but he didn't throw bombs at Trump, and Trump likes kind of that style of leadership that I think J.D. Vance has as well.
Even though J.D. Vance is only 39 years old, J.D. Vance is also a smart, successful businessman, attorney, and I think both of those guys, James, can serve the number two role well.
You and I were talking before we kind of came on this podcast.
When you're Donald Trump and you are larger than life, and whether you like Donald Trump, whether you hate Donald Trump, you have to agree that he is larger than life from a personality.
He's a cartoon character.
Cartoon character, very much so.
It takes a special personality to gel with that and be vice president.
I think both Bergam and Vance, even though they're 30 years apart in age, Both have the intellect, both have the personality, and both have the political gravitas, so to say, to kind of do that.
Another rumor out there floating, James, is that U.S. Senator Marco Rubio from Florida is going to be, and I just don't see that.
I have so many questions.
This is the one I have questions about, yeah.
I do other shows, and I've seen him speak on behalf of the Republican Party multiple times.
I didn't even know he was still doing anything.
I thought he was hiding in shame.
Can you ever get him just dogging him during the 2016 campaign out of your head?
That's the first thing.
That was pretty profound.
I mean, talking about the size of their hands.
Right.
And the same thing goes for, what's his name, in Texas.
Who was the other one that he ran against in 16?
Oh, Ted Cruz.
Yeah.
I think of them a lot because I think of guys who, to me, and I hate using this word, I think they're weak.
their families yeah and again that was not cool but he did it regardless and they were like yeah we're gonna back him anyway way at this i know that's being a good republican or whatever for your party but like rubio coming up as a vice presidential candidate is the funniest thing to me i would because he's gonna it's gonna come up like he's his pet like it's There's no way around it.
Everybody else, regardless, I feel like if they have their own personality...
Ricky Rubio is the personality of the fan that I have next to me.
He's dull, and I think he sounded like a whiny little baby during that election, and I thought he just went away.
But the fact that he's back and speaking on behalf of the Republican Party in multiple situations, because I know there were many talks about the...
Abortion platform they're running on now, which for a lot of people is a problem.
But just the idea that, like, Rubio's in the mix.
And there's one person we didn't talk about that I brought up before that when we were talking was Vivek.
And you made the very, very important thing, like, that can't clash.
That's too much.
It's too much.
It's too much personality.
And, you know, Donald Trump wants his vice president to be...
I'm going to use the word subservient, even though that's probably...
The last person, he picked a piece of white toast, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, look, you know, and so, yeah, you're not going to pick Vivek, because how can you get Vivek to shut up?
You can't.
You know, whereas Doug Bargum and J.D. Vance are a little more measured and calculated with their speech.
And I think that's exactly what he's looking for.
And you bring up a good point about Rubio and that Forget the fact that they're from the same state and so you've got a potential constitutional issue that the Supreme Court might have to rule on, you know, with electors being able to vote for a vice president and president from the same state.
Forget about that dynamic just for a second.
Yeah, I mean, it's one thing to kind of make up after you've run a primary, but when Trump runs against people in primaries, he does different things to them than your traditional elected official does.
Like, and I know we could talk about us through a blue in the face, but he's like, he reaches a level of disrespect.
Oh, yeah.
You can't help, but like, if you were, you know what he's doing, it seems like, when you're with your boys, with your best friends, and you guys start trashing each other, like, you know, you're like, oh, man, you look stupid in that hat.
That's something you do with your friends.
Trump does it to people that are just against him, but he does it...
It's almost childish, right?
Oh, yeah.
And it's very funny.
It is a little funny.
Oh, it is very funny.
The way he trashes people, there's no way for them to recover because what are they going to say?
They've been trained their entire lives.
They've been trained for most of their lives to be respectful to people and say the points.
And then Trump just comes out and he's just like, I don't like you.
And they're like, all right, I guess.
And I hate to say, I hate to use this type of...
I guess term, language, whatever it is, but you really want...
If you're Trump, you really want...
Historically, a president wants a vice president who will compliment the ticket.
Well, I think Trump's just wanting somebody who will kind of fall in line, right?
And he doesn't really feel like Mike Pence did that, even though it looked like they had a really good working relationship up until, you know, up until after the election.
He got super ugly at the end, though.
That is the ugliest divorce of president and vice president.
Oh, yeah.
