Governor Joe Lombardo; Year in Review and Unraveling Big Tech Data Gathering with David Sinclair

Breaking Battlegrounds

Join hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone this week on Breaking Battlegrounds for a dynamic lineup of discussions. Our first guest, Governor Joe Lombardo, gives an exclusive update on his journey as Nevada's Governor and shares his perspective on the state's progress and his vision for the road ahead.

Later in the show, we shift gears to explore the complex world of technology with David Sinclair. Sinclair delves into the intricacies of data gathering and behavioral manipulation by tech giants. Gain a deeper understanding of how these companies collect and leverage user data.

Concluding the episode, Rachel Walden, Mesa Public Schools Governing Board Member, brings a crucial dialogue on school safety to the forefront. Gain insight into the latest agreement in Mesa, AZ, where a significant step has been taken to enhance student safety. Every junior high and high school campus now benefits from the presence of school safety resource officers, fostering a secure learning environment.

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Governor Joe Lombardo

Born in Japan in a military family, Governor Joe Lombardo spent his childhood growing up across the world, until his father was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base and his family put down roots in Las Vegas.

Governor Lombardo attended Rancho High School in North Las Vegas, before going on to attend the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree. After graduating, he served in the United States Army and in the Nevada National Guard.

Following his military service, Governor Lombardo joined the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD), where he quickly rose through the ranks and served on nearly every level of LVMPD, from detective to assistant sheriff. While serving at LVMPD, Governor Lombardo earned his Master of Science in Crisis Management from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2006.

After 26 years on the force, Governor Lombardo was elected as Sheriff of Clark County in 2014 and re-elected in 2018. As the sheriff of Nevada’s largest county, he oversaw a $1.3 billion dollar budget, 6,000 employees, and LVMPD’s efforts to protect millions of Clark County residents and visitors each day.

Governor Lombardo was elected as the 31st Governor of Nevada in November 2022 and sworn into office in January 2023. Governor Lombardo is focused on diversifying and revitalizing Nevada’s economy, restoring law and order in communities across the state, and bringing excellence, school choice, and accountability to Nevada’s education system.

More important to him than anything, Governor Lombardo is a devoted husband to First Lady Donna Lombardo, a dedicated father to his daughter Morgan, stepdaughter Lacey, stepson Jackson, and a grandfather to his 1-year-old grandson Teddy

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David Sinclair is the founder and CEO of 4FreedomMobile. A secure mobile service platform that provides secure, unlimited talk, text and high-speed data worldwide, while preventing tech companies, network operators, and others from tracking users' location, identity, communications, internet activity, payments, and more.

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Rachel Walden is a member of the Mesa Public Schools Governing Board, the largest school district in the state. As a Governing member she has prioritized academic achievement, parental rights, fiscal responsibility, and transparency.

TRANSCRIPTION

Chuck Warren

We met with Governor Joe Lombardo today. He is the governor, the 20th most popular governor in the United States. How does it feel to be in the top 20?

Gov Joe Lombardo

Was it 20 or 27? 20th?

Chuck Warren

20th, 57% approval, 20th. Most popular. You should. It feels.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Good. I just don't know how comprehensive the poll is. Right. I mean, but it's good that in the short tenure seven months. Right. That people the word is getting out. What we're trying to achieve here in the state of Nevada and what we're trying to achieve for the conservative side of the Republican Party and and the decisions we're making along the way and how we're competing with the state legislature that's in the verge of a supermajority. And and and yet we're still getting work done. So I think people recognize that.

Chuck Warren

That's fantastic. I flew out from Milwaukee this morning and I was talking to a gentleman doing my shoeshine, and he said, I said, Who is your favorite politician? Because he knew that there were RNC meetings there. Where were you at? Milwaukee.

Gov Joe Lombardo

You were in the airport in Milwaukee. Okay.

Chuck Warren

And I said, Who's your favorite politician? Because he was asking a lot of political questions. And he said, Tommy Thompson. And I said, Why is that? He goes, I could just trust him. And it seems like something we're facing now as people don't trust their elected officials anymore. So how do you being truly outnumbered in the legislature develop this trust not only with the voters of Nevada, but the legislature, so that they know that when I deal with Governor Lombardo, his word means something?

Gov Joe Lombardo

Yeah, that's a good point. Well, hopefully part of it and the trust factor is my previous career. Right. Being a law enforcement official for 34 years, almost 35 years, and and being the sheriff, the top dog in Clark County, Nevada. You know, we went through a lot of crisis during my tenure and our response and leadership and doing what I say I'm going to do and actually doing it is a big deal for politicians. You know, it's quite often you hear people complain that they say they're going to do stuff, especially during the campaign periods, and it actually doesn't get done right. It's just a sound bite to garner votes. And I think it's important that you do exactly what people say, and that's what we've done or not say but expect. And that's what we've done in our short tenure. And I made that promise on the campaign trail. You know, I'm not going to make these flamboyant statements thinking it's just going to be arbitrary statements to garner votes. Right. You know, an example I'll give you is we had a debate here. There was. Can believe it was either 6 or 7 Folks were vying for the Republican nomination for the governorship, and one of the questions was presented about bringing the National Guard to the border states.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Okay. And whether I would support that. And that was the only one dissenter on that question. And the reason being is I know how you use the National Guard. I know the cost of the National Guard and its intent. You know, it's for protection of your own borders within your own state. And you have those individuals are tasked with personal jobs that are usually part time soldiers and and they have their careers. And so you can't arbitrarily willy nilly make decisions on that kind of resource for something that is, they say it's not in our backyard. Right. And people trust that. And you have a knowledge of exactly what you're talking about and not just, you know, spitballing. Correct. And and so they appreciate those those kind of decisions. But it's all the proof in the pudding per se, right? You know, you do what you say you're going to do and you actually do it.

Chuck Warren

How has it been trying to diversify Nevada's economy? You always hear that is the goal, right? It's always the goal. You have no income. You have no income tax here. So but it's always the goal. But we know the strip commands a lot of attention.

