It's a Numbers Game: The Numbers Behind Cartel Power: Assassinations, Fentanyl Profits, and America’s Border Crisis
3/2/202637 mincomplete
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0:36Welcome back to A Numbers Game with Ryan Gruduski.
0:38Thank you guys for being here.
0:40Latin America is going through one of the largest sociological, cultural and political changes in
0:47more than half a century.
0:49Many cultural things that we associate with the region for a very long time are
0:55changing very dramatically, sometimes being washed away.
0:59The region is more secular than it's ever been before.
1:02A lot of people are abandoning traditional religion, Christianity and Catholicism.
1:06That's happened across the West and that's happening now in Latin America.
1:10You know, Latin America has been always known for very large, intact families.
1:14It's almost like a joke.
1:16It's like a family guy sketch of how many siblings you have and it's the
1:18whole town. That's really changed quite a bit.
1:20But most parts of, every part of Latin America has a fertility rate under replacement
1:25levels and many parts of Latin America have a fertility rate lower than Western Europe.
1:30I mean, it's extremely low.
1:32And lastly, Latin America has always had a very, not always, but for a long
1:36time, have had a close association with very left -wing governments.
1:40You can go back to Juan Perón over in Argentina or the long -standing left
1:45-wing governments that have controlled Mexico.
1:47But that has slowly kind of fallen by the wayside one after the other.
1:52Right -wing governments and more importantly, nationalist, populist governments have won in Argentina, Ecuador, Panama,
1:58El Salvador, Bolivia, Chile, Honduras, and a few weeks ago, even in Costa Rica.
2:04It's a transformational change over a very short period of life on a number of
2:10different fronts that's going to impact an entire generation of our closest neighbors.
2:16I mean, aside from Canada, but I mean, what do they count?
2:18They can't even win a hockey game.
2:20One thing remains, though, more than anything else, the cartel.
2:24The drug cartel, which has killed millions of people and trafficked hundreds of thousands of
2:29illegal aliens into the United States, remains the only institution firmly in control in most
2:37parts of Latin America, but they too are in trouble.
2:40Last week, a cartel kingpin named Nemocio Cervantes, also known as El Mencho, which, like,
2:47I know I'm sure there's a nice Latino, you know, rolling of your R's ways
2:53to say that. I know I make it sound like a Jewish person thought of
2:57a cartel nickname like El Mencho, but I'm going to say it like that because
3:01that's the best I got for you guys.
3:03Anyway, without getting too much into the weeds of his biography, El Mencho's cartel splintered
3:10from the Sinola cartel. They are probably the most powerful cartel in Latin America and
3:17have been for decades. They are really responsible for the explosion of black tar heroin
3:23in the United States decades ago, and they made billions of dollars and killed millions
3:28of people. So he comes from some of the most, I guess, prestigious cartels, you
3:34could say. In Latin America, it's not like he's a no -name kind of man
3:38on the side. He comes from a very prominent cartel that he spun off into
3:42his own independent organization. Under pressure from the Trump administration, Mexico has increased their targeting
3:49of drug cartel leaders. The violence over the, you know, over the Rio Grande has
3:55exploded, and when his murder broke out in the news, more than 60 people were
4:01killed in almost a single day following El Mencho's death.
4:04It's expected that his son -in -law, who was actually an American citizen, will succeed
4:10him. A man named Julio Alberto Castillo Rodriguez, he also has a nickname, I'm not
4:15going to repeat it because I can't pronounce it.
4:17The Mexican government, which has for years turned a blind eye to cartels' operations, said
4:22that striking against El Mencho was a significant strategic victory.
4:27President Claudia Sheinbaum, a very left -wing politician.
4:31By the way, how funny is it that Mexico has a Jewish president and El
4:37Salvador has a Palestinian president?
4:38Just a little joke from the gods.
4:43Anyway, Sheinbaum, a very left -wing president who can't stand Donald Trump, said that she's
4:48taken an increased actions against the cartel, and there's clearly a lot coming from the
4:54Trump administration to make her want, to make her have to, rather, not want to,
4:59have to take some action against this horrific gang that's killed so many people.
5:04While she said America did not play a substantial role in the attack, she actually
5:09said they didn't play a role at all in the attack.