Outside of stuff, you know, prior to our generations.
But that got ugly at the end for obvious reasons.
I have a question for you because you've been in this for a while.
But when he's making the choice, like, I don't know how many campaigns you've run, but when somebody's making the choice to be a vice president or pick someone to run beside them, right?
How important...
How do I put this?
Does their race and all that stuff actually factor in?
I know we did it with Kamala Harris as a woman and a black woman, and it's been weird ever since.
But does that stuff ever factor in at one point for anybody, like getting a base with the vice president?
The short answer is no, it hasn't.
And there's no data to show anything different.
Now, I mean, look, you know, you can make a mistake with your vice presidential pick.
A lot of people think John McCain made a mistake with Sarah Palin.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
You know, but I thought...
She came off as dumb.
I think that had nothing to do with her as a woman or where she was from.
She just came off as kind of like not with the program.
Yeah, and McCain was never ahead in the polls, and I can't blame him for making that pick because he needed to make a pick that was non-traditional and that was very different, and he did.
I mean, he picked a governor of Alaska who was a female who nobody outside of Alaska really knew a lot about.
Do you ever do focus groups when you're doing this stuff?
Oh, of course.
So when you do focus groups, right?
How is that set?
What size focus groups are you getting to make these judgments?
I feel like we could just go on Instagram and see who's popular nowadays.
Yeah, 110%.
And look, there's all kinds of factors that go into it.
For example, Sarah Palin, who not a lot of people, at least, in the lower 48, Knew she was.
But when you get chosen to be a nominee's vice presidential pick, you're not really worried about name ID because six or seven days after you pick that person, they're going to be universally known, right?
I mean, they go from being, you know, not known.
And I'll say, I mean, the country really doesn't know J.D. Vance outside of Ohio.
They don't know many of...
I mean, the only one they really know is Marco Rubio.
I mean, Vivek...
Yeah, and so, you know, another thing to look at, and I think it's one of the reasons, James, that we don't know who the vice president's going to be yet, is because the Trump team...
First of all, you're always strategic.
Let me back up.
You always are strategic on timing, right?
You want to maximize the timing.
Well, I mean, you know, Biden's debate performance has kind of gotten in the way of that because, you know, as every day has gone by since that debate, the race hasn't been about Donald Trump.
The race has been about Joe Biden.
Not even for a minute.
I don't even think you've said his name.
And if the race can be about Joe Biden, Trump wins.
If the race is about Trump, Biden could win.
And there's nothing the Trump campaign could have done, I don't think, given the fact of how the mainstream media covers these races or covers this race.
There's nothing they could have done proactively on their own.
To make the media respond like they respond.
It's something that Joe Biden had to do.
And I got to tell you, James, we say it all the time.
It's like putting toothpaste back into a tube.
Anybody's ever tried to put toothpaste back into a tube.
It won't go back in.
You're only going to get particles to go back in.
And what that debate was, was toothpaste into a tube.
And I have never in my lifetime, 52 years old, I've never in my lifetime seen The Democratic Party or any political party, any mainstream political party, tied up in knots like a pretzel like the Democratic Party.
They're floundering.
What have we talked about on this show many, many, many times?
The problem with the Republican Party is they're not together.
Yes.
That's been like a very major talking point.
And you always say, and you've said this, Doug said this, the reason Democrats get more things done is because they are unified in their decisions and their choices.
Yes.
And regardless if you agree with it, they are together on it.
And even if they're not, they play like they are.
Nancy Pelosi, I don't know if you heard her, said the funniest thing I have ever heard on television.
Hey, do you think that Joe Biden should run for president?
Quote, I think he should do whatever he wants to do.
Yeah.
That's the worst endorsement of all time.
It's almost as bad as Chuck Schumer's endorsement.
Every time he's asked to comment on Biden, Schumer goes, I'm with Joe.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
And he walks off.
Oh, my God.
It is so weird.
Here's why, James, he can't survive, in my opinion.
When you go back historically, and there are all kinds of variables that go into Why the parties choose to do their conventions when they choose to.
And you generally try to have a two-week break in between the party conventions.
But there's been times where they happen on back-to-back week.
The networks don't like it.
They hate it.
As a party, you generally want a two-week separation from the other.
Well, this week, this time, there are four weeks that separate the Republicans in Milwaukee and the Democrats in Chicago.