Gov Joe Lombardo

You know what it is, is. Well, first and foremost, every governor and every state in the nation in history has always had that in their platform. Right. Right. Because that's their job. The governor's job is the economy. The environment, education. Right. The economy is diversifying the economy and ensure that you don't have all your eggs in one basket. And that you don't suffer in times of crisis. So unfortunately. But fortunately, you got to take advantage of a crisis, correct? Right. You can't put your head in the sand and say, I'm going to go away. I hope he goes away and then you'll deal with the aftermath. But the important thing is take advantage of it when you can. And what I'm alluding to is Covid. So in the state of Nevada, throughout our history, we've survived. Our economic engine has been gambling and entertainment. And we have all those eggs in that one basket. In previous years, we've seen some certain crises, you know, the Great Recession, you know, part of the the housing crisis and all that, you know, we suffered because that, you know, it's disposable cash that they use in the state of Nevada. And that's the first to go away during times of economic strife. And so we saw some errors in our economic engine or our profile or our program in the state of Nevada, because we were always the first one out and the last one back in in economic recovery. So when you say your goal is to diversify the economy, it's got to be true. It's got to be accurate and you got to put a concerted effort into it getting past an election. Now, repeat what I said earlier. Every governor says that.

Chuck Warren

You have to or you're not going to win.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Right. Right. And and that's one of the responsibilities of government is the economy. And so Covid happens. And once again, we're the first out and the last to come back. And what I mean by last comeback is the last to recover. And but

fortunately here last month, we've had a 4% increase overall since the beginning of my tenure and economic numbers, employment numbers. So that's that's proof that we're getting what we say we're going to do, get it done. So back to your original question, diversifying the economy. We have to expand upon the gambling space. And people realize that now. Now it's not just rhetoric. They're saying, Oh, s**t, we got to do something to fix this. And what I've done in that you talked about our there's no state income tax. Our sales tax is very low or modified, business tax is low and every other revenue source that we utilize in small business and big business is state of Nevada is low across the board. So how can we get track more people? Well, now we start getting into tax incentives. You know, Tesla is the perfect example of that 4 to 1 on return, on dollar, on investment in return. So people see that, oh, you know, that is a good, viable functionality of the economic package that we are able to offer. Every state is offering an economic package in recent legislative session. We're talking about film tax credits. Okay. That's a new hot button item in the economy. Now, film getting the film industry in your state. Education drives the economy. Education drives the companies that want to transfer and and have the labor force available for their companies once they put their roots down. So all that is all part and parcel of what we're trying to achieve.

Chuck Warren

Part of the diversity.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Yeah, that's the.

Chuck Warren

Diversity school choice. Does it have a.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Future that does.

Chuck Warren

School choice have a future here? I mean, I.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Know.

Chuck Warren

Teachers unions, they just think like you're asking for the end of the world. If you give kids a choice.

Gov Joe Lombardo

You know, I got to I got to be frank with you on that. You're you're that's usually an accurate statement. But here in southern Nevada, the Clark County Education Association, which is the teachers union here, they I've been working hand in hand with them. They are not opposed to school choice. They're not opposed to school choice. Their primary driver is teacher salaries. Right. And they can't argue against school choice. For one, it polls in the 70th percentile across the board here in the state of Nevada. And two is. Our curriculum is bad. I mean, we're continually ranked at the bottom of the barrel in education, availability, environment and curriculum. So how do you change that? And it's been proven across the United States, in the states that have adopted school choice and the success associated with it. So the unions not necessarily isn't pushing back against that. So they're more defined in how we fix the teacher pipeline. So it's a little bit transactional.

Chuck Warren

We need higher salaries. Then we'll we're not going to stand in the way of this.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Yeah, exactly. And it's, you know, in the. It's a good thing, right? So now so what is preventing it from happening here?

Chuck Warren

You're outnumbered in the legislature, legislature.

Gov Joe Lombardo

We bring it back to the legislature. There's a mechanism here in state of Nevada called Opportunity Scholarships. It's a it's a different form of education savings accounts, where there's a tax benefit of organizations that participate in into the into the program. And, you know, we have 400,000 students in totality in the state of Nevada. It only affects 1400 students. But something as simple as that, you're like, that's pixie dust. As far as budgetary costs, the legislature, legislature pushed back

on it, wanted it to default to the statutory regulation of amount provided to that program. And so as a result, 600 kids were going to lose their scholarships as part of school choice. And so I had to fight tooth and nail, find different funding mechanisms to support that. And it was all the result of the legislature pushing back on it. It's that it's the the left decision in point of context. With school choice, they don't support it. I think it's a detriment to public dollars for private institutions. And if you look at it and understand it and know both sides of it, that's absolutely opposite. It's nothing more than an opportunity for our kids to get educated.

Chuck Warren

Your families used to you being in the spotlight. We have a minute left. How do they like. We only have a minute. A minute left. Yeah, you had lots of say. They're in the spotlight again as governors in 20 years. Clark County sheriff. Now they're governor first, the first family in Nevada. How are they liking it?

Gov Joe Lombardo

Did you say 20 years? As the Clark County sheriff?

Chuck Warren

Is that what you were?

Gov Joe Lombardo

20 years? I was on the department in totality.

Gov Joe Lombardo

35 years.

Gov Joe Lombardo

35 years. But I was the sheriff for eight years.

Chuck Warren

Okay.

Gov Joe Lombardo

I want to make sure you're accurate.

Chuck Warren

I was not. I was.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Not. I'll read it.

Chuck Warren

I was not I was not accurate. So how do they like how has it been for them?

