Making sense of Trump’s America

It’s been a while since our government policy expert Matt Gallagher of The Goldseker Foundation has joined us at Faidley’s but with another Trump government and a stocked cabinet of completely unqualified humans about to run the United States of America, it was time for Nestor to try to attempt to make sense of nonsense reality.

Nestor Aparicio and Matt Gallagher discuss the state of Baltimore and the potential second Trump administration. They highlight the importance of local government and community engagement, mentioning the Goldseker Foundation’s $6 million annual grant distribution and its $140 million total contribution over 50 years. They also touch on the revitalization of local markets like Lexington and Holland’s, and the impact of local businesses like Faidley’s and Woodley Bakery. Concerns about the future of democracy, the role of media, and the challenges of local crime rates are also addressed, with a focus on the need for functional government and informed public discourse.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

crab cakes, Baltimore food, Goldseker Foundation, Trump administration, local government, Social Security, public safety, nonprofit journalism, Baltimore markets, community support, economic development, local philanthropy, public health, tourism impact, local leadership

SPEAKERS

Matt Gallagher, Nestor Aparicio

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Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore, positive. We’re positively here at fates. We’re at the new Lexington market, not to be confused with the old Lexington market. I still have this many Raven scratch offs giveaway. We’re gonna some fresh ones next week. We break the Britain’s show for the first time ever, we’re doing the crab cake tour at a place that they don’t have a crab cake. Don’t tell anybody, but it’s a meat cheese. I’m glad to do anything I want. We’ll be there Tuesday. Will be a cost us on Wednesday, we’re here at fade. Lee’s celebrating with them. I don’t remember you being this tall. Matt Gallagher was a part of the most shared video in the history of videos here. We’ve had almost 4 million views on it as to how to open a crab cake, and you did a little cameo song and dance. And of course, Matt Gallagher worked long time with the city and the state with Martin O’Malley, and now Martin O’Malley is doing something else in Social Security, and Trump’s about to become president again. And I’m like, I gotta get Matt down here for the holidays. Make me feel better about things now running gold sector Foundation, we talk about foundations in the city. How are you? Man, it’s great to see you. Crap shrimp tickets. Very nice. Not hard to get you on the show. Hey, you want to come to faith leaves. What

Matt Gallagher  01:11

time you need me? I’m here three times a month, generally. So you

Nestor Aparicio  01:14

gave me some story on the way over about faith Lee’s crab cakes being a part of your holiday. Yep. And this smoked muscles, smoked muscles. I never, I never had one of those. So talk

Matt Gallagher  01:27

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to me. So cross about a half a mile from here, is neopol smokery. It’s over in Holland’s market. They’ve got a branch in Belvedere square. And if you ask me what, you know, my top 10 things that eat in Baltimore are one of them would be Neopolitan.

Nestor Aparicio  01:43

Well, you know what I had? Dara bungen, do you know who she is from J Moore, she’s their food enthusiast at J Moore, she shared a recipe three weeks ago, a couple days before Thanksgiving, that was corn pudding, and I just borrowed it all. I looked at it. I’m like, man, let’s try that. We had some fresh silver Queen corner. My wife shucked in August, got it at the farmers market, and it’s in the freezer, and we’re like, all right, to break it as we ate it. It was unbelievable. I invited her on the show, and so she started flirting with me on text the week before. Like, talking about that happens to you a lot, yeah, like, about food and about this, and how I know of her. And she was so grateful that I was having her on and she does her own podcast. She’s wonderful. But sometime on the back and forth with the text, she’s like, What are your favorite things to eat in Baltimore? And then she laid that on me in the show last we were Cocos last week, she’s like, so what are your other favorite things? And I had to really think that through. So you just broke the glass ceiling for conversations here. In regard to top 10, you’re a real foodie dude, like you love you’re skinny, but you’re you eat like me big time. So you really have this. You’re like, top 10. So I’m like, There’s got to be nine others. Let’s go. Let’s go.

Matt Gallagher  03:01

I mean, okay, but you’re putting me on the spot, but on top of my head. I mean, obviously fade. Lee’s, you know, is the best place. Your place. This is Mecca. I’m huge on the neopolit Smoked muscles. They’re fantastic.