5:11The New York Times credited the CIA with finding El Mencho's location and sharing it
5:16with the Mexican military and assisting his assassination in that way from the intelligence perspective.
5:21So America's intelligence... ... ...
5:22did help in the targeted assassination.
5:24You know, her hatred for Trump is so real that when President Trump asked her
5:30for access to Mexico to have military conduct, actions rather, military, you know, plans in
5:37Mexico to kill cartel members, cartel leaders, she refused to.
5:42So the CIA apparently was able to track El Mencho's location by following his lover
5:49and following her location. It's always a shady woman that will do you in, gentlemen.
5:54It really is. To quell the violence, the Mexican government has closed many roads and
5:59they've been really, really clamping down around Guadalajara.
6:05That's been the main epicenter of a lot of violence.
6:08But what's interesting about this reaction from the death of El Mencho is that Mexican
6:15drug cartels have also targeted areas of the country with large populations of American tourists.
6:22That was not the case always.
6:24It was always like understanding of, you know, between the Mexican government and the cartel,
6:29don't target tourist locations. Keep those tourist locations prosperous.
6:33Let's keep the money going in.
6:35And you can kind of have run over much of the rest of the country.
6:38So this was a big, big, big change in how that understanding has been working.
6:43Now, remember, this comes just days after the El Paso airport, El Paso, Texas airport,
6:49was forced to shut down because of the high usage of cartel drones in the
6:52region. A month before that, President Trump requested U .S.
6:56special forces be able to operate action against El Mencho.
6:59So I think my guess, and this is just a guess, I think that the
7:05CIA probably knew his whereabouts from what I'm reading between the lines for a while
7:11or kind of had an estimated location of where he was.
7:15And it looks like the Mexican military slow walked this killing.
7:20It's a significant killing. Credit to them.
7:23A massive amount of credit to them.
7:24However, not allowing the best military on Earth to take action against the worst crime
7:31lords in Mexico, I think is slowing down this process of actually getting the results
7:37that we want, which is the eradication of the cartel.
7:41President Trump is making it known, though, that no matter what has happened so far,
7:46he still wants more action from President Scheinbaum.
7:51He wants her to continue.
7:52So with this assassination, with this high -targeted assassination from a prominent of the cartel,
7:57what do they do now?
8:00Is there a power vacuum?
8:02And are they dealing with this as they're grappling with the closing of the American
8:06border, which has dug into their profits over human smuggling for certain?
8:11Man, it's probably reduced their profits also from the drugs.
8:14I don't know how much the actual number is, but it's pretty, it's substantial enough
8:18to notice. Secondly, they're dealing with this vacuum power of not being able to operate
8:22as freely and openly in places like El Salvador, possibly one day in Venezuela with
8:27new government and new pressure from the Trump administration.
8:30In Panama, in all these places, they are having a real issue.
8:35Could a more desperate cartel, which has lost access to funds from human smuggling, which
8:41are grappling with new ways and innovative ways to sit there and try to get
8:45drugs into the United States and are dealing with Trump's secure border, could they look
8:50to retaliate with more high -profile assassinations?
8:53And how does this all affect the United States?
8:56With me to discuss is Wid Lyman from the Border Hawk website.
9:00It's a great website. They cover immigration nonstop.
9:02And I've actually been to the border with Wid.
9:05We saw cartel members following us and I guess there were coyotes following us.
9:10It is not a joke.
9:11It was during the Biden administration, so there was a lot more activity.
9:13It's not the same with the Trump administration.
9:15But nonetheless, he knows the border and he knows the cartel very well.
9:19He'll be up next. G'day, it's Brittany Saunders.
9:23When I started out, businesses backed me.
9:25Now I'm teaming up with ComBank to return the favor.
9:28Search ComBank Small Business and enter for the chance to have it backed by me.
9:31Competition ends 8th of March, 2026.
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9:38With me on today's podcast is Wid Lyman, the White House correspondent for Border Hawk.
9:43Thank you for being here.
9:45Ryan, great to be with you.
9:46Thank you for the time.
9:47So we saw a targeted assassination of a top cartel member in Mexico last week.
