Lawrence Yun, Dr. Adam Omary & Jan Hartman: Housing, Autism Debate, and Lincoln’s Words

[MUSIC] >> Westwood 1 presents America at night. Here's your host, the Grom Mill Haven. [MUSIC] >> Hey, let's get right to it. We got lots to get to after a busy, busy three day weekend that was off hope everybody enjoyed George Washington's birthday. It's not necessarily President State. George Washington's birthday a little bit later on in our number two, we're going to talk to a woman who has done some digging about Abraham Lincoln in honor of George Washington's birthday and quote unquote, President State. She's written a book called Lincoln's Speech Rider and it was long held belief that Lincoln wrote all of his speeches alone and that he himself was the great orator and the great writer. Well, she has come into some possessions of some papers and some information that that might not be true. She's written a book about Lincoln's speech Rider John Hay that's getting a lot of attention and quite a bit of controversy in the historical areas. Also this first hour, we're going to check in with a Washington Post op-ed about autism being a myth, the epidemic. In this first hour, we're going to talk to the chief economist at the National Association of Realtors and talk about the housing market. We'll do that right after this America at night just getting started with a McGraw-Millhaven back in a moment. This is America at Night with McGraw-Millhaven. Welcome to America at Night with McGraw-Millhaven. Welcome back America at Night. Let's talk about housing because depending on who you listen to and who you read, the housing market is in crisis or it's going great guns. Lawrence Yoon is with us. He's the chief economist and senior vice president of research at the National Association of Realtors. Lawrence, welcome to America at night. Thanks for having me. So give us your sense of the housing market. Where are we? Well, the home sales activity for the past three years have been subpar. At the same time, we have been hitting record high home prices. So what this indicates is that we have a divided society. Home owners feeling happy, accumulating housing well, very content. While at the same time, the renters struggling to enter the market. Home sales activity being low, a little frustration among people who want to purchase home. Let's talk about first time home buyers because it seems like that seems to be a massive topic of conversation. Are there just not first time homes available? What's going on? Why aren't? Why can't the people find first time homes? It is combination. Historically, once young adult reached their say age late 20s or early 30s, they would be able to buy a home. The latest figure is showing typical age at 40. That is very high. That is very depressing. Given that people want to consider ownership as part of their American dream. So it's combination of lack of supply on the entry level home. At the same time, many young people face high interest rate or you can say that overall economy face higher interest rate. But it has bigger impact on younger people because mortgage rate changes really impacts housing affordability. So the mortgage rate being elevated throughout the past three years has hindered that process. The good news is that mortgage rate is now approaching 6%. The best in three years. So someone who may have been denied a mortgage one year ago may want to try again and maybe they qualify. But if the rates dropped to 6 or below 6 and the first time home buyers is great, I now have enough money in the bank. The interest rate being what it is, I can't afford it. Is the inventory actually there? The inventory, that is the crisis for the country. We need to have more active supply. We need to assure that there are some changes in zoning regulation. Maybe in some neighborhood having one home in one acre, that is fine. But in other neighborhood, why do we restrict in terms of how many homes that can be constructed? Maybe we can construct six home in an acre, which automatically means smaller size, more affordable home. And maybe also consider tax credit and Senate to convert some of those empty office building into kind of many amunas so that more people would have chance. So all of the factors related to supply, maybe get more builders, more active, maybe train more people to go into the construction industry. We need to address the supply issue, otherwise lower interest rate, more buyers wanted to come in, but without the supply, it simply will push up home prices even higher and higher. Yeah, Lawrence, you and with us, who is with the National Association of Realtors, a lot of people have come on the show and said that builders make a lot more money building higher and homes. And so there's no incentive for a builder to build the first time home when they can have all the extra add-ons for that higher price home. You agree? Definitely, the luxury home market has done much better than say the mid price or the inch we're level in the past few years. The stock market being very high, we have seen the luxury home sales market, 1 million dollar plus, showing consistent increase while other sales activity at different price point actually slumping down. So again, that part of that divide, but from the builders perspective, again, reducing some of these zoning regulation, reducing some of the regulation overall, you know, sometimes the builder in Texas, they said we can easily build while the builder in California, they're saying that entry fee, the permitting process is uncertain, takes really long time, so that hinder some of the building out in the west coast. So we have to consider everything, what is hindering supply and trying to remove those obstacles so that the young adults can enter the market, maybe in their 30s, they can become first time buyers. Want to talk to more about the interest rate in a second, but let's stay on that supply for a second. How much have the tariffs and how much has our tariff and trade, I don't know what's called war, but our trade interests or our trade spat with with Canada with wood coming in. How much has that hindered the home building process? It seemed like that the builders are observing those costs. That is to say that there is a little higher price of, you know, trying to import numbers, but given the other factors that builders appears to be not passing on the higher tariff cost over to the consumer, but the builders, I mean, you know, that their major cost is due to the regulatory issues. So anything to reduce some of the regulation could help. And I, and I, let's also remember, you know, trying to bring more supply of workers into the industry. So one of the interesting part is that whether or not given that construction wage rate is much higher than general wage rate, whether or not more Americans would say buy-packs pass higher education, buy pass college and begin to go into trade school because we definitely need more construction workers. Yeah, there was a couple of articles recently. I think it was the Wall Street Journal that talked about at least anecdotally how builders in Texas are at their wits end because the workers, the legal workers are afraid to show up and the undocumented workers either have been deported or are not showing up at all, which is putting a crimp in the home building sector. Do you see that, Lawrence, and how do you see immigration affecting home building going forward? Well, you know, if the ultimately, if there's a labor shortage, the wage rate of that sector, which is encountering shortage, would be rising faster and higher wages generally induce more people to go into that industry. So I think trying to put up more information to say that construction workers, they get paid well pretty decently and one can come out of those trade schools without those huge college debt. So as more people go into the construction industry, it will help alleviate some of the labor shortage, but that takes time. So what happens in the short run right now, the mortgage rate is beginning to decline. We know that more buyers will be coming in. We just need more supply to match up with those demand. Lawrence, young with us for a couple more minutes, he of course, with the National Association of Realtors, their chief economist and senior vice president of research. This is the man who studies these numbers day in and day out. Lawrence, let's talk about the interest rates for people who have a 2%, 3% interest rate and are saying, I ain't moving because I love my interest rate. It seems like that's part of the log jam. How do you see that? How accurate is that and how big of a problem is it and how do we fix it? Well, there is a lock-in effect. So one can say, you know, is it a problem or not? I mean, certainly for homeowners, they're loving it. But what we are beginning to see with the passage of time is that some homeowners are encountering major life-changing events. Maybe they lost the job and need to find a new job at different locations. Or maybe there is a death in the family, marriages, divorces, having additional child requiring giving up their small size home and trying to move up to a larger size home. One of the number one advocacy effort that we are pushing from the National Association of Realtors is for lifting of the capital gains exemption. So that many elderly homeowners who have sizeable capital gains, maybe the better home is a smaller size home so they can trade down. But they don't want to do it because of the tax implication. So if there's a less of a tax implication, then we will have much more inventory, much more supply. Now we're going to have buyers. I mean, we have more supply and more buyers. We have a market. We have a dynamism in America. Yeah, that's really interesting because what, the first $250,000 is tax exempt. When anything over that is subject to that tax rate. And so somebody's sitting on a home and they've, it's increasing value of a million dollars. If they want to sell it, they got to pay taxes on $750,000 of gain. They'd rather just sit on it, borrow it, right? Take out a second mortgage or home equity line and stay in the home. If you allow them to sell it, that might loosen things up a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I just consider you know, somebody who is on social security income, but they have a size of housing wealth. Maybe they want to use some of their housing wealth for other expenses, but they don't want to sell because of tax implications. So especially in the past five years, where home prices have risen dramatically, about 50% price