The Sunday Take

John Croman on retiring from covering politics at KARE 11!

News broke recently that long time political expert over at KARE 11, John Croman was calling it a career and he joined Blois on the Sunday Take to recap his career in television covering politics and what is his next chapter! Also what are some of the interesting political conversations you had at the Thanksgiving table this past week and Blois shares today's take!

Duration:: 46m
Broadcast on:: 01 Dec 2024
Audio Format:: other

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With in-person and telehealth appointments available, we can get you seen in as little as 48 hours to make things easier, Mindful Therapy Group accepts most health insurances, including Medicare, allowing you to focus on you and not your wallet. At Mindful Therapy Group.com to start your mental health journey today. Good morning and welcome to the Sunday Take for December 1st, 2024. I am your host, Bloise Olson. I will apologize now for my voice. I am battling a little bit of the crud, but it appears that everybody is. And I have some thoughts and theories about many of these things. And so, you might just get a little take on life around the holidays for me right off the bat here. First and foremost, I am now officially against late fall being warm. Because this abrupt winter that we've just experienced is not very much fun. It went from great to pretty good to damn awful cold in like a day. And it was a little bit of shock to the system, I'm not going to lie. And so, I just want to say, I'd like our old climate back, a gradual move into winter. And if it's going to be this cold, damn it, I want snow. The second thing is, I get sick maybe once a year. It is always sometime post-election pre-Christmas. I take all the airborne, all the vitamins to stay healthy through the election. And truth be told, I kind of let up last week. I like forgot to take my airborne, my vitamin a couple days. I got on a plane, I went to a crowded hockey game or two or three, and then I got it cold. So I think the next time we invent some sort of pharmaceutical solution for the world, it should be a lifelong immunity vitamin. And I know you're going to tell me we're fighting these things, they'll just morph and be there, but I'd just like to say that. I will say I did plan on taking some naps this weekend, and I got three of them in yesterday, which was pretty awesome. And Josh, I know you've been grinding it out here for the holidays, so you probably don't wanna hear that I got three naps yesterday. - I love naps. I am a, I am, I am pro big naps, that's what I am. It's weird being a 32 year old that takes naps, but-- - Oh, no, no, no, no, no, don't worry about it. - You know, here's the truth of the matter. Sleep is critical. And you and I, for different reasons, but the same theory, don't sleep much in long stretches. It's both for work, but different theories. You have a different schedule, I have a different schedule. Here's the deal. You are allowed naps at any age, and if you work our schedules, you are allowed double the naps at any age. - Yeah. - I honestly, I catch up on the weekends. Everybody kind of knows that. And my kids call them dad naps, and they're awesome. I also think that I've modeled the snapping behavior for my children, which will, again, be one of the great things that I provided them over time, is the wisdom to nap. - You're a giver. - I am a giver. - You are. Speaking of giving, it's been Thanksgiving. And it is one of my favorite, I think it's my favorite holiday, time. And it is because it's food, football, relaxing, a little retail. It has all the good things. I got to see both my kids. Flew to see one of them, flew home, the other one knows home, and it's just a, it's a soaked up family time. And to me, it's similar to the Fourth of July, when there's no agenda, you can just do what you want to do. And so, as you think about Thanksgiving, I'd like to hear about your Thanksgiving table politics stories. Is there a good story, 651-461-9226, send us a text. Let us know. We'll take your calls later in the show. But if you have a good story, you want to text it, 651-461-9226. I feel like it would be awesome to hear your story and see what Uncle Louie said at the table, or auntie Shirley. Maybe it was cousin Joe, who set off the table conversation and how bad was it? I did advise not to talk politics, but I also know that not everybody took my public service announcement as gospel. And so, I just, I want to be clear that if you had a politically charged Thanksgiving dinner, and mashed potatoes and stuffing flew across the room, or relatives might not talk for another year, I want to hear about it, 651-461-9226. Send us a text, let us know your story. And if it wasn't, if there were no incidents, either because people minded their P's and Q's, or your whole family gets along and agrees on everything, more power to you, God bless you. But that's not what I've heard from some friends and family