9:54And this has caused a lot of violence within Mexico and political instability within the
9:59cartel. You know, you have governments changing all over Latin America, much more cracks than
10:02the cartel from the Trump administration.
10:04Is the cartel changing operations in any way that would seem more desperate?
10:10You know, Ryan, it's a good question.
10:11I don't want to downplay what has happened.
10:13We're looking at the removal of the head of the largest cartel in Mexico and
10:19possibly one of the largest international crime organizations in the world.
10:23The Jalisco New Generation cartel is in 40 countries across the entire globe.
10:28And in multiple states in Mexico, we saw violence creep up in 15 different states,
10:34which is completely shocking, even by Mexican cartel standards.
10:38What's interesting is this is a newer cartel.
10:41So when you remove a top boss, normally there's a period of maybe infighting.
10:46Perhaps there's a time in place where things can change quite a bit.
10:49But Jalisco is very new.
10:51So we're looking at possibly some unknown territory going forwards.
10:55But it does seem they've already announced a new leader.
10:58His name is Seto Thres.
11:00This has been confirmed by a few outlets.
11:02He's actually from Southern California.
11:04He is a dual citizen, Mexican -American, American -Mexican.
11:08So the connection to the U .S.
11:10is actually pretty potent, which we see from the cartels quite a bit.
11:14But is that the first time that's happened that there's a I don't I don't
11:17know if there's been ever a Mexican -American.
11:20Maybe there has been. I wouldn't know that much about like cartel leaders.
11:23But it seems kind of odd.
11:24What are the chances then that there's more interest in trying to get drugs or
11:30people or human smuggling to the United States as a form of of keeping their
11:35operations moving? Yeah, they're very interested in the legal methods and the illegal methods.
11:41And when I say legal, I mean, you know, correct businesses, legal businesses in the
11:46United States. You know, if you and I were to see a cartel operative in
11:50the U .S., they would probably look like you and I, you know, somewhat well
11:53-dressed, normal looking guy going to and from a bank, perhaps, or another business, you
11:58know, laundering money, doing some sort of legitimate activity.
12:02You know, we always picture, you know, Sicario, you know, holding his AK walking down
12:06the road. And there certainly are those people.
12:08But for the most part, cartels are very interested in, you know, getting their feet
12:12into, you know, legal endeavors, so to speak, in the U .S.
12:15We're absolutely correct. They do quite a bit as far as human trafficking, drug trafficking
12:19and many other nefarious activities.
12:22Or kind of what kind of legal businesses do they get involved in?
12:25You name it. I'm pretty sure you could find cartel operatives doing quite a bit
12:29as far as politics goes, casinos, restaurants, bars.
12:34You know, we have information that a lot of the adult clubs in Texas are
12:37either affiliated or run. You're looking at just involvement in so many different venues across
12:44the U .S. And again, with this new leader being, you know, an American Mexican,
12:49this is going to be a very interesting dynamic for the U .S.
12:53specifically. This sounds a lot like old school mafia, Italian mafia stuff, the way that
12:58you're describing it right now.
13:00We have yet to see real violence kind of boil over in Mexico, sorry, in
13:04the United States from this killing.
13:06But there was a situation just two weeks ago where the El Paso airport had
13:10to be shut down because there were 500 or I think 500 drones was the
13:14number flying in and around from the cartel.
13:17I've been to the border.
13:18I've been to the border with you.
13:20And you see a lot of trackers and you see a lot of people at
13:23the border who are who kind of you're like, what are you doing in the
13:27middle of the desert right now?
13:28I know what I'm here for, but this is very that you're here for.
13:32Could you see a situation where there's kind of violence in the United States or
13:37is that more just keeping into Latin America?
13:40You know, it would go against a bit of what the cartels are trying to
13:44do. You know, there's an aspect of they don't want that level of attention, certainly
13:49not from the American military.
13:51So they're going to have, you know, drone incursions, people incursions into the U .S.
13:56to continue their business. However, they don't want direct conflict.
14:00They don't want direct conflict with the Mexican military.
14:02They lose that battle 99 percent of the time.
14:05So they're going to do these sort of more clandestine guerrilla type operations, burning buses
14:11in the middle of streets, taking people captive.