gain over the past five years. So many people are getting ensnared in this potential capital gains tax. And if people are relieved of that, we will definitely see more dynamism, more supply in the marketplace. Does the National Association of Realtors have an opinion on whether or not Freddie Mac or Fannie Mac should become private? Well, you know, they're under conservatorship. So they need to come out of it. Conservatorship partly means that, you know, they're bankrupt. They're making actually profit. They're profit being turnover to the US Treasury. So they will come out of it. But how will they come out? We have been advocating that government guarantee of mortgage-backed security is important. Having the 30-year fixed rate mortgage for Americans is important. In other countries, Canada, Britain, that don't have that homeowner's face risk on changes and interests, right? So we want to make sure that the guarantee on mortgages are available. We know that on Democratic side, they are very supported of that. And the White House. White House has indicated when Fannie and Freddie comes out, it should have government guarantee. So it looks like a bipartisan issue and we're looking forward to that. Interesting. So they would become private, but yet backed by the government. So there would be, you know, the government guarantee, which just means that Fannie and Freddie, they only need to stick with the mortgages where people have the ability to repay. Stay away from those sub-time loans, risky loans, no income documentation. Stay away from that. Just focus on mortgages that goes to people who have the ability to repay. In the Fannie and Freddie, even with government guarantee, it should have very, very minimal taxpayer risk. What about a 40-year mortgage or a 50-year mortgage? What are your thoughts on that? Oh, wow. 40-50-year mortgage. Well, I have a son in his mid-20s and my recommendation is the following. You can see settles down and went by a house and if he cannot qualify for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage, but does qualify at a linked, linked-year mortgage is like 40 or 50, go for those 40 and 50 because home ownership eventually builds well and it is not a 50-year trap. One can purchase a home after three years, five years, one can sell their property, trade up to the next one, and now one has a 30-year fixed rate mortgage. So for some people, I would say it may work out, but if one qualifies for 30, stick with 30. 30 is much better than 50 in terms of how much interest payment over time, but it is not a 50-year trap. Dr. Lawrence, you and with us, chief economist with the National Association of Realtors, how much blame do you put on hedge funds and investors, buying up the property, thus keeping out homeowners from buying a home? I mean, we definitely hear, but it's a select market. So we hear from realtors in Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix, Memphis, where the, you know, realtor is working with the first time buyer. They thought they would make an offer and before you know it, a promise of the market is already concluded, the deal with the institutional investors. So to, especially in the environment where we have first time buyers struggling to get into the market, sort of pushing away those institutional investors, which by the way, can deduct their interest cost fully, but the home buyer is unable to deduct their interest fully or do not generally do so because of a larger standard deduction. So there's little unfairness in the marketplace. So to in order to have that ownership opportunity for more first time buyers and people say, neighborhood characteristic ownership clearly brings more stability, more deeply rooted in the community activity. So I think in certain markets, what we are hearing loud noise is from realtors frustrated they've been priced out. I think, you know, let's get the first time buyer better chance. Dr. Lawrence Young, last question for you. If you could waive a wand and change any policy, pass any law as the chief economist for the national association of realtors, what would that be? Well, we are already approaching three year lows on mortgages approaching 6% mortgage rated than 7%. So it's already happening. It may go down a little bit lower from this point. And I was quite amazed in Washington, DC, two political party, they do not like each other. But last week, they passed the housing legislation by vote of 390. Yes. 10. So bipartisan issues to bring more supply 21st century housing supply measures. So I think I'm getting excited about what's going to happen to the marketplace in 2026 and beyond. So you're optimistic that we will get through this, this housing crisis, not enough first time home buying buildings. You're optimistic we will get through this. He's going to take time, but steady steadily. You will be improvement from this year and onwards. Dr. Lawrence Yoon, who is the senior vice president of research and chief economist for the national association of realtors. Dr. Thank you very much for your insight. Have a good day. Thank you so much. All right, America at night back in a moment. This is America at night with McGraw Mill Havens. Relax. You're listening to America at night with McGraw Mill Haven. There's been a lot of conversation over the last couple of weeks about autism. And I stumbled across an op ed piece in the Washington Post that was quite interesting. And we asked the author to come on and talk about it. His name is Adam Omari. He's a psychologist and a research fellow at the Cato Institute Center for global liberty and prosperity. And the name of his op ed piece was called the autism epidemic is a myth. Dr. Welcome to America at night. Thanks for having me on. You got it. So the theory is that more and more people are having or being diagnosed with autism, kids being diagnosed with autism because of flu shots or some type of environmental something. Or we're just diagnosing it differently. Talk about your op ed piece. What did you mean by the autism? The autism epidemic is a myth. Yes, exactly. Well, there's no doubt that the number of autism diagnoses have been going up. According to the Center for Disease Control CDC data, since 2000, back when the rate of autism was about one in 150 in kids, it's now one in 31. So that's nearly a 500% increase in just the last 20 years or so. But as you mentioned, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's some environmental or biological cause increasing autism. It could just be an artifact of increased diagnosis. So I argue that almost all of the rise that we see in the last 20 years is attributable to widening diagnostic criteria on autism spectrum disorder. The spectrum keeps widening. So talk about that from home because it's not autism was something you never heard about. Then you saw the movie Rainman and you had Dustin Hoffman play a character who had severe autism. And that's what everybody thought was autism. Today, autism is defined in a much more broadly based, loosely based. So talk about that when you talk about the spectrum. Yeah, and that cultural shift directly corresponds to how psychiatric understanding of autism has changed. So prior to the 1990s, autism was exclusively diagnosed as what we would now consider profound autism. So this is like nonverbal severe impairment in daily functioning. And then in part due to Rainman, and what's interesting about Rainman is you see a mix of profound autism impairment, but you also see the what we would now call as burgers like savant capabilities, some extreme intellect offsetting the other social and daily functioning impairment. So then in 1994, the DSM, which is the diagnostic and statistical manual in psychiatry, the psychiatric Bible that lists all the different diagnoses and criteria, it introduced Asperger's syndrome, recognizing that many people with autism, they weren't severely impaired. They weren't unintelligent. In fact, they often demonstrated these savant-like abilities. And then we started to recognize, okay, well, what about people who they're not quite Asperger's, they're also not quite as extreme and in 2013, the most recent update to the psychiatric manual, it was replaced with autism spectrum disorder. So rather than classifying profound autism rather than classifying Asperger's or any particular name, everyone was just on the spectrum. Now that's probably closer to the biological truth, but my argument is that the spectrum has now been cast so wide that we're seeing meaningless diagnoses. You bring this up in your op ed piece, Dr. Adam Omari, and that is, I have a five-year-old daughter, and I can't tell if she's on the spectrum or she's just being bad and being a five-year old and wants to play with her dolls when I tell her to go to bed and she throws a tantrum. Yeah, there's a lot of overlap in the items that are used on these surveys. When my aunt had, I could keep this social responsiveness scale. This is a commonly used survey to diagnose autism. So within psychology research, the gold standard for getting a diagnosis would be an in-person interview, you do tests, you're vetted by a psychiatrist, and you have to meet very high criteria to achieve a diagnosis. And then what's more common in research, including even in CDC data where you're trying to survey the whole country, survey tens of thousands of children, well, it's too expensive to do the hours long in-person interviews, sometimes these take all day. So those ministerous surveys, and these surveys include behaviors that are known to be correlated with the diagnosis. So in the case of autism, the social responsiveness scale includes items like would rather be alone than with others, has difficulty making friends, is regarded by other children as odd or weird. Now, these apply to a lot of kids with autism, but they also apply to a lot of kids without autism, maybe just introverts people with social anxiety, especially for a whole generation that spent a few of their formative social years during the pandemic. There's no wonder that we see high scores on items like this that we might call meaningful social deficits that we should help kids with. But again, is that worthy of a psychiatric diagnosis? I argue that it actually blurs attention from people with autism that face more severe challenges that need real help. Yeah, it's a great point in that we're shocked that children have social disorders because they're stuck on social media all day long, not interacting with humans. Then they come up with all these social disorders and we call it autism when it has nothing to do with