Showdown
Showdown Episode 21 3-18-24
[Music] Welcome to Showdown. I'm Mark Casen and it is the 18th of March. That's Monday, and we are flying along. This is the second month on Showdown. And today, as you can see, or you will in about two seconds, sitting right next to me is a gentleman whose name is Christian Selden. Hello, Christian. How are you? Are you able to hear me? Yeah, I'm doing well. What about yourself there, Mark? I am terrific, Christian. Now, I did give you a slight heads up on this, which I don't normally do, but I thought it'd be fair a little bit. I know you're a PI, private investigator. In fact, the more I'm looking at you now, I'm starting to think you look a little bit like James Garner. I know one thing. We're both struggling. He's struggling. No, he, yeah, well, or maybe not. Who knows? I mean, you know, not at this point. Now, say we don't know what it's like after that, exactly. But so that's James Rockford. Yeah, so now you know all about Rockford, right? Because I know you looked it up. I guess my guy, yeah. Yeah. Oh, he was a phenomenal private investigator. He was. Yeah. So after you looked it up, did it turn out you've actually seen the show? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's one of my guys. Okay, there you go. Right. Well, okay. So, Christian, here's the thing. I don't know how closely do you watch politics? I try to watch them pretty close now. I'm starting to watch them more because it seems like it's a flow over, right? Well, I'll tell you, it's flowing over somebody. And, you know, normally I'd have a whole bunch to say, and I will, you know, as time goes on in the show here, because, but I want to get to your PI stuff. But before I do, just very quickly, a couple of things going on today that are just incredible. And, you know, I often tell people that when a person is in politics who I don't like, I would love to see lots of bad things happen to that person. But once that person is out of politics and no longer able to cause any problems, you know, then I'm not looking to hurt people. I don't want people to struggle in life really. I just don't. I'm just not that kind of guy. On the other hand, I would love to see everything possible come down on Donald Trump's head until he gets out of the way, until he admits that he is a criminal, a mob boss, not even a good one because he probably works directly for Vladimir Putin. But the point is he's not that good. He's just, he's been excellent at dodging problems, which as we all know, Al Capone did the same thing until finally they got him on tax evasion. But, but Donald's there. He's coming down hard at the moment. And one of the things, which, you know, we've got to wait six days, but I'll tell you with all that we've gone through with this maniac, six more days is not that big a deal because in six days, he either has to come up with five hundred million dollars or they're going to take all his stuff. Everything he's got, they're going to take it. Now, I hope they do. I want them to take everything he's got, but I have to admit that it's going to take six days to find out the answer. And I would suspect that sometime between now and the six days, Donald would go on his hands and knees and beg Vladimir Putin for a five hundred million dollars, which, you know, Trump, I always have said is broke, but I'm sure the Putin's got money. So, you know, Putin could give him the money. And if that's where it comes from, so be it, I just have to say that in six days, we're going to know the answer because the judge in this case has said, put up the five hundred million and then you can appeal. And Donald, I know, is running around right now saying, well, he's going to appeal that. Well, you can't. The judge is in control. The judge says what's going to happen here. And if Donald doesn't come up with the five hundred million dollars, which is not a lot of money for a billionaire, except for he's gone to 30 different surety companies begging for money and no one will give it to him. And you know that if they won't give it to him, they have to know something about his financial condition. So they know that that if they're not doing it, there's a reason. They know the risk is way too high because, you know, he acts like he's got all these properties. Well, he does. But the question is, how encumbered are they? Because if they're all loaned up to the gills and maybe even beyond the gills, then they're not going to give them any money because he's not worth any money. Yeah. So like I say, in six days, we'll find out the answer. You know, whether he's got the ability to survive this a little bit longer, but if he can't come up with the money for this, Leticia James is going to take everything he's got. That's first, which I hope she does. And then the second thing is there'll be a chink in his armor because people will look around at him and say, wait a minute, you mean this guy really was lying? So I think that might be where we are. What do you think? That's a lot. He has a lot of support. You know, I know a lot of people already feel that he is lying, but he may have to go to his buddy Putin to get that money. Yeah, because like you say, he went to 30 people, they've all denied him. So that's right. You know, he's that he's had his roots in right now. Yeah. And I'm guessing as a private investigator, I'm sorry. Go ahead. We'll see if there is an extension put on because we're kind of get used to these extensions putting on the things that's concerned to him. So maybe an extension. You never knew. I