Stocks rally as US postpones attacks on Iran power plants

0:00The expectation and the norm is to win and that is what we will be able to do here. I believe in the power of UCLA. It's a new day for UCLA football with new head coach Bob Chesney taking charge and we need you to be a part of it. The right man is at the Hellman Westwood and the time is now for you to put your support behind the Bruins. UCLA football is ready to win and we can't wait to see you this fall. Visit UCLA Bruins.com slash tickets for more info on how to secure your seats for the 2026 season. Go Bruins. Good afternoon getting right down to business here. We're doing it live doing more at four weekday. Afternoons Motek on money live on the air 790 KBC streaming live online worldwide at KBC.com. And yep, the on demand Motek on money podcasts KBC.com Apple iTunes YouTube Spotify. All your favorite podcasts platforms positive start to the new week on Wall Street with President Trump announcing the US military would postpone strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for five days following what he called productive talks between Washington and Iran.

1:04President said Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner to his leading on voice began talks over the weekend that would continue today. President said a deal with Iran would prohibit nuclear weapons and involve regime change. He then said Iran wants to settle the war. Now according to the Wall Street Journal Iran's foreign ministry denied Tehran was in talks with the US according to state media, but acknowledged countries in the region. We're trying to get diplomacy going. Visual said they had been talking separately with both sides, but that Iran has set a high bar for ending hostilities. But now coming in for a closing game today of 631 points, the S&P 500 up 74 the Nasdaq game nearly 300 points. The yield in the 10 year note is up there now 4.35 percent. The volatility index puttling back by 2 percent today gold back to 4,416 and change oil. It's been all over the place right now at 88 98 a barrel in New York. US forces have struck more than 9,000 Iranian targets since the war started on February 28

2:04according to the US Central Command, which is responsible for the US military in the Middle East. The US has damaged or destroyed more than 140 Iranian ships according to Centcom. Looks like Brent crude futures fell below $100 a barrel in London and hopes that energy flows through the state of Australia for moves could soon recover. Brent crude is the international benchmark and is back down to just below $100 a barrel. Iran threatened wider attacks and infrastructure, including fuel tech and desalination facilities used by the US and the region if its energy sites were hit. Tehran also warning it would lay minds across the entire Persian Gulf if its coastal islands were attacked. Meanwhile Israel launched a new wave of attacks on Iran overnight. Israeli Prime Minister Nethan Yahu said he spoke with President Trump about an agreement to end the war with Iran and the international energy agency said the conflict in the Middle East is delivering a heavier blow to global oil markets, what we saw during the twin oil shocks back in the 1970s. Travel related stocks, including airlines and cruise lines rallied today after the

3:07president postponed his deadline for more strikes and Iran saying the two countries had held very good and productive talks, something Iranian media reports rebuffed. Looks like airline stocks moved up, a cruise line stocks moved higher rental car company stocks also moved higher. We did see this situation in New York at New York City's LaGuardia airport reopening today hours after a runway collision between a passenger jet and emergency vehicle of fire truck killed two pilots and injured dozens of other people. The pilots of the air candidate express plane were killed in the crash and 41 people, including passengers crew and two aircraft rescuant firefighting officers were taken to the hospital according to the New York port authority. Meanwhile security lines stretching for hours today at US airports were unpaid TSA screening agents refused to report for duty and ICE agents deployed by the president were reportedly seen in a dozen cities. President ordered their deployment during a partial government shutdown that has disrupted air travel nationwide. We'll get an update on all that on the government shutdown

4:11of where things stand as well as an update on tax issues with more billionaires fleeing California. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for tax reform will be joining us live from Washington later this hour. The war in the Middle East has prompted the US State Department to issue a security alert urging American citizens worldwide to exercise increased caution. Securities also being stepped up here in the Los Angeles area. I'll talk about that. I'll talk about it with the honorable Dennis Zine, former LA city council member, retired LAPD charging with 50 plus years of service to the city of angels. But first on your money, the markets, the economy, the whole works now joining us live top rank money manager Ken Wyden's president and chief investment officer Wyden's investments and Wyden's investments dot com Ken Wyden's also market historian author numerous books as latest as investment Atlas 3 creating wealth using historical trends also forms magazine contributor. He's got his crypto credentials too. He's host the winning with Wyden's podcasts and the wealth minute features heard on your favorite station 790 KBC. Ken Wyden, thank you very