autism. Yeah, exactly. And again, we are seeing meaningful changes in socialization of young people and technology is part of that. The pandemic was part of that. It's meaningful to ask questions of, okay, where are children falling behind? And how can we help them? But we don't need diagnoses for that. We just need more attention, more training and intervention. It's doing a disservice though to actual autism, right? If somebody is diagnosed with, I don't know, cancer. And then years later, you changed the definition of cancer to also having a cold being cancer. This might be a terrible example. But autism isn't what it means years ago. And so now people are on the spectrum, it means a form of autism. It's not autism. I don't know what it is. But it's not autism. So when you blame Tylenol or the flu shots or too much sun or too little sun or whatever else, it's sort of doing a disservice to name everything autism. It's great that you bring up the cancer analogy because one of the counter-arguments you hear from autism researchers and activists, what they'll say is we just have better screening tools. Therefore, we're discovering more cases in the same way that we have been discovering more cancer rates. Even though actual incidents of cancer have been going down, we've been getting healthier and we've been better at treating it, but we're also better at detecting it very early on. Sometimes years or decades before, we would have caught it before it was too late when medicine wasn't as advanced. So if some people are saying that's what's happening in psychiatry, we're getting much better at detecting it. But again, then you have to look at what is the actual methodology for detecting it in the case of cancer, you can actually culture cells and you can do objective tests for it. In this case, you're doing surveys which is going to have some bias of subjectivity and lots of overlap with related traits like introversion, like social anxiety and so forth. And yes, as you mentioned, when we see these rising diagnoses and people act as though it's an epidemic, they start looking for real causes. And if the rise in diagnoses is true, absolutely they are legitimate research questions. But in the case of the direction that our NIH is currently heading, there is exploring Tylenolic exposure or other types of toxins in our food or in our environment. Again, those are all legitimate research questions if we're seeing some real incidents of disease or psychiatric disorder go up. If it's all attributable to diagnosis, then we're best case diverting research funding that could go to some better cause. Worst case, we're fear mongering about environmental toxins that aren't actually there. It's also interesting, Dr. O'Merry, who is a psychiatrist and a research fellow at the K-2 Institute for Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. The drop-ed piece in the Washington Post called attention to this titled the Autism Epidemic Is a Myth is also doing a disservice to what is causing it, right? I mean, these numbers you talk about that autism has been diagnosed, you know, 400 percent more today than it was years ago. The people who are being, the kids who are being diagnosed with autism, okay, they weren't being diagnosed in the 50s, 60s and 70s and 80s, but they were leading very productive lives even though they weren't being, quote, unquote, treated for autism. So what's the epidemic, right? What's the disability if it was untreated and undiagnosed and people went about and lived productive lives 20 years ago, but all of a sudden now are being told, oh my goodness, you have a disability. Yeah, I'm sympathetic to the claim that some of the increase that we're seeing is actually better screening and better detection for kids that decades ago would have gone under the radar and gotten picked on and not able to receive the type of help that modern psychiatry might be able to offer. I couldn't tell you when the exact tipping point was, but my sense is in 70s and 80s, it was underdiagnosed and certainly in the last decade or two, we've reached a point of overdiagnosis. So there must be some kind of golden means, some actual biological prevalence of the disorder. And one of the reasons that I think we know that is because autism is 80% heritable. It's one of the most heritable or genetically caused psychiatric conditions there is. So that's another reason it makes less sense to go looking for all these different environmental insults that could be causing autism. What we know to cause autism is largely in the genes, it's passed on through family inheritance. So if likely to be stable, the only question is are we catching it or not? And we might have underdiagnosed it in the past. We're very likely overdiagnosing it. I think it's very unlikely that one in 31 children today, which is what the CDC reports are autistic, especially when you look at the fact that more than 12% of the CDC's data is coming from surveys that include simply items like social anxiety that can generate a false positive for autism. Dr. Does a child who is not diagnosed with autism when they're 10 get diagnosed with autism when they're 25? You can see autism myths in childhood and later accurately diagnosed into adulthood. In the article on the CDC data that I'm referencing, I'm exclusively referring to childhood diagnoses. Right. I mean, can you not have it at five and then develop it when you're 15 or 20? No, the assumption would be you either have it or you don't. It's possible to miss it early and catch it later, but it's also possible to introduce a false positive later when you actually have social anxiety or some other deficit. Do drugs help with the autism diagnosis? People have explored that within psychiatry, the medication is a big business and big research space. Again, I think that given the complex social nature of the disorder and given that it's so hair-airdable, it's less likely to be context-dependent like what we see with anxiety and depression. It's less likely to be treatable with simple medication like we see for those other disorders. The op-ed piece in the Washington Post last week was the autism epidemic is a myth, Dr. Adam O'Mari. Dr. what's the takeaway? What do you want people to take away from this op-ed in the Washington Post? When you see claims like this in public health, be sure to scrutinize where the claims and the data are actually coming from. Dries and diagnoses is true, but that's only as meaningful as the diagnostic criteria. In the case of autism spectrum disorder, the spectrum is now so wide that we're seeing false positives of introverts, socially awkward kids who, again, have meaningful challenges that we ought to address, but whether we're addressing it with a diagnosis or not is a separate question. Interesting stuff. Adam O'Mari, psychiatrist and a fellow researcher at the Kato Institute. Dr. thank you very much for your time. Good stuff today. Thanks for checking in. Thank you. You got it. America at night, back in the moment. Live from coast to coast, this is America at night with McGrown, Neil Haven. It's tired of partisan noise. America's more divided than ever, but independent Americans is adding light to contrast all that heat. Independent Americans, daily news with Army veterans Paul Reikah. Pressing issues of the day, the leaders who are shaping what America will be in the future. We're going to bring the righteous media five eyes, independence, integrity, information, inspiration and impact. Join the movement. Independent Americans from believe, follow and listen on your favorite platform. You're listening to America at night with McGrown, Neil Haven. Hey, when last we met, Robert DuVal hadn't died. And so he died over the weekend and I would like to dedicate today's show to Robert DuVal, one of the great character actors of all time. Not everyone knows the giants, right? The Godfather apocalypse now, but he was in a movie. Anybody see the movie, the great St. Tini? Oh, yeah, the great St. Tini. It was a wonderful movie. He plays this, this soldier, this, this general and he's a warrior looking for a war and he picks up fight with his own family, right? He goes to war with his family. It's heartbreakingly beautiful. And he is, he is beyond fantastic in that movie. That dimension, Lonesome Dove and it starts off as Boo Radley in to kill a mockingbird. So maybe we'll talk about that in the hour number three, but Robert DuVal, one of the great character actors, I even say character actors is sort of an insult to me. He just carried films as a even even small parts, large parts and everything else. So dedicate today's show to Robert DuVal. Coming up next hour, talk to a historian who did some research and found out that Abraham Lincoln may not have written all of his speeches. Yeah, the Gettysburg address his first presidential inauguration and interesting story. The book is called Lincoln's speech writer, John Hay and the friendship of the two. So we'll get into some of that quite controversial in historical circles because to insinuate that Abraham Lincoln had help in writing his speeches somewhat blasphemy when it comes to historians. So we will get into that in hour number two. And then of course, open phones for hour number three. I got about two minutes here or so. There was an interesting chart that I came across today and it talked about the top 10 companies in market capitalization and it goes back every 10 years. So in 2005, the number one largest company in the world was GE in 2005 GE Exxon Microsoft City Group Walmart Pfizer Bank of America Johnson Johnson AIG IBM. Those are the top 10 biggest companies 20 years ago in 2005 of those companies. Only one is still in the top 10 today. Can you name that company? I'll tell you what it is. Microsoft is the only company still left in the top 10. You ready for this? The top 10 companies starting with 10 JP Morgan Berkshire Hathaway's nine Broadcom is eight Tesla is seven. Facebook is six. Google is five. Amazon is four. Microsoft is three. NVIDIA is two and the number one company according to the S&P 500 by market capitalization in 2025 Apple. So 20 years ago was GE. Today Apple and the only company still left in the top 10 Microsoft go back to 1985. It's even more interesting. There's not one company. I was in the top 10 in 1985 in the top 10 today. All right, stay right there. We are just getting started. Our number two, the flip side coming up here in just a minute. Our executive director is Alex Hinton. Our engineer tonight is Richard Good. I'm McGraw-Mill Haven. And this is America at night on Westwood