Nestor Aparicio  03:14

You that’s Belvedere square. Is where you get

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Matt Gallagher  03:16

them. At Belvedere square, you can get them at the test kitchen, which is about a half a mile from here, they’re basically $1 a muscle. You can eat them cold, you can eat them hot. You can pop them in the oven, you know, 350 for six or seven minutes. They have this amazing aioli that you put on them. They’re, they’re out of this world. The

Nestor Aparicio  03:35

smoke thing is, uh, acquire, you know, you know, you’re not born loving smoke stuff. You sort of have to acquire that, right? Yeah, I would say that’s true. Yeah. Well, Dan Rogers and I talked about the Feast of the fishes, yeah, right. And the Feast of the fishes is one of those things that smoke things are a part of that. And I, I didn’t grow up with smoked fish in my house, so it’s always just a little different. I don’t know. I mean, it’s not something I crave. It’s not something that’s familiar to me, if

Matt Gallagher  04:01

you, if you put smoked muscles into your rotation, I guarantee it’s going to become a regular. And, you know, we have a big party the night before Thanksgiving. We call it the seafood extravaganza. And it’s grown over the last so there’s almost like, feast of fishes kind of, sort of, kind of, sort of, but it’s more just like, what are like, super easy things you can eat and have a couple of glasses of wine or beer or champagne, and people kind of come in and out. And my kids now are adults, so sometimes their friends come by. It’s just basically, like, three to four hours of a happy hour with a lot of, like, really, really good seafood. You come down here and you pick up some crab cakes, you throw them in the oven for 10 minutes, and they’re good to go. You put the smoke muscles in, they’re good in six or seven minutes. And people are just like, oh my god, I can’t believe how great this food is. And it’s like, yeah, you go to Lexington market and you go across the Hollins market to we are blessed in

Nestor Aparicio  04:54

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that. I mean, I say that to people all the time, like, I love New York, and I’ll go to New York. Thing I love about New York is I go to. Run this good weather. It’s flat. Walk everywhere, and I am a grazer. See it in the window, eating pastries, pizza, whatever you want. Baltimore’s more destination for me, where I think, like if I were to take someone to my five places to eat a meat cheese is one of them, right? Like the Ameche is meatball with the garlic cheese bread. Forget about it. Unbelievably good. Echo been text and poor broccoli. I’ll go to sleep with it. I think Coco’s coconut shrimp with the raspberry jalapeno. This is how we got into this conversation, because I text Dara bungen, I text her, have you had a Coco’s crab cache, sure. And I’m like, but have you had the coconut shrimps? No, it’s like being here if you haven’t had the shrimp salad at fadelies. Unbelievable. I just had to steam shrimp for the first time ever. They were great. So I think side dishes, the cucumber salad here’s unbelievable. I wouldn’t tell anybody you’re going to fade leaves. You got to get the cucumber salad. It’s unique. What are your other eight? Come on, man, you’re like, I mean, you had an Asian joint you loved in Mount Vernon that you were trying to get me to, big time, a tie joint. You had a tie joint Mount Vernon, yeah, that

Matt Gallagher  06:10

tie joint is closed. There’s a pop up. They have one in Hamden, and they have one in Federal Hill Coon, nine, Thai. Very, very good. Like, some of the largest portions of duck dishes I’ve ever seen. It’s like, $19 and you get this huge piece of duck, and you’re like, this is fantastic. This is living I don’t know if I’m putting that on my top 10, so you kind of jump the line there. You know, in the holiday season, you’ll see me at shingali for a piece of veal lasagna, usually sitting at the bar, just nice glass of red wine, piece of veal lasagna. Unbelievable holiday comfort food. I’m always up at Woodley bakery on Blair road, and if I’m there, I’m picking up smear case, which is,

Nestor Aparicio  06:56

I’ve never had that look. So I go to Woodley all the time. But I’m a peach cake guy. I know you’re

Matt Gallagher  07:02

and what always happens is when I post about the schmear case at Woodley, you weigh in with I can’t wait. It’s almost peach cake season. I’m going there, but you should pick up a schmear. It’s it’s a lighter, it’s S, M, E, A, R, C, A, S, E, S, smear case it’s in the lower part of the counter. When you come in, well, there’s always turnovers there. It’s a German it’s a German style, lighter cheesecake. And everybody that we introduce it to is like, oh my god, I like cheesecake, but it’s too heavy, or it’s too much. This is perfect.