5:12much for taking the call live with us here this afternoon. Well, good afternoon, Frank and what a joy it is to finally have an update in the market for you and I to talk about. Yeah, instead of all the nasty news and you know, it's important to bring up this wasn't just an up day more important than that. It was a broad based rally day pretty much every industry group in the end that we would count for the S&B 500 or for any of those groups were up today and that has been very unusual to see really for a good part of this quarter. Not to mention you do want to watch things such as what I watch, you know, the level of volume in the markets, the number of advancing issues, the declining issues. There were even some stocks that managed to squeak out record highs today. So this was a very convincing rally. All right, all this focused, of course, on what's happening between the US and Iran. You're a market historian and based on what we've seen with the oil price moves a lot of a nervousness, of course, with consumers as well as businesses.

6:16We did see an impressive rebound among the travel names today and how do you see this playing out with comparisons being made to what happened during the oil shocks during the 1970s today? You know, it's a little tougher to do. I mean, we obviously have energy stocks on a tear still. They're doing great, which is what happened in the 1970s. You also had a lot of other commodity type companies and food processing companies also do very well in those 70s as they are now. But there is a big difference between these conflicts. You know, back then for those of us that remember when the hostages were taken and you know, it was very much a game of defense. It was on the tail end of an administration being the Carter administration. This is midterm of the second Trump administration. So there are some differences. But Frank, I will tell you this. And I think as much as the geopolitical news and certainly that mess at the airports, which over the weekend, by the way, I didn't want to congratulate you on a fantastic gala for the Union

7:16Rescue Mission. It was fantastic. But you know, the airports were just a jumbled up mess as I found going back to Las Vegas. And there's a lot of things like that. But in spite of all of it, there's a lot of talk now about earnings coming out, which are going to start showing up here really in the next three, really three weeks. And if you're going to look at a driver that could really begin to overtake even the geopolitical and the political news, it could be that we find out that American corporations in spite of the tariffs and the war are doing very well. And I think this rally today is telling us some of that because there were names that were rallying that in the middle of the war necessarily wouldn't. On their live with top right money manager Ken Wynan's president of Wynan's investments dot com. It was great seeing you here in Los Angeles over the weekend of that fabulous gala. I was speaking to Mark Hood, the CEO of the Union Rescue Mission. Today's very grateful for your your presence here and your your support of URM and what an amazing gathering of a business and civic leaders that was over the weekend. And

8:17and certainly people were we're talking to you, Ken, eager to meet you and talking about the markets and the economy. What were you telling them this weekend? You know, it was interesting. Well, of course, I was the only guy there with a cowboy hat too. For example, they were curious about Hey, it is a Western state. We are still that Western state. You know, here's the thing. I think at the end of the day, I mean, I'm still looking at the simple fact of the matter of my stock index, the which looks at older legacy stocks as I call them. 60% of the of the components of that index are still above their 200 day moving average. That's very powerful. That tells you that in spite of all this news, there are still individual companies that are finding way to go even financial stocks, but I have to tell you the other thing that's one of my great surprises is that as much as we talk about tech and we talk about industry and energy stocks, the group that has the largest number of components above its 200 day moving average, better known as in and uptrend after energy

9:24is the utility telecom sector that has blown my mind. That group in spite of everything is up 8% on the year. And remember, that group pays a very hefty dividend. So I've doubt that many people have even talked about utility stocks lately. But again, when you start talking about AI and nuclear power and you know, all these, you know, solar, all these things, it goes back to the utilities. And I think it's time for people to begin to put their list together and get ready for earning season because I think that the leadership is going to be shifting around. But that's what I told people, Frank is, you know, this rally and any future rally going through the rest of this year will be different than last year. Are you probably got a lot of questions about gold and silver too with gold back around 4,400 an ounce. What about a thousand dollars below the recent whole time high and silver also taking hit from it's a recent high below 70 dollars announced here. Now still, of course, historically high, but below 70 once again, what are your