who had some interesting moments where you get a little libation going, and somebody just decides to drop one comment, and it's like a tinderbox of family fun. - Yes, yes. Do they get bonus points if they say in their story that I heard this on the morning take with Vanita? - They do, they get a free coffee mug when they come out later this year, early next year. But yeah, no, no, no, we can have all the fun, we can have all the, but how was, what's your Thanksgiving story? Was there some good volatile politics? You know, there's one guy who, I think he's the calmest capital reporter I've ever met. And he's fun, and he's earnest, and he is a good man. Unfortunately for viewers, fortunately for him, he's retiring, and he's gonna be our first guest this week on the Sunday take. He is John Croman, and he'll join us after the break. I'm Blay Solson. This is the Raspy Six Sunday take on News Talk 830 WCCO. Welcome back to Sunday take. I'm your host, Blay Solson. Josh, it's not that beautiful out today. It's beautiful if you're listening to the show, and I appreciate that, and I know a guy who wakes up as optimistic as anyone every day with a beautiful morning is John Croman. But before we get to John, send me your texts about your Thanksgiving political talks, 651-4619226. I wanna see your thoughts. You're starting to roll in here, and they're gonna be pretty good. We'll cover them after we talk to you. I'm gonna call him the calmest, nicest capital reporter I've ever worked with. And that's John Croman from Carol Levin. John, thanks for joining me. - Hey, hey boys, thanks. I love the little rascal, so kudos to Josh for that bump music. - So, you know, I was thinking about the show yesterday, and I thought, you know, in this era, when media is scrutinized harsher than ever before, that experience in journalism, especially political journalism is really hard to find, that listeners would like to kind of understand from somebody who's around the Capitol, understands the Capitol, but, you know, you covered the Capitol for a long time, and as well as anyone, but you always struck me as somebody who found the unique angle, or a more fun way to tell people what was going on, whether you illustrate it in your stories or in social media. And I appreciate that, and congratulations on your career. I know you announced your retirement. I don't know if you heard this, but I was asking around, and I'm like, Carmen might be getting close to retirement, but I hadn't seen you, and I will tell you that people at your station kept it a pretty good secret, so there you go. - Well, yeah, they didn't really know until a couple of Fridays ago. And then they, I want to just kind of flip out the door quietly and say so long, talk to you later, but they insisted on having a get together in the newsroom, and people just letting me know how much they appreciated me, which kind of was overwhelming. I didn't expect the kind of response. So, yeah, it's a hard time to leave. It's still a tough decision to retire, because there's so much happening now in politics with the new Trump administration coming on, and the divided house over assuming it remains divided. We don't know how some of these core challenges will work out, but assuming we're going to have an equally divided house, it's going to lead to some just incredible dynamics over there, lessons in how people can get along, and all the big decisions being made in committees rather than on the floor possibly. So, yeah, there's a lot left to cover, but I just reached the point where it just seemed time to head to the exit. My first paying media gig was in 1979, while I was still in college at the University of Kansas. I worked for the local National Public Radio Affiliate covering city council. It doesn't really get more politics, it doesn't really get more local than a city council meeting in a college town. So, that's 45 years ago. So, it's been a wild ride, for sure. - John, let me just say, I want to, now this is serving two purposes. One is, what were the issues that you covered at that city council member? And, you know, with a student at the University of Kansas right now, I want to know what the politics of Lawrence were like in 1979. - Well, the city council meetings went on to like two in the morning sometimes. In fact, it was just almost just bizarre at times, but most of the issues were around land use. There are a lot of zoning battles because a lot of older Victorian homes and older neighborhoods were being mowed down and replaced with really ugly floor flexes. So, there was a big pushback on that. And there were also things like, you know, do we want to build a new city hall along the Kansas River by the Bowersaw Dam? Do you know, do you like that? Gay rights was actually already a very controversial issue at the time, whether or not you could deny housing to people who were gay. That was, you know, one of the issues in Knife Every Night, which seemed like a foregone conclusion now, but people were fighting about