Gov Joe Lombardo

Um, that's a great question. And to be frank with you, it's so so, you know, it's on a different level of transparency and public. I as the governor, as compared to the sheriff. And, you know, and there's a lot of event driven schedule issues as the governor. And so there's a balance of what what's important for the to the family to show face and and ensure that they're part of what we're doing here. You know, as the governor within the state of Nevada and what's important in the family unit. And so it's a balancing act. It's still early in it. It's overwhelming, I would say, for the family at this point. But we'll work out the schedule. We'll get it worked out. And your uniqueness in the state of Nevada, you know, opposite of where you're from, you know, down in the Phoenix is, you know, the largest metropolitan area is obviously Phoenix. And your capital is there, right? Well, it's opposite here in the state of Nevada. So we got Carson City, where the state capitol is, but the largest metropolitan area is in southern Nevada, Clark County, Las Vegas. So it's a balancing. I have to spend time in both places. I enjoy both places. So that's probably the hardest part for them. Separation.

Chuck Warren

Governor, we appreciate your time today.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Yeah, absolutely.

Chuck Warren

Good luck. Thank you.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Thanks for making the effort to come out and see me.

Chuck Warren

Appreciate it.

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Sam Stone

All right. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Up next with us, David Sinclair, founder and CEO of For Freedom Mobile, a secure mobile service platform that provides secure, unlimited talk, text and high speed data worldwide while preventing tech companies, network operators and others from tracking users location, identity communications, internet activity payments and more. Folks, I think you'd be shocked at how much data your phone company is collecting on you and what gets done with it. So, David Sinclair, welcome to the program. I had a great time meeting this guy at Freedomfest this year in Memphis. And, you know, he has a wealth of knowledge and background experience that both led him to start this company and then lends expertise to a number of related issues. So, David, thank you for joining us and welcome to the program.

David Sinclair

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Sam Stone

What made you decide to go start for Freedom Mobile?

David Sinclair

So I spent most of the last 30 years living outside the US, primarily working in emerging markets. So countries like Russia, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar and other countries like that. And what I was doing there was implementing large, complex IT projects for government agencies, nationally owned companies, that sort of thing, some of which included surveillance systems. So we were implementing systems at large mobile operators to track people through their mobile phones, track their locations, monitor their communications, even enable people to, for example, turn on your phone's microphone when you weren't using your phone and listen in to your conversation. Yeah. So implementing these types of surveillance projects in these emerging markets, we saw the way that government agencies could utilize this data. And when I moved back to the US after spending almost 30 years abroad doing this, I was shocked to discover I'm surveilled more in the US than I ever was when I was living abroad. It's crazy. And so that was when I realized, wait a minute, I didn't move back to the land of the free. You know, in the 30 years that I was gone, things have changed. And so I decided that there must be a way to try to stop some of this surveillance. And since I've been implementing it for so long, I began working on technologies to help stop it.

Chuck Warren

How does this compare to other countries you've been in developing countries. How does the surveillance in the United States compare to other countries, these growing markets you've been in?

David Sinclair

Um. I would say that there is much less awareness of the level of surveillance in the US than there is in other countries. Interesting. You know, I will tell you, I had a conversation at the CS, the consumer Trade show in Las Vegas with a woman from Hong Kong, and she flat out said to me. I fully expect that the Chinese government is listening to my conversation through my phone right now with you. And therefore, she didn't want to discuss my topics with me because she was afraid.

Sam Stone

Yeah, that I think, is stunning. And something you said a minute ago, David. We're talking with David Sinclair, founder and CEO for Freedom Mobile. I think people don't realize that this is absolutely true. So somebody in government, whether they

have a warrant or not, they can access, whether it's truly legal or not, they can access your phone, turn on your microphone, turn on your camera, download everything in there right now without you knowing it.

David Sinclair

It is absolutely technically possible to do that. I've personally seen it done. The the thing to understand here in the US is there is a law that requires the mobile operators to collect their subscribers, location, identity, keep a record of every phone call they make and receive, keep a copy of every text message they make and receive, you know, track their internet activity, etcetera. Beyond that, the mobile operators have access to an enormous amount of sensors inside your device. And I'll give you one example. There's a effectively a gyroscope inside your phone. So your phone tracks, whether it's laying on a table or it's moving horizontally, or maybe you're going in an elevator and it's moving vertically, that sort of thing. Using that, they can tell. What time did you wake up this morning? Because the first thing we do, we pick up our phone, right? Sure. So so, you know, mobile operators know your sleep habits. They know that makes sense in your home.

Chuck Warren

Makes sense.

Sam Stone

It's really stunning.

David Sinclair

The amount of data that they have.

Sam Stone

Now. It's not just the gathering of this data, for instance, like for some sort of criminal investigation, But one of the things that you touched on when I was talking with you is behavioral manipulation. And the more data someone has, the easier that becomes. But let's talk about what is behavioral manipulation in the digital world.

David Sinclair

The simplest example of that is manipulating your search results. So back between 2000 and 5 and about 2015, Facebook and Google both were running experience experiments and actually publishing the results to the public in which they showed how by changing people's search results. They could change the actions that those people took. They could change because what do they do? They show you only certain information and they hide from you. Other information that changes the way you think. And as a result, it changes the way you act. And these reports are available on the Internet still to this day. This is something they prove they can do. And today they do that.

Sam Stone

How much are they doing that today? Because I know there have been a lot of people who have said that occurred during, for instance, the last election, and then we should expect it during the next one. But how pervasive is this? I mean, even beyond politics, how much does this stretch into other areas of human behavior?

David Sinclair

So there is a value to the social media companies. I'll give you this. The social media as an example, their business model is the traditional advertising business model. It's driven by eyeballs on ads, right? So they need to drive engagement. A part of the experiments that they ran in the early 2000 was to see if I show people rainbows, unicorns and butterflies. They figured out people stop looking at their app and walk away happy. But if they throw in items that play on people's fears, uncertainties and doubts, those drive a negative emotional response. And guess what? Negative emotional response drives greater engagement. You stay on the app longer. And so while they may show primarily things that you're happy to see and that sort of thing, they also throw in a certain amount of FUD fear, uncertainty and doubt in there to keep you engaged, to keep you emotionally engaged in what you're looking at and keep eyeballs on the screen. And so, you know, I don't have anything against the social media companies doing this because it's a part of their business model. But what people need to recognize, though, is that they are doing this. And what have they begun doing really in the last ten years? A lot more is they play a lot more on people's fears, uncertainties and doubts around topics that have been politicized. And so I believe that a lot of the political fragmentation that we see in our country is driven by the social media companies because they have a commercial vested interest in driving that fragmentation, pitting one group against the other.