10:25thoughts about these epic moves on the upper and downside now for the precious metals? You know what, I it became what we call in commodities a very crowded trade. Everybody in their grandmother was buying it. And you know, it's not just gold and silver, Frank. It's also platinum, copper, palladium, the entire metal complex as we call it is basically sliding. Now there's a couple of ways to look at this. And I mean, I'm not, you know, one of the things I've learned is in the heat of investment battle is not a good time to be sitting there and contemplating what's going on. You need to follow your discipline. But I do think what we're going to find is there's been a lot of talk about gold being sold by Middle Eastern countries to pay their bills because let's face it, they can't sell oil and natural gas right now. You have that going on. Actually, another interesting story that came up the state of Wyoming was actually stockpiling gold, the actual treasury of Wyoming. They've stopped. So the point is this. I think there's a lot

11:25of people who said, you know what, we have enough right now. We've got plenty. There's a lot of things going on in the world. And last but not least, it never gets talked about our ugly old greenback currency, the dollar is actually strong. It's actually in spite of all the bad news. It is up three and a half percent on the year. And when you have a strong currency, it takes pressure off people, feeling the need to buy things like gold and silver. All right. And ironically, Bitcoin, so-called digital gold, outperforming gold lately, right now, a bit coin. Of course, still well off it. So all time high, but above 70,000 here, as we start the new week, Ethereum is above 2100 doge at nine cents. So what about the moves in the cryptos we've seen lately? You know, there's a, you know, it's great. You bring it up, Frank, because there's only handful of people who do. And you know, here's again, a situation where, you know, Bitcoin is up about 8% on the month. Ethereum is up about five. There's still way off from where they started the year. But I brought up a couple weeks ago that I, you know, all the

12:26you never are trying to take a stab at saying it's the low, but I did feel that Bitcoin and really all the cryptos had been oversold. And some of the real strong savvy people are starting to buy them again. I think for the average investor, I would let things calm down. Because again, it's a very volatile thing. It's like saying, hey, I want to go by, because people have learned the hard way, gold and silver are a two-bed sword. They go up and they come, they can come down very fast. That's the same with crypto. I think right now, with any of the commodity plays, you have to be aware that it just takes one headline to shift everything around for a day, and it can get pretty bloody. But I do think that you probably have seen the relative lows in the cryptos for a while, but I think it's still going to take some time to build up a rally. But Frank, it's all again tied to what's going to happen as we go into next month and earnings. And I'm also including the crypto company earnings. What's going to happen with them? They are

13:26financial stocks. Financial stocks have been under pressure. It will be fun to see what comes out of the entire group. All right. It's hard to ignore the yield and the 10-year note, which we note here as, of course, something that impacts fixed-rate mortgage rates. That's suddenly shot higher to 4.35 percent. And that appears to be getting a lot of attention. Now, what's what are we to make of what's happening with these bond yields rising just at the time when the spring, home buying season begins and all that mortgage rates have edged up. And certainly that's an important reaction we've seen in the financial markets to all this. Absolutely. And I would also bring up too that when you talk about bonds, you've got to talk about bond markets, meaning there's corporate bonds, there's treasury bonds, there's municipal bonds. And you're seeing some weakening across the board. The treasury move is very geopolitical. It's tied to, I mean, let's face it, a lot of these central banks around the world own you as that they have it in their reserves. There's probably some shifting around in that. So you see that

14:27going on, but you know, there's also a lot of stories out and probably anybody who's in public finance, whether it's the city and county of Los Angeles, state of California, or for that matter, any other state in the country, you're probably getting a little nervous because this is about the time when a lot of the rating agencies begin to rate municipal bond paper. A lot of the municipalities have June year or fiscal year ends. And so a lot of these companies begin, you know, the rating, the independent rating agencies start looking at things starting this month going for the full quarter. So again, with all that being said, you're looking at the possibility that we are probably going to start looking at some serious revisions in California paper. At least that is my opinion based on some of the research I've done. And I think again, that could raise the rates on borrowing costs for various county cities and the state itself. So there's a lot of things that the interest rate picture is going to affect as we go through the rest of the year. All right. What about real estate? You have your own real estate index