that. Smoking bans, bans on pit bulls, just all kinds of things were happening in Lawrence, Kansas in 1970, 1980. And, you know, because the elected leaders there were, a lot of them were University of Kansas professors. You had these really long philosophical debates that would seem to go on forever and ever. But you did learn a lot as a cup of water there. I learned a lot about things like onsite, water retention. (laughs) Joint utility trenches, no things that just, we don't really talk about it anymore, but things that are still like the kinds of issues that people will be up late at night fighting about when you're dealing with land developers and landscape architects and all that kind of stuff. So that's kind of what they were debating. On campus, you know, at the time, we had a lot of tension within the national students because it was kind of intersecting with the hostage crisis in Iran. So yeah, there were a lot of things to cover. In 1979 and 1980 at Lawrence, Kansas. You know, it's interesting, I have many comments on that, but just about kind of the era of campus protests and the cycles they go through. And obviously we're in another one right now due to another hostage issue crisis in the Middle East. You know, one of the things that I want to say, and I say this with a little tongue in cheek is, so you learned about long meetings till 2 a.m. And you still chose to cover politics, your whole career, John. 'Cause I talk to reporters that don't cover the Capitol and into my own world wonder, you know, would somebody want to cover the... And I feel like, and you've had plenty of colleagues from other stations and from your own station kind of passed through over time, is there a different mentality? You have to really be interested in the Capitol or covering politics to do it well for a long time. Is that what you've sensed with your colleagues over the years? Think about Castle, or think about Houser, think about La Hamer, all of them. They're there for a long time. - Right, right. Well, I mean, just as a reporter, being able to cover politics or just concentrate on one issue, any beat, say whether it's the crime beat, education beat, political beat, being a beat reporter gets you, spares you some of the road trips to go respond to floods and tornadoes and things like that, which is usually how I learn other parts of the state is responding to natural disasters. But it also spares you the television, kind of the formula in television where someone loses a child, you knock on their door and you ask them, you know, how do they feel about that, which you know how they're gonna feel. So you've got that. But I think once you start covering politics, you kind of get kind of into the rhythm of what people are saying, what they're doing, what they're trying to do. You pick up kind of on their lingo, 'cause when you first get to the Capitol beat, it's almost like they're speaking a foreign language. You know, they talk at acronyms, they instead of saying how much is this bill gonna cost, they say what's the fiscal note? - Yep. - So they'll talk about LCCMR and you gotta figure out, okay, is this the lottery money versus the cultural sales tax money? You gotta figure out all this stuff. So I think one of the things too that once you get to the Capitol beat, you realize how long their days are. The lawmakers days are, you know, they're getting up, but you know, they're getting the meeting sometimes at seven in the morning and then they're there, you know, tomorrow night, especially toward the end of the session. So they're putting in really long hours and you kind of gain appreciation for how much time they devote to what is supposed to be a part-time job, you know, citizen lawmaker model in Minnesota. So, so all that goes into it and yeah, and you're also, you're competing with your competitors, your customers, your houses, your family members. But at the same time, there's also some camaraderie there because you're, at the same time you're covering the news, you're also trying to justify it to your own management that the beach should exist. 'Cause there's a lot of pressure in the media now to cut costs into like streamlining. It'd be easy just for a reporter to read about an issue in the Star Tribune or the Pioneer Press and go over there for one day, cover the story, which still happens, you know, people kind of parachute in, but it takes an investment to actually leave somebody there all the time, you know, in reporting out of there four or five days a week, takes an investment 'cause that's an opportunity cost for the station. They might rather have you cover something else, you know, like what's the latest trend in puppy grooming? (laughing) That's extreme example, but you know what I'm saying. I do. Did you have to cover puppy grooming? I crumbed. (laughing) Okay, I just wanted to make sure 'cause I want to know who that news director was who thought the latest trend in puppy grooming. No, I have had to do a lot of product testing