The Democrats don't start their convention in Chicago, James, until Monday, August 19th.
It's July 11th.
It's a month away.
It is a month away.
And I just don't see that there is any way, shape, or form that Joe Biden can survive.
It gets worse with every hour and every minute, not better.
And it's gotten worse yesterday, today, than it was yesterday.
It was worse yesterday than it was two days ago.
And when that happens, we call it drip-drip.
And that means you got a leak and you got to call in a plumber to fix it.
And when you do poorly at a debate, that's a political problem most of the time.
Because you can fix a political problem.
You can go back and you can watch film.
You can talk about things that you might do.
But Joe Biden's problem that he exhibited on the debate stage is not a political problem.
It's not solvable, James.
Not only is he aging, but he clearly has something else neurologically going on.
And I'm not a neurologist nor am I a doctor to know what it is, but something else is going on there that has rapidly deteriorated.
And as we talked about it on Friday's Finest two weeks ago, Give Donald Trump credit.
He saw what was going on and he made a determination 10 minutes into the debate.
I'm good.
I'm good.
I'm going to let this debate be about him and it's not going to be about me.
Trump didn't even give him a rope to hang himself on.
CNN did.
We talked about the fear for a lot of people.
Was that it's a possibility it would be an unfair debate because it's CNN and Joe Biden was the one who called it.
CNN was putting it together.
Obviously, CNN hasn't been big fans of Trump over the years.
We can call that what it is.
I think that's a fair thing.
So Trump was in their head like, this one might go Biden's way real easily.
And there were a couple of people right before the debate that were like, you know what?
Biden might not be able to keep up for this long, and you were one of the people who said it.
And I'm like, yeah, that's a lot of time to be on stage, especially with all the rules and everything.
And as bad as he looked, which was atrocious.
It was the fact that Trump didn't say a word outside of, I don't even think I know what he said, which is still hilarious, but he doesn't even know what he said or whatever it was.
But that was really the only burn, if that's what you want to call it, that Trump made.
Everything else was him going, yep, I'm just going to answer this question like I always do, the way I answer it.
It was still Trumpian.
But Biden just kept...
I can't tell you any topic Trump focused on because of the fact that Biden was standing there like someone who just snuck out of the nursing home.
And that sucks.
I mean, that's terrifying.
It is.
And I tell you, when you include the primary debates that Trump went through six years ago when he was running against Hillary Clinton, and you include those, this was his sixth presidential debate.
So he had five in the rearview mirror.
And, you know, the other five were about him.
And this one was different.
It was not about him.
It was really scary.
The more I think about it, the scarier it is.
Because I think there's something, and we're talking about it, we said we were talking about this, but there's not a single person that can say everything is okay seriously.
Obviously, people are saying, hey, look, he looks fine.
I talk to him daily, blah, blah, blah.
And that's fine.
But even if in his private time, he's fine.
If he can't speak in front of a camera, then that's part of the problem, right?
Even if in his private time, he's totally fine.
Yeah, 110%.
And the problem that they're in right now, amongst other things, we could talk for hours about the problems that they now have in front of them.
Is the best argument to keeping him, and I do believe it's the best argument.
I'm not making fun of them, nor am I making fun of this argument.
But the best argument to keep him is, an alternative might not be better.
Now think about that.
Think about that.
That's the problem with both parties, is it not?
Is that not sort of the problem that America feels like they're facing altogether with both parties?
Whether you like Trump or not, there should be someone younger and upcoming where you're like, I trust that guy.
Yeah.
That was Obama.
They were like, he's in his 40s.
He's cool.
He makes us feel like we're part of the team.
That's how you get people in.
There's not a single person on the Democratic side that even makes people think like that.
And on the Republican side, I know it was What's-His-Name for a little while, but I think he was a little too militant from Florida.
But I just think that's the problem for this election for most people.
And I think I think there's going to be so few people voting.
I think this is going to be one of the worst voter turnouts we've seen in years.
I really do.
And it's going to be interesting to see.
I think the Democrats, I think Biden will step aside.
I think the timing of their convention works against him.
Did you see his letters?
That he hand wrote for the people?
Oh, it's terrible.
Yeah, it was so bad.
It was so bad.
And so, you know, I think they are stuck with Kamala Harris.
I think they're stuck with a vice presidential candidate that, you know, when you looked at her on paper, you know, six years ago when she was running to be the nominee, she looked like...
