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Thank you so much for joining us for another edition of Donnybrook, the first for October.

And as usual, I say this every week, we've got a lot of topics.

So let's meet the panelists and then dive right in.

Hey, there she is, the media veteran herself, Wendy Weise.

Mr.

Bill McClellan, one of our founders back in 1987 from the Post-Dispatch.

From St.

Louis Magazine, her daily newsletter and the 314 podcast, let's welcome Sarah Fenske.

And last week's host and the week before that, thank you very much.

Give it up, ladies and gentlemen, for Alvin Reid from the St.

Louis American.

Hey, let's also give it up for Alan Kriegshauser, local artist who has done great work and is sharing it with us this week in our continuing rotating art series here at Nine PBS.

Every month we choose another local artist's works and we display those works on the mantel behind me.

Alan, thank you very much.

Everybody can learn more at alankriegshauser.com.

Sarah, I've got a question for you.

But first, let me give the story.

This week at a meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee, our junior senator from the state of Missouri, Eric Schmidt, said that the witness, whose name is Jack Smith, former special prosecutor, was a dirtbag and he accused him of perjury because Eric Schmidt thought that Jack Smith had been at an Atlanta Hawks basketball game, I think February 3rd, 2024, and he was trying to make a connection between Jack Smith and the Fulton County prosecutor, Fannie Willis, saying that if he was at that game, they must have been conspiring illegally.

Well, as it turns out, he had his information wrong.

Turns out Jack Smith, on February 3rd, 2024, was at an Iowa Hawkeyes game, not an Atlanta Hawks game, and this was in Maryland, not even in the same state.

He was immediately corrected, but he never apologized.

But he looked pretty bad.

It was embarrassing that he made such a goof, especially calling this former federal official a dirtbag and accusing him of perjury.

Do you think that this week Eric Schmidt lost his chance of becoming a vice presidential candidate in 2028?

Boy, I think that's a good question.

You know, there's a lot of things people do today that you would have thought was a career killer back in the day that doesn't seem to be a career killer anymore, so I hesitate to say, like, never.

But I think the problem that Schmidt is running up against is that he seems like he's not too bright.

You know, it's kind of like when they first trotted Sarah Palin out on the national stage.

It was like, wow, she's so telegenic, and she seems like she's this competent governor.

And the more you heard her talk, the more you were like, oh, wow, I don't think I want her one heartbeat away from the presidency.

I think this moment, it was so cinematic.

It went so viral.

And just watching all the reactions and, you know, you can see this clip is going to live in infamy.

And I think it really does hurt him for this.

Not only did it go viral, I was in London, and it was in the London papers.

That's how, that's the publicity that this guy's getting this week.

Well, if Eric Schmidt is going to be a vice presidential candidate, it will probably be running with J.D.

Vance.

And J.D.

Vance understands this kind of thing.

I mean, he's the guy who talked about how the Haitians were eating dogs and cats in Ohio.

And people said that's not true.

And then finally it was proven to be false.

They found the Facebook mention that first gave it, propelled it forward.

And instead of apologizing, J.D.

Vance said, well, I'm still glad that I said it.

You know, we needed this conversation.

So I don't think J.D.

Vance is going to look at this snafu of Schmidt's and say, you know, anything except glad you stuck to your guns.

I think, you know, I don't think he lost his chance to possibly be vice president because I don't think he really ever had a chance to be the vice presidential candidate.

And I think this dates back to pretty much a year ago when he made his speech before some organization and just questioned if you're an American, if you are of European descent and a Christian.

And I think that's enough right there that enough Americans, be they conservative or not, would say, like, that's a little bit extreme for me.

Now, extremism is not beyond him, obviously.

But like Sarah said, this is that little moment just could be held against him if I'm trying to get running for president.

I'm thinking, like, no, I don't because I don't need that being shown because he's my running mate.

Also, during that session, there was another funny part where he he held up some diagram or something and like it was up there and he just put it to whoever was behind and put it down real fast.

And the Senator Kennedy and the witness said, well, I can't comment on it because it was only up there for a second.

And once again, everybody that was in the session room, you could hear this chuckle like this is just comedy.

My first thought was because this was an obscure basketball game from twenty twenty four.

I thought, you know what, he might have been taking some bait here, you know, that if if you know that a particular senator's office when when we were all coming up as a Senate, a senator, a senator's staff was the creme de la creme.