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Nestor Aparicio  07:39

It’s a custardy kind of cheesecake. Would you call it like that? No. I mean,

Matt Gallagher  07:43

look, I’m a big custard guy too. I mean, I would not call it custardy. I would. I would describe it as a lighter style cheesecake.

Nestor Aparicio  07:50

I get the custard pies at Woodley because they’re delicious, and I also get them around the corner Fenwick too. So Fenwick and wood Woodley, for me, I’m about their cookies. Yeah, they’re great. The chocolate chip cookies at Woodley are a top 20 item, top five bakery item for me in this

Matt Gallagher  08:11

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if I’m going cookies, I’m an otter bond guy. Oh, that’s not my jam. Well, that’s the thing Audubon used to be. They had like a brick and mortar bakery lock Raven Boulevard in northern Parkway. And I’m not the famous Gallaghers from Baltimore. I’m the firefighting Gallaghers from Baltimore. And our family and some of our other kind of families used to sell Christmas trees on that corner lot at Northern Parkway and lock Raven Boulevard, and my uncles would send me over to the bakery, which was in that little shopping center, and I’d get sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and then they had the best cheese buns in town.

Nestor Aparicio  08:49

See otter bite like that. When I think of that, I just think of the little sugar cookie, you know, like, that’s what I think. They don’t

Matt Gallagher  08:54

have any brick and mortar anymore. They do they do the get cookies at Eddie’s and gross and places like that. They got a number on the website, and I call the number every year, and I’m like, hey, when can I get you to make the cheese buns again? And they laugh, and they know exactly what I’m talking about. Like, yeah, you know that that doesn’t pencil out. Gallagher guy again, yeah, but I’ll go anywhere for a good cheese bun. But I got, I got Woodley at the top of the list right now. All

Nestor Aparicio  09:19

right. See, we’re getting Baltimore hints here. I brought you over to talk politics.

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Matt Gallagher  09:25

I’m trying to be versatile. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  09:27

you’re known in my world as the crab hand guy from being in the video with Amy. Please explain that

Matt Gallagher  09:33

a little bit better, because that didn’t come out great but the crab hand guy, but you were

Nestor Aparicio  09:37

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in, you did a cameo in the crab hand video were only Damis hands are in the video showing me how to properly open a crab, which I still lollipop technique.

Matt Gallagher  09:51

Have you done it? I mean, I can’t replicate it. Look, that whole thing blew my mind. I’d never seen that method, and I you know, nor had. Picked 1000s of crabs growing up in Baltimore, and

Nestor Aparicio  10:02

Mueller kept telling me I was doing it wrong. I’m like, Yeah, you do it wrong. I mean,

Matt Gallagher  10:05

look, she is. She’s at the top of her class, obviously, when it comes to picking crabs. But I learned a lot from that video, and I laugh every time it pops up in the feed and it’s 2 million, 3,000,003.5

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Nestor Aparicio  10:18

I see I don’t eat crabs for business. I eat them for pleasure. You know what I mean? I take my time my parents, because we were poor and broke, and Dundalk, every little kernel of meat, every little I know how to get all the meat out of the crap. I don’t get frustrated with it. And then I see these people from not from around here. They really do think we’re crazy for going through all of that work and whatnot to do it. They don’t. Tourists don’t understand crabs in the way we do that’s more for us.

Matt Gallagher  10:47

No, yeah, looking for competition on crabs. All right,

Nestor Aparicio  10:51

I’ll get the other five eating things from you on your Facebook. Matt Gallagher’s our guest. Matt ran government, did lots of things. What would I say about you? Like, what former

Matt Gallagher  11:01

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government, utility, utility and fielder in Baltimore, okay, plays a lot of positions.