14:13So they really don't want direct conflict in terms of the drones, though.
14:17You're looking at hundreds of drone crossings, incursions daily across the southern border.
14:22The numbers are staggering. Those are mostly surveillance, though.
14:25OK, what President Trump mentioned in the State of the Union address about the decline
14:30in drugs coming across the border, but there are still drugs coming across the border.
14:35I don't know if they'll ever stop it completely.
14:38How much has between the you between President Trump's crackdown of human smuggling, which has
14:42been extremely effective and drugs?
14:44How much of like monetary loss are you seeing?
14:48Like, I mean, not that you would see it, but like how much monetary loss
14:52is the cartel feeling right now?
14:54Because it must be immense because human smuggling alone was a multibillion dollar business for
14:59quite some time under Biden.
15:01I could imagine there's this is definitely a recession period for the cartel.
15:08It's certainly a regrouping. You know, for many decades, the cartel was very interested in
15:13coca going north right from Colombia, from parts of Central America.
15:17And they switched to fentanyl.
15:19The precursors, as you know, come from China.
15:21They can make that cheap and easy and in small quantities are incredibly powerful.
15:25And then they switched to human smuggling in the last 10 years or so, certainly
15:29during the Biden administration. So I bet they're just regrouping.
15:32They're changing. Their outlets are changing different methods.
15:35You know, they use ports.
15:36They use, you know, airplanes, buses, people going to and from.
15:40And remember, too, maybe there's fewer drugs going north, but the demand for it is
15:45not changing. We're not seeing a wide sweeping, you know, improvement as far as drug
15:51use. And what's important to Ryan is that we fuel a lot of their industry.
15:56You know, the cartel industry is fueled by American dollars.
16:00We're buying their product to a degree.
16:03So as long as that continues, they're going to continuously be wealthy and powerful.
16:08Yeah, I don't know if Gen Z now they don't drink or date, but maybe
16:11they don't do drugs anymore either.
16:12I'm not sure. OK, my my my other big question is, is that the president.
16:17Mexico, a very left -wing female president, doesn't like Trump, makes it very well known
16:23that she doesn't like Trump.
16:25Trump spent a lot of effort on her to crack down on the cartel and
16:29has asked to allow American military to go into Mexico to crack down the cartel,
16:35which she's refused, and that's why she's really kind of put bolts to it.
16:39Is she actually doing reform in terms of cracking down the cartel, or is this
16:45just kind of more window dressing?
16:49You know, it's probably a combination.
16:51You know, she is in a really tough spot where she is getting immense pressure
16:55from the Trump administration to do something about these organizations.
16:59But she's also, you know, said openly as of yesterday, she doesn't want direct violence
17:03with the cartel. But again, I don't want to downplay the significance of what happened.
17:08This is in great part to the administration's involvement in Venezuela and many other areas
17:16in our hemisphere. You know, the pressure had to have come from, you know, the
17:20administration saying, we're going to come in unilaterally or you're going to do this.
17:24And they sent hundreds and hundreds of operatives into that area to take El Mencho
17:28down. There was also reports of a predator drone being used for surveillance.
17:31So not only were we pressuring the admin, we were certainly monitoring how, what, and
17:36where, you know, they were doing all this.
17:38So again, going forwards, I think she's going to hope that everything kind of calms
17:42down. We saw pretty much just one day of mass violence, but the future only
17:46knows what's going to happen.
17:48These people are not going to shift and start operating, you know, restaurants or bus
17:53drivers or whatever. Well, I mean, and the thing is, if you see Bucalli over
17:57with El Salvador, Venezuela, Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro is gone, but the government's still basically intact.
18:04But a number of Costa Rica, Panama, a number of these countries are electing hard
18:12on crime governments. I think seeing Bucalli's success in El Salvador showed, oh, it could
18:17actually happen anywhere. We don't have to live like this.
18:22I mean, is there a chance that there are just fewer safe havens for the
18:26cartel? You know, this is actually a great point, and I want to give credit
18:31to AllSourceNews and pernicious propaganda on Twitter for doing a lot of the work here,
18:36because what's really difficult is that these cartels are not like anything that exists pretty
18:41much in the world. You know, your point about them being more mafia is really
18:46closer. You know, they started off maybe as drug cartels, so to speak, but they've
18:50become ingrained. They're large. They have billions and billions of dollars.