don't think they can do that. No, I mean, first of all, the judge has the right to say no, and he's already said no. Okay, you know, so that's that part. Now, he could go to a court, but he can't go to a court because the judge runs to his court that there is nowhere else to go. If he's going to get anything, he's got to get it from this judge. And this judge doesn't want to give him a thing for a good reason. Listen, Donald has already burned his bridges with this judge, calling him names, getting, you know, threats on his family, threats on on his assistant in the courtroom. You know, this guy is not going to give Donald any breaks and nor should he. No, should he? Yeah. So, you know, we'll see six, like I say, six days, you know, he's gone to 30, maybe he can go to 31, and maybe he'll find a real sucker, you know, that's Donald's favorite thing. He talks about, you know, the military people being suckers. They're not the suckers. They're not the suckers. No, anybody who gives Donald $500 million under these circumstances, that would be the sucker. Agree. Yeah. Okay. So now, you know, I've got many more things to talk about, but before we do anything else, I want to talk to a real live PI because I got to tell you something. I have always loved the Rockford files. That's just been one of my favorite shows for many decades, hard to believe. If you see it these days, you know, Jim Rockford, James Garner, was so young 40 years ago. But you know, somehow, as 40 years goes by, everybody tends to grow up a little bit. Now, I know you're, you're, you're a 50 year old baby. So what can I say? But yeah, yeah. But knock on those doors. There you go. But, but you know, I'm, I personally, I'm 72. And you know, the funny thing about it is, I used to be the youngest guy in every room. I always was. That was a long time ago. Now I'm the oldest guy. So what can I tell you? But it's actually fun to be old if you're healthy. It's right. If you're healthy, it's great fun. If you're not healthy, I suspect it wouldn't be so good. But at the moment, my doctor says that I'm fabulously healthy. And since he's the Chief Medical Officer over at Missouri Baptist, I'm going to take him at his word and he better be right. Yeah, I believe it. So we're on the drive right now. There you go. Okay. So here we go. Modern day James Rockford. Tell me how you got into the business of being a private investigator. Man, it always took me a, I always been a little nosy, and I always been wanting to help folks out, you know, figure it out for him, right? Yep. Well, been a security business for a long time. And I've always had to report, you know, take pictures, look through cameras and everything. So I say, I might as well help the police department out because that's the PI. A lot of times we get to do things that law enforcement unable to do. And I just figured I better pursue my dream. And that was one of them. I want to start a business, a private investigation business. And I went for it. So here I am. Do you have a friend now? This is all Jim Rockford stuff. Do you have a friend down at the police department who you can call up and say, Dennis, will you run this for me? Yeah, it's good to have a few friends. Okay. There you go. Good to have a few friends. Okay. Well, that's, that's, that's nice. I said, you know, I'm sitting here wondering what's true and what's not true about a PI. Okay. You don't happen to have a guy hanging around a friend of yours named Angel, do you? No, maybe brought you. Okay. I'll just check. That's all right. That's all right. You know, just wanted to make sure. But no, tell me. So, so you, one day you decide you're going to start this thing. Yeah. What'd you do? I just, I talked to a few people to give me some advice. And I went for it. I started adjusting lifestyles and going around doing practice runs, working for a few insurance companies and getting some practice in. And I went from there, you know. Now, do you have a private investigator license? Is there something like that? Yes, sir. Okay. Yeah. I actually, I went to college, you know, I did some schooling for a private investigation. Okay. Yep. So, so now does anybody threaten you over your license ever? No, no, nothing like that. Yeah. Cause, you know, every episode they were threatening Jim Rockford's license. But I was just checking. Okay. I listen, I know a lot about this. I just don't know about the real world. Yeah. The real world, the world world is pretty tough, you know. I hadn't got any kickback or anything like that yet, you know, so, you know, hopefully that don't happen. But it's been well, you know, it's very slow and, you know, I'm just going to keep on trucking into things, pick up. So every time you, you run into your little place where you live, I don't know, maybe you live in a mansion, but whatever it is, you know, Rockford lived in a little mobile home. But every time you walk in there, there isn't somebody in there that starts beating up on you, huh? No, no, not at all. Oh, well, that's good. That's a plus. That's a plus. That's a plus. There you go. Okay. Yep. You went to focus. Yeah. Okay. So what, what kind of things do you mostly focus on? Or do you take all cases? A lot of surveillance. Okay. I don't take all cases at the moment, right? Okay. But, you know, if you got something, you can throw it at me and we'll get, we'll definitely get it done. Okay. Like, how about people with domestic problems? Is that something that's that's there a lot of that out there? It is. It's really hit and miss. There is a lot of