Sam Stone

We're going to be coming back with more in just a moment with David Sinclair, founder and CEO of Four Freedom Mobile. Folks, check that out. I believe. David, it's for freedom. Mobilcom. Go on there. You know, it's you need to protect yourself. You need to protect your data. You need to try to limit what some of these foreign and domestic actors have access to because they've proven they're not responsible. Breaking battlegrounds will be coming back with more in just a moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone and Chuck Warren on the line with us right now, David Sinclair, founder and CEO for Freedom Mobile. We were talking before we went to the break about all the ways that you can your data can be gathered from you, from your mobile device, from any electronic device, and then talking a little bit about how data can be used to manipulate and manipulate behavior. We're seeing that with the social media companies. David, Obviously, I think this can and should be concerning to a lot of people. What do folks need to do to start taking better control of their privacy and protect their their data?

David Sinclair

You know, I'm glad you asked that because there's a low awareness amongst people about how their data is collected and used and often used against them. Things like banks collecting your data in order to determine what interest rate to give you on a loan, How risky an investment are you? Right? And most people don't even think about the things that they could do. There's even less awareness around what people can do to protect their information. Let's start with the simple stuff. Most people have heard of the term VPN. Unfortunately, a lot of people think that, well, if I use a VPN, well then my data is secure. What a VPN does is it encrypts your internet activity. And that's about it. It hides your IP address. Right. Which is often used to determine your location. But it doesn't do any more than that. Your communications are not secure. Your app usage is not secure. Your operating system on your phone is still collecting all this data and sending it back to the people who made your phone. You know, I'll give you a simple example here. The FCC ran a test on iOS and Android phones. And discover that on average, an iOS device sends data on you back to Apple 52 times a day. And Android device sends data on you back to Google 14 times an hour.

Chuck Warren

Oh, my gosh.

David Sinclair

That's more than 300 times a day.

Chuck Warren

Oh, my gosh.

Sam Stone

That's astounding.

David Sinclair

It's shocking. It really is. And Apple has spent, you know, 150, $200 million promoting themselves as Apple equals privacy. I honestly don't believe that.

Chuck Warren

I don't either.

David Sinclair

Apple prevents other apps maybe from collecting your data, but Apple is still collecting your data. Apple is all about creating a unique data set. Who is the Apple consumer generally? They're they're better off. Right. Generally, they're the kind of people companies want to market to.

Sam Stone

Right. Mhm. Well, and regardless of what they intend to do with your data, even Apple isn't truly secure from having that data breached and then, you know, collected by others. Right.

Speaker7

Absolutely.

David Sinclair

Any company that collects any data on you, they're at risk of getting breached. Absolutely. And frankly, that's part of the reason why my company for Freedom Mobile, we don't collect any data on anybody. So people sign up anonymously. All we have is an email address, a phone number, and that's it. So we don't collect their location, we don't collect their identity. We don't collect their communications, internet activity, etcetera. And we provide them with software applications that they can put onto their phone to help prevent anybody else from being able to collect that data either.

Sam Stone

Nice. Nice.

David Sinclair

The other big thing that we do, you know, we started as a software company, just a pure software player, right? Get our apps, put them on your iPhone, get them, put them on your Samsung Android phone. Prevent other people from collecting your data. What we figured out is that the mobile operators themselves, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. Are actually some of the biggest data collectors there are in the world. Right. And by the way, each of those three companies has been fined for selling their subscribers real time location data in real time, meaning somebody would go out on the Internet and pay $19 a month and enter a phone number and they would be able to track the location of that phone number, that device, 24 by seven in real time. And that's against the law in the US to sell that. And they've been fined for doing it. They pay the fines. Yeah, I'm sure if they've actually kept doing it. No, no, they'll.

Chuck Warren

Keep doing it because it's just it's a rounding error for them. It doesn't mean anything.

Sam Stone

It's Michael Jordan's shoe. Yeah, right. You pay the fines because you're going to end up making so much more money from what you're doing. We're going to.

Chuck Warren

Pay the fine for each NBA games because they'll make more money on the shoe. Absolutely.

Sam Stone

David, before we go, we have just one minute left. How do folks I think I gave the website earlier, but give that and tell us a little bit more about how people can get connected with for Freedom Mobile.

Speaker7

Sure.

David Sinclair

So the website is for Freedom Mobile. That's the number for Freedom Mobilcom And they can go out to the website and learn all about how they're being, how they're being tracked, how their data is being collected, how hackers are breaking into their phones and stealing their data. And they can also learn about the solutions that we have to help prevent that, including, by the way, helping prevent network operators from being able to track you even.

Sam Stone

I love that. David Sinclair, thank you so much. Folks, check them out for free, T-mobile.com. We're going to have David on from time to time as we go forward, talk about some of these technical issues, because obviously he has a wealth of experience and knows a lot about what's going on that I think the average person needs to know. Breaking battlegrounds. Back with more in just a moment.

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Chuck Warren

Welcome back to the final segment of breaking battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren. And Sam Stone is with me here. And we're going to take this time to talk about just some highlights and issues of the day. We appreciate our two

guests. We had David Sinclair, A for Freedom Mobilcom, and then.

Sam Stone

Before that, Chuck.

Chuck Warren

We need to read.

Sam Stone

I got to we got to pay the bills.

Chuck Warren

Pay the bills. Sam, go ahead and talk about why.

Sam Stone

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Chuck Warren

That's well, it's important people are paying $705 more per month for basic goods. So you've got to have your retirement money and something that's going to keep up with inflation.

Sam Stone

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Chuck Warren

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Sam Stone

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Chuck Warren

I appreciate the opportunity the other day to go down. Kiley and I were interviewing Governor Lombardo of Nevada. He was a guest on our show, and he was Sheriff Lombardo, candidate for governor. You know, the one thing I took from him, he's a very blunt man. I think he has a clear vision of what he wants to do. I get the sense when we were talking about school choice, that he understands how to work within the confines of public sector unions because of, you know, being over the sheriff when the largest sheriff's departments in the country.