Nestor Aparicio  11:06

Lot of you thought he should have run for mayor. He’s one of the reasons I ran for mayor, because he wasn’t willing to do it. And you run gold sector, which is foundation. You do lots and lots things in charitable spaces, community. I could bring you back during cup of Super Bowl in February, talking about that state of the city, state of politics, Trump running the country bridge down this crazy murder with the Mangione fan, like we’ve end the year. If I’m doing an end the year with you, had you come here in January and we you would, I wouldn’t have been here. You’d have been at the old Lexington market in January. It’s been crazy, man. And I don’t know that I’m ready for the Trump thing. And I And I’m trying to get with people like you. And I see Martin, sort of lost his mind again, and said, I’m gonna go, I’ll get back in, and I want to have him on because, like, I think this is, these last four or five weeks have been a weird little awakening to how to try to get used to that again, the dishonesty part of did you lose the 220 20 election, Mr. Trump, that’s your opinion. Oh, boy. Here we go again. And I’m not ready for that, so please get me get me ready. Where do

Matt Gallagher  12:11

you want me to start at the beginning? Okay, I was, I was giving you some born in Baltimore. It’s been a crazy couple of months. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. Look, I think for the vast majority of people, when you talk about government, it’s what they see every day. It’s local, it’s who’s picking up their trash. It’s the police, it’s the fire department, it’s the crews fixing the street, lights, constituent services, as we say, right? Yeah, but it’s the things that you interact with. And I think that when you kind of go up the food chain and you go local and state and then federal, people feel a lot more detached from those people who are in those leadership roles and those functions of government. You mentioned social security. I mean, they’re sending out 70 million checks every single month. So for 70 million Americans, like the most important probably function of government is that Social Security works and that those resources are there 70

Nestor Aparicio  13:11

million is one out of six humans are kind of sort of, you know, if we have 400 million people, and is that right? So one out of six humans is of the I’m about to get there. I’m 56 I’m coming soon. I’m still there, and it’s all they’ve known anyone is 80 years old their whole lifetime. This has been waiting for them since FDR told them when they were

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Matt Gallagher  13:37

a kid, and it’s probably the most important component of their retirement. So, like, that’s a piece of government that really, really needs to function well, whether it’s Democrat or Republican, whether you’re red, blue, green, purple, it doesn’t, and

Nestor Aparicio  13:49

the post office had to get the checks there at one point back in the day. Yeah, more direct deposit now, but that’s still a factor. Yeah, and I don’t think

Matt Gallagher  13:56

there’s a lot of people out there who want to rely on the post office right now. So

Nestor Aparicio  14:01

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listen, I would not be as openly. I don’t know what to say about it. I witnessed this for four years. I can’t believe anyone would want to sign up for this again, on behalf of any of us. And here we are, and it’s been normalized, and it will become normalized again very, very quickly, once the fear gets out, I have an FCC license. He owns my license, right? Like, literally, under a dictatorship of whatever this would be, wherever, but the law is going to be tested, and our people are going to be tested. In a way we’re not at war, but in many ways, there is a civil thing going on here when I land in red states that I just don’t understand, that I have a hard time explaining or even conceptualizing what this is going to look like and whether there’s going to be an election four

Matt Gallagher  14:56

years from now. Well, I mean, when I think about local. Well. And when I think about Maryland, I’m really happy and pleased that I live in Baltimore, that I live in Maryland, and that we have policies and leaders and institutions that I think are generally pretty reliable. And when people say to me, like, how do you explain, like, what happened in Pennsylvania or North Carolina or some of these swing states? It’s tough to answer because I’m not there. I don’t have exposure to it, but I feel like here, we have constructive conversations about how to pay for public education. We have expectations that are put on our leaders in terms of we want things to get better. We want public safety to improve. You know, you look at a place like fadelies, you look at a place like Lexington market. You know, like you said a year ago, we would have been a block away in a decrepit, kind of fallen down building, and fadelies was literally propping up the whole Lexington market. And right now, after a lot of hard work by a lot of different people, you’ve seen a very significant transformation in Lexington market.