One. Here's your host, McGraw-Mill Haven. We're going to check in with a woman who has written a very interesting historical book. He goes in and takes a look at Lincoln's speech writing abilities. She says that she has uncovered some historical information, some rock solid historical information that Lincoln had a speechwriter named John Haye, who by the way later on became Secretary of State. It's a really interesting story and interesting yarns. We'll get into that with her coming up here in a bit. And of course, open phones next hour. And I want to talk a little Jesse Jackson. And with all due respect to Jesse Jackson, the man passed away today and I certainly don't want to trample on his grave. But he is a historical figure. And I think it would probably do well to have a honest conversation about Jesse Jackson. I didn't listen to every single newscast today or every single show today. But I heard a lot. And there are large giant swaths of Jesse Jackson's history that they just have completely whitewashed over. He's a much more interesting figure when you take in all of his mistakes and foibles and thoughts. And in some ways, he was very mega. And in other ways, he was very progressive. And so I want to break that down in our number three with open phones. So I do want to get into some of that. Also, has anybody watching Hulu's series on John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Carolyn Bissett? It's really, really, really good. The 1990s is definitely a character in that docu series. It's a limited series. I think it's eight episodes. They've dropped the first three. We'll talk about that too in our number three. But stay right there. Lincoln's speech writer, John Hay and the friendship that inspired American eloquence. One of the greatest speech writers of all, Abraham Lincoln. Did he have a speech writer? Some new historical information says maybe we'll talk to Jan Hartman, the author. Stay right there. The night continues in a moment. This is America at night with McGraw-Mill Haven. And we have a yarn for you. Let's go back in history. Abraham Lincoln considered probably one of the best speech writers and speech givers of all time. But did he have help and did he have a speech writer? Well, good question because our guest has written a book called Lincoln's speech writer, John Jay and the friendship that inspired American eloquence. And Jan Sigliano Hartman joins us. Jan, welcome to America at night. Thank you for having me. You've written a lot of books about history and a lot of books about architecture. And so this seems to be right up your alley. Tell us why and how you found out about John Hay. I am a Lincoln fan, but he's sort of an obscure figure in Lincoln's world. How did you find out about him? He is. He's an obscure figure in 19th century American history. When I was writing the history of Euclid Avenue in Cleveland back in the 1980s, also many years ago, John Hay lived in Euclid Avenue with his wife who was the daughter of the richest family in Cleveland, even above Rockefeller. And of all the really fascinating individuals, 500 families and all, John Hay struck me as the most interesting. And I always felt like everything I read about him at that time just really touched the surface. It was just eye candy and not that interesting. So when I was knocking about for my last big book, maybe 20 years ago, I decided to do a cradle to grave biography of John Hay. And I started doing the research at where his private records are at archives are at Brown University. During that time, I was I was researches researching his college records, which had not been touched by anybody since his family, the deposit of them at Brown University. Oh my goodness, 56 years before. And that's when I came upon his voice and his eloquence. And kind of the overlapped with what you start to see in Lincoln's oratory once John Hay was working for him. So that was kind of the nexus of how I discovered this. The other aspect is that there's a lot of anecdotal information about Hay's role with Lincoln as a writer. It's just it's spotty, but it's there. And so I also, you know, really looked at that as well. Yeah. So John Hay was a secretary of state. He was an ambassador to the United Kingdom. So he went on to do some some pretty big things after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. But it seems like it seems like Lincoln in some way took John Hay under his under his tutelage for a while. And that's sort of how the friendship or the partnership started. Well, John Hay graduated from Brown University. He went back home to Illinois with his mother and father. And he kind of blew away six months of just lolly gagging as he got over leaving the high, you know, the the echelons of Brown University and returning to rural Illinois. And his father who was no nonsense and very much a you got it. If you want it, you got to get it. And so he helped his son, his his little son get a job as a law student with his father's brother. If that's confusing, I can repeat it. So his father, I'm sorry, his brother is 12 years younger. His name is Milton Hay and he's an attorney in Springfield, Illinois. Milton shares an office in Springfield with Abraham Lincoln. And they have a they have an office in Springfield on the third floor of a commercial, you know, brick building. And in fact, Lincoln's office is all the way at the back. And then Milton and his partner have have a have a nice space in front. And so his father set him up to go to go to Springfield and study the law with Milton Hay, which he does. And this is just as Lincoln is being nominated as the Republican candidate for the candidate for the Republican party for president. And so here, here's this young man, John Hay, and who's very eloquent and he has a lot of good verse. And at the same time, Lincoln is, you know, keeping everybody occupied and entertained with his own interests. And he becomes part and so John Hay becomes part of Lincoln's people to help him with his candidacy. And another law student is John Nicolay, who also plays a major role in this, but it's a much lesser one in terms of the influence on Lincoln's territory. What a great story. The guy comes home, graduates from Brown and heads to Illinois and he's lamenting the fact that he's stuck with the with the Hayseeds in Illinois. And he has to go take a job with a young Abraham Lincoln who's getting ready to change the world. That is that is that's pretty good. Okay. So, so John Hay, clearly and Lincoln strike up a friendship. They clearly hit it off. I always thought, by the way, Lincoln speechwriter is the name of the book Jan Sigleyano-Harman is the author. I always thought that that, oh, I guess that Lincoln worked alone. He wrote and wrote and wrote and it was all of his words. And he didn't have a speechwriter and all that brilliance came from his own fingertips. Is that not true? Apparently not. And I'm going to offer some anecdotes that actually come from Lincoln historians. And let me just say at the outset, the elephant in the room is this discovery because Lincoln historians deny that Abraham Lincoln had anybody to help him write his speeches or his his oratory. But let me let me quote a few a couple of of statements by Lincoln historians. And this was the first one is from Michael Burling game, the leading Lincoln historian, living historian in our world. And he stated, President-elect Lincoln dictated as Hay and Nicolay, the other secretary, jot it down notes, the presses for each secretary's daily output of 75 letters or more. And that's in January of 1861, just before the railroad trips from Springfield to Washington DC. And then another comes from Douglas Wilson historian writing, especially the drafting of consequential text, usually requires time, quiet, and an absence of interruption, the very things that Lincoln most often lack. And Douglas Wilson posed the question, how did he manage this? Here comes from Ronald C. White, another noted Lincoln historian. How did Lincoln, a person with so little formal education, become our most eloquent president? Now, that's really a wonderful statement because every president from George Washington on down through history to the present day had a acknowledged speech writer. Only Lincoln, according to Lincoln historians, did not. So what I have done is not try to shake, you know, shake history, shake up history. I have simply taken what I've learned from reading Pays early for a tour and literature at Brown University before he started with Lincoln and said, oh my goodness, look at the parallels between John Hayes and what came out of Lincoln's own eloquence. Yeah. So you can draw a direct line from what John Haye wrote and said and was involved with in Brown and what came out of Lincoln's mouth during a speech. I do. And in fact, it may seem a little bit long-winded, but I, the book, I start this book really as a biography of Lincoln's speech writer. And so I start from the very early years of John Hayes' life and how, you know, how smart and talented he was with language, not just English language, but Germanic language, Greek language, Latin language. He was just very talented. And a lot of that comes through in Lincoln's oratory through the years, notably the Gettysburg address, which one Lincoln historian has traced to the Greek oratory of previous generations. Hmm. Any, just out of curiosity, I mean, you didn't catch him writing four score and seven years ago on the bathroom wall in Brown, did you? No, no. I didn't. And I wouldn't say that, but, but I will say this is that during Lincoln's presidency, John Hayes continued to write for the press for newspapers. And he has a couple of newspaper articles that have statements in them, have phrases in them that are then repeated in the Gettysburg address. And I do bring that out. In fact, I had to double check myself twice to make sure I was like, oh my God, are you kidding? And so there are phrases that he would publish in the press for, you know, for a story. And then he would repeat again in another context in a Lincoln speech. And in two cases, it was the Gettysburg address. The book is Lincoln's speech writer, John Haye and the friendship that inspired American eloquence, Lincoln's speech writer, Jan Sigley, I know Hartman is our guest. I got about a minute and a half and I got a break and then we will come back. And the books coming out, you sort of were a little hesitant talking about that mentioning even insinuating that it wasn't all Lincoln's words. Is that, is that blasphemy with other historians to even insinuate that it wasn't all