Sam Stone

Right. Yeah. You're dealing with a huge union presence, multiple unions.

Chuck Warren

I found it interesting and I've said this for years, so it's sort of hit me, hit me hard. I've been saying that the way you take care of the school choice issue is make sure teachers get a great salary. Then they just really don't care. And he said when I made a comment about that and he corrected me quickly, he said, The teachers unions in Clark County are not the problem. It's the legislature. They just simply want higher teacher salary. So he said it's, you know, and they've got almost a supermajority in Nevada for the assembly and State Senate, which is another point. You're going to have some conservatives moaning and groaning about Governor Lombardo's decisions on some things. I think he's taking the Ronald Reagan approach. If I can get 70 or 80% of something, I'm taking it right.

Sam Stone

He's dealing with Democrat, big Democrat majorities in his House and his Senate. You don't get you're not a dictator. You're a governor. Exactly.

Chuck Warren

So I think he's doing a great job. It's going to be interesting to watch him. He is the 20th most popular governor in the country.

Sam Stone

Which is astounding because none of the other swing state governors are that high except for Youngkin.

Chuck Warren

Yeah, he's just he's just done a good job. And I think people appreciate him in Nevada. I think Nevada has changed a little bit. It's probably more getting more towards center like. But they've got a they've got issues out there, party wise organization as almost every state has. So there's that. Um, let's talk about the debate in Milwaukee this week. It got 12.8 million viewers, which is darn good. It's a lot. It is. You know, we keep hearing that the Tucker Trump thing had 180 million views, Folks, that's a lie. It never had that many. First of all, it's not mathematically possible.

Sam Stone

Well, so so I actually saw a really good breakdown on this. And I'm going to go ahead. I'm going to credit Tim Pool of pool Cast, who. Thank you. I think is a very, very good analyst on this kind of stuff because he did a nice job. He said, look, out of those 180 million impressions. Right. Typically what we see on a video is 20% will watch a few minutes. Correct. And then 10% will watch 15, 20 plus minutes and a much smaller number will actually get to the end. So if you watch every every Internet video, viewership starts out much higher and then drops off pretty quickly. So you have.

Chuck Warren

All right, so let's go. So let's go to those numbers real quick. So 200 million, let's say 200 million, 200 million. Okay.

Sam Stone

So 40 million saw at least a couple of minutes of that video. Okay.

Chuck Warren

And then how many saw less than that? So.

Sam Stone

So 160 million. Who just scrolled Buy it on Twitter.

Chuck Warren

Do TV ratings have 12 points? So basically, long story short, folks, more people watch the debate in whole in totality than they ever watch the Tucker Trump debate.

Sam Stone

But more individual eyeballs touched, at least for a few minutes. The Trump thing. Yeah, but.

Chuck Warren

That's just it's.

Sam Stone

Nothing. Look, but I don't want to dismiss that.

Chuck Warren

I don't want to dismiss it. But people are smoking again, Hunter Biden crack pipe. If they think that there's actually 200 million people watching that whole interview.

Sam Stone

Oh, no, that's not the case.

Chuck Warren

It didn't get close. So you probably had 5 million. 6 million watch it in its entirety, probably less.

Sam Stone

Who actually made it to the end? Yeah.

Chuck Warren

Based on the. So again. Aggressive numbers for Trump. Trump did a great strategy. It's the same strategy that Biden used in 2020. You know, he's he's a clear frontrunner. I think the indictments are going to you know, look, I think it's very hard for him to lose the nomination right now.

Sam Stone

I thought he made the absolute right decision in not going into that room.

Chuck Warren

He made it politically right decision.

Sam Stone

Politically right decision. I would add, though, that I actually thought it was a good decision for the country because it changed that debate entirely and it became a much more open, free flowing debate. And one of the things I really like, Chuck, is you had a range of opinions and ideas on that stage.

Chuck Warren

Yes. Yes. I mean, for example, I thought, hey, Nikki Haley was the best one. If you're just basing on poor performance, I mean, you don't have the griefer issues or anything. I just think she was the best performing one.

Sam Stone

I thought she performed very well. Yeah, she.

Chuck Warren

Did.

Sam Stone

She performed well.

Chuck Warren

Vivek has lots of energy. And I think, look, if I was going to if you and I were going to Vegas tonight and saying, put down who's the VP for Trump nominee, I think it's Vivek.

Sam Stone

I would agree with that. I think you know what what I like about Vivek, he's young and inexperienced. He'll say some things sometimes that aren't, you know, don't make much sense or that are kind of wacky. But he's also talking about a vast range of issues all the time. And I don't expect somebody to know everything about everything.

Chuck Warren

Oh, no. I mean, you know, it's funny. The press has been trying to attack him on various issues. Boy, they do not hold Biden to the same accountability for the wackadoodle things.

Sam Stone

He says no. And one of the things I kind of like about Ramaswami, but that is a weakness in this sort of media environment is that he very carefully chooses words. So like, for instance, when he said the climate change agenda is a hoax, right?

Chuck Warren

Not climate change, the agenda. Right.

Sam Stone

The agenda is actually very specifically not saying climate change is a hoax. He's saying the agenda behind it is a hoax and most.

Chuck Warren

Liberals are too stupid to pick that.

Sam Stone

Up. Almost nobody seemed to.

Chuck Warren

Pick that up, which is sad. I think he did well. Um, look, Asa, who's been a guest on this show and a friend of the show, he should not be in this. I love the North Dakota. The North Dakota governor is dedicated to federalism. That's the one thing I really took from the debate. You agree? And I and you and I've talked about this. I think that's really an alternative, truly federalism in our country versus what we're heading towards. You and I have discussed this, and I think he's right about it.

Sam Stone

I think he's 100% right about it. And I think that was something if you looked up there. The governors, including DeSantis, have a very different kind of outlook than the people who are not governors, because I think they've dealt with this federal overreach in a very personal way. Right. And that includes, to some degree, Chris Christie, who I was very impressed with his performance.