She had a pretty good background.
She was an attorney.
She was a prosecutor.
She put criminals away.
She put drug dealers away.
Who turned people away from her?
Do you remember?
Was there anything that turned people away from her?
Yeah, she speaks in word salads.
She has a very annoying giggle.
And she just...
She really never...
She never grew beyond getting elected to the United States Senate seat.
And I say that, and that sounds harsh, because being elected a United States Senator in any state is not an easy thing.
Yeah, it's an incredible accomplishment.
But she never...
She never put meat on the bone, so to say.
She never got better.
It's almost like she got worse.
And that's probably unfair, but I also think it's more and more people got to know her and realized, hey, she's not that articulate.
She doesn't sound very smart.
She giggles when she gets nervous and she's put on the spot.
And Candidly, the reason she did poorly in the Democratic primary for president is because Black voters really didn't see her as a champion for their community, right?
And that's a problem for her in her primary.
Right, right, right.
I don't think you can have an open convention because both parties have I have a lot of opinions within the party and always have.
And the Republicans, you know, we talk about it every day on Fox News and the whole world gets to see it.
You know, I talked about it earlier on the podcast.
The Dems do a better job of it.
If they go to an open convention and if in four days, four days of business in Chicago, they have to choose a president and start from scratch, It'll be pay-per-view.
There's no way you're walking out of that convention united.
None.
So you can either choose now or not at all?
Yeah, because once Tumpty Dumpty fell off the wall, you couldn't put him back together.
And that's what the Democrats are going to do, James, if they go into the convention and they have a floor fight.
They're not going to be able to put themselves back together that quickly because their convention is not in mid-July.
It's in late August.
It's a crazy time.
First of all, people are going to be drafting their fantasy teams by then.
No one's going to be paying attention.
You know what?
Hold on.
I should have figured this out before now.
To my knowledge, this is the longest break in between the two conventions in my lifetime, which is four weeks.
But I just figured out why.
The Olympic games.
Oh!
The Olympic games are interesting.
And so, you know, it didn't make sense to be competing with that, and so Republicans get to go before the games begin.
Yeah, but don't they start on the 28th?
Don't they start on the 28th?
You know what?
I think they start July 28th, right?
Let me take a moment here.
You're in the Democratic Party.
I would say you are near shambles.
You're not quite in shambles, but you're very close.
Very close.
The RNC is having their convention right now, starting next week.
Would it not be smart to get in there right after they do it?
It's a 24-hour news cycle.
You could throw all their stuff in the trash if you come up right after them and start talking about what America's done, blah, blah, blah, all the stuff you've accomplished, whatever, and just get it out there.
That doesn't make any sense.
You're going to wait a whole month.
For us to love America, which we're going to win some golds, especially in the basketball.
God, if we lose, I'm going to cry.
But it's very important for us.
I know not everybody cares about the Olympics.
I'm an Olympic nerd.
I love that stuff.
We look for America hard, and then we're going to come back, and the first thing we're going to see is that.
No, thank you.
No, and it, you know, James, I think with hindsight being 20-20, I think they would have changed that because when you pick a convention city, you pick dates on that.
Where are they having it, by the way?
Over a year ago.
Where are they having theirs?
They're having theirs in Chicago.
Ah.
And the irony is the Olympic Games run from July 26th until August 11th.
August 11th, which is a Sunday.
So they could have closed their convention a week earlier.
But they chose not.
You know what?
You know what, man?
This gives them time to find a solution.
Let's call it that.
That's what we're going to call it.
The clock is either your friend or your enemy.
If you're Joe Biden, it's your enemy.
If you're a Democrat who wants to change, it's your friend, right?
It's always one or the other.
How many people are trying to change this, though?
How many people are going to come out knowing full well if it doesn't go their way?
They are screwed.
I don't know how politics work.
You're in this game.
Doug's in this life.
But if Doug came out and was like staunchly against Trump during his run, during Trump's run, and he did everything he could to get him out, and then Trump got in...
Doug's not going to be looked on with any favor.
And it's going to tie up his career if he's asking for stuff, things like that.
So that is a real fear.
If Biden wins again, and I'm not saying Biden's a vengeful man, I don't know.
But it's a possibility that he'd be like, oh, is that the guy from Delaware?
That would make no sense.