his? Not in my opinion, no. It is, it is in some Lincoln historians opinion. I wouldn't use the word blasphemy. I think it, I don't want to, I don't want to tread too far into this territory, but I think for Lincoln historians who have spent their careers studying and writing about Lincoln to adopt this new view of Lincoln is a challenge. But I think they should speak for themselves. Jan Sigley, I know Hartman who has written a book called Lincoln's speech writer, John Haye and the friendship that inspired American eloquence and we're going to talk more with her, America at night, back in a moment. You're listening to America at night with McGraw-Mill Haven. There's a new book coming out getting a lot of attention and since it's right around President's Day, we thought we would invite Jan Sigley, I know Hartman, the author of a new book called Lincoln's speech writer, John Haye and the friendship that inspired American eloquence. Jan, you mentioned that John Haye who went on to become a Secretary of State. You mentioned that you went through his papers, you're the first one to go through his papers since the family donated them to the university. What does that like to go through somebody's papers, 100 and some odd years afterwards and being the first person to sort of look at their most inner thoughts and interesting notes? That must be an extraordinary feeling for a historian. It's exciting. I would say that I went through his papers directly related to his time at Brown University when he was a graduate student, undergraduate graduate student and the other papers that related to his time as the ambassador to the quarter St. James and to the Secretary of State. Most of those papers are with the Library of Congress. And some of his papers are at Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, which I also read. In terms of his papers for Brown University as a student, I was the first one to read those according to the curator of the collection at that time. And it was, I mean, when I started to gather, to understand that there was a parallel between Hayes voice and Abraham Lincoln's voice as President-elect and then as President, I was I got very excited. And it was just like, oh my goodness. I mean, I'll just, during Lincoln's, what was it? I guess the 200th anniversary of his birth. James McPherson, noted Lincoln historian, was on James Layers program and he said, if you read the first inaugural address and the second inaugural address, it was as if they were written by different people. And so I, you know, I'd listen to that and then I read it and it was like, oh my goodness. I mean, so there are these anecdotes that are kind of dropped out by Lincoln historians. And I don't even think that they fully understand or appreciate what they're saying. But Lincoln was a politician through and through. And he needed an aide to turn his political ambitions to pedestrian visions, which is what John Hay helped them do. So one of the speeches you say that he had a great influence on was at Gettysburg address. You mentioned some of that. You also mentioned in the book, Lincoln's speech writer that his first inauguration, as you just mentioned, was very different from his second, right? The second many people have said is the greatest speech ever given in the history of the United States. And I guess we're assuming that Lincoln wrote most of the first one and then used or had John Hay's help in the second one. That's, that's what you're inferring, correct? Yes. And in fact, there are statements by noted Lincoln historians who said three greatest speeches or letters of Lincoln are the Bixby letter, the Gettysburg address, and the second inaugural. And one, and Michael Burling game noted Lincoln historian has determined, has proven that John Hay wrote the Bixby letter. And so if the Bixby letter is one of the greatest and the Gettysburg address in the second inaugural are two of the others, then what's, you know, it's, there's a shoe should be dropping here. And I can, I can, it's the Gettysburg address that has two phrases from John Hay's newspaper flippings. And it's just remarkable to me how, how these two phrases then show up in the Gettysburg address. The second inaugural, to me, is the voice and the, the poetry of the second inaugural are so John Hay. It's, it's, it's, in my opinion, it's undeniable. Just as a point of reference, you mentioned the Bixby letter. That's the famous letter that was portrayed in saving private Ryan, right? That's that Bixby letter. Correct. Yeah, for those who want to sort of make the full circle. Was there any evidence that John Hay shaped any policy or was it just shaped the oratory? I would say generally no, that the policy that Lincoln fired the policy and it was that that that then appeared in the oratory that John Hay wrote. An example of that is the night that Lincoln won the second presidential election. And John Hay said, my work isn't done. I have to go write the acceptance speech. And that's in writing. And I have that in writing. And that's in the book. And that, and so that's evidence. But I will say generally no at the same time Lincoln accepted welcome to maybe too strong of a word, but he accepted Hay's thoughts on certain items. One was having African American former slaves become soldiers in the Union Army. And that was something that that was a that was a program that Lincoln came hard to. But John Hay listened to the Northern Democrat, sorry, Republicans who are really advocating to have to bring African American former slaves as soldiers into the Union Army. And Lincoln did listen to him. And ultimately not just because of Hay, but because of other people, such as Colonel Hamilton, the son of President Hamilton. And they were really advocating to bulk up the Union Army with former slaves. And Lincoln finally accepted that. That's interesting because in his first inaugural, right, wasn't it their align or a policy that, you know, something along the lines of if a state chooses to have slavery, who am I to say otherwise? I mean, he was right. He was back. He was back keeping the Union together, not about ending slavery. Exactly. Yeah. And so his presidency began keeping the Union together, which was obviously very difficult. It was not about slavery or emancipation. And so one or two of my chapters are about how Hay worked with Lincoln to develop his acceptance of emancipation as a national policy. And it came very hard to Lincoln. And that's where the meditation on divine will came into play and that I suggested they wrote that together. It ended up in Hay's papers. So it was a very challenging moral acceptance transition for President Lincoln to accept emancipation, which he ultimately did in the fall of 1862. And then it became law in January of 1863. The book is coming out in March. Pre-orders are available right now. It is called Lincoln's speech writer, John Hay in the friendship that inspired American eloquence. Jan Sigliano Hartman with us for a couple of more minutes. Okay. So much policy. What about strategy because if I'm right and my history classes were correct, Lincoln gets sworn in in March of 61 for some there is an April of 61 and everybody wants to know what Lincoln's going to do. And he doesn't say anything from the time he's elected until he's sworn in, right? Everyone wants to hear he wants one message and he gives that message during his first inaugural which is a pretty smart strategy actually if you think about it. Was John Hay involved in the strategy and or those types of things? To my knowledge, no. He was involved in the strategy of the train trip from Springfield, Illinois to Washington, Tennessee and all of the the troubles that that occurred during that trip. One was that when I'm sorry, when Lincoln spoke without any script, he really screwed up. I mean, big time to the point that his sponsor said we have, you know, we've drawn a loser here. And he cannot speak without a script. And so and that started about midway through the train, the 11 day train trip, you may have to correct my time on that. And and so Hay was very much on board to help him and where this really came out was at in Philadelphia when Lincoln spoke in Philadelphia in front of the hall and he, you know, he kind of turned the corner there and then with the first inaugural further, but what Lincoln learned from that experience and what his sponsors learned from that experience is he could not speak without a script. Last question for you, Jan Sigliano Hartman who has written the book, Lincoln speech writer, Lincoln dies and John Hay ultimately becomes secretary of state in his later years. Do you, does he write more? Does he give more speeches? Is he known as a great speech giver or a speech writer? What's he known for in laid on life? He was known as a very excellent speech giver. So after Lincoln dies, he became the charge he affairs at the American Embassy in Paris so that he was second in command. And then after that, then he became the ambassador. Not, not, not, not, not month to month, but then the ambassador to the court of St. James. After he had written the 10 volume history of Abraham Lincoln, which on Nikolai, and then he became secretary of state. He during, in the latter years, he gave a speech for Teddy Roosevelt's presidential address, which just hit it out of the ballpark. It was just amazing. And he actually gave two speeches during Teddy Roosevelt's presidential run and both of those were just considered to be absolutely spectacular. One of which has been recorded on record and is available at the Library of Congress. Wow. Now that. It's pretty amazing. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow. You know, they always say history is never done and who knew everyone thought, right? There's nothing left else to write about Abraham Lincoln, but Jan Sigmiano Hartman, right? His historians find it, you know, years later, there's always more stuff to write about. The book is called Lincoln's speech writer, John Hay and the friendship that inspired American eloquence, Lincoln's speech writer, John Sigmiano Hartman. The book is out in March pre-orders, get it, and a great story about one of the great ortours and one of the great ortours of our time, Abraham Lincoln. Jan, thank you very much for a very enjoyable hour. Good luck with the book and good luck down the road. Thank you so much for the time. You got it. America at night with McGraw-Mill Avin. We got lots more to get to. We got an hour of open phone straight ahead. I haven't talked to you guys in what a couple of days, the three-day weekend with President's day, but because of President's day and Lincoln's birthday and Washington's birthday, we wanted to get her on to talk about Lincoln as a speech writer. I thought it was really interesting, right? I mean, talk about doing the legwork to go back and look at its speeches from a guy named John Hay at Brown University to then sort of connect the two with Lincoln, pretty interesting stuff. Next hour, we'll open phones. I do have a take on Jesse Jackson. Now I'm probably going to upset some people and that's not my intention. And I certainly don't want to trample on the poor man's life and the poor man's great if after dying and everyone's doing a retrospective. But I've watched quite a number of eulogies and comments and commentary about the man, but a couple of glaring mistakes that I didn't hear. And so I have my own take on Jesse Jackson. So stay there. We'll get to that coming up next hour. And then of course, Donald lemons back in the news. Again, I don't mean to, I don't mean to come down on Donald lemon. And I get it as a member of the media, right? I'm supposed to be on his side and certainly not a fan of somebody in a journalist who's filming something to be harassed or whatever else. But I got to tell you this, this is the best thing to happen to Donald lemon. You know why? Because Donald lemon couldn't get arrested. And then he got arrested. And now the guy's like relevant again. So it's the best thing that happened to his career. And for that matter, I don't know. I don't, again, very strange times when Stephen Colbert, you know, can't put a guest on because the lawyers for CBS question whether or not the equal time that's garnered more attention than it ever would have. When CBS didn't run the story because they supposedly got pressure from the Trump administration or they're trying to curry favor with the Trump administration. That show garnered more attention. So while trying to ban something, all you've done is created more attention for him. Trump lemons more relevant today than he's ever been, right? When he was fired from from CNN, the guy was the guy was in the guy was nowhere. The guy literally couldn't get arrested. And now since he's gotten arrested, he's much more relevant. Lots more to get to, including my take on Jesse Jackson next hour. Open phones, text line is open. Phone lines are open. We have a couple lines open for you. 1-8442 Magra 184-426-247-29. Talk about all the news that happened over the last couple of days. And of course, your phone calls and text messages are executive directors Alex Hinton. I'm McGraw-Mill Haven and this is America Night on Westwood One. [Music] Westwood One presents America at Night. Here's your host, the Grom-Mill Haven. [Music] All right, welcome back. It's open phones 1-8442 Magra 184-426-247-29. We'll get to the open phones. We'll get the text messages in just a second. But here's my rant on Jesse Jackson. And with all due respect for Jesse Jackson, right? A giant of a man. Whether you agree with his politics, whether he doesn't disagree with his politics, obviously the man made a difference. Right? I know he's criticized for all sorts of things. We'll get to that in a second. But anything, we have to take the totality of the man. And in this day and age, right? You're either a hero or a zero, right? You're either there's nothing or a saint. And that's just, we don't, nobody, nobody's perfect. And nobody is, we're all human. We're all flesh and blood. We all make mistakes. We all fall down. We try and get up, brush ourselves off, apologize for our mistakes and move on. And Jesse Jackson is no different than the rest of us. However, the man led a very interesting life, a great orator and was a great inspiration to a great many people. And so I think he should be applauded for that. As a civil rights leader, as somebody who, you know, tried to solve some of the, some of the wrongs he saw. And so, you know, I think we should talk about him on the day he died and all those things. Now with that being said, and again, I don't mean to cause any controversy and I don't mean to, I don't mean to make anybody mad. But all day long today, I kept hearing about Jesse Jackson and this, this, this over simplification of his life and his, his, his, just large parts of, of his life were sort of left off this, this, this memorializing of the man. And you know, the Democrats say what you want, right? They're all about, let's not forget our history. Let's, let's tell the story. Let's, let's tell it all, war, it's an all because history is very important. You kind of forgot some really interesting and really important parts of Jesse Jackson's life. I didn't hear everything today and I'm sure some people brought this up, but I never heard anybody today on any of the main newscasts. They may have said it. I may have missed it. But did anybody bring up the fact that he called New York, Jaime town? Yeah, he called Jewish people, Jaime's and New York, Jaime town. Now if that were today, he would be canceled. That's right. You make one mistake like that. Um, Roseanne Barr, right? What did she say that got her canceled? You say something like that today, you're canceled. He apollot, luckily he wasn't a pilot. He wasn't canceled. He went to a church, made his apologies, admitted he was wrong and, and moved on. That's, it was an important part of his, right? The other thing too is he was very pro life early in his career, very, very pro life, very pro police, which in some ways would get him kicked out of the Democratic Party today, not very progressive being pro police and also being very pro life. And yet he was considered as the person who started this whole progressive movement. I'm not so sure about that because he was also very critical. Of taking responsibility for your actions and trying to do the right thing and, uh, right, there are no excuses, even though you've come from a difficult background, you still have to pull yourself up and keep hope alive and all those things. The other interesting thing that wasn't mentioned today about Jesse Jackson that is probably more interesting than all of this is that in 1993, Jesse Jackson and I believe it was the Baltimore Sun. And the quote was something along the lines of, there is nothing more painful than for me to admit that when I'm walking down the street and I hear footsteps and I start to think, oh my goodness, I'm going to get robbed. And then I turn and look and see somebody white and feel relieved. Those aren't my words. Those are the words of the civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, right? There's nothing more upsetting to me than walking down the street and hearing the footsteps behind me and think I'm going to get robbed. Turn and see a white man and feel relieved. Now could you imagine if somebody said that today again, canceled forever. Now I, you got to give him credit. If that's what he was thinking, that's what he was thinking. And I don't know if a fear of robbery is a form of racism or not. I, I don't know. But Jesse Jackson said that. And so that high me town pro life, pro police is an interesting guy. Again, I, the last thing I want to do is trample on his, on his legacy. But let's talk about the man in his totality. Also I believe he fathered a child out of wedlock with one of his, one of his, one of his subordinates, one of his, aides, one of his, one of his, his inner circle. Again, again, not, I mean, right, we're all, we're all sinners. But again, in his totality of his life, let's tell the story. Yes, he was a civil rights leader, but he had foibles as well. That's not to diminish what he did. But let's talk about his life in his totality. I just thought, I was just shocked at how the quote unquote traditional media just whitewashed his, his whole life, you know, warts and all. We're in the, we're in the, we're in the business of being honest. And we're in the business of, right? If I'm anything, I'm a social commentator on the world and these, these, these people who were asked to come on to talk about the life of Jesse Jackson, they failed. And the hosts never brought up these things. I, I mean, this is, you know, you say, look, I, no disrespect to the man's life. And we're talking about all of his good things, but the man, the man made, the man made noise. And he was certainly not perfect. But anyway, I just hadn't heard it all day today. And I do do three hours a night on a national syndicated radio show. And I thought big story of the day, you would think that somebody would have brought some of these things up. Anyway, we can talk about it. One eight four four two McGraw, one eight four four two six two, 4729. Let's go to the phones here. We have got Gil in San Antonio, Gil. Hello. I just have to thank all of your listeners, all the taxpayers of the United States, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and given me a great hearing aid that I got yesterday. And I can hear you a lot better and I can communicate a lot better. Well, that's the most important thing. The fact that you can hear us better, that's definitely important. Okay. All right. I wanted to talk about partisanship. You know, partisanship, it goes all the way back to the time of the American Revolution when they were patriots and porous and Benedict Arnold and all of that. And it's worked as well all the way to where we are now. And I was watching an old movie. And I heard the best joke about partisanship in the US and I'd like to repeat it if I'm like. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. It goes back to Guadalcanal 1942 when the Marines were locked in deadly hand-to-hand combat and transport there with the Japanese. And just private in the Marine Corps was in the child line and his commanding officer walked by a sentence, "Grading officer, I apologize sir. I think I'm the only man in my squad who's yet to kill a job." And his commanding officer said, "Well, that's not a problem. I know how to fix that." Next time you're up on the line, you yell across to the Japanese to hell with hero hero and a japlor pop up and you can shoot. Well, the next time the private is in the child line, he's commanding officer asked, "Would you do what I told him?" He said, "Yes sir." He said, "Will you successfully?" He said, "No." He said, "What happened?" Well, I yelled to hell with hero hero, and a Japanese popped up and he said to hell with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And I just couldn't bring myself to shoot a fellow Republican. [laughs] Gil, that's a good one. Thanks for checking in as always. I got a break. Tony's on the line, Eric and Fargo. Text line is open, 18442 McGraw. 