15:30is something we haven't talked about in a while. But what's the outlook here for the home builders and for a real estate sales activity and for that matter of the rebuilding that's ongoing here in the Los Angeles area? Well, you know, Frank, here's the thing is when we talk about real estate, you really do have to talk about it regionally as many people would say it is location, location, location. But you also have to now look at geography. And when I look at a place like Las Vegas, it is a very, there's different dimensions of the real estate market here. I mean, the real estate, it's kind of interesting. The real estate stocks themselves are actually doing reasonably well, even with what you just talked about as far as interest rates go. But I would say this, I think what we're going to have to look at is again, wait for the earnings to come out. I don't know if I would be taking a whole bunch of new plays into those companies until I know for a fact where the home builders really are. And I'm talking about the big four that I monitor, which are Hovanean, Lanar, Poltean, KB homes, all through Meredith Homes in there too. I want to

16:35see where they all come in. Now what's interesting is the large-scale construction companies, which are benefiting from building all these, I mean, you see their, their cranes all over the place. They're still doing okay, but you want to be very careful about stepping in on the retail home builders until we see where we are after those earnings. All right, any specific places where you are putting money now and or taking off the table? Well, it's funny you talked about Golden Silver. I mean, I have, you know, Frank, I've held them for years. I've actually, I've been taking some profits in them really over the last month, only that they've more than affect, you know, they've, they've met my objectives and my goals. But what we were talking about earlier, I'm going to take a good, hard look at some of these utilities because I mean, I'm just, I mean, and again, we're not talking about PG&E, we're not talking about Southern California Edison, but we're talking about some other names that are coming in. And I would just look at some things like, I mean, you can go right down, but I would say what I would call the basin states.

17:35I mean, I am looking at some things that are, I mean, right now, M-D-U resources. I would look at CSM energy. I would look at black hills energy. I mean, these are names that I'm mostly going. What is Ken Weinens talking about? That's the point. Go look at utilities that are outside of what people may think of as the western part of the United States and look at the basin states and let's just say to the Midwest and see what's going on there because again, they're, they're in the black. They're having a year and they're expected to pay their full dividends. I would also say this, I've been asked quite a bit by the audience to talk about water plays. Be very careful. I know they're trying to get ahead of the curve on what could be happening with the water, the seven state water deal on the Colorado River. Again, I would be very careful about trying to guess where that's going to come out by betting on individual water stocks. I would wait and see how it actually comes out. I'd be much more inclined to go after natural gas utility stocks like Atmos Energy

18:35or Neesource or for that matter Southwestern gas. I think that's a better play at this time. To River Ken, thank you very much for taking the call here. Wish we had more time. That is top-ranked money manager Ken Weinens, president and chief investment officer at Weinens Investments and Weinens Investments dot com. Ken, thanks for coming out to Los Angeles over the weekend. My turn to go to Vegas. So I hope to see you very, very soon. Thank you very much for joining us live here this afternoon. I pleasure, Frank. See you soon. Thank you very much. 790 KBC. The expectation and the norm is to win and that is what we will be able to do here. I believe in the power of UCLA. It's a new day for UCLA football with new head coach Bob Chesney taking charge and we need you to be a part of it. The right man is at the Hellman Westwood and the time is now for you to put your support behind the Bruins. UCLA football is ready to win and we can't wait to see you this fall. Visit UCLA Bruins dot com slash tickets for more info on how to secure your seats for the 2026 season. Go Bruins! Hey there, I'm Paula Pan. I help people make the smartest