18:55They have tens of thousands of people willing to help them, whether that's sicarios or
18:59people on the ground. They have tons of politicians, whether under their control or not.
19:04You know, being a journalist there is incredibly difficult.
19:07They're murdered at a very high rate.
19:09We've seen mayors attacked and killed, you know, beheaded on the day that they've taken
19:13office. So I think the size difference and the scope makes the Mexican cartels totally
19:19different than say, you know, Salvadorian gangs, which is a smaller area.
19:24But you're right. We have seen the will exerted onto these groups and see what
19:29happens. Again, though, the size of these things, these organizations, it's really not like anything
19:35else. I mean, again, 40 countries is a massive, massive area.
19:39And I have no clue their money, but it's in the tens of billions.
19:42Yeah. Would you say that?
19:43Would you say that Mexico is a narco state?
19:47Much of it certainly is.
19:49And you see that creep into places like Puerto La Herta, where it's kind of
19:54more of a touristy area that can see violence at any time.
19:58You know, it's a blend.
20:00It was certainly worse maybe in the early 2000s, you know, when Juarez was like
20:04the murder capital of the world.
20:05So there's certainly an aspect of that.
20:08But again, the administration is very bent on pressuring the Scheinbaum administration to do something.
20:14Well, it's funny because Puerto Vallarta is a big tourist destination.
20:18And usually in tradition of how Mexico and the cartel work, as they always say,
20:22leave the tourists alone. Don't distract from from tourist business.
20:26So the fact that they targeted tourist heavy regions is actually a big signal that
20:32they will cross barriers because of this killing and other ones like.
20:37And that's why I wonder whether Scheinbaum is fearful to do it again and to
20:43double down on another strike.
20:46Yeah, there's a control level, right?
20:48You know, you don't know the predictability of what these groups are going to do.
20:52You know, we had cars burning on our southern border in Baja, California and Tamalipas
20:57along both coasts there. So as it encroaches more onto touristy areas, onto government areas,
21:02and as it encroaches onto the U .S., that is a very difficult spot for
21:07the Scheinbaum administration. As as the cartel is getting more legitimate, are they moving away
21:13from drugs or is it just that they're diversifying and drugs is still a major
21:18component? They're definitely not getting away from that.
21:22I mean, that's how they make the bulk of their money, especially with fentanyl now.
21:25I mean, just small, small particles of it can be potent and very lethal.
21:30So they make so much money off of that.
21:32But there's still coca, there's still meth, there's still many other drugs I'm probably don't
21:36even know about and don't want to know about.
21:38But they they cross meth into the border?
21:41Certainly all over the place, whether they produce it here in the U .S.
21:44That's right. help produce it, uh, or send it North.
21:47I mean, everything you can imagine, um, going up there.
21:51We make our own math.
21:52I thought that was an American made product.
21:53So maybe I was wrong.
21:54I don't, I've never done drugs.
21:56So I'm very far behind on this conversation.
21:57Um, me neither for the record, you know?
22:00Okay. Wait, last question. What is the thing about the cartel that most Americans don't
22:05know, but should? Great question.
22:09Uh, sort of to add on to what I was saying before, um, they sort
22:14of replaced the government in a lot of ways, uh, whether they control it or
22:18they run certain areas. You know, there are areas, uh, Mexico right off our Southern
22:22border, just off the coast of the, uh, off the border wall of New Mexico,
22:26it's called Anapra. And it's basically an abandoned colony, um, that the government has nothing
22:32to do with and the cartel runs it.
22:34So there's large thousand per thousands of people's town where they control the entire situation
22:39there. So I think what's important as an American is that they're very large, they're
22:44very powerful, they're ruthless, they do horrendous, disgusting things, uh, and they're not going anywhere
22:50and they're right across our border.
22:52You know, the, the, the proximity is incredibly close, uh, which again, I think is
22:57why the administration cares so much about, you know, our hemisphere.
23:01All right, with, thank you so much.
23:02Where can we go to read more about Borderhawk and what you report?