PIs in the state of Missouri in Illinois. And a lot of times you don't act fast enough. You may miss it, right? But there are a lot of private investigation out here. I'm not the only one in the, in the, in the bucket right now in the field. Right. Now, I was going to ask you a dumb question, but, but obviously you don't have any kind of a, an advertisement in the yellow pages, right? Yeah. Well, I hand out a lot of cards. I'm going out in and out cards knocking on doors. You know, I'm trying to get the business, right? You know, just waiting on my phone ring every now and then I get a ring. Okay. There's a different sites that you can get on. Yeah. Cause you know, Jim Rockford had a big, Jim Rockford had a big ad in the yellow pages, but there are no yellow pages, right? We're on the yellow page. Everything is online now. Right. Yeah. We got a good, we got a good website out there. Spies our investigation has a website. Yeah. But first of all, put it. You can go home. Yeah. Tell them what it is. But we're going to tell them, we're going to keep telling them, but go ahead. Tell them what it is. Yeah. It's an investigator's name, the website. It's spies our investigation.com and you can log in there. Okay. Spell it for a second because I want to make sure we have it right. Spell it. S-P-Y-S-I-Y-E investigation. Okay. Dot com. Okay. Okay. Well, we're on investigation dot com. Okay. Well, that's a, that's a good one. That's a good, I mean, you got to have a good address so that people remember. Yeah. Now you put it in there, you'll be able to pull it right up. Okay. Well, we're going to, we're going to give that out more before you're gone. So we're going to definitely do that. It's right to the point. Okay. Well, I'm definitely going to take a look at the website. I can't wait to do that. And, you know, I- Yeah, it looks like you looked like you got one, too many a's in there. Let me see. Yep. Oh, there it is. Okay. Spy S-I-Y-E investigation dot com. Is that it? If you got a, you got a Y. Yeah. You got an I-water-E post to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got this messed up there. Okay. So let's get it right. E-Y-E. Yeah. Spies our investigation. There we go. Okay. Now we got it. Spy S-I investigation dot com. I know you're looking good. Okay. There we go. Okay. Excellent. And, and we definitely want to make sure- Investigation dot com. Yeah. Yeah. That'll put you right on the website. Because I'll tell you, that would be a lot of fun. And I know that you're looking for business. I would love, that's what we do here. You know, find you some business. So we'll see if we can work out something. Oh, we can. Okay. No, that sounds- Yeah, we definitely can. That sounds good. Okay. So now tell me the most interesting case you've ever had. I want a good one. The most interesting case? Yeah. You don't have to give us any names. Just, you know, what, what happened? Yeah. Yeah. I had to track a guy down one time. I filmed him and he got on the run. So I actually had, I pursued him a little bit. You know, I sometimes like can get a little aggressive and I pursued him, but I had to remember that we can't chase folks down. And yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Going from county to county, but I was able to get some good footage on them. I tell you that. I was able to get good footage on him and a few other folks. Now, did you do that for the police? No, a private person. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Insurance. Gotcha. Now, do you do anything for the police? Not at this time. Okay. Do you cooperate with them? Yeah, I would cooperate with them, but I've never been approached by PD to do anything for them. Okay. So they've never asked you, but no, they've never asked me. But on the other hand, they've never told you that you can't operate. No, no, never, because they did that to James Garner all the time. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, it'll be some kickback if they try to do that. But yeah, if they want to communicate with me, I don't have a problem with it. Yeah. And, and it, you know, like one of the stories always was that he would not work on a case that was an active police case. Is that something that's true or no? That's true, right? If, if the law enforcement didn't want you to pursue that or work a certain case, then you stand down, right? Okay. Yeah. It just, it just depends on the direction that you may be asked to work if an individual asks you to work it, right? It may be the long, the same lines of the case that they may have that they may be on, you know, it just depends on the direction of the case. Okay. Now, Tony, do you have other friends who are in the same business? I do. Okay. Well, that's interesting. And do you guys compete or do you share? I wouldn't say compete, but we would share knowledge. Yeah, we could share knowledge. Okay. And how about like the big private investigation firms? Are there a lot of those? There are. And I think they got a wrap on things. Because like I say, I'm a struggling investigator. I opened my own company. So the work is very slim. So I'm sure they got a, they got a hat on things, right? So, you know, I'm getting these scrapes out here, you know, a little here, a little there. So yeah, I'm sure they got a cap on things. No, I'm sure that's what they want, you know, they, they, you know, and the little guys get, you know, scraps and that and that's probably it. But the other side is that if you can get your name out, which can be done, then over time, you can maybe put a