I mean, these were people that you could not they protected that senator with all that they had intellectually.

You think, I mean, in any way that politically, obviously, I just wondered if this wasn't one of those, you know, hey, guess what?

We know that Senator so and so was or that Jack Smith was present at a I just I just wonder if they didn't if they didn't expose some holes in the Senate staff, that they were so that they Washington is a cut throat world and this is Trump world.

So it's just something that I hope it does show that the senator and his staff are lazy.

They did not vet it.

But they were told, according to The New York Times, The Washington Post, you think that these senators are really bright with their questions?

It was reported this week that they are fed the questions.

Yeah.

And the staffers gave it to him.

But they said the staffer said this information has not been vetted.

Oh, I'm sure that was very unhappy with whoever gave him that even then helped him build this big sign.

You know, I mean, if I was a senator, I think I just want to talk to the staff.

The senator doesn't know what he's talking about.

Well, obviously, he's fed the information.

But I don't think that's yeah, I don't think that's really unique in Washington.

I didn't know that.

I thought these guys were bright.

Well, they are doing a lot of different things in a 24-hour period.

So I think that's one of the reasons why you have got to have a staff that you can trust to do the due diligence to follow all the breadcrumbs and to make sure.

Somebody comes up to you and says, Senator, you're going to love this.

Oh, you're going to love this.

Oh, that's all it was.

Right.

By the way, real quick.

Guess who?

Guess who Smith was watching play basketball?

The Golden Girl, Caitlin Clarke.

Caitlin Clarke.

So that works on his side.

It works on Jack Smith's side.

That's what I mean.

Right.

Oh, yeah.

Right.

Okay.

I want to move on to you, Wendy Weiss.

Another Republican from Missouri is coming back.

Andrew Bailey.

What a career he's had.

In 2023, he became a lawyer for the governor.

And then he was appointed to the attorney general by the governor when Schmidt himself went to Washington.

Right.

2024, Bailey wins re-election.

Exactly one year ago, he starts his job as the deputy fired FBI director in Washington.

Second from the top.

And 12 months later, he leaves it.

He leaves the position.

He says he wants to spend more time with his family.

Is that plausible?

I think it is plausible.

I think it's very, you know, we are cynical.

I am cynical.

But we don't know what's going on within the four walls of this guy's life, his family.

We don't we don't know that.

I also understand that in this particular climate in Washington, if I saw the end of the Trump train coming and I, you know, was working for Cash Patel, we don't know what their relationship might be.

It could be problematic for one or both of them.

But I they don't all want to be career politicians like they used to.

I think this is a very different time.

Oh, I don't know.

Like, call me cynical here.

But I think, you know, he was dealing with a situation that was out of control, like the wheels are coming off the Trump train at this point.

And Cash Patel seems like one of the biggest problems.

You know, they had anonymous sources in The New York Times report that suggests that these two did not get along at all.

I think there was some other reporting that said that Bailey had to keep saying, like, this is unconstitutional.

You can't do this, which seems crazy based on some of the stuff Bailey polled in Missouri.

It's like he's the sober minded adult in the room, but that's going to be exhausting.

It could be.

I don't know.

Actually, I find it believable.

I think it's possible he's going to go home to his family.

I think he's got four kids, two or three of them are foster kids.

So maybe he got a call.

It's very important.

But it also happens to be true that the FBI now is hemorrhaging longtime career employees who are just quitting.

And maybe this guy was pushed out.

And he had those kids when he went to Washington.

You know, he made the decision, I'm going to get into the big time.

And off he went.

I'm always extremely skeptical when politicians say, I'm dropping out because I want to spend more time with my family.

And I think it was either quit or get fired.

And so he figured, like, well, I don't want to get fired because that looks worse on your resume than just, like, I want to spend time with my family.

Not saying that that's not true, because he will have more time to spend with his family.

But you know, politicians, people in sports, especially the ones that I want to spend more time with my family.

And then they become national TV analysts and travel as much or more than they did when they were actually on a team.

So that's always a little bit of a stretch.

What I'm going to say is a bit of a stretch.

But I do remember when this guy would call up the wardens of people whose sentences had been reversed by judges.

And he would say, don't let them out of prison.

Yeah, he did do that.

Right.

These guys.

And now he now he wants to spend more time with his family.