23:05Thank you for the time, Ryan, borderhawk .news is the website with underscore alignment is
23:10my Twitter. You know, we do our X, we do a bunch there, um, as
23:13everyone else's. All right. Thank you so much.
23:16Cheers. Shout out to all the Aussie businesses doing the nine to five and the
23:22five to nine. I'm Adam Liao and I'm Brittany Saunders.
23:25None of us built our businesses alone.
23:26There was always someone who gave us a hand, a supplier, a mentor, another local
23:30business. That's why we're teaming up with ComBank to return the favor.
23:34Search ComBank small business and enter your business for the chance to have it backed
23:37by Adam Liao, Jamie Durie, or me.
23:40Good luck. Competition ends 8th of March, 2026.
23:44For full T's and C's and eligibility criteria, see combank .com .au slash backing business.
23:50Now it's time for the Ask Me Anything segment.
23:52If you want to be part of the Ask Me Anything segment, email me ryan
23:55at numbersgamepodcast .com. That's ryan at plural numbersgamepodcast .com.
23:59First question comes from Bobby Wilson II.
24:01I love that you put that you are the second.
24:04He says, hi, long time subscriber of NatPop newsletter and listener from the start.
24:08Thank you so much, Bobby.
24:09I really appreciate that. I've noticed in Arkansas that the Democrats have all but left
24:12the state. They've run candidates for federal office and governor.
24:15I read that the Dems folded up shop in South Dakota and many states I've
24:19seen a trending towards one party super majority rule if they aren't here already.
24:25This can't be good for our country.
24:27It seems like the only of the populace and progressives are talking about contending in
24:31areas where you will get blown out.
24:34Can't think of a question.
24:35Just one of your thoughts.
24:38Also, what are some of your national public school policies that you would support?
24:42Okay, first one. Is it good for our democracy?
24:46No, but it's a telling sign of the state of the parties.
24:51You know, it was just a couple years ago, four years ago, I believe, in
24:55Hawaii that the Hawaii state Senate had no elected Republicans.
24:58It was all Democrats and Republicans have slowly climbed back.
25:02I think they have three elected members now out of 25.
25:05Not great, but I mean, it's not zero.
25:07And I think they have nine in the state house, which they were down from
25:11four. Like they had almost no Republicans in Hawaii.
25:13And in South Dakota, I think it's down to two.
25:15South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, North Dakota, there are close to no Democrats.
25:21Arkansas has a few because of the black population around Little Rock and near the
25:26Mississippi River, but not much after that.
25:28Yeah, what happens a lot of times when you have this uniform partisan control when
25:34it's like when West Virginia, which is very few to no Democrats or South Dakota,
25:38as you mentioned, Arkansas, a lot of the times you really see how much the
25:44effect of lobbying is controlling local governments.
25:49I know members of the West Virginia state legislature who tried very desperately to have
25:55really innovative ideas and innovative policies over immigration and family planning.
26:00And they couldn't even get bills onto the floor because a lot of the same
26:05lobbying groups that control Washington control the state houses as well.
26:12And it's very, very difficult to change that.
26:15Yeah, populists are running in those places, socials running those places.
26:18I would say libertarians are as well.
26:20It's not great when there's no stakes of it.
26:24But I think it's just a nature of the fraction of our politics.
26:28I think it's a nature of what the Democratic Party means to a lot of
26:31rural red state voters. It's just the gun grabbing, transing your kids, pro -illegal immigration
26:38party. And I'll say this, they didn't help themselves at the State of the Union
26:42when Trump said, Stan, if you want, I believe, American citizens before illegal immigrants.
26:47I mean, they don't help themselves.
26:49And I don't know. And by the way, there's a lot of cities, they're not
26:51whole states, but there are a lot of cities where Republicans don't compete and don't
26:54contend either. There's no Republicans elected in Philadelphia.
26:57Or I don't think Los Angeles has any Republicans.
27:00San Francisco doesn't have any Republicans.
27:02Oakland doesn't have any Republicans.
27:03Dallas, Texas doesn't have any Republicans.
27:05It's a lot. I don't know if even Nashville has any Republicans.
27:08So yeah, we've allowed both parties have allowed themselves.
27:12to not be forces either in certain states or in certain cities.