19:37money decisions possible. Do not ever worry about your salary. You need enough to make sure that you aren't in a bad financial position. Once you have that, your salary becomes moot. What matters from that point forward, upside gains, any type of ownership stake or ownership potential, that's the money. Remember, you can afford anything, just not everything. Afford anything. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Motekamoney continues. 790 KBC. The president says the US military will postpone strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for five days, following talks between Washington and Tehran. That set off a rally on Wall Street today with the Dow coming in for a closing gain of 631 points, settling at 46,208. The S-P 500 of 74 65 81 NASDAQ 299 at 21,947. The yield in the tenure note is up to 4.35%. Gold under pressure again today, right now hovering around 4,416 and change silver at 69 83 announced oil in New

20:44York right now, just below $90 a barrel at 88 98. Taking a look at the cryptos now, we see a Bitcoin hovering around 70,500 Ethereum at 21 50 doge at the moment at nine cents. Motekamoney continues. 790 KBC. It's messy at the nation's airports nowadays, security lines stretching for hours at US airports were unpaid transportation, safety administration, TSA screening agents refused to report for duty. Now ice agents deployed by the president reportedly seen in many cities. The president ordered their deployment during the partial government shutdown that continues, which has disrupted air travel nationwide. Do you hear about this? Firefighters and police officers stationed at the Burbank airport asking travelers for help over the weekend as they launched a filled the boot campaign to help TSA workers facing financial hardship. Let's get an update now and the government shut down and we're at things stand as well on tax issues and so forth with more billionaires fleeing California having trouble getting flights out now. Joining us live now is Grover, Norquist, president of Americans for tax reform.

21:48Grover, thanks very much for coming to the line here this afternoon. Absolutely. Good to be with you, Frank. All right. Take it from the top and it tells what you know about this ongoing government shutdown and the the tremendous impact we're seeing at the airports. Well, it has. The Democrats have decided to make a political thing out of it and that means it's tough to get people paid or impossibly at people paid when they work at TSA where it is working as where TSA is privatized. It's a it's not government employees. It's only the government employees places are having fun. The 10 major airports where they're done privately, including San Francisco, are not having problems at all. This really makes the case in the future. We need to have this be contracted out. It's what the Israelis do. I mean, they have very serious security concerns and they find that having it contracted out rather than government employees is better and safer there and it certainly turns out to be better for travelers when people play politics for shutdowns. All right. It's already an uneasy time because the war

22:52in the Middle East, when we're relying on security agents to keep people safe, transportation, safety administration, TSA screening agents play a very, very important role. How much longer is this ridiculous situation going to continue? Well, if they're bringing in people from other parts of government, I mean, this is where government is not flexible and the president is insisting that it become flexible. You know, why shouldn't and couldn't you have people from ICE come in and take and handle these jobs? If people are refusing to come in now, they know they will get paid eventually. But if they're refusing to come in now and do it, we need to have other people do it and we certainly need to have this contract out to private companies that do this rather than have it be a government program where it gets when somebody tries to play politics, things get shut down. We don't need this. All right. So since you're right there on the front line, is there action in Congress to to privatize the TSA now at any serious efforts being made in that direction?

23:55I think this is just coming up. People are just remembering. There's a Washington Post editorial which pointed out and had the list of where did we not have problems and where it happens to be privatized. They happen to be the same cities. That's a wake up call. This actually sadly was something that McCain insisted on when they originally put this together. The most Republicans wanted to have them contract it out and McCain jumped in and insisted he'd work with the Democrats and made it be a government program. So not to pick on him, but this is partly his fault. Isn't that something? Meanwhile, the trend of GOP states lowering taxes while Democrat run states raise them is increasing every year of, did you see that Wall Street Journal article recently? I think it got your attention to Robert Norquist. Give us an update on what's happening on the tax run. Oh, absolutely. I spent a lot of time with the reporter on that walking him through the various states. There are now five states, all red states, Republican states that have actually