They're all on his side.
Is that the guy from New Jersey that was really for the other guy the other day?
Yeah, you know what?
Whatever he asks for, don't bring it to my desk.
You know what I'm saying?
That's a real thing.
It's of course a real thing, and I've never seen this done to a sitting president.
But I really have to believe, James, that they don't think he has much time left up here.
Right?
I don't know.
Perfectly possible.
Yes.
And they also think, look, here's the problem they have is Joe Biden can't win.
And you know what?
His replacement might not be able to win either.
But if we know Joe Biden can't win and we stick with him, shame on us.
If he steps aside and we pick somebody else and that person loses, Then we did everything that we could do after the debate, the debate, to put ourselves in a position to have a chance.
And it might not work out either, but kind of the old saying, you want to go down swinging.
And right now, if Joe Biden stays their nominee, they're not going to go down swinging.
They're just going to go down.
We can move on from this topic and for more fun stuff.
The other part of it is, let's say they pick somebody, if you're the Democrats, and you pick somebody who you think like, you know what, shot in the dark, let's give this guy a try, whoever it is.
Let's give this woman a try.
If they do okay and they still lose, they might know they have somebody for their future.
Absolutely.
That's also probably part of this for them.
We can't just spend the next four years looking for somebody.
We need to start testing people out, and it might not be a bad idea.
Yeah, look.
Elections are always...
About the future and not the past.
And let's face it, Joe Biden is the past if you're a Democrat.
He is, you know, even if he decides, and it's his decision, right?
He can go, he can drag this to the convention and he controls all those delegates.
So it's absolutely his decision.
But it is going to be fascinating to watch because, you know, Trump has done nothing for two weeks.
He had one public event two nights ago.
He's gone, man.
Trump's like, I'm good.
Did Trump become the smartest person?
Because there was a time we all joked that he might not be a smart person.
There was a moment where his PR team, you were like, is this guy for real right now?
He's got this one figured out.
His PR team right now is like, hey, turns out you don't have to do anything.
All you have to do is show up.
To events, you don't even have to say anything.
You can go back in the truck with your big face on it.
Don't even worry about it.
They got it figured out.
That's exactly it.
You know, I know we can move on from the topic.
There is something really funny here in Montana, and I'm curious, because Montana is the...
What is that?
Is that the Midwest?
Does that count as the Midwest?
What is that?
No, I don't think so.
I think it's...
I think it's something in between Rocky Mountains and Pacific Northwest.
Somewhere in between there.
I think for anyone in the North, Northeast, we consider anything outside of us the South.
And then anything on the left side of the country is just California.
But I am seeing, since I've gotten here, a lot of attack ads For Montana government.
And I love state government attack ads.
There is nothing better than just brutal, mean attack ads.
There's this guy named John Tester.
I'm sure you know who he is.
Oh, yes.
Oh, yes, I do.
As a Republican, is he a good or bad guy?
Well, no, Tester's a Democrat.
Tester's a Democrat.
Okay.
They got a guy, I swear to God, they got this old man.
He's like, I've served in Vietnam, and I love John Tester, and I've been a Republican my entire life, and he doesn't speak any bull blank, right?
And they just got this old guy in an army hat.
And he's like, I've been Republican forever, but I love John Tester.
And then the next commercial is like, John Tester's the devil.
And I'm like, I love this so much.
Yeah, and so Tim Sheehy is running against him.
Yes.
Have you seen the ad against him?
Well, I haven't seen any of the ads.
But I do know that Montana is one of the biggest pickup opportunities, if not the biggest pickup opportunity for Republicans in the Senate.
And Tim Sheehy was like built in a lab.
Right?
He's, you know, he checks all the boxes of somebody you would want.
And Tester has always been a liberal Democrat, but he always goes home to Montana and convinces Montanans that he's really not a liberal Democrat.
And he's done it for two elections, so we'll see if he can do it for the third election.
But I'm not surprised.
Yeah, I'm not surprised.
So the shitty attack ads are even better.
Because he apparently, this is from the, this is, I'm gathering this from the ads.
That he...
Has land that he forces people to pay to go hunting on.
And I was like, yeah.
I guess that's the worst thing you can find about the guy.
He's a million.
But it's very funny because it's so dark.
And they cut to black and white photos of him just in a cowboy outfit.
And you're like, what are you doing?