dent in those guys. Yep. Well, that's the plan. Sure. No, that's the plan. And I believe they already know the plan. That's why they knew it. No, I'm sure they do. I'm sure they do. I mean, if if you've got 10 friends in the business, all 10 of you are probably thinking the same thing, how are we going to, you know, work our way into this deal? And, and so, you know, you, you, you got to find ways. But I'm sure there are ways there, there are people out here. Yeah. Oh, yeah, there always is in anything, you know, you just got to find the angles. And there are a lot, there are a lot of angles. But like I say, they had his own tight and I'm looking for to open it. Okay. Well, listen, you know, I really appreciate you giving us some time today to satisfy my Jim Rockford fantasies. Hey, hey, and Jim Rockford met a lot, all those my guys, right? So, yeah, you know, I'm ready. We're ready and able. Well, I'll tell you, Stephanie and I are going to give you a call. I appreciate that. And we're going to see if we can come up with a plan to make some things work. I like it. Okay. Well, that sounds great. I appreciate your time here, Christian. And I'm sure we'll talk to you again soon. Very soon. No doubt about it. Okay. I will for sure. You'd be good as well. Thank you, sir. Okay. So that is Christian Selden. And he is my modern day James Rockford. Now, hang on a second here. I just got to check with you a second, Joe. If you watch the Rockford files, I assume you have a couple of times it was never one of my favorites really, not one of your favorite. I was too busy going out and playing football and stuff with friends that was way back in the day. No, I understand you guys are all such babies. It's it's a real problem. But no, I always I always wonder about things like that. And I have to say, you know, that program was 40 years ago, which is to me very amazing. I was 10 years old. Yeah, there you go. 10 years old. Wow. Yeah. Same as as Christian here. And you know, so obviously Rockford, you know, James Garner died, you know, some time ago and was a phenomenal actor. And in his later years, you know, he did he did some great parts. What was the really excellent one that he did the come on? I got to go to the Google machine. That really makes me angry because I know the name, but just can't think of it. But I'm going to or I'm not going to, but my hang on, we're going to get it here. Oh, it's amazing. When you see when you see James Garner in his later years, it is unbelievable. We got notebook Maverick. Oh, the notebook. There you go. The notebook. That's it. That's it. That was that was a really big, excellent movie that still plays a lot. But he was older than when he made the notebook. Yeah. So very interesting. Oh, well, I don't know, you know, how many people out there at this point in time, even remember Garner, but I would expect some. But you know, that's another thing. Historical memory is very interesting because it's very short. Like, for example, just and I won't keep you on here, but let me ask you this. Do you remember Walter Cronkite? Of course. Okay. Well, you say, of course, I've come across lots of people. I mean, my parents watched TV and it was only one TV in the house. So when I wasn't playing with friends, we were all sitting around that. Sure. Well, no, I'm just saying there are a lot of people who do not remember Cronkite. Do not. And that's amazing because he was the person. In fact, he was considered the most trustworthy person in America for a very, very long time. So here's one more, which you might know, just because you're tied into all this media stuff. Edward R. Murrow. Well, that one, that one draws a blank. No. Okay. Well, that's interesting because Edward R. Murrow was really the first of all of the anchors in modern reporting, more modern news reporting. And there was a movie that came out about him not very long ago at all, which was his sign off at night, goodbye and good luck. And that was the movie. And when he did his broadcast, he always had a cigarette in his mouth. So that's the days when you could do that on television, which obviously wouldn't happen today. And yet what a, what an interesting character he was. And truly almost by himself, he took down Joseph McCarthy, which of course leads me back to my favorite subject. So I'll, I'll leave you alone now, Joe. I was just looking up Edward R. Murrow. Yeah. Yeah. Look him up. You'll, you'll like it. He's, he's very good. In fact, he and a guy named William Shirer were actually on radio reporting from Nazi Germany back in the 40s before Shirer, before more Murrow came to the United, came back to the United States and did the broadcast, the news broadcast in the evening. But Shirer, you may remember this book, wrote the rise and fall of the third Reich. And that was, you know, about a 12 or 1400 page book that I'm sure you're going to go home and read in one sitting. But it's actually a fabulous book. If, if I could get my kids at school to read it, I'd do it in 10 seconds. They take one look at that thing and they throw it right through the first plate glass they could find. But at any rate, that was William Shirer, who was also a great broadcaster and, and who broadcast from Nazi Germany during World War II. There's a lot of history out there. I can, I can say that. And, you know, I can also tell that I do everything I can to get the kids interested in, in, in this sort of thing, going back and looking at, at some of this, certainly the newspapers. But when you, when it comes down to somebody like