stories over my career. Some of them get involved dogs for the most part, no puppy groomers on my recipe tape. As you've watched Minnesota politics change shift evolve through, you know, Governor Walz being nominated to be vice president. What are some things that you think listeners should pay attention to in the way Minnesota is covered? And I will say this, compared to other states, Minnesota still has a very robust political beat where there's multiple reporters covering. Access has changed and transparency has shifted, but we still have a robust team trying to bring news and transparency to government. What have you seen shift? And if you, you know, what are you gonna be watching for now that you're retired to see how it evolves over the next couple of years? Well, first of all, I'll second year of notion that we have a robust coverage of the press here, of the Capitol here. I remember we had a news director, a couple news directors ago. He's now in Houston, but he got here from St. Louis in one of the first conversations I had with him. As he said, I've worked at six TV stations and none of them had a political reporter. I don't know what you do. That's a direct-- - Wow. - Yeah, and he'd come here from, he'd been in some Texas markets and he'd been in St. Louis and came here. So that got through me back as I'm like, okay, how am I gonna justify my existence to this guy? So a good guy, but he just had never been in a TV station that had a full-time political reporter. So having said that, Minnesota's are lucky that they care, that the stations here, we have bureaus at the Capitol. Most of us can file from the Capitol, we don't have to go back to the station, stuff, things like that. So, but I think what people should be looking for is whether the parties look for common ground because especially in the election season and you're trying to, you're always, especially with these two-year terms in the House, you're always trying to get reelected or if you're the party that's not in power, you're trying to get back into power. And so a lot of times you'll see people kind of go for the hot butt issues and there'll be a lot of politics of grievance, a lot of politics of feeling like we're not being treated fairly by the other party and all that stuff. But hopefully what you'll see now is that people will start just to concentrate more on the kind of the core issues. Minnesota, constitutionally we can't run the deficit. We've got to pass a balanced budget. So, there's always that and that's what sends us into special session when usually in the years of the United Government. And that's why we'll take things to the deadline and then go past the deadline. So hopefully what we've got now this dynamic with a equally divided House is that we'll see less of just kind of the partisan bickering and more of people just trying to figure out how to get on the same page. I mean, that may be difficult because Senator Tom Buck and others have pointed out that the reason you have such extremes now and the legislative bodies is because from the very basic political unit, the precinct level politics, the people that get endorsed are generally on the outer edges. They're not necessarily fringe, but they're more hardcore believers in what their party's trying to do. So you end up with people being elected in the end who aren't really moderates. Most of them are either far left or far right. So people like Dean Erdol, he called himself an Eisenhower Republican and he's one of the people who's leaving. There are fewer people like that around. You have more people who are, I don't want to say they're ideologues, but a lot of their motivation is ideological. And so that makes it harder to work on this group project that includes 201 lawmakers. - I think that's well said, as a group project of 201 lawmakers, anybody who's done a group project in school or elsewhere knows, getting all members of the group to participate is one hurdle, then getting them to participate equally is another hurdle. And then actually completing the project is another hurdle. I'm talking with John Croman. He's been Carol Levin's political reporter for a couple of decades. He's announced his retirement. And I think it's important in this era when people are constantly, and the data shows that there is an erosion and trust in media. John, when I think about your style and your approach, when there would be a budget story or a complex issue, you seem to bring a little different view of it. What kind of feedback did you get from news directors, from viewers about maybe not always covering it as just, you know, here's the story. I'm gonna, you know, this is what you need to know, but rather use creative illustrations, use social media. You seem to have some even more liberty in the way you explain your stories. What was the reaction from folks? - Well, I'm getting some of that now that I'm leaving. (laughing) - I'm never afraid to say something before, John. (laughing) - It's interesting, I mean, with