18442624729, American Knight. Open phones were just getting started back in a moment. Call now, 8442624729. That's 8442 McGraw. All right, the text line is open from Kansas. Good evening, McGraw. Jesse Jackson was the only civilian who helped free an American hostage. Ronald Reagan wasn't even able to do that. No, because Ronald Reagan was president of the United States. I think you're right. You're talking about the Kosovo back in the Clinton years. Yeah, and Clinton said, "Don't go." Yeah. No, Jesse Jackson deserves a lot of credit for lots of things. But the totality of the man, if you're talking about his obituary, comments about Heimytown have to be in there. His comments about walking down the street and not feeling safe and turning around and seeing a white man and feeling safe. I'm sorry. That's just got to be in his obituary. It's just part of his life. It doesn't make him a bad guy. It's just the totality of his life. All right, text lines open. Eric and Fargo South Dakota. Welcome to America at night, Eric. How are you? Eric, thanks for calling. Yeah, and it's North Dakota, by the way. Oh, North Dakota, I'm sorry. State straight. Yeah. I just wanted to, I'm a first time caller for your show, even though I had been a guest with Mr. Boyhand a number of times and vice versa. He's been on the show. We love to hear. Um, the, I wanted to bring a little hope to the country. I don't know if you're familiar with the term of an unclaimed veteran, but I'm not sure that is someone a veteran who has known known relatives who had passed away. It's very sad, unfortunately, but accurate term. And his name, we laid him to rest today at the Fargo National Cemetery. His name was Clifford Hurley, burner. He was a sergeant, Green Paray Special Forces from 1966 to '69. He served in country, '67 and '68. He was a medic, as people could imagine, a Green Paray medic saw a lot of action. He was awarded the combat medical badge. He was a Spanish Spanish Spanish Spanish Spanish. The Vietnamese crossed with gallantry and palm device, long course with the national defense, the Vietnam campaign ribbon and other awards. But we had on a very cold and windy day, a hundred people show up for someone that they didn't know to lay them rest after all efforts had been expanded to find any relative or anyone that knew him to claim him. But it just goes to show that there are people out there yet that will take the time to honor our heroes, even if the heroes don't have anybody at this world. Eric, how did you get involved with this? Is this part of your mission up there? Is this what you do or are you part of an organization? There's an organization called the United Patriotic Bodies, Commander Jason Hicks. I'm into it because I wounded veteran. I started a radio show here on your affiliate WDY a number of years ago and that's how I knew Jim Mohanon because I've been at his studios in Washington before. I do stories is what I do for my show. But the point I guess is what I'm making is I happen to lose my sight over an Iraq after being blown up a number of times. It's a continuing mission since I can't serve anymore. I found a different way to serve. I do when there's a story like this that gets put out on the news and they just ask, "We have an unclaimed veteran." We've done this several times because unfortunately we have a number of unclaimed veterans. I just wanted to, you know, it might be just a local story here, but I wanted the country to know about it because there are unclaimed veterans who pass away and are buried with nobody there other than an honor guard. And if people can take the time to show up and honor somebody that has served their country, that's just a memorial day because there's so many and citizens as well. There's people that pass that have nobody and it's just a beautiful thing and I just wanted to share a little hope with the country. And well, that's such a bad news. Eric, what is that veteran's name again? I missed the last name. His name was Sergeant Clifford Hurley Brenner. Brenner. Clifford Hurley Brenner. Eric, in Fargo, North Dakota, I thank you for your service and I thank you for the story and I thank you for keeping it real. And that's what makes America great. Eric, be good. Call back anytime. 1-8442 McGraw. 1-844262-4729. And that's what makes America at night tick. Stay right there. More in a moment. This is America at night with McGraw, Mill Haven. Join the conversation. Call 8442 McGraw. America at night with McGraw, Mill Haven. Call or text to that number 1-844262-4729. Tony and Mario. Good evening, sir. How are you? Good evening, sir. I'm fine. Nice chatting with you as well. What have you got for us? Well, I just, I was going to, you always get me off track because all the, always the stories are interesting. So I looked up a little bit of history on Jackson because I was very interested in his presidential bid in 1984 in January. Someone, one of the journalists that was following him by the name of Milton Coleman working for the Washington, I guess, a Washington post reported the comments back to his editorial staff and then the editorial was written about the comments that he made. I won't repeat them. I don't want to use those words against New York City and Jewish people. And that person published that about 14, 15 days later and made it a national issue. I'm not impressed with the Washington Post that took a story that was 15 or 20 days old and then made it a national story, maybe to hurt his political ambitions. But the thing is, when you're talking like this, you're saying that they sort of, Mr. Cleans his image. He had some bumps and scrapes and the thing is more so the commentary that was made against Jewish people in New York City had, let's say, a white politician said something about, let's say Harlem and use the racial slur about people there and of the city. That politician would have been wiped out and we look at Gary Hart as an example of his presidential bid being destroyed. It says more to the fact that the Jewish community in the United States forgave Mr. Jackson. That is the story really that he was forgiven and he went to a Manchester synagogue and the Jewish people actually forgave him because the fight was that we're all together in this. So that is really the story for me, not so much the negative. Well, I think it's an interesting, it's an interesting, first of all, I don't blame the Washington Post for taking 14 days. I mean, I don't know, I don't know how it all came to be, but you got to vet these things, you got to run these things, you have to get a comment, you know, all sort of whatever. But I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure how many days it takes. It takes time to sort of get a story out, but that's my whole argument about cancel culture, right? Somebody says something stupid. Rose Ambar says something really stupid about Valerie Jarrett, right? We has to give up her life's work, right? She has to sort of denounce and sort of turn her way from her Rose Ambar on ABC, never allowed to work again because she said something stupid, right? I mean, whether it's where would Don Rickles be today, if that was the standard to cancel everybody, where would I hear the deal? Right. But here's the deal. But here's the deal. One side uses it as a weapon against the other side. And yet they both claim, oh my goodness, how terrible other's cancel culture is. It's, it's a weapon that is used today. And look, obviously it was wrong. Obviously it was stupid. It was inappropriate. He made a mistake. He apologized for it. He learned from it and moved on. I get called every name in the book when a liberal does something stupid and apologizes and I say, you know, let him go back to work. And then when a conservative does it, I say, well, you know what, they're, they apologize, they learn from their mistake. It's a teacher moment. Let's, let's move on. I get called every name in the book. And I'm the only consistent one where it comes to cancel culture. I think it's the dumbest thing in the world where all humans, we all make mistakes. I'm one syllable away from saying something stupid, never to be heard from on the radio again because I said something stupid, really? It's just, it's just ridiculous. And so I just thought it was interesting that nobody was bringing it up on the day he died. That's all. percent right. But also they don't dig too deep. He first denied even making the statement and then subsequently he said, well, it's a conspiracy of the Jewish community to keep me out of this political race. And then he apologized, you know, had a search chart at it. But you know, it wasn't like he came out and said, I made a mistake. It's not like my grow. Oh, I made a mistake. Sorry, sorry, sorry. It's three shots at the at the, you know, yet to yet yet three swings at that pitch. Anyway, what I really called about today was non-composmentist politicians. And in this particular case, I being a diplomatic historian in my background, you know, when you go to Europe, you're in you're in the bowels of the the Congress of Vienna of 1815 where the matter and tolerance redistributed the power power balance in Europe after the Bolionic force. And you have a OC and you have, you know, Gretchen Whitmer and you have news. News. I'm coming to there to this forum in Europe, fighting with European diplomats that are well versed in diplomatic history world politics world history world power plays, et cetera. And you have Gretchen Whitmer saying, well, I don't know what's really going on with Ukraine, but maybe my diplomats from the United States can can hand them off. I know he knows better than I and then AOC coming off with dribble, but in the United States they're very popular. But you see how when you're on the world stage, you have to come up with, well, you know, this is what Mark Carney of Canada says. No, no, no, you got to come up with your own agenda right. Well, but hold on a second. Hold on a second. Hold on a second, Tony. Since Donald Trump. You know, no, no, look, look, look, look, look, since Donald Trump has come along, we great on a curve now, right? I mean, Donald Trump sent a lot of stupid things, a lot of ignorant things, a lot of moronic things along the way. And he gets graded on a curve. So we're now into grading on a curve, I guess, when it comes to these people. Mark O'Rebure, did a pretty decent job. He sounded at least polished and he sounded at least when he had that agenda and he didn't sound confrontational. No, and I told you, thanks to the phone call, I agree. Mark Arubio sounded like he at least went over his notes. No, I agree. I agree with that. I don't know how well it went over at the White House, but he did sound much more good cop as opposed to anything else. Tony, thanks for the phone call. Eduardo and Tampa Florida, welcome to America Night. Hello. Hey, MacRown. I want to see if you want to play along with a poll here, Regrets of Americans. Okay. 11% said people don't have no regrets. 