Yeah, there's no bankruptcies.
There's no policy schemes.
There's no child molestation.
He has land that he charges people to hunt on.
I'll send them to you guys because they're just very funny to me.
Well, this is a good transition, James, because I did want to transition to kind of what you have going on.
Road trip 2024, baby.
Before you do, I did look up.
I did ask Google if Montana is part of the Pacific Northwest, and the answer is yes.
Okay, so I'm the Pacific Northwest.
Here's what I didn't know.
The Pacific Northwest is Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Northern California, and British Columbia.
You know what, though?
That doesn't count.
It's like Puerto Rico.
No, it doesn't really count.
You can't include Canada in the Pacific Northwest.
But as far as complete states, yes, it is.
James, tell everybody what you have going on.
We're at stop number two.
We took our talents to Denver, and now we're in Butte, Montana.
And tell all the listeners what you're doing in Butte, Montana.
All right.
So here's the cool thing.
So this is Butte.
So I'm Googling places.
I'm doing Airbnb, right?
And I'm looking for somewhere to go.
And I happened upon this place in Butte.
And I got it because of the original name of the room.
It made me laugh.
It was called the Orphan Room, which sounds terrifying.
So I look it up.
And I said it was a little cheaper than Bozeman and Billings.
And I was like, oh, maybe that'll be good for me, whatever.
So I reached out to the Airbnb host.
And she was like, listen, this place is really great.
It's really like a local, beautiful town.
It's got a great history.
So I started Googling it.
Then I watched an Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown thing about it.
And I was like, you know what?
One-horse towns are for me.
I'm going for it.
A couple months before I get here, an Airbnb host reached out to me and says, hey, I need you to move to the church if that's okay.
And I said, sure, I don't care.
And now I'm living in a giant church.
Now, I will, maybe if I can, at the end, put photos or something, but I'm living in eight hours.
Is it something like that?
Yeah, it is exactly that.
You don't understand how big it is until you're inside it.
These people are incredible.
They save buildings.
This is from the 50s.
Her son has a house with 100-year-old wallpaper in it.
And I was in there, and it is 100 years old.
That is a fact.
It is falling apart.
This beautiful place used to be the richest hill in America.
That's what it was called.
Wow.
And it's a fascinating thing, but I took a tour with her son and I walked through this whole place.
I walked like six and a half miles getting towards the top of the mountain.
It's incredible.
It's just this weird...
You're like in a time machine in the 1910s, 1920s with some of these buildings.
Your brain just shuts off.
You're like, it feels like Atlantic City, Jersey Shore stuff.
Anyway, there is a folk festival coming here this weekend, and it is the second, apparently it is the second largest free festival in America, something like that.
Over 70,000 people came here last year.
Holy cow!
Where do they all stay?
Here's the thing.
I don't know.
I'll send you guys photos tomorrow.
There's people staying.
The church is pretty big, so obviously more people are coming in for the festival.
When I was just at the barber getting the haircut, I know you all see the fade.
I was talking to the guy.
He goes, yeah, 70,000 people came here last year.
I said, excuse me?
They have this concert with a bunch of bands, and they just take different levels of the mountain.
There's all these old saloons.
I've met some owners of the saloons.
I've met some incredible people here in a week, more than I met anybody in Denver.
Tell me about this guy.
Yeah, so here's the deal.
I'm walking and there's this place called the Silver Dollar Saloon.
And it's this very, very old, famous bar here.
Again, this was like a crazy rich town.
So I think, I don't want to say, I'm blanking out on who was there, but like very famous old authors and stuff like that.
This guy walks up to me, big beard here, and he goes, hey, I'm Cowboy.
And I said, you absolutely are.
He drives an 89 Oldsmobile wagon.
Was he inside the saloon?
Originally, but he's just working there.
He's on a road trip too, but he's been on his for about 30 some odd years.
Wow.
This guy was telling me his faith story.
He was telling me about saving somebody from a snake attack.
This guy is an insane human being.
I don't know if I believe anything.
I don't care.
I'm going to choose to believe it because that's what makes it better.
He looks like a leather purse.
He looks like he dried up raisin in the sun with a beard.
Yes, he does.
I just couldn't stop talking to this person.
I was hooked on the cowboy.
I didn't even ask him how he got his name cowboy because I just assumed he was born with it.
It was given to him by the gods.