social media, you can kind of get wackier. And I tended to take phrases that you heard over and over again and turn them into songs, just because it's just, sometimes just same funny. These long debates that were really, you know, in Minnesota, the way you fill a buster is you just offer endless amendments. And there were some bills where we had, you know, you started out at the very beginning of the debate with 98, 99 different amendments at the desk. Each amendment has to be debated and voted on separately. And then each debate, many debate within the debate includes rules, challenges that then have to be ruled on by the speaker or the speaker pro tem. So these things just like drag out forever. And so it just wasn't amusing to me. So I made a little song call, there's an amendment at the desk. - Yeah. It's just, you know, the reaction I've gotten for some people is that they like it because it just shows that even though I'm dealing with serious business, I'm not like taking myself too seriously. And I'm also poking a little fun at the traditions too and just how, you know, some of these things are just baked in to the legislative process. You know, they just have to do things a certain way. They have rules, but it just, it kind of seems counter to like the way that normal people interact, you know, conversationally like, why don't we do this? You know, everything has to be structured around, you know, kind of this parliamentary, you know, Robert's rules or whatever, you know. So yeah, it's just, you know, I don't know if it's born from, you know, if it's just from boredom or whatever. But you know, if I hear them say we're under recess until a call of a chair, immediately in my mind, I think of a office chair holding a phone, making a call, you know, that kind of stuff. It's just the language they use, sometimes they find amusing. And so I've kind of like poked a little fun at that, but in a good nature way. I mean, I understand they have really difficult jobs and there's a lot to go that goes into it, but every now and then it just helps to break things down into conversational language because as I said earlier, you know, they speak in different, they kind of speak into different language just because of the way the process is laid out. So yeah, so that's kind of what I tried to do, is just have a little fun with it, but at the same time, get the message across. And the stuff that we've done on there, we've just tried to break down issues so that they're, you know, very conversational 'cause I've discovered sometimes that when I try to pitch a story, you know, my supervisors don't understand why it's news. And so I have to like break it down sometimes for them to say, here's why it's news. And so then I'm thinking that if they're having trouble understanding why it's a story, the viewers are also gonna have trouble 'cause, you know, in television and radio, it goes by once. It's not like you can grab it, reread it or rewatch it. Well, now you can't with DVR, but traditionally you're writing for the ears and you're trying to make sure they understood it on the first pass, you know? So I've tried to break things down to pretty simple terms, even though, you know, some people think it's overly simplistic, but sometimes you have to be overly simplistic just to help people understand why it's an issue. No, I think that's important. And I think it's even more important now that we oversimplify because people get so much information from other places that being interested, being engaged, keeping frankly politics interesting or engageable, I think is one of the important things because you know, John, as well as I do, that preconceived opinions, personalities, memes drive what many people think now and they have reaction. And I can even see it on the text line right now is people having a preconceived notion of something. And I go back to one of my favorite memes of my 30 years doing this is, that came out this year in the middle of the year when Biden had pulled out Trump assassination attempt number one and it was, you know, the bill and the boy sitting on the Capitol steps and there's no song to explain this beep. And I thought, you know, that's a lot of what we do and I think so making it accessible. John, as you have wound down here, what's next? What do you, I know you have a fun life outside of covering politics. What are you gonna spend more time doing now that you're tired? - Tom, you know, I haven't really made any hard decisions. I'm just kind of giving my brain a break. I already had the last week off is vacation, PTO. So it doesn't really feel real yet. I'm gonna do more reading. I'm gonna do more hiking and things like that. You know, my wife and son still work and, you know, I grew up in Kansas and I just assumed that I'd go back to Kansas when I retired but I doubt I don't think that's necessarily in the cards. I'll get to visit Kansas more because I'll have to be able to have more freedom to travel. So I know I'll probably see some