Well, he's also the guy that went after poor Joshua Nauda, the post dispatcher, when Josh had found some information that was available on a website.

And Governor Parson said, that's hacking.

That's illegal.

And he was trying to be helpful.

And you can't blame that on poor Governor Parson, because he knows as much about computers as I do.

But you know, Bailey's younger and he's supposed to know better.

And he said, you think it's hacking?

I think it's hacking.

I mean, it was really ridiculous.

But youthful exuberance, maybe.

Maybe he's been seasoned a little bit by.

Well, he's partisan.

So yeah.

I think he's going to come home and I think he's going to run for office.

I think he's got to be looking at poll numbers for like Mike Kehoe.

He maybe sees an opening.

There's a lot of Republicans who are close to being underwater.

OK.

And he's going to work for KFTK?

Is he really?

That's what I read.

Uh, I did not see that.

So he's going to become a radio host?

That's what I thought.

Well, he's really going downhill.

I could be.

But I could be having a dream.

At my age.

We should get him on the show.

I didn't bring this up in the meeting beforehand, but the polls show that Ann Wagner is in a statistical tie with Fred Wellman.

This is Ann Wagner, who's in a deeply red district.

Fred Wellman, the Democrat, is close.

Now, I don't know if the polls are accurate.

Often they are not.

But this is the Missouri that Bailey's coming back to?

Times might be a-changing.

Well, I mean, I'll believe it when I see it.

I believe Wellman can win when Wellman is giving his victory speech on November the 3rd.

Or early November 4th.

But at the same time, yeah, there's something going on.

And I think a lot of it has to do with the whole redistricting, the 300 ,000 people signed a petition.

That means of which a good two-thirds of them probably are Democrats.

So I would just think that.

And I think it's really easy with the recent ascent of some Democratic socialists for them to think, oh yeah, well, we'll just statistically dead heat.

I'm like you.

I've got to see that to believe that.

We will see.

Okay.

Sarah, I want to ask you about squatters.

In South St.

Louis, Tower Grove South on South Spring Avenue, a family from Sudan camped out in front of the home of two gentlemen for four years.

They took tarps and stolen grocery carts and they crafted a small home.

They cooked there.

They used buckets for lavatory, restroom facilities.

It stank.

It was a bad thing for these two guys who were wondering, okay, do these Sudanese, not that there were Sudanese that was a problem, that there were people squatting on their property in front of their house.

So with the help of a local attorney, be of his shock, they sued the city and they got $36,000.

I can't believe it lasted four years, honestly.

What do you think?

I mean, it was such a tough situation.

I know that everybody's going to disagree with me on this, but I think the city was in such a tough place on this.

You have people who are refugees who come from a country that has seen terrible things happen.

These people clearly have some severe mental health issues based on some of the interactions the neighbors have described.

And frankly, based on the fact that multiple city agencies, the city set up a whole task force to try to, like, get them into housing, offered them a tiny home.

They wouldn't take it.

Like, there's something wrong with what has happened in these people's heads, I'm sure, because of what they endured.

And I understand why Mayor Tashara Jones did not want to come in with a bulldozer and sweep this up.

At the same time, the city's trying to make this argument.

We want to bring in more refugees.

We're open to immigrants.

And then we have people come from a war-torn country and we just sweep them off the sidewalk and they'd have to, they'd end up having to handcuff them.

I mean, it would have been a nightmare.

We didn't have the stomachs to take care of them.

Well, I will take the bait and disagree with you on that.

I mean, this is how neighborhoods get destroyed.

When it's, you've been to L.A., I mean, you've seen certain neighborhoods.

People start camping out and if the city doesn't do anything, the neighborhoods all of a sudden, They're homeless everywhere.

And I thought that the last administration, Mayor Jones, they should have done something.

I don't care what it was, but they had to get those people out of there.

And I'm amazed that this new administration didn't just settle with the people who asked for only $66,000 after four years.

Well, they were probably right not to settle.

They only got awarded $36,000 a child, you know.

And I appreciated Beavis Schacht's work on this.

I've been critical of him before.

But I think the city should have just given the couple $66,000.

Okay, what if the neighborhood moved?

What if they just came back one day and it wasn't there?

I mean, would that be wrong?

Would that, you know, like, and they'd call the police and say like, hey, all of our stuff disappeared and the police would do like they do with a robbery and say, we'll look into it.