Nestor Aparicio  16:00

This would have been a dream for you and Martin 20 years ago, when you’re running the city, absolutely. And,

Matt Gallagher  16:04

I mean, I think that there’s money that is in Lexington market that probably dates back to the time that Martin was in the governor’s office, because these things take a lot of time. They’re very complicated. Capital stacks, the real estate transactions are very, you know, tough, and you have handoffs between administrations. You know, Mayor to mayor, governor to Governor. You know, developer to developer. And it’s fantastic what sea wall and Tebow mannequin were able to do the public markets Corporation. I mean, right now in the city, there’s a little bit of a rebirth of the public markets going on. You know, Holland’s market just reopened. You’ve seen what happened at cross street that’s been revitalized. Broadway market. People are starting to realize, like, Hey, I go to Philadelphia, I go to Reading Terminal Market, I go to Seattle, I go to Pikes market. But like, these are fantastic places. Like, they’re not just destinations, but they can be supermarkets too. And if you have food deserts, if you have, like, really significant community needs. And obviously there are a lot of community needs in Baltimore. You know, these markets can play a lot of different roles for the people who patronize them,

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Nestor Aparicio  17:08

and they’re better than they’ve been in my lifetime, absolutely like literally I mean that. And I lived near cross street, and by the way, our murmur has been invited on, and I saw him down at the big Pearl Jam concert a couple months ago. So our show, come on and talk about the markets as well. Matt Gallagher’s our guest. We’re here at Faith les brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery, gold, saccharin foundations, and that in the importance of that. I want to give you some oxygen on that before we get back to politics, your city and all of that. But what does your year look like? And what you know, I don’t want you to single out, because I think you give to dozens of different places, from what I remember, but a couple of successful things that have made you put a suit on and go out and work with some kids or some leaders or elderly whatever, because you’re always you’re in all those pots with goldsecker and most people. And I’m a poor kid from Dundalk, I didn’t know anything about foundation, so people like you started teaching me, and I would see the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg on the wall and wonder what that’s all about.

Matt Gallagher  18:03

So we’ve been around for almost 50 years. We’ve given away about $140 million over those 50 years. We’re going to give away $6 million this year in 2024 it’s great. It’s fun. You’re dealing with like, the most engaged, hyper active people in Baltimore City who really believe in the people and institutions of Baltimore doing it,

Nestor Aparicio  18:28

not talking about it, absolutely right? So, like, you know, and there are people here doing it, that’s the point. I was in a COVID event last night. My wife and I drove into the city, went to center club. I’m like, my god, the amount of people and institutional knowledge and love in the room and care for COVID and love of West Baltimore. You know, I feel that way about Dundalk. I feel that way about Baltimore. You know, we want more everybody to take care of their little neighborhood. And you see that in every neighborhood you go into, you see the people who care the most. And

Matt Gallagher  18:55

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if you can knit together enough of those coalitions and groups and a block becomes a neighborhood, and a neighborhood becomes a district, and then suddenly it’s the west side of the east side, or whatever it might be, you can get momentum. And then it’s not about the philanthropic resources, it’s about the market forces taken over, and people want to live, work, play there, if they feel like it’s, you know, safe, a good place to raise a family, to grow a business, and ultimately, what we want is for our money to be seed capital, to germinate, like really good ideas, get people behind them, prove the concept, and then hopefully additional investment, whether it’s more philanthropic money or whether it’s private money, comes in behind it, and it really sticks. So like a couple of weeks ago, we gave a grant to Holland’s market to help them put a supermarket in because we want to see Holland’s market do really, really well. We gave a grant to because

Nestor Aparicio  19:49

that’ll make the neighborhood do well, around totally that’s totally off food desert.

Matt Gallagher  19:53

People are underserved. You know, these are capital intensive operations. They have a lot of startup costs. If we can help get them going,

Nestor Aparicio  20:01

they still got the pizza joint over there. That’s delicious at holidays. Yeah, yeah. I had a pizza over there. Was fantastic. It is good. The mayor sent me there. By the way, mayor Scott sent me there when he was city council president.

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Matt Gallagher  20:11

So across the street is a place called rooted rotisserie. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this yet. It’s a black owned BYOB restaurant. I think they may have just gotten there. Oh,

Nestor Aparicio  20:20

that dude went there. The famous foodie guy went there, right?

Matt Gallagher  20:25

I mean, I’m glad he kind of, he must have followed me on Facebook or because it was your joint first look back in March. I’m not, I don’t want to brag, but we had that. We had that we were early adopter, but their food’s fantastic. And now you can’t get a reservation. And, like, once you get, like, one or two places like that, then you start to get some critical mass, and then people, it just kind of feeds on itself. And that’s, that’s what you hope to do when you seed some of these organizations and some of these initiatives all around the city.