of my long lost siblings. I have seven siblings spread across. So I'll get to see my family more. I'll get to see my wife's family more because I'll have that flexibility. But I haven't really made any plans in terms of whether I wanna do something, you know, public facing or just kind of, you know, be quiet and be in the background for awhile. - That makes sense. Well, I just wanna thank you for always being a good person to work with, whether I was working with a client pitching you a story or we were talking about a story for our content side. John, I appreciate it. Your grace and humility is among the top I've ever worked with in the last 27 years. You and I have been around about the same amount of time. So I appreciate that. - Well, boys, I've always said that I'm not important. Personally, being in TV news does not make me important, but what I do is important. Journalism is important, it still matters. We're hearing a lot now about how we don't matter anymore, but we do, journalists do matter. And somebody needs to cover these stories and somebody needs to do it in an even handed way and that's the goal. People may not always agree with the story we're telling or the news we're sharing, but our job is to make sure that we don't insert our own personalities into it and that we don't insert our own opinions to it. And so I've tried my best not to insert my opinion just to relay the news. And I think people still benefit from hearing real news from an independent source. - John, be well, we'll talk down the line. - All right, thank you, boys. Appreciate it. And I appreciate you too very much. Thank you. - Thank you. This is Blyce Olson. This is the Sunday take. That was John Croman, the retiring Care 11 reporter after 27 years at Care 11. One of the most decent and human reporters I've come across in those 27 years and I appreciate his work and I appreciate him as a person. But we're still ready to take your Thanksgiving story. 651-4619226. Send your Thanksgiving political stories. One of them is only subtleties heard like someone referencing not buying Bud Light, but no one took the bait. Ha, I'd love to hear your stories. 651-4619226. And if you have the last four digits, 6387 and you want to talk about Minnesota's reporters, feel free to give us a call, 651-4619226. You know, I'm feeling a little squirrely with this cold today, so we could have a fun little chat. I'm Blyce Olson, you're listening to Sunday Take, a new Stock 830-WCCO. Welcome back to Sunday Take. Blyce Olson here on a balmy, sunny Sunday. Be a great day to watch the Vikings on your couch or at U.S. Bank Stadium. Big win for the wild last night. The huddles up after me. Pete is vigorously preparing for this show. You should see the reams of paper. He brings in to talk about the stat analysis, all the data, it's pretty overwhelming. It makes me feel underprepared for the show. You can stop giggling right now. It's all good. No, but your texts are coming in about your Thanksgiving dinner, 651-46126. The one I read before the break, subtlety, someone referencing not buying Bud Light, but nobody took it. Someone says they didn't want to watch football because they didn't want to see players do the Trump dance. And then the same person texted in, Minnesota is so lucky to have so many leftist reporters. I call in. I'm up for a little scrap this morning. Let's talk about all the leftist reporters to cover the Capitol. Since I know most of them, I'd love to hear what you think qualifies as a leftist reporter. And I will say this. I think that in a new era of President-elect Trump, that the scrutiny that the media receives is sometimes very worth it and valid. But I think closer to home, you cannot believe everything you read on X or Twitter. I put out a tweet yesterday simply about the Minneapolis mayor's race and a new candidate that we'll talk about in a minute announcing on Monday. And someone's like, will anyone ask any hard questions? You know, will you as anonymous Twitter person? Put your name out there every day. Put your name on your work every day. Put your name on your tweets. We do, I do. No matter what you think, we put our name out there. We do our jobs and you can choose to read, you can choose to listen, but we put our name on our work every single day. And we don't wake up with some sort of bias or feeling. In fact, if anything, I've been accused of being too critical of Governor Walz and listeners of this station know that. So let's make a pivot and we'll try to make this smooth. You know, it's Thanksgiving. We've just been through an election. We have an inauguration coming up. So now is the time to talk about the 2025 Minneapolis mayor's race. So on Monday, Senator Omar Fatah is largely expected to announce that he is running for mayor. This is a senator who has had several ethics questions in the legislature is a former campaign official charged and found guilty of a federal crime related to campaign violations. He had multiple donors as part of feeding our