Chuck Warren

Well, he's just you know, look, Chris Christie is very good. And, you know, the right just, you know, because he's gone and turned on Trump, he's.

Sam Stone

Got a very low rating, you know, high negative.

Chuck Warren

But would there be a better AG in this country than Chris Christie?

Sam Stone

I tell you what, he'd be a good AG and you know what I like. And and look, folks, I'm an old school Easterner in this sense. I like that he's a brawler and he doesn't have a glass jaw.

Chuck Warren

The chat GPT comment was just incredible. You know what the.

Sam Stone

Best part about that was? Ramaswami had a better comeback, but Christie delivered his line so well that no one even knows Ramaswami hit him back.

Chuck Warren

Yeah, no, absolutely. 100%. So let's talk briefly about how bad the Biden administration example 5428 And today we've got. Is that.

Sam Stone

All? I thought it was much more than that.

Chuck Warren

So based on Bloomberg us and talks with Venezuela over sanctions relief in return for fair elections. So basically, energy expert Phil Flynn explains the hope is lifting the sanctions on Venezuela will be better able to export that now coveted heavy blend of dirty oil that is so good in yielding diesel that is globally undersupplied. Basically, we're making deals with Venezuela, a country that has absolutely been a monster on human rights comparable to Iran.

Sam Stone

Yeah, well worse since in in its recent history is is as bad as any place on the planet.

Chuck Warren

But we're not going to go to Alaska, Texas or Oklahoma. Let's go to Venezuela. It reminded me, Sam, when you and I worked on a sugar project years ago in Florida and the environmentalists did not. They wanted to get rid of all the sugar, Right.

Sam Stone

All the sugar farming in.

Chuck Warren

Florida and Florida and say, where do you get well, Mexico. Well, I remember us asking, well, don't they have the same pollution? Well, yeah, but it's a Mexico. I just sort of feel this is their talking point, right? It's just like they're really not

concerned about it. Let's talk about mortgage rates. So when Trump left office, mortgage rates were 2.9%. Today, they're 7.1 that the higher mortgage rates are going to cost people about $32,000 more or $900 per month.

Sam Stone

You know what? I was seeing two things to that point that I found interesting and troubling. Well, one is troubling. I think the other is actually a great thing. The housing sales. Right now, the vast majority of housing sales right now are people who are being paying cash. So whether it's the BlackRock Vanguard, big companies or it's people who are wealthy enough to just pay cash, the houses that are being sold are only the ones that basically people can buy for cash. Right. And to and I think that's a really bad thing that that speaks to a huge distortion in a market for first time homebuyers.

Chuck Warren

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Sam Stone

A really good thing is a new development that people are finally realizing that you don't have to sell your house with a mortgage financed by a bank, that you can sell your house to somebody, issue a mortgage yourself. And as the homeowner, you can make the interest off it.

Chuck Warren

Well, you're going to see a lot of stuff like that. Michelle Ugenti was telling me a conversation that she feels we're getting to the point on home ownership because of the cost as well, that you're going to see sort of a European style where you're just like, I'm just handing it down to my kids, I think.

Sam Stone

Absolutely.

Chuck Warren

You know, and that's.

Sam Stone

Uh, here's one thing in that vein.

Chuck Warren

I don't want to live with my family. Do you know?

Sam Stone

I know I kind of don't. Um, one of the things we're seeing here, like, people don't realize if you haven't really traveled outside the United States, but the size of every living space in the United States is so much vastly larger. Like you go, the bathrooms in European and Asian countries are tiny, the bedrooms are tiny, you know.

Chuck Warren

But they're used to it. They're used to. So we're not. Remember when we were working on a campaign in Florida, down in Miami Dade and the campaign manager, we were driving, if you remember this, and he said he had worked at Publix and Publix lets employees take part of equity. So he sold out his position, had enough money to buy a home. So he was living with his mom and some other relatives. So I said, being a gringo, I said, Are you excited to go and live on your own with his upcoming wife? He goes, Well, no, my mom's going to live with me too. So there are certain cultures just used to it. I think this would be a big adjustment for gringos.

Sam Stone

I think it's a huge adjustment for the gringos, for all of us. And and not only to the crowding, but to frankly, the time has come for us. Housing spaces to shrink.

Chuck Warren

Yeah. By the way, Vivek raised 450 grand the night of the Republic after the Republican debates. Small donors.

Sam Stone

Excellent.

Chuck Warren

Hall Yeah. No, it's a good hall One more thing. Let's talk to Bloomberg here. So the outlook for the federal budget right now is essentially unprecedented crisis sized deficits as far as the eye can see, even through even though the economy appears to be in good health, that prospect is making investors uneasy, as demonstrated by yields on benchmark. Ten year treasuries climbed to 4.3% this week, the highest since 2007. Investors worry that sustained fiscal shortfalls on the scale projected by the CBO could push rates higher, which only puts more pressure on public finances by adding to the government's ballooning interest. Bill's concerns and testified this month after A12 punch, Treasury ramped up debt issuance, heralding a supply deluge that likely will last several quarters. And Fitch ratings unexpectedly downgraded America's sovereign credit rating. Folks, if we don't take care of this, you are going to pay the price. This isn't this isn't monopoly money. You're going to see in higher interest rates, higher inflation. Your paychecks are going to be hit and they're going to come after more taxes. You're going to we just can't do everything.

Sam Stone

And it's going to get a lot worse because we're going to lose reserve currency status. And that's coming, you know, BRICs, which is the alternative now to sort of the Western alliance built around the dollar, Brazil, Russia, India, China, they just added six new members.

Chuck Warren

Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, among six countries invited to join BRICs, you know, so they've also invited Ethiopia. Argentina have them. Those are train wrecks. But, well.

Sam Stone

Ethiopia, though the problem is Ethiopia has a huge reserve of rare earth minerals. Yes, that's why they added them.