Shirer or, or Edward R. Murrow, you're talking about the real pioneers in the business that we're all involved in. You know, when, when, when Vic gets on in the morning and when I come on here in the, in the evening, and when we all think about all the things that we did and look Vic for all those years was, you know, anchor on channel two, hey, that's in the footsteps of Edward R. Murrow. That's, you know, and, and even Cronkite was in the footsteps of Murrow. So, you know, it's an interesting proposition that we're all involved in because, again, I, I have a feeling that if I had Vic here, I could probably get him going for a long time talking about how he feels about those old days because that's right in his wheelhouse for sure. Anyway, let's get in my wheelhouse for the moment, which I'm going to surprise you. It's not Trump. It's getting something great to eat. And that's talking about Ben over at Wenties. So let's go to Wenties. Wenties is at 18,000 Chesterfield Airport Road and they have wonderful food. I mean, fabulous food. They've got, you know, what I love, which is the hamburgers and the patty melts, that kind of thing. I love it. That's really good for me. But they also have smoked meats. They have pizza. They have wings. They've got everything. They really do. The pizza's excellent. The, the, the baby back ribs are unbelievable. And that's, again, one of my favorites. Of course, that, you know, barbecue sauce has got a couple of calories in it. But anyway, it's all good food at a great place over at Wenties where you can find Ben all the time. And, and that's just the sign of a great business is when the owner is there and you can find Ben there because he's a great owner, great restaurant, great food. That's Wenties, 18,000 Chesterfield Airport Road. Now, when it comes to jewelry, you can go to 4506 Hampton and get great jewelry, buy and sell coins, buy and sell jewelry, everything. And at great prices for, for the people that come in and Al, who is the owner and on site all the time, I've never walked in and Al wasn't there. He's always there with his son AJ. And they, they do great business. It's, it's always jammed. Uh, I, I think I've found that if you, if you go there at about 10 in the morning, especially I know on Friday, you can get a hold of Al. Now, he's usually working, but the people aren't lined up the way they are at other times. There's lots of parking there. It's a great place to, to do business with Jules and Jules on Hampton is the name of the, the, the company and they just do great business in jewelry and, and people love it in St. Louis. I mean, they've been here for a long time. They do a great job. They're well known and they would, they, you know, Al would appreciate you coming to see him. That's for sure. Jules on Hampton, 4506 Hampton. And finally, you know, me, when it comes to the suits, I love my suits. And here I am with one of my favorite suits. And this is from the St. Louis suit company on the corner of Forsyth and central in Clayton. And again, great businesses have the owners on site. And I can tell you that any day you go in, you're going to come across J and his son Nick and they are, they're going to do anything for you. They're going to take you all over, show you everything they've got. And it is excellent. They're running out of the, the seer sucker suits. So I'm not so sure how, how that would go if you're looking for that. But, but there's still some left. So, you know, go check them out. Central and Forsyth. And that is the St. Louis suit company in Clayton. They have been there for 29 years. So they're doing something right. And they'll say a ties, not for $50 like that broke guy who can't get a loan for a lousy $500 million bucks. Not like him. Now these people are real. They're substantial. And they'll take care of you. They'll sell you a tie for $5 and it's a silk tie and it's gorgeous, you know, really nice prints. I can promise you you could buy the same tie from Donald for 50 bucks. He's probably got them all laying under the, the seat of his car somewhere. But, but he'll, he'll, he'd sell you one for 50 Donald would, but it wouldn't help him because he needs $500 million and he hasn't got it. And 30 companies, 30 shorty companies have said, sorry, pal, no money for you. And the bottom line is is they don't do that unless they feel that the risk is way too high. But hey, Donald will still say a $50 tie or you can go to the St. Louis suit company. You won't have to worry about being choked or anything. And that's the St. Louis suit company. They'll say the ties and they'll say the suits. They've got everything, even nice hats too. St. Louis suit company, Forsyth and central in Clayton check them out. Okay, so you can see that I am quite enthused about today's news, which is that Donald can't get any money. And you know, the reason that I am enthused is not because I like to see people suffer. Although I do want to see him suffer. And look, only for one reason, because he's endangering the democracy that we've had for 240 years. That's all. If he'll stop doing that, I'll wish him the best luck you could imagine. I'll hope that he gets through all of his trials without any trouble. I'll hope that he gets a nice job raking leaves out in the forest in California with or without an ankle bracelet. Doesn't matter to me. I just don't want him destroying our democracy. I like what we've got. I mean, I'm happy arguing with people on the other side. I don't mind somebody that disagrees. But I do mind somebody who's stealing the country