27:16And it's not good. I don't know how you fix that though.
27:20And as far as national public school policies go, that's a really, really hard one.
27:25I mean, I like that schools are local.
27:29I like that schools can make their own decisions.
27:31Certain policies I think would be good.
27:33I think that, I mean, certain curricular questions should definitely be important.
27:38If there was a national instead of state textbook purchasing or application purchasing, that would
27:45be beneficial for both poor schools as far as school policy goes.
27:51I wish that every school is a little different, so it's not the same.
27:55But if I would sit there and say there's a national mandate for something, it
28:00would be on enforcing rules and punishment and discipline.
28:06I think there should be a national standard on that, on what is qualified for
28:11abuse from a teacher versus protecting other students.
28:16They're not the same thing.
28:18And so often because of fear of litigation, they have been lumped into the same
28:23thing and teachers are completely inactive and there's a lot of violent students in schools.
28:26There just are right now.
28:28I would like there to be a national standard on DEI.
28:32National, I think we should roll back a lot of the Bush era and Obama
28:37era policies around testing that does not work, has not produced great things.
28:46I think phonics has to come back in the classrooms.
28:48I think Singapore math is a brilliant way to teach math.
28:51I think there need to be AI standards that are way more detailed than I'm
28:55going to go into right now.
28:56And I would like a curricula around history that is not teaching kids to hate
29:01our country. That's the best of it.
29:03How much of that could be national versus local?
29:05I'm not sure. But that's what I would really like to say.
29:08Oh, and truancy. Truancy is the other thing that has to be dealt with.
29:12So many kids miss so much school and it is the reason why when they've
29:17missed so much school, they can't ever get back to the reading level and the
29:21grade level they should. Anyway, that's a great question, Bobby.
29:24Thank you for always being a supporter and a listener.
29:26I really appreciate it. Next one is from Holly.
29:28Holly writes, Ryan, when you said a few shows ago back that there was a
29:32bad poll living rent -free in your head, there's a couple of them, but I
29:35know which one you're talking about.
29:36It reminded me of an article on Fox back in July 2024 that featured a
29:40poll by WalletHub ranking the states according to how patriotic they were.
29:45The poll looked like a number of veterans per 1 ,000 volunteer rate trial and
29:51grand jury participation. Last time I looked at, that's not optional.
29:55By the way, I have never served on a jury.
29:59Not that I haven't gone to, like when I get called, I've gone.
30:04And the defense has always said, we want him out of here.
30:08Last time I was there is for a double homicide case.
30:11I think the guy got found guilty afterwards.
30:13I'm not sure. I haven't followed up with it.
30:14But in my eyes, he was guilty from the circumstance evidence that I read after,
30:19you know, after I got kicked off the jury.
30:23But I wanted to go so badly.
30:26I mean, it's a lot of time though.
30:27It was a double homicide.
30:28It would have been weeks and I can't kind of give up work for that
30:31long. But it's funny the people who don't want to serve on jury duty and
30:35the excuses that they made.
30:37This one lady said that she couldn't serve on jury duty because she had a
30:41vacation to go on three months and had to do a lot of shopping.
30:45Another guy flat out said, he was a young Asian guy and he was like,
30:49I'm racist. Can't pick me.
30:51I'm racist. I was like, whoa, they are, they do not care.
30:54They don't. And then this one woman with, people will tell you their whole biography
30:58while you're sitting on jury duty.
30:59This one lady said to me, she's like, my brother was married in New York
31:03City in 1986 and I always trust the cops.
31:06They probably put me in jail for believing something like that.
31:09I mean, they, these were characters.
31:12Jury duty is the last refuge of really intermixing with, intermixing with the, the, the,
31:20the wild, wild west of your local neighborhood.
31:23Anyway, the poll looked at a number of veterans, whatever, volunteer rate, a trial and
31:28grand jury participation, U .S.
31:29history requirements, no word on those versions of history and voter turnout in the 2020
31:35election. They came up with Virginia, Alaska, Montana, Maine, Oregon, Colorado, New Hampshire, Washington, Maryland,
31:42and Hawaii as the top 10.
31:45Seriously, Florida was the near the bottom and no mention of Texas.