They should have called Lisa Clancy.

She would have removed it.

She would have removed it.

It was on public property.

No, I think if somebody had removed this encampment, you know, they built it using like carts from Aldi's and tarps, they would have built another encampment.

No, no, no.

And that's exactly what ended up happening.

No, after the city cleared it out, because after Beavis filed this lawsuit, I mean, frankly, the best thing that happened for these neighbors was long before the jury verdict.

That's what spurred the city to take action.

They just moved two blocks over.

They're still living in a tent.

They're just in a more discreet place.

But this is why you have this cultural thing happening right now.

When people hear these anecdotes about gangs of kids breaking into cases of wherever at shopping centers or stores and the police are told to stand down, Alvin's right.

You know, this is you.

You are you are telling the people who have invested their time, their money, the sweat equity into a neighborhood that, oh, we don't want to hurt their feelings.

I don't want to hurt their feelings either.

But you physically have to remove some people.

But Sarah's onto something.

There was a time in this country when people were saying again and again, you can't criminalize homelessness.

True.

And I mean, this was the and all the big cities, they were saying that.

And so everyone kind of went with this.

But then we saw what happened to cities in Portland and in Los Angeles.

Yeah.

I mean, you just say what we're not going to tolerate you living here.

You go to the International Institute and get an interpreter.

And if they say, well, we refuse to say, well, it's you either take what we're giving you, which is a place to stay.

They've been offered a tiny house or you go to jail.

It's one of the two.

Or you do what Father Biondi did, and that is you put a wood chipper there and they can't stand it and they move.

Or one of my neighbors saw a homeless man encamped and she went up to him, offered him 40 bucks to clean the whole place up.

He refused.

And she said, if you don't leave here by tomorrow, you will never come down for breakfast again.

And he was never seen again.

Wow.

I mean, that's how my senior South Police, he would have handled it back in the day.

And I'm just saying that there was I don't mean be violent with the people, but there was a time where they said, like, OK, you're one of you.

There wouldn't have been a question.

It wouldn't have been a question.

But then he just moves a block over.

Like, how does that solve the problem?

Well, I'm not.

I'm trying to solve the problem in front of my house.

Well, and all of the people who had those, you know, those qualms about dealing with them this way would have had the exact same reaction if the squatters had been in their front yard using their sewage, their, you know, their their sewer lines as personal hygiene areas.

Maybe data centers aren't that bad.

Yeah.

OK.

Hey, Bill, I want to ask at least they have laboratories.

Hey, Bill, I want to ask you about what's been going on in the city of St.

Louis and Webster Groves, as a matter of fact, and maybe parts of Kirkwood, because the trains which have been coming through the St.

Louis area have been sounding their horns all through the night.

As it turns out, the Federal Rail Association says that the city of St.

Louis hasn't sent documentation for 18 years showing that its street markings, its crossing mechanisms, its signage are up to date.

And they say until you do that, you're going to have these whistles blowing through the evening, waking people up at two and three in the morning.

Do you think the federal government should say to the city of St.

Louis, OK, we're giving you 60 more days, clean it up or the whistles come back?

Yes, I think the federal government should give the city 60 more days.

I think of the Paul Simon song, though, everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance.

And I'm sort of a bad person to ask about this because my hearing is bad.

So I just take my hearing aids off and the train could come rolling by my house and it wouldn't bother me.

But I think that the federal government should tell the city we're going to give you 90 days or whatever.

Give us give us a second chance.

You had the email snafu, you know, with the emails being sent to somebody who hasn't worked for the city for 18 months, then to only find out that for 18 years these T's have not been crossed or I's have not been dotted.

And I'm like you, Bill.

If an F5 tornado, we have two or three fans sometimes.

We have white noise machines.

I wouldn't hear it.

I mean, if the train rolled through our front yard, I wouldn't hear it.

We had the tornado come by our house.

And I was in the basement.

I didn't hear it.

My wife said, I can't believe this, Sarah.

But look, I mean, you say, you know, they should give them 60 days.

They gave them 16 years.

And yeah, there were a lot of these emails going to the wrong person.

And I have no doubt trying to read communications from the federal government that these were not written in plain English.

But it's like they kept warning them.

They kept warning them.

It was going to lots of different people's inboxes.

I think the good news is because they're sounding these alarms at all hours of the day and night, they finally have their attention.