blind and lying to people, which as we all know, has driven 800 people into jail cells where, as you know, over the weekend, you may know, actually you're better off if you don't know, but at the rally over the weekend, Donald had his best friends, all 800 criminals singing the national anthem as Donald sat there and directed it all. Oh, and I know he gave his little salute. Gee, wasn't that precious? Anyway, that's actually nothing compared to what he did after that. Because when that was over, and perhaps you've seen all this, but you know, I won't spend too much time with it, but you probably know that he did several things. For example, he predicted that if he were not the president of the United States in eight months, that there would be a bloodbath in the United States. Now, I know there are people out here after he said all of that, which by the way, you know, he started off and he mentioned something about the automobile industry. And he said it would be a bloodbath. And then he said, but this is the least of it. And he said, and then he emphasized the bloodbath is coming and the least of it was the automobile industry that there was much more. In addition to that, no, his people are saying, oh, no, no, you don't understand. He didn't mean that. No, he was just saying that it would be a figurative economic bloodbath. Well, that's what he does every single time. He says things which are horrific, and then he walks them back sort of, and at the same time, winks at his white supremacist buddies. And, you know, everybody's supposed to jump up and down and clap like a seal. But honestly, Donald has some very dark ideas planned for the United States of America. Now, listen, I've said many times he's not going to get a chance to do any of this. I am so positive of this. He won't be the president. Oh, no, I'm sorry. I always make that mistake. He will be the president but he'll be the president of the prisoners association, not of the United States of America. And, you know, in addition to the bloodbath story, he had some other, you know, really very, you know, clever things to say, like, for example, if the United States doesn't elect him, then it'll be the end of the United States that that's it, that he must be elected, period, or else, you know, I love his or else's, you know, he's given this country so many or else's, but, you know, none of them have ever happened. He's promised this time, for example, that he will get this. He will give us the biggest period of deportation in the history of the United States. And we're all supposed to be excited about that because he's going to deport people who he says are not human beings, that they are animals. Again, these are all his words. A few weeks ago, he was describing them as vermin. Now they're animals. And I hate to tell you, but, you know, there is somewhere you can go in order to get this language. This is not something that Donald just made up himself. Now he didn't come up with this idea. He got it directly from the man who he read speeches from before he went to bed at night, according to his wife. None other than Adolf Hitler. I mean, that's who use this language, calling people animals, calling them not human, saying that they're vermin. I'm telling you, this is all 100% directly out of Adolf Hitler. And we don't even have to guess because we know that John Kelly has told us that Donald told him that he admired Hitler, that Hitler did some great things. So, listen, you can either believe Kelly or you can believe your ears. Believe what you hear, because the language that's being used all the way to where the guy talks about the blood of America being poisoned by immigrants coming from Africa. Wow. And if you don't believe he's saying it, please go to YouTube and pull it up. It's right there. You can hear every last word of it. It's all Hitler-esque language, which I don't know, he got it somewhere. He says that he doesn't know anything about Hitler. Never heard of the guy, sort of like he never heard of anybody. You go back to some of the people who he never heard of, all these people who work for him. He never heard of these people. Well, anyway, suddenly, things seem to change for him. And in this case, the change is that he's just gone straight to the language. Every bit of it, it's Hitler morning, noon, and night. That's what we get to listen to. So, hey, that's what's going on. And that's where we are. In the meantime, Ukraine is looking for $60 billion worth of ammunition. And while they're looking, people are dying. Ukrainian people are dying. And there are a lot of ways to look at this. One way is that the United States promised Ukraine that we would take care of them. And the reason that we promised them, I mean, it wasn't just out of the goodness of our hearts. We did it because at the end of the Soviet Union, there were 1,400 nuclear weapons sitting in Ukraine. And the Ukrainian authorities had no idea what to do with those weapons. None whatsoever. They just didn't know. So what they did is they got with the United States. The United States said, we will take these weapons off your hands. We know what to do with them. We will dismantle them safely. And you won't even have to bother with any of this. And don't worry about it because in the future, if you allow us to do this to make your home safe, well, we'll keep you safe. We promise that if anything comes up, we're going to protect you. So you don't need nuclear weapons because you've got us. That's the promise. Now, I understand we could all sit here today and say