Chuck Warren

Yep. Yep. It's basically become an anti-Western bloc. Right. Folks, we we appreciate it. We hope you join us for our podcast portion. We're having Rachel Walden on to discuss school boards and resource officers in Mesa. They've made some changes there. And she'll also discuss why school boards important. If you want to get involved, show up at the minimum to your school board meetings, if not, run for school board.

Sam Stone

Rachel's the only Republican on the Mesa Public Schools Board, and it's made a huge difference. Make sure you download and tune in and hear about it.

Chuck Warren

Breaking battlegrounds dot vote. We'll talk to you next week.

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Sam Stone

Welcome to the podcast segment of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Chuck, a story you and I both glommed onto in the Arizona Republic came out very recently, showed Mesa public schools had finally will be adding a school resource officer for every single school in the school district. And that's something I know parents and others have been fighting for for quite a while. But one of the changes that instantly jumped to my mind and frankly, it's been tough. We've had a tough time getting resource officers into all those schools. We've gotten pushback from some of the schools, school leaders, some of the school boards, just like we have with Phoenix Union, Tempe, the Tucson school districts, Flagstaff, some of the others that have trended more liberal. But there was a change last election cycle on the Mesa Public School board. And we now have school board member Rachel Walden on the line with us. Rachel is a Republican. She was as I understand it, Rachel, the only Republican elected to that school board.

Rachel Walden

Correct? Yeah. In 2022.

Sam Stone

Yep. And so I really felt like when I saw that story, I said, you know, that's the impact a single school board member can

have that if conservatives go out and get people on these boards.

Chuck Warren

Well, one thing people don't understand is if you really want to change public education, elect a new school board. I mean, I think everybody thinks the legislature and the governor control that. But the you know, the rubber meets the road at the school board. Is that right, Rachel?

Rachel Walden

Yes, it does. The school board has a lot of authority. They direct the entire tone of the district. They oversee the superintendents so they can oversee the goals of the district, the priorities of the district. And they call the shots on what the agenda is every meeting.

Sam Stone

And your role when you came in there, I know you've you know, you're working. Frankly, everything I've heard is you're working very well with your colleagues. But it's very different when someone like you is in that room and on that board and when they're not. Right.

Rachel Walden

Yes. I think I'm the most outspoken board member. A lot of the past meetings, there wasn't much discussion. It felt like the board was a rubber stamp. And people were surprised to know that the board didn't ever meet outside of those meetings because there were so little discussion, so few questions would be asked in those meetings.

Sam Stone

How many people do you think they're just viewing? I see this on the left more than the right, and maybe that's just part of the focus we need to redo. But a lot of folks on the left seem to just be using these as their first step up the political ladder. And it's not really about the kids.

Rachel Walden

I think that we've seen that in school boards. A lot of people that ran for school boards for Mesa were asked to run. It was almost like a community service where people were tapping in and saying, well, we want to make sure these projects get through and keep the status quo. And they'd ask certain people to run. And then on the flip side, too, you do have the people that run as a political stepping stone. And we've seen that with a lot of our elected officials where they often start at school board. At the same time, someone like myself has gotten into school board and then realized that I'm good at government, I have a knack for government. And then there may be other opportunities that come from that too.

Sam Stone

And I think you're earning those opportunities. But one of the differences is you didn't run to start your way up the political ladder. People have been reaching out because you're effective and like, Yeah.

Rachel Walden

Yeah, that's absolutely true. I didn't I had no political ambition whatsoever. When I ran. I was still a stay at home mom. I had left my career and it was all about trying to save the rising generation. It still is. That will always be priority one for me.

Chuck Warren

Rachel, do you feel there's a more important office that people should get involved in? Parents should get involved in the school board.

Rachel Walden

A more important office? Yeah. No, I mean, school board is everything. That's where if you've got kids in the district, if you're concerned about the future of this country, then you absolutely should be involved in school board. It is for everybody. We need every voice speaking out about this, because the boards right now across the state, across the country, are not focused on academic achievement.

Chuck Warren

Do you feel that there's outside groups on the left, like teachers unions, that are really that really go and push to get people to run for school boards here in Arizona?

Rachel Walden

Oh, absolutely. The teacher union is very organized. We had 45 speakers at our last meeting. 45 people signed up for public comment. We haven't seen that since the school shut down and they were all there to just parrot the same talking point. They were teacher unions. They were wearing their matching shirts. They definitely have their own agenda. They definitely have their own people. They want to run.

Sam Stone

You know, one of the things so school resource officers, obviously school safety has become a really big issue. Right. But I you know, and obviously, I think it's a great thing to have an officer there who can help protect the students, but they play a much bigger role than that, too, right? I mean, this isn't just about stopping a school shooting.

Rachel Walden

Yes. Yes. They're often involved in somebody bringing a weapon to school, into vaping and to drugs and to overall discipline where they get called in to to help with with those issues.

Sam Stone

In discipline is actually if you if you look at real surveys of teachers, Chuck. Classroom discipline and the ability to maintain order in their classroom is at least as important as salary when it comes to the conditions that are driving teachers out of schools.

Rachel Walden

That's completely.

Rachel Walden

True.

Rachel Walden

Completely true.

Sam Stone

Rachel. How many? I mean, you know, I obviously, I'm not asking for straight numbers, but how much does that resource officer change the environment in the school when they're there?

Rachel Walden

I think overall, everybody feels better knowing that there is that authority there and that comes from parents that have requested it. People in the community that go. This just makes sense that we have somebody on there with that authority to to help provide safety. And the teachers like it. The principals of requested it. The elementary schools even would like to have school resource officers. We have them in all the junior highs and high schools. But the elementary schools want it too. I mean, we have issues where kids are suspended from school, for example. They still show up at campus. So who's going to who's going to remove that student from campus? Right. We need SROs.

Sam Stone

How when the vote for this to expand them to all the schools came down, was there a lot of opposition? Did you have a bunch of people speaking against it?

Rachel Walden

No, not at all. I don't think anybody spoke out against it.

Sam Stone

That's honestly, I'm surprised to hear that. And I think that's fantastic. Yeah.