Nestor Aparicio  20:53

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Tough week here, you’re a real, I mean, Matt’s a real Baltimore guy. You live in the city, you run the city. You care all of that man this mothers. And I’ve known Dave Rader since he had empty pockets down on Ford Avenue back in the early 90s. I remember when mothers opened. I remember my first business partner. We ate in what would become mothers when it was the little diner, little morning diner at the time, back 30 years ago. And then Nacho mamas. And I’m assuming you knew scunny, right? I mean, everybody knew Scotty.

Matt Gallagher  21:26

I mean, I know, I wouldn’t say I was close to him, like many of my friends were, spent a lot of time there. Yeah, and and at mothers too.

Nestor Aparicio  21:33

These are such a kick in the balls for, for the for the ethos, you know, for for people out in the suburbs who talk about the city or whatever, and I’m in Towson and the Berea quesadillas, not to mention the salsa and Nacho mamas. And I had Finn on a couple weeks ago, Sunny sun. We did the show up at mamas on the half shell. Thankfully, that’ll stay up. Bring the salsa over there, Finn, please put some nachos at the bar for your father, for me, for some for our friends. But it’s hard, man. And I said to my wife, even this morning, little bit teary eyed almost, I’m like, you know, they died. You had to know that Nacho mamas was on life support, unless someone would come in there and give it the kind of energy that brought it to life. Yeah. I mean, Dami is here doing the work, and her son’s right now. They’re in the shot, hi. They’re doing the work that their grandfather did, bringing fresh fish in here. That’s a really hard thing to do. You establish something even when it’s 2530 years. Great example, my buddy Chad weasling and I were in Highland town late one night. We went into the snake Hill bar right there, and we were talking about House nurse, and nobody in the bar knew anything about House nurse. And they were sitting as close to housers as I am to that fish sandwich over there, right? And they didn’t know the history of house nurse in the art and all that. And I’m thinking, all of these things die if they don’t have the butterfly flapping the with the energy. If it doesn’t have that energy underneath of it, it can’t function. And the city needs these spaces to have humans do what stunney did, do, what dame, he’s over here doing right now, do what Dave rather did when he built mothers. And if it doesn’t have that, it’s not sustainable in modern life. It has to have real functioning Oompa Loompas, making the the food, making the chocolate.

Matt Gallagher  23:26

You know, they both had fantastic runs. They’re both fantastic places. I don’t want to see them close. I was still patronizing both of them, but you there has to be some level of renewal. And if it’s not happening within that particular restaurant, we need other people to step up and kind of fill those spaces and fill those voids and like, it kills me that both of those places are going to close, and they were definitely in my rotation, but then you got to find the next place that’s going to go into your rotation that has a similar vibe, that you know, that you can kind of recreate the experience same

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Nestor Aparicio  23:58

way we stopped going to cheat cheese when scunny Open Nacho mamas, right? Yeah, literally, right. You’re bringing cheat sheets back for chains. A man who does not eat the chain restaurant food, he is eating good in the neighborhood without Applebee’s Mac Gallagher here, he’s with the gold sector Foundation. They do amazing thing around amazing things around the community. In regard to philanthropic, philanthropy and philanthropic efforts. I am from Dundalk. Today we’re at fadelies. He’s already, you’ve already had a crab cake, right? I did. I looked over, and next thing, you’re there. You’re all

Matt Gallagher  24:27

coming on at one. And, I mean, look, I’ve usually had lunch by one o’clock, so I couldn’t wait.