that promise was 33 years ago. How long are we going to keep our word on this bargain? And it could be that somebody would think that, you know, we've done enough, although in the last 10 years, Vladimir Putin has been all over that place. And if not for us, they wouldn't exist now in back in 2014, they'd have been gone. But in the meantime, we have protected them. And this time, we've been protecting them with weapons, with ammunition, with airplanes, with drones, everything they need artillery, everything they need to keep Russia at bay until recently. And you know, they were beginning to actually go into Russia. They were, you know, dropping a few things on Russia, which a lot of people were a little worried about because they thought, you know, what, what would Putin do if this sort of thing continued? Well, first of all, so far it hasn't continued only because they don't have the weapons. But in case you haven't had a chance to read the news today, Putin says that in the wake of his victory, his 87% victory in the Russian election, which we all know is nonsense. It's not true. It's not a real election. I know Donald thinks our elections aren't real, but I can tell you right now, 87% for Vladimir Putin, you know, after he's killed certain people and threatened others. But anyway, 87%, that's undoubtedly not a real number. But he says that in the wake of his victory, his great victory, that he's prepared to rein nuclear weapons down on the United States, that he's coming to get us, that he's ready to do it, that the nuclear war, third war war, nuclear weapons leading the way, according to him, he's ready to do it. He's not saying maybe he's saying World War three is coming. Here we go. He says, I'm going to do it. So I'm amazed. First of all, personally, I'm not afraid because I don't think he will. But no one seems to be afraid. And I mean, this man is telling everybody in no uncertain terms that he's prepared to drop those bombs, those gigantic 50 megaton hydrogen bombs. And if you don't know what they look like, go spend $3 and wrench yourself a little space on Amazon tonight. And you can watch Dr. Strangelove. And then you can watch that great scene at the end where first Slim Pickens rides the bomb down to the target. And then after that, you get a short couple of scenes with Dr. Strangelove. And then you see hydrogen bombs dropping everywhere to the sweet music. And I can tell you that Putin promises that that's what he's going to do. And you know, you may remember the great scenes in the movie where the ambassador from the Soviet Union is discussing with the president and with George C. Scott. And then they get in a little tussle. And the president, of course, Peter Sellers says, gentlemen, you can't do this. We can't fight like this in the war room. So, you know, yeah, it was funny back in those days. Today, nobody even cares. Nobody's even worried. It's not even on anybody's mind. You don't have to worry about starting to love the bomb. It's most people figure, this is never going to happen. I don't think it's going to happen. And I'll tell you why. I don't think so. So I think Vladimir might do it if he could. I think he would consider it. But the problem is this. He works with some people. And no matter how crazy he might be, some people say he's not crazy that he's actually smart. I don't know. I think he's crazy because when you talk like this, you got to be crazy. But in the meantime, these people who work with them, they got families. They don't want to die. I think if they got the slightest hint that Putin was ready to start World War three, they would know it's the end for everybody. Nobody will survive it, not Putin, not anybody. So I think that what they would do is they would step up and grab the guy and end it. You know, there's no button, by the way. I mean, it's not like there's a button, but there's a process. And I think that they would short circuit the process. And it would never get anywhere. So I just don't think that there are going to be any nuclear weapons raining down on the United States. But I think the fact that the man is saying this, that's, that's trouble. That's, that's not good. And, and really, when you think about what we're going through here, I think you can realize, or you should, that this is one and the same. You know, you've got a crazy man, probably mentally ill, talking this way in Russia. And then you've got the equivalent right here in the United States, which is Donald. And, and I suspect I've said this all along. And I think if you read the Mueller report, you'll know that after 144 meetings that were illegal with the Russians, that this guy's not playing around. He's in business with, with Vladimir. I know there's some people who think that, that Trump might be running Putin, but I doubt it. Putin's a very wealthy man, perhaps the wealthiest man in the world. He's stolen at all from his country. And I can tell you that that is, I guarantee you what Donald would like to do. And remember, 30 different charity companies have said, can't give this guy any money. Can't give him anything. And if they can't give him 500 million dollars, that means that Donald hasn't got any money. The only place I can imagine where he has to go, where he could get some, some money that would satisfy the courts so that the appeal could go forward, that's very simple. That's very simple. That would have to be from Vladimir Putin. I can't imagine anybody in the United States, not Chase Bank, not, you go to Germany, not Deutsche Bank, none of these people