The city is working as fast as it can.

They know they have a bunch of angry residents in downtown.

I think they've got to keep blasting those whistles until the city gets this done.

We've all seen the city drop the ball.

Like what are the odds that if they gave them 60 days, the city would be like, hey, let's just go back to not dealing with this.

We have all these other problems.

Yeah.

And remember, the tornado sirens didn't go off in the city of St.

Louis.

That's right.

But as far as, you know, 16 years is enough time.

18.

18, right.

Right.

But, you know, heaven forbid, if somebody's car got smacked by a train right now or if a person got hit, the city would be so just, they would, you can, regardless of the situation, the railroad would get sued and the city would just get sued because it would be the fault that because you did not blast your horn.

Let me ask you this, Alvin.

It's been reported, I think by Austin Hoogalay of the St.

Louis Post-Dispatch, that since the May 16, 2025 tornado, which wreaked havoc and billions of dollars of damage in mostly the city of St.

Louis, north St.

Louis, a total of 46 homes to date have been rehabbed.

It's going to be 180 years for us to get to all of them.

What happened here?

I think that repair crews are showing up to houses and seeing what the job is and said, like, we could spend a year working on this house.

We've got two weeks to move on to the next one.

I don't think that the region, the city, I know people have said they really want to save this part of the St.

Louis area, but our hearts aren't in it.

And I think that's what it basically comes down to, that the discussion should have been from the get-go, how much effort, how much money should we put to this as opposed to, quite frankly, leveling many of these houses.

And I think we did what is maybe morally right, but as far as fiscally and what is actually possible, I think it's beyond the realm.

I don't know about this.

I was actually in North City today, the part that was hit hardest by the tornado.

And then right across the street, you have some of the wealthiest, biggest mansions that were also hit hard by this.

And what was fascinating to me is how many of these wealthy homes also are still in a state of disrepair.

Blue tarps on these private streets, because it is so hard to deal with this kind of rebuilding and on historic homes and trying to get contractors, trying to get insurance to pay, even when you don't have the colossal complication of having the city involved.

Like, America just does a terrible job at building and rebuilding these days.

And so, yeah, I mean, I get what you're saying, but I don't know.

I think the hearts are in it.

I just think this job is bigger than we are.

The insurance companies, from what people tell me, they have to replace their roofs with new roofs that fit the historical requirements.

And the insurance companies go, oh, we're not going to give you a tile roof.

We're not going to give you the ceramic roof.

I will say this.

Eric Schmidt's staff sent us an email bragging that they got $200 million last year for the Northside cleanup.

$200 million.

For a $4 billion problem.

Do you know that the federal government is spending $900 million for the White House ballroom and related construction projects?

Our heart is not in it.

Not the federal government, anyway.

Not Senator Schmidt's, anyway.

True.

Some people might call him a dirtbag.

I won't do that.

I won't do that, because it's not appropriate.

Okay.

Why don't we go to the old mailbag and see what people had to say about last week's program.

It was quite disappointing the way the panel glossed over the comments made by alderwoman Sharon Tice threatening to shoot a fellow alderman.

The panel seemed to dismiss the comment because she doesn't own a gun and because she's done a good job in her ward.

Excusing her comment sends a message to others that threatening someone else is okay.

That from her blow of St.

Charles, and we thank him.

Bill Moll of south St.

Louis wrote, I could not agree more with the panelist's views on the bizarre anti-amendment three TV ad.

It reads like a Saturday Night Live spoof.

And finally, Steve Gennie of St.

Louis wrote, please ask Elliott Davis to sit in.

If he is retired and still pounding the pavement, he might be worth a listen.

You can write us, KROV9PBS3655, Olive Street, St.

Louis, Missouri, 63108.

Don't forget those e-mails, donnybrook9pbs.org, and on social media, use hashtag DonnybrookSTL.

Wherever you are, like I was last week and the week before, listen to us on your favorite podcast source.

And don't forget, we have a program on YouTube, it's called Last Call, it's on the Donnybrook YouTube channel.

This week, we'll be talking about changes with the Regional Arts Commission and the loss of a four-story obstacle course on Highway 270.

That's it for this week's program.

Thanks to Alan Krigshauser for his artwork.

Thank you for joining us.

We'll see you next week.

Donnybrook is made possible by the support of the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of Nine PBS.