24:58passed a law that will phase their income tax down to zero. Over time, as revenue comes in from growth, the income tax will be reduced. This is Mississippi, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Kentucky, and now South Carolina. Five states automatically will trigger down to zero. There are another seven states that say that that's their goal and they want to do that and certainly the five that are moving and the eight that are already at zero are encouraging more states to say, let's face the income tax to zero. Not shift the income tax to some other tax, but rather as revenue comes in, don't spend it on new programs or throwing more money at old programs. Leave it in the hands, just keep taking the income tax down a few tenths of a point each opportunity. And that's going to be tremendously helpful. Now, the other side of that, as you pointed out, or California is talking about a property tax on all property, your retirement income shares, a stock, your own

26:04company, your own money in the bank, any assets you have your house, land, a small business, and they're starting, of course, they say, with billionaires, they always start with a few rich people and then move it down. But the way they start at this time, there's a study done by the Hoover Institute and they found that a third of the people that were expected to be held up and had the good chunk of their income wealth taken away when they did that, that a third of them have already left, a third of them have left. And if things continue as they appear to, this tax, if it passes, if it's put on the ballot in California, it is enacted through the initial process, will actually lose money for California because everybody who leaves doesn't pay all the other taxes that they would pay. And as you saw in Seattle, when Starbucks, the CEO of Starbucks announced

27:07he's moving to Miami and Starbucks itself is buying something like a city block to move quite a number of people out of Washington state, which is threatened to put an income tax on people, which they didn't have one before, and move instead to Nashville, Tennessee, where there is no income tax. So when you put higher taxes, not only do people leave, but college students and high school students, they leave because the new jobs are being started in low-tech states, not high-tech states. See it tonight, read about it tomorrow, but here it now, in low-tech on money, live on the Earl Grover-Norquist, president of Americans for tax reform. Now, this cal, that's a proposed California building air tax, a proposed initiative, ballot initiative, aimed at imposing a 5% tax on the assets of people with the net worth of a billion dollars or more residents retroactively of, as of January 1st, 2026, we're waiting to see if this thing actually

28:08gets onto the ballot, but just the anticipation of something like this, a confiscatory tax like this is scaring people out of California. If your neighbor said, I'm thinking of eating your cat, and then he said, no, I'm not going to eat your cat, not now. I think you'd keep the cat inside. By saying we're threatening to confiscate people's property, oh, we won't do it this year. People will start to move now because they can't trust you in the future. Anything else that's getting your attention on the tax front here, obviously with so many moving parts in the news these days, some things might be escaping on the radar screen, but we rely heavily on you, Grover-Norquist, to keep us well informed on the tax front. Well, I think people are somewhat aware of it, but not as much as they need to be, and those are the Trump accounts. Trumpaccounts.gov is where you go. If you have a child on the age of 18, you can set up a Trump account for them. You can put as much as $5,000 every year into that account. Your

29:14employer can put money in, foundations can, states can, the federal government will put $1,000 in for the last year, this year, and the next two years. If you have a child in those years, they'll help you get your account started for a newborn and put $1,000 in. After that, the parents can put up to $5,000 every year. Now you're talking about children who will turn 18 who have thousands of dollars in their account over time, and they will see it go up when the stock market goes up and down when the stock market goes down. You're going to have 15, 16, 17, 18 year olds who understand economics and what the stock market is and what the Dow Jones is and what hurts the economy and what helps the economy. You're going to have 18 year olds about to vote who will know more about economics than half of Congress. Grover-Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. Grover, thank you very much for joining us live here this afternoon.

30:18Frank, thank you. 790 KBC. The expectation and the norm is to win and that is what we will be able to do here. I believe in the power of UCLA. It's a new day for UCLA football with new head coach Bob Chesney taking charge and we need you to be a part of it. The right man is at the Hellman Westwood and the time is now for you to put your support behind the Bruins. UCLA football is ready to win and we can't wait to see you this fall. Visit UCLA Bruins.com slash tickets for more info on how to secure your seats for the 2026 season. Go Bruins! Hi, I'm Joe Salcihi, host of the Stacking Benjamin's podcast. Most economists agree, small amount of inflation is actually good. 2% is what you're going for. But why is everybody freaking out? Oh, because it's the fallout, people don't track their budget. You have this slow slipping that happens every month. To all of a sudden you go, man, I don't have any money. The reason is now two people go to a restaurant. The bill is 60 bucks for two. You guys walk into a restaurant. They start screaming, they're hilarious. 60 dollars. Stacking Benjamin's following listen on your favorite platform.