want to turn money over to Donald Trump. For what? To lose it? A half a billion dollars on the possibility he could get elected? They know that they know that there's no certainty that Donald's just walking into the White House. I mean, if Donald's convinced people that that's what he's doing. And he may have convinced millions of Americans of that. And I'm sorry that they've gone for this nonsense. This is snake oil sales. And I understand people buy snake oil. It's just, it's worked for a long time and it works for Trump. But I'm just telling you, nobody in these banks is buying into any of this. They do not want their money down the tubes. And even if they could afford a half a billion dollar loss, they don't want to have to go to their depositors and their big stockholders. They don't want to go to those people in six months or a year and say, sorry, half a billion. No, because they'll all end up out of a job because no one's going to say it's okay to just give Donald Trump money without some kind of protection. And I am telling you those buildings of his, I would bet anything that they are encumbered by loans that probably have him so far underwater. Like I've always said to many of my friends, we all are probably more wealthy when it comes to total net worth than Donald Trump, because I believe and we're going to find out in six days, we're going to find out a lot about what this guy really has. And I suspect that it's not going to be very much. Now, a couple other things flying around here besides Donald, you know, I don't want to put it all on him, although there certainly is a lot that ought to be considered with him. But, you know, one of the things that I saw on the paper over the weekend was the maternal death rate in Missouri. And, you know, we've got a real problem. And Stephanie, I've talked about this just in the last few weeks, that, you know, black women die three times what white women do in childbirth in the United States. It's not good. And it's something that we really need to address very seriously. Well, the front page article in the post over the weekend was all about the enormous death rate among Missourians, and this is white and black, we're number 44 in the country out of 50 states, of course, which, you know, puts us, you know, right at the bottom in terms of this high death rate of mothers who are trying to have children here in Missouri. So, you know, what that what was said in our case is that our government wants to spend $4 million to try to fix the problem. And somehow I just don't think that $4 million really even scratches the surface on what's going on here in our health care system that allows for, you know, this terrible result for mothers who are trying to have children. So, I think that we have to get really serious about it. I've talked about this for many years. And I'm going to keep talking about it. And I just hope that we get more serious than $4 million. It won't do much at all. And it will only just lead people to think that we're trying. And I don't even think 4 million amounts to trying. So, we'll see on that. And I think I've got some people that are going to come and talk about that here in the not too distant future. We'll see how that goes. There's another thing that's going on out here too. And I really want to end with this. And this is this Operation 2025, which is a Republican idea for wiping out all of the agencies within our government and firing all the civil service workers. And we're talking about tens of thousands of people. And the reason they want to do it is, well, because they're ill, because our country works based on all of these tens of thousands of people. And anybody that's thinking about a deep state has got a deep mental problem. Because the truth is, when Donald says, I alone can do it, the truth is, he alone wasn't able to do anything in 4 years, except for so chaos in the country. And right now, we need to look at this and think about our very, very significant agencies that do very important things for us. And with that in mind, let's not forget that Friday, there is a threatened government shutdown, which Donald and his government friends are promoting. This is what they want. They want the government to shut down on Friday, everything from health and human services to the defense department to all these different areas that protect our country every single day. And they want to shut it all down. Like I say, it's not just a shutdown on Friday. It's tied in with this Operation 2025 idea. And, you know, don't miss the point next year is 2025. This is their idea. They think they're going to shut all these things down. They're going to fire everybody. And then what are they going to do? They're going to bring their friends back to work for the government with Donald thinking that his friends will be loyal to him. And perhaps in the next government, they would have been if Donald ever got a chance to get near those, those levers of power one more time. But I can pretty much assure you, that's not going to happen. It's not going to happen in our lifetimes. And it's not going to happen the same way that the missiles are not going to rain down on us from Russia. It's all going to be good. And it'll be good tomorrow when we get back here at four o'clock. We've got some interesting people coming to talk to you tomorrow and all week. We've got some Cardinals discussion later in the week. Remember, when he's remember the St. Louis suit company and remember, Jules on Hampton. I'm Mark casein. This is showdown. Good night.