31:49Now that I've vented, how often do pollsters actually talk to people or do they
31:53usually extrapolate, extrapolate, sorry, extrapolate what people believe based on actions and ignore other motivations.
32:01Maybe there's a patriotic person doesn't vote because they think there's no point, whereas a
32:05person who hates this country wants to vote.
32:08I get what you're saying.
32:09All right. That's a great question.
32:10I do not know this poll by WalletHub.
32:12I, so take that with a grain of salt.
32:15One website, polling is extremely expensive.
32:19It is very, you want a high quality poll.
32:22You're talking 20, 30, maybe $40 ,000 to do a high quality nationwide, peer -to
32:30-peer poll. Peer -to -peer means one person reaching out to another person.
32:34Now, how they bring those people in, it could be through digital, it could be
32:39through an advertisement, it could be.
32:40through a text message, but a peer -to -peer one -on -one, you know, getting
32:45someone isn't a very, very expensive polling mechanism.
32:50My guess, WalletHub did not pay for a $40 ,000 poll.
32:55It's just my guess. Also, they are clearly going off of qualifications that don't necessarily
33:04measure patriotism. Like you're saying, it's not your choice whether you serve on a grand
33:09jury. Young people, old people, people who work, stay -at -home mothers, they don't, you
33:14know, a lot of them don't stay, you know, serve in jury duty.
33:17Veterans associations, some people don't become veterans because they have health issues or says they
33:21can't or because another opportunity opened doesn't mean they don't love their country.
33:27And voting participation, voter participation leans heavy, especially in older states.
33:33So Florida is not an older state, but Maine is.
33:36Maine is a very old turnout.
33:40So yeah, that's just not, I feel like this poll is very, very dumb and
33:46how it was conducted was less than smart.
33:48And it was probably conducted in a cheap way.
33:50My guess was, and it doesn't even sound like there was a poll.
33:54They just looked at different requirements.
33:55It doesn't look like there was a poll at all.
33:57So they weren't, yeah, this is not a poll.
34:00This is not a poll.
34:01They were looking at certain indicators and judging, therefore, how patriotic somebody was.
34:07So this is not a poll.
34:09I would ignore this. If this irritates you, I would ignore this.
34:12Let this go because this is not a poll.
34:14This is somebody using other data points to try and create an article that gets
34:20clicks and either rage baits people or excites people.
34:24So ignore this. It's just, it's just rage bait.
34:28How often do they talk to people?
34:29It depends on the high quality poll.
34:31I talked to you about maybe a third to 40 % of all their people
34:35will be live, live conversations.
34:38And then others will be either text messaging or emails.
34:41And a lot of polling is done based on private business or politicians with a
34:47certain angle. So they'll ask about a specific issue before proposing a bill, before lobbying
34:52for a bill, before going up for election, what the issues are.
34:56They're not always there to take kind of like a be all end all vibe
35:01check of the room. They're there to ask about a particular issue and then see
35:07what kinds of convincing language, if it's done, if it's a private poll, what kinds
35:11of convincing language could make you change your mind about something.
35:15That's why pollsters have informed polls.
35:17So they'll say, if you were to hear that Ryan Grudowski is a great guy
35:21who volunteers for charity and, you know, eats his vegetables, would you be more or
35:26less likely to vote for him?
35:27That's an informed poll. So you'll have the first line where everyone thinks you're a
35:30jerk. And then the last line after you've been informed on how the person's great,
35:34but you'd still think they're a jerk.
35:36That's what's going on a lot of time with these polling.
35:38But yeah, there are a lot of good pollsters.
35:40There's a lot of pollsters who try very hard.
35:41I wouldn't say motivation is inherently to prove or disprove something.
35:46It's a lot of it's a private motivation by a company that's sponsoring or a
35:49politician. But ignore this article from WalletHub.
35:52It was just to get you angry.
35:53And it sounds like you did.
35:54I got mad with the crosstabs about from CNN about Texas, but you know, whatever.
36:00Holly, I appreciate you for writing for the show.
36:01And if you like this channel, please like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
36:05Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts.
36:06And I will talk to you guys on Wednesday.
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36:13the five to nine. I'm Adam Liao.
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