He was one of the guys outside the saloon and I met the owner of the saloon.
This place, I mean this sincerely, is a literal time machine that I think everyone needs to just visit for a second.
If you don't want to stay here, don't stay here.
But you got to just see it because your brain can't copy.
You're like, where are the new buildings?
I need to see a new building.
They're like, we don't really care.
We don't care.
And it's this beautiful place.
I strangely will let you guys give you an update next Friday if I survive this hippie fest.
It's a folk concert.
I'm not saying I'm going to do drugs.
I'm just saying there's a chance it's going to end up near me.
And there's nothing I can do about it.
There's not a chance it will end up near you.
It will be near you.
I know that you can't get a contact high from acid, but at this concert I think it's possible.
Rest in peace Bill Walton.
He'd be proud of this one.
Oh, we absolutely would.
I can't wait to hear the stories.
It's so fascinating.
And this is so America, like you can feel it here.
But it's a good diverse group of people.
Like I was surprised.
You know, there's some Trump people.
There's some Biden people.
There's some RFK people out here.
I met every group of people.
Oh, I bet there's some RFK people out there.
Yeah, no.
There's a lot of RFK people and they're coming for us.
No, but speaking of America and the love of America, Before we go, can we just talk briefly about Team USA and how absolutely hilarious it is that Kawhi Leonard, who, by the way, we all knew shouldn't have been on the team in the first place because he wasn't...
There are photos going around the internet right now of Kawhi Leonard, and they're in text groups, and it says, what is this for?
And it says, if you see this picture, just know I'm not showing up.
This guy committed, took the photos on Team USA, and then dipped.
He just left.
Why was he there to begin with?
Hey, man, he said he's injured.
Everybody's injured.
Everybody's injured.
No, I saw that.
I was like, you've got to be kidding me.
It is so funny to me.
And I was shocked to find out.
I didn't know.
It tells me how much I paid attention to the run-up of the Olympics, at least on the men's basketball side.
I didn't know that LeBron was on the team again.
Yeah, LeBron.
We lost one game.
I mean, we lost one event.
And we're like, nah, we're bringing in everybody humanly possible.
Yeah, no.
I saw that he was watching, you know, the Summer League, you know, where Bronny, you know, and they're trying to get Bronny playing time in the Summer League so that they could make a case.
I actually feel bad for that kid.
I don't normally feel bad for people.
We'll have the circumstances that he has.
But all he's trying to do is play basketball.
As someone who loves the game, all he's trying to do is play basketball.
I know that his dad helped him with the opportunity and this, that, and the other thing.
But he's just a kid trying to poop.
He had three points, five assists, or five rebounds, three assists, and two steals.
And everyone was posting it.
And I was like, leave him alone.
He's playing summer league basketball.
He's probably not going to be in the pros for a year or two.
Leave it alone.
Yeah, yeah, look.
And the great thing was, I think we talked about it a week before the draft, or maybe the draft was going on, you know, kind of that night.
Well, the draft was the same time as the debate, right?
It was.
The debate was Thursday, and the draft was Wednesday and Thursday.
And if you remember, LeBron's agent was declining workouts for other teams.
And then he was telling teams on draft night, don't pick him.
If you pick him before the Lakers do, he's going to Australia.
Like, seriously, dude?
I would have picked him.
I would have picked him so he had to go to Australia.
You know what?
That's exactly right.
I would have picked him just to make the Lakers have to give me another second-round pick in the 20-30.
That was Bill Simmons.
He was so funny.
I don't like Bill Simmons a lot because I think he's a homer.
But when he was sitting there and he was like, the Boston Celtics have the opportunity to do the funniest possible thing and just draft Bronny in the first round and force the Lakers.
And I thought like, yeah, that would be very funny.
That would be absolutely funny.
You know the Lakers would have given it.
Would have given up.
But also, you've got to know, he's just in his head like, oh, dad, come on.
Yeah.
Because you know he loves his dad.
His dad, listen.
He wants to play with his dad and he wants to be a Laker.
If there's one thing you can talk about in LeBron's entire career, it's that he's an amazing dad.
He's a family man.
He cares about his kids.
He cares about his wife.
He's also a shrewd businessman, and he's turned his friends into millionaires, and they've run with it and turned themselves into probably close to billionaires.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
This man has done more for the people around him than anybody has probably done in a long time in any sport.