31:21Motekamani continues 790KBC, nervous time in the travel business, travel related stocks, including airlines and cruise lines, taking hit recently, but rallying today after President Trump postponed his deadline for more strikes in Iran, saying the two countries had held very good and productive talks, something Iranian media denies Iran threatened wider attacks on infrastructure in the Middle East, including fuel, tech and the salination facilities if its energy sites were hit. Among the stocks gaining the most today frontier airlines popping about 9% United shares moving up 5% Norwegian cruise lines up more than 6% hurts global rental car company up nearly 5% Avis budget of more than 7%. New York's LaGuardia Airport reopened today, hours after a runway collision between a passenger jet and an emergency vehicle, killed two pilots and injured dozens of others. The war in the Middle East has prompted the U.S. State Department now to issue a security alert urging American citizens worldwide to exercise increased caution. Securities also being stepped up here in the Los Angeles area,

32:22increased all across the region, especially at the airport and local houses of worship, due to rising concerns surrounding the ongoing conflict with Iran. Joining us live now, the honorable Dennis Zine, former LA City Council member and retired LAPD charging with 50 plus years of service to the City of Angels. Dennis Zine, thank you very much for coming to the line. Good afternoon, Frank. Give us your assessment of things here, especially given this State Department security alert urging American citizens worldwide to exercise increased caution nowadays. Well Frank, this is the first time I've ever seen it in writing the Department, U.S. Department of State is inquiring, informing, alerting people to be watchful, the worldwide knowledge experienced. What they're concerned about is what we see happening in other parts of the world, terrorist strikes. And we know we've got different areas around this world where groups splinter and they go out and they cause havoc, cause of death, violence,

33:23etc. So the government is saying, watch, be careful, we watch the news, watch the daily news, we see the battles that are going on in other parts of the world. And there's a concern that some of that may happen here in the United States and in the City of Los Angeles. So while we know we have an understaffed police department, we have problems that have to be contented with. This alert just brings it to another focus to wake up. A lot of folks remember the Vietnam War and generations born after that don't know what that's about. So many of us live through that and we've had peace and tranquility but now we seem to be going into a new era where we have what is actually a war taken place in another part of the world with American troops. While they say we're no ground troops at this time, we know what's happening with the air operations and naval operations. So it's just a matter of, be watchful, be careful. If there's a concern, if there's an interest, there's something suspicious, notify the authorities and hopefully they will be able to neutralize something. We know some parts of the country we've had situations that have caused

34:27death and injury. We want to be careful in the city of the county, the state of California to be watchful and just give your eyes open for something unusual. And if you notice, report it, report it to 911 and let the authorities handle it. All right, kind of reminds me after what happened after 9-11, we see something say something right and a security was stamped up, an important infrastructure and houses of worship and so forth and is it a similar situation to back in those days? Well, it is and we know that other parts of the United States, we've had some attacks that take a place at religious institutions and law enforcement, so obviously we prepare, we know there's been some situations in similar educational institutions. So we never know where it's going to strike or a country of freedom and openness, but at the same time we need to have care and caution for the populations that live, work, play in America. But I remember the Vietnam era very, very well. I remember being on the draft list for Vietnam and the folks of the later generations is just a memory. It's like some of us remember World War I, World War II. I remember clearly

35:30Vietnam and the tragedies that occurred there. In fact, just recently last week they headed the Vietnam Memorial Wall at Pierce College where people would come by and look at those names, thousands of soldiers who perished in that particular war. But we haven't had that a long time, but now again we see military occupation taking place and the consequence of that. So they're just telling the American people, keep an eye open, be careful, be watchful. If you go to synagogues in particular, they've got to increase security to make sure that the people worshiping are going to be safe and secure. So it's just a matter of alertness, not that they're anticipating anything happening, but be watchful, be careful. And if you see here, notify 9-1-1. And we honor the memory of all those lost and under the service of the United States and also salute you for your long time service to the City of Angels on the line with the Honorable Dennis Zine, former LA City Council member and former LAPD sergeant and correct me from wrong, a lot of LAPD officers are still in the military reserves as well. So we honor and salute their