36% said not visiting a family or friends. 35% not pursuing their dreams. 49% spending money or buying something. And finally, 43% fighting with friends or family. Time would be not taking more vacations, more travel. That would be mine. That would be your regret not taking enough vacations. Yeah. Yeah, that would be my regret. Yeah. Well, I guess if you're asking me, Regrets, I've got a few, but too few to mention. Okay. How about that? Take a little Frank Sinatra for you. I, you know, even my blunders, even my mistakes, you learn from them. Do I wish I would have asked out the girl in college maybe, do I wish I didn't make a fool of myself to a girl in junior high, maybe. But you know, I mean, it's, again, Regrets, I've got a few, but too few to mention. You know, I, I've bumbled and stumbled and fell and gotten up and dusted myself off and made an itty to myself time and time again. But, you know, I mean, it's a life you learn and you move on and you laugh at yourself. And, you know, you just sort of, I don't take myself too seriously. I don't take anybody else too seriously. You know, somebody calls me a name. Okay, fine. You don't like me or so. I just, I'm not, I am just, you know, I don't know. I'm just not that, I'm just not wound that, that, that tight. And I've never been wound that tight. And my grandmother would, would laugh because my cousin was, was, you know, wound tight as a drum and, you know, she says, I'm a girl, would just let things roll off his body. No big deal. You know, so I don't, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just, you know, you don't, you don't like me. All right. Cool. I don't like me. I agree with you half the time. Right? I mean, I just, it's regrets. I've got a few, but two few to mention Eduardo. Thanks to phone call. Appreciate it. Danny in Rawa. Danny, welcome to America at night. Hey, thanks brother. One thing I've never said to you, I'm actually from St. Louis myself. I went to a written. Oh, yeah. Cool. But anyway, my thought was, you have all the Democrats talking about unmasking ice. And yet five years ago, the Democrats wanted you to wear, you know, a mask, two masks, three, four, whatever. Isn't that the funniest, isn't that the funniest thing in the world? Right? If you would have told five years ago, ice members, you had to wear a mask, right? They would have gone to the ends of the earth to criticize you, to sue you, to call you on American, how dare you make me wear a mask, right? And now it's completely opposite. Ice not only wants to wear a mask, they're demanding they wear a mask. Right? So five years ago, they didn't want to wear a mask. And liberals wanted you to wear a mask. Now liberals don't want you to wear a mask and or ice demands, they have to wear a mask. Right? But there's another thing too that I thought about. And hopefully I don't put some idea in somebody's head, but this is a thought that I had. Just like everybody talks about religious freedom, at some point, I'm afraid that transgender are going to start some kind of a religion where they say, this is my religion. Much like, I believe it was in the 70s, no later than the 80s, where Satanism, the church of Satan, or I don't know the exact name, but they actually sued. And that's what got prayer out of school. And I wonder if that's ever going to happen. And I say, hey, we need to have this because it's my religious belief. Anyway, that's all I got brother. Have a good night. Thanks, Danny. It's interesting you bring it up to two things. One is the masks crack me up, right? The masks are so funny. If you would have forced a federal agency to wear masks five years ago, no, you have to wear a mask. They would, right, they did. They sued, they sued and then it's good. How dare you? I have a free speech, right? Stone, you're not the wear of mask, right? And liberals want you wear mask. Conservatives were against the mask. Now liberals want you to take the mask. Oh, you're not allowed to wear a mask. Oh, no, you're not allowed to wear. Oh, you can't wear a mask. Conservatives, oh, I'm wearing a mask. Five years ago, you're walking down the street. You were in a mask. You were called liberal. Now you walked down the street. Are you wearing a mask? You're a jack booted thug. It's hilarious. I mean, you can't, you can't make this up as for religion and infringing on your rights. I've always been fascinated by the people who claim as Catholics that they have a, that getting a vaccine is against their religious beliefs. I missed that in church, church, the Catholic church. I don't think has taken a stance against the vaccines. I have a friend who's anti-vax and religious, religious reasons. I'm like, your Catholic, you're not, you're not a seventh day Advent. What's going on? You're, well, you're Catholic. I went to Catholic school with you. Why are you, why are you anti-vaccine for your religion? So I don't, you know, people, people claim religious beliefs where there are, you know, there are Catholic, but you're a sect of the Catholic that doesn't believe in vaccines. I don't, I don't know that sect of the Catholic church, but it is somewhat hilarious. No, you, it's called situational ethics. You justify, you justify your thoughts anyway you want, right? Also the vaccines were interesting too. Vaccines, being anti-vax was very liberal, very liberal. Oh my goodness. I knew some super ultra progressive liberal people who were very anti-vax. And then COVID comes along and all of a sudden it becomes conservative. And so now it's conservative where it used to be liberal. So now it's very bizarre, very bizarre. But again, it's right situational ethics. It's, it's, it's what you want to believe or who, it's kind of a game. It's, you know, when Jack Clark played for the, Jack Clark played for the San Francisco giants, Cardinal fans didn't like him. Get straight into the Cardinals all of a sudden Cardinal fans love him. When Johnny Damon played for the Red Sox, Yankee fans hated, hated Johnny Damon. Get straight to the Yankees. He's fine for the Yankees all of a sudden Yankee fans love Johnny Damon. It's kind of like politics, right? You hate the guy until he gets traded to your team and all of a sudden you love the guy. Strange. Probably 11, isn't it? 314. No, check that. 1-8442, McGraw. 1-844262, 4729. I almost gave out my, my home, my phone number. All right, text messages are coming in. Pretty big. Let's see if we can get some text messages here going on. Thanks for the book on Lincoln's speech writer. Great timing for Lincoln's birthday. Yeah. Here's another one. I thought I would send you some fan mail. I really appreciate your humor, even when you lose it laughing, you never snort and you don't laugh like a donkey. That's good. I learned a lot on your show, especially when you put on guests, they're just a little bit smarter than you, just a little bit seriously though. I hold humor as the best medicine out there. And I thank you for being that avenue that I can go to for a good laugh. All right. Here's one from Mississippi, the 662. My favorite national park is Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee. All right. Good. Jerry in the Twin Cities. Thanks for a great interview with Pat Piper regarding the great Larry King. That was fun talking to Pat. We need to get Pat back on the radio soon. Thanks again, Jerry from Minneapolis, you betcha. Here's another one. Hey, McGraw, I want to talk about fraud. How about insurance fraud by the insurance company itself, a late enrollment penalties without anything in return for recipients is a joke. I paid $77 in late enrollment fees. Ouch. That hurts. You won't be late next time. We have 1 8442 McGraw America at night. Text messages, phone calls back in a moment. Call 8442 McGraw America at night with McGraw Mill Haven. All right. We got just a couple of moments left to try and sneak one more phone call in here. Alex in Mountain View, California. Alex, you'll get the last word tonight. I think you're taking my call. I just want to say we should withhold judgment about Jesse Jackson and all the people who worked closely with Martin Luther King because the FBI will be releasing files about these people, especially Martin Luther King in a few years. And it may reveal things that may be shocking. And for that reason, Bill O'Reilly himself has refused to write a book specifically about Martin Luther King because he's waiting for the release of those files. Okay. All right. Thank you, Alex. Thanks to the phone call. We had a woman on a couple of months ago. We heard an interesting article about the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr. And she had some interesting, interesting facts, but also some interesting connections as well with James Earl, James Earl Ray. So we'll just have to wait. She said she would love to see the files opened up, right? We're opening up all these files. Why not open up Martin Luther King, Jr.'s files. It's been long enough. Let's release them and let's see the dirty history of for all right, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Let me leave you with this regrets. I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do and I saw it through without exemption. How's that Eduardo and Tampa? I do what I can. Hey, come back tomorrow night. We have an author that is going to spin a yarn called Family of Spies. Wait till you hear this story about World War II. Come back tomorrow night. You'll be glad you did. Our executive director tonight is Alex Hinton. I'm a grommel heaven. This is American Knight on Westwood One. The Dan Bangeino Show. Dan, I missed you all. I've got so much content bottled up my head. I got a lot of stuff. This is the kind of stuff. It's real. May not hear this anywhere else. Hard truths. There's a lot of stuff to talk about that anything is going to open a lot of eyes and a lot of ignorances are going to get shut down. In a bold perspective, no one else can offer. They are freaking out. It's the comeback everyone's been waiting for. Lovers, haters, friends, supporters, detractors, you're all welcome. I want to hear it all. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. I'll see you there.