However, at the same time, the idea that he was able to do it, I think what's funny about it is how angry it's made everyone.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dude, they're like, nepotism is rampant.
Who cares?
What did you think was going to happen?
Did you think he wasn't going to get his son into the league?
To your point, though, it's always tough being the kid of the GOAT, right?
I mean, when Tom Brady's kids get old enough to play football, They might be really good quarterbacks.
Well, they're not going to be as good as their dad.
No!
Yeah, and so, and Bronny is a good basketball player.
He's 6'1".
Yeah.
His dad is 6'9", 260 with the leading ability of a gazelle.
But there's nothing he could do.
And people are like, well, he should have stayed another year.
Well, if he would have stayed another year, his dad might not be playing in the NBA. I mean, I think LeBron has two more years left in him.
He played at an extremely high level this past year.
But as Joe Biden shows us, once you start declining, you go in a hurry.
And especially in the NBA, right?
I mean, that's...
You know, you're LeBron James.
I mean, you're literally...
People can say, well, he's playing with kids his son's age.
No, he really is.
LeBron is one of those few exceptions to the rule of like...
Like, if you look at all the guys who played...
Vince Carter played late.
Kevin Garnett played late.
But they were bench guys.
They couldn't really do everything.
LeBron is just barely not doing the things he was doing.
And I like a lot of people were like, if he just decides not to try to score and just runs up and down the court and passes it, he could play another 10 years.
Like, that's how good a basketball this man is.
Oh, yeah.
And he keeps himself in tremendous shape.
Remember when the rumors were, it wasn't even a rumor, it's true, that he was spending a million dollars a year on his health.
That was like the big deal.
Oh, yeah.
Now everybody's doing that.
That trend is huge.
Guys were not spending the money and then they found out he spent a million dollars on his health and you were like, oh, yeah, I'm a millionaire.
I could do that.
And he did.
Longevity.
He's the tortoise equivalent to a basketball player.
He's going to play until he's literally 184 years old.
I love it.
John the tortoise.
Our time has flown by as it always does.
We're 50 minutes into the show.
We appreciate everybody listening on Friday's Finest.
We have a lot to talk about over the next few weeks, man.
We got, you know, next week we'll be...
You know, the convention will be in the rearview mirror.
We'll know who Donald Trump's vice presidential candidate to be.
And I'm curious to get Doug's thoughts on it.
You know, Doug is out of the rail serving our country, United States Air Force Reserve.
He'll be back.
But also, yeah, also next week, James, SEC Media Day is this next week.
Yay!
We get to hear them lie to us about the state of college football.
And SEC Media Days is always in Birmingham, comma, except for this year.
Do you want to guess what state Media Days is going to be in?
Georgia.
Could it be Texas?
Could it be Texas?
And why would it be Texas?
Oh, yes!
The Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners on July 1st came into the Southeastern Conference.
And so SEC Media Days.
Kip Kiefer, who you know is a friend of this program and has filled in a couple times as a guest host of the podcast.
Kip, in his position with WJOX and Birmingham, always is able to attend with a media credential.
And this year he was denied a media credential because there were twice the amount of requests for media credentials this year.
That's not cool.
How many years has he been going?
Oh, gosh.
Well, it's been in Birmingham as long as I can remember.
At least 15 years.
Should we have him on to just rail the SEC about what they've done?
That might not be a bad idea.
Just have him on and let him go to work.
As he should be.
He said they've gotten more requests from the state of Texas and the state of Oklahoma than they have for all the other states combined.
Yeah, but the state of Oklahoma is a joke.
Anyway, I'm not going to get into that.
It is.
You know what?
That's great.
I'm going to talk to Doug.
Let's try to get Kip on at his angriest.
That would be today because he's pretty foul about it today.
They just opened the summer meet in Saratoga today.
By the end of the weekend, he should calm down and enjoy watching.
It'll be fun.
Yeah, enjoy.
But we also, so we're going to talk about, next week we'll talk about SEC Media Days.
We will talk about the Republican National Convention.
We'll talk about Donald Trump's pick for Vice President.
And we are also going to talk about the Folk Festival this week in Butte, Montana.
We will talk about the Folk.
I will give full details on the Folk Festival, maybe get a few photos.
And I can't wait.
I can't wait to see you.
With that, folks, thanks for listening.
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