36:34service too. Yes, many when I was on the department, many who left the military came onto the law enforcement and they've retired helpfully, peacefully and enjoying life and some sadly perish during that process. But during the 60s, 70s, there were a lot of people drafted into the military and for a variety of reasons, somewhat with this at this particular time because of war injuries or mental illness that took place out of the war. So there's a lot of tragedies that occur with war. And what we see happening with just the news reports, what's happening overseas is very tragic for innocent people, thousands of people who've been killed. When you launch bombs, you'll know whether they're in a land and who's going to be in the way of that and they suffer the consequences. So it's very, very serious. We just want to keep people safe. That's the bottom line. Keep them safe. It's certainly been hearing about the money issues at City Hall and how understaffed the Los Angeles Police Department is. Are you seeing anything turn around there? What is it going to take to to improve the situation at City Hall and indeed with the police

37:36department at this point? Well, you sadly have members of the City Council who are not supportive of the LAPD. They want to reduce the number of LAPD. Some of them want to disarm the LAPD. So the Los Angeles Police Department is struggling to keep the numbers up and they basically have to beg for the dollars. Officers are retiring and they can't recruit more than they can for the funding. And they've got lack of funding. So once the City Council wakes up to the reality that we've got woke up, we've got Olympics. And I know from my experience we're working the 84 Olympics, you know, massive amount of ampower personnel to maintain security, not only at the venues, but at the housing location. So there's a lot that has to be done at this particular time. And I don't think we're equipped with the personnel. We're going to have to either have mutual aid or national guard or something else to make sure we can have a safe environment for those athletes that come to the Olympics. Right. And before that, FIFA, right? And Super Bowl, a lot of things on the calendar here. Well, there's a lot on the calendar. I mean, the

38:39angle is going to have to maintain, but I'm certainly going to have additional response from local jurisdictions. But the Super Bowl, some of those venues are easy to secure, rather simple to secure with personnel. But we've got the Olympics and the venues that are spread throughout Southern California. And remember, you have to take care of these people from the time they're lodged, the lodging, the transportation, the venues, et cetera. It takes a lot of security to make sure everybody's safe and secure. Just go to a Dodger game, which you have to go through to get into Dodger Stadium when they have a sellout. It's a daunting task. But the bottom line is, we want to keep everyone safe so they can continue to enjoy life as best as possible. All right. And hopefully businesses will step up and help the police to I remember I was there when she brought and was here in the businesses donated blackberries to the police department. Remember that. Be nice to see more help from businesses directly helping the the foundation there or helping the police ultimately. Well, we have a great foundation

39:41and there's a lot of businesses do support it. The taxpayers do what they can through the budget, but that's controlled by the city council and the mayor. But I will tell you clearly, we are understaffed as far as personnel. We do not have sufficient personnel to really police. The city is we need to with the street takeovers with the crime that takes place. Well, homicides are down. We see other crime burglary in particular. Car theft that continues to increase and people have the property want to keep safe. We need to do that. We need the resources. We need the city council to unite and support public safety. The Honourable Denizine from LA City Council. Remember retired LAPD charge in 50 plus years of service to the city of angels. You're an angel in the city of angels. Denizine, thank you very much for coming to the line. Why would this year on Motek on money on 790 KBC Los Angeles, California. The expectation and the norm is to win and that is what we will be able to do here. I believe in the power of UCLA. It's a new day for UCLA football with new head coach Bob Chesney taking charge and we need you to be a part of it. The right man is at the helmet

40:42westwood and the time is now for you to put your support behind the Bruins. UCLA football is ready to win and we can't wait to see you this fall. Visit UCLA Bruins.com slash tickets for more info on how to secure your seats for the 2026 season. Go Bruins!