future that he had to return donations from. But I think more importantly, what listeners need to know is that Omar Fatah was the one who decided to camp out, hold the Senate hostage last spring over the Uber bill. Full transparency, Uber is a client of mine. But if I elevate about that in a 33-34 Senate where Democrats are in control, one member has the ability to do that. DFLers had largely avoided having one Senator hold out. But last spring, Senator Omar Fatah did that. He did that. Maybe some could see that as an act of courage. Some could see it as defiance. But ultimately, it meant that there wasn't a bonding bill. It meant that the chaos at the end of the session happened. And now Senator Fatah is going to run for mayor. The Minneapolis mayor's race is gonna be one of the most watched next year. It's gonna be very close to a pitical pivot point in the city. Mayor Fry is expected to announce soon he is running. Council member Koski also expected to run. Could be a crowded race. But more importantly is what's at stake in all 13 city council seats are also up. And so when you have a mayor's race, similar to when you have a presidential race, you'll have more turnout. And so we'll watch this race closely. We'll talk about it on the morning take with Vinita at 6/20, Monday through Thursday. We'll write about it in the newsletters and we'll go from there. So just behold, look at that and find it's going to be the thing to watch. In St. Paul as well, you have all seven council races up and mayor Carter expected to run for reelection. And a lot of people have criticisms of these mayors and they're right in some of the critiques of the leadership of the council and these mayors and these cities. But with the declining commercial tax base, rising residential property taxes, still police forces that aren't at full throttle. We need to be kind of watching these cities 'cause they are the economic engines. When we come back, this week's take, full of stuffing and turkey, hopefully it's legendary. I'm bless also and this is Sunday take. We're back on the Sunday take. I hope you got some rest over this Thanksgiving weekend. I think we all needed some rest. And based on some of your texts coming in, there weren't as many blowout mashed potato tossing political battles at the tables, which hopefully is good for your family and America. Remember eight years ago when people couldn't talk about it or four years ago post-pandemic? I am finding a calming in the world amongst those who talk politics. I traveled a little over these last few days. And with the exception of people who are very activist minded, people are content and not talking about politics. And I think that was part of what happened during the election. The reality is that politics has become so toxic that people don't wanna talk about it. They just wanna vote. They feel like they have to keep their opinions to themselves. They don't wanna offend. And I take that as a good sign that we're maturing in this time of multi-level polarization. Whether you're on the left or the right or in the middle, you just wanna live life. So as we go through these holiday seasons, I think that more people are choosing that route. I took that from people I talked to about their thanksgivings, that families just came together. There wasn't worries about who was vaxed and who wasn't. There wasn't worries about who voted for who. But people I think after the last four years are soaking up family more and more. 'Cause if you, even if you disagree with your family, there is a way to just soak up family and know what they're there. That's what I think Thanksgiving's about. And I think that's what we should extend and make your bubble as you have for the last couple of years, make your bubble expanded a little more. Bring some more grace to it. 'Cause we can use more grace, especially during this time of year. Whether you're stuck in line at a retailer or your FedEx or Amazon delivery is a day late and a dollar short or a dollar more. Just to have a little grace. I will say this though. That 50% delivery fee on every delivery in Minnesota now is gonna add up this Christmas. And so as you go in the legislature and you want them to repeal some things that are costing you money, I noticed a lot of national retailers are calling out that 50 cent delivery fee every single time I place an order. It's just one little pet peeve, but I'll find grace about it. I'll be with Vinita at 6.20 Monday through Thursday. Next week, we'll have President Rebecca Cunningham as our guest on the Sunday take. The University of Minnesota has been mired in challenges the last few years, from safety to sports to costs and expenses. I've had the chance to see Rebecca Cunningham, the new president speak a few times and I've been impressed with her authenticity. She'll be my guest for an extended interview next Sunday on Sunday take. Until then, make it a great week, bring some grace in the world. 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