Rachel Walden

Well, because the I think part of it is the whole agenda of of the left to to try to make guns a big focus of even though there's way more problems than that. So they kind of can't speak out against it because it goes against the left narrative.

Sam Stone

Well, I mean, frankly, I'm glad to hear that they're starting to take this more seriously because every time we had this when I was with the city of Phoenix, every time there was a request or a push to get more SROs into the Phoenix Union schools, it was, you know, we don't feel safe having somebody with a gun on campus. And this you know, these officers are hunting

our children kind of thing. I'm glad to hear that didn't come up.

Rachel Walden

Yeah, I think there's a lot more stronger voice in Mesa from the community that that does feel safer. I agree with you. I think if we got some of the teachers union people on, they would voice that that same concern. But they're a minority in Mesa.

Sam Stone

How much how much has your being on that board shifted? You know, shifted the school district back to a focus on educational basics.

Rachel Walden

Well, I think it's helped quite a bit because my being on the board has helped a lot of parents get involved and come to the meeting because they feel like there's somebody that represents them. So I hear that all the time from the community. They're more engaged now in what the board is doing. So this time when we did our board goals, they were completely academically focused. That's the first time that's happened. Usually they have other goals in there, maybe something about social emotional learning or counseling or but every every single topic was just graduation rates, proficiency, student outcomes. And I felt like that was a big win for us because it was it was very new to only have those goals.

Sam Stone

That's a big deal, Chuck. I mean, just it's a.

Chuck Warren

Huge deal and people just need to make it part of their daily life to go to these school boards. You can't have teachers union showing 40 people up and we've got to get more. Rachel's on the school board, so we're going to focus on what education is supposed to be. The basics, reading, writing, math.

Sam Stone

Rachel We we do kind of a short segment for the podcast here. We're going to wrap up in just a moment. But how do folks stay up with with the work you're doing at NPS? And then I know you are eyeballing a run at the corporation commission and keep me in. I'm planning to keep that school board seat, which you can do, and I think that'd be great. We need great people on the on the Corp also. But tell folks how they stay in touch with you and your work.

Rachel Walden

So you can follow me online. My handle is at Walden Patriot and. And I post what's going on with the school boards and upcoming meetings and then just put it in your calendar. Right. Everybody's got a smartphone now. Put second Tuesday and second Thursday of the month at 630. It doesn't change except that fall break. That's the only time. And and just make it a point to go even just once a month the last meeting of the month, which is the fourth Tuesday that's open comment so you don't have to know what's going on. You can just come and comment of what you think is important or what you want to see in the schools.

Sam Stone

Love it. Thank you so much. Rachel Walden, member of the Mesa Public School District Board. Really appreciate having you on there. And I love hearing good news about schools, Chuck, because we don't get that enough anymore. We do.

Chuck Warren

Not. Thank you, Rachel. We hope you have a great day.

Rachel Walden

Great. Thank you so much.

Chuck Warren

Thank you. Bye bye.

Sam Stone

Bye now. That was really good, Chuck. I like that. You know, we don't put enough focus on school boards on our side of the aisle. Democrats are so organized from the very, very base up.

Chuck Warren

We have talked you and I have talked many times. There's three areas of influence, the United States that conservatives have simply ignored. Okay. One is universities. And I think it's going to take a while, But but that's going to take a while. But, you know, at the end of the day, you can go and get more of the wealthy. Donors say, I'm going to endow this chair in economics. I mean, you can change that. It's not going to be rapid, but you can really start making a difference on that because at the end of the day, universities are just money horse. And if you go in with $1 million check, they're going to let you do what you want. And it's a simple reality. And I explained this to conservatives all the time. They complain about so- and-so charity, go. Universities are money w****s. They are simply going to go and take the check.

Sam Stone

Well, and that's what I liked about Tom Lewis's move, following all the stuff with Ann Atkinson that we've been talking about and the suppression of free speech at ASU pulling his money out and walking away from them. I think more donors need to use that power, that lever.

Chuck Warren

Yeah, I agree. The second one is journalism. We need to start setting up scholarships, pushing creative and thoughtful conservative college students to get into journalism. But it can't be the journalism where you just go, I'm going to work at the Daily Wire and National Review. Right. You got to you got to go work at the daily papers. You got to go work at Arizona Republic, Las Vegas Review Journal. You got to go look because.

Sam Stone

Your local broadcast Nightly.

Chuck Warren

News, because that is where well, even more so than that, the newspapers, only 6% based on polling get their news on candidates and things from the newspaper. But 2,526% get it from their local news. Well, where's the local news? Get it from from the newspaper?

Sam Stone

Yeah.

Chuck Warren

So it really is 30%. So we really have got to get involved in that. And again, you and I have discussed this. I'm not looking for slanted news. I just want both sides put into it.

Sam Stone

You know, you don't find in almost any publication.

Chuck Warren

No, no, no, they don't. And then the third item is public schools. We've talked about this. Teachers unions are truly one of the greatest threats to our country. I believe that. And frankly, the test results prove that. Now there is a role for parents. They're not doing their job. There's lots of things. But teachers unions are in. For one thing, they're a union representing teachers. If you think the kids are their first priority, then you are smoking Hunter Biden's crack pipe because this is just not reality. And how do you solve this? People think, well, Doocy go and gave a 20% raise in the legislature to teacher salaries. We both know those teachers do not get a 20% salary because it goes elsewhere.

Sam Stone

They got like eight, nine, 10%.

Chuck Warren

So if you want to affect change and it's easy, go run for school board and win. Yeah, I mean, just look what Rachel's done there and she's still in the minority. But there's one reasonable voice there that brings people and then you have to show up. Teachers unions continually pack these meetings with public comments. It's a charade. Everybody should know it, but you need to show up and counter it.

Sam Stone

Yep, absolutely you do. Folks, if you enjoy this, make sure you share it with friends. Get on our subscriber list so you get our content in your email box every single week. And be sure to tune in again next week for Chuck. This is Sam. We're back next week.

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