Nestor Aparicio  24:33

All right. Well, I mean, it’s all good outlook on the city. I haven’t had you on since the bridge collapsed, the Trump thing, navigating that. And your old partner, Martin O’Malley, who I’d like to get on and chat with him. Robbie Leonard’s coming a little run. You know, Robbie ran in Baltimore County on the on the court side, on the Democratic side, voting

Matt Gallagher  24:54

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member of the Democratic National Committee. Okay, so that is where

Nestor Aparicio  24:58

I’ll let you start. On that, because he put that out candidly. Five days ago. I saw him put that out, and he said, yeah, if you want to pony your money up, fly all over the place, you can get the vote too and be a part of that. And I’m like, All right, dude, I gotta get you down here to talk about he had a little court docket. He’s the one that switched with you on the docket today. He’s gonna be here later. What’s happened to the Democratic Party, bro? I mean, like we could talk about Trump and the lies and the prison and the instrument, we could talk about any of that. What the hell happened here the last four years, other than inflation and groceries and you, you know, what do you have to lose and all of that, like, I cannot believe this happened, but then I look at it and I thought, Well, Joe Biden wasn’t doing so well at the end. And certainly, I think that first debate was a mess. I think the morning, I woke up and said, Oh, Kamala is going to be the person? Well, she’s black and she’s a female. Can she win? There’s a first question. How’s that going to play? I’m voting for, I’m in, I’m I would vote for a sewer rat. I would vote for that orange cone there before I would vote for Donald Trump. But clearly, 70 million people don’t feel that way, and I I can’t get over

Matt Gallagher  26:11

it. Look, I mean, we’re a divided nation right now, and it’s pretty razor thin in terms of the number of states and the literally 10s or hundreds of 1000s of people who are deciding elections right now, and there are just two very decidedly different world views in terms of what the federal government should be doing and what they’re looking for in their leader. I mean, if you ask me, you know coming after COVID, and all of the COVID shocks to the market and supply chains and all that type of stuff. Was it crazy that inflation kind of went off the charts for a little while? No one crazy at all like that seems like a pretty reasonable thing. But, you know, economics

Nestor Aparicio  26:53

class would have taught you that 1983 right? If there’s a plague any shot, if they would have given you that scenario in masters course of economics, you would say there will be hyperinflation. There will there will have to be and look in the same way when we throw everybody with my skin color out of this country, good luck by finding a blueberries for $4 yeah. But I

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Matt Gallagher  27:14

mean for the for a very significant part of the population, unless you are around in the, you know, the mid 1970s and I was a little kid at that point, Jimmy Carter lost an election. Jimmy Carter, and you saw the long lines at the gas tanks, which is probably one of my very first memories as a kid. The vast majority of people have never lived in an environment where there’s three or 4% inflation, let alone six, seven or 8% so that is a real shock. And very

Nestor Aparicio  27:40

few people in our lifetime have lived through 4% unemployment either, right? I mean, the employment rate in this country we all time high. Yeah, more people are employed than have ever been. You know, capacity, from what I understand, which is one of the reasons we have millions of undocumented immigrants who basically prepare every food, piece of food we have in this society. That’s true. And if you don’t respect that and understand that, then you’re just, you’re an idiot. I don’t know what else to say. You’re just not getting out well.

Matt Gallagher  28:08

I mean, look, it’s, it’s really, really tough, because I think for all the economic indicators that we’re going in the right direction, and all the things that we’re improving, and all this the relative stability there was over the last four years, if you’re not feeling that and experiencing that in your own household, like you’re kind of missing the boat, and you’re still aggrieved, you’re still upset, you still have a huge amount of anxiety. And I think that as a party, you know, there has to be just an incredible and consistent and sustained emphasis on communicating everything that they’re doing to make your life better, easier, safer, fairer, more well, it’s called

Nestor Aparicio  28:44

8

Obamacare, and that was put on was that put on that by the Democrats or by the Republicans? It was put on it by the Republicans to disparage Barack Obama, right? And yet, millions of people use Obamacare and have in their families, in their direct line over the last 10 years, had a medical situation that with, without, it would have absolutely been catastrophic for their

Matt Gallagher  29:14

family, right? Nope, absolutely. And you think about all the 2425 26 year olds who are covered on their families policies right now, and there’s no alternative to that like that is the system that is what’s in place. And for all the people who railed against it, you don’t really see any robust conversation about how to replace it, because there’s just really no idea in terms of how to do that so well, that’s the thing

Nestor Aparicio  29:40

about the four years of of Trump that I saw very clearly is and and through all of these campaigns and these hate speeches and these, you know, lily white Nazi looking rallies that have been going on, there’s no policy. And you’re the policy wonk, Matt Gallagher, you know you’re, you’re the guy that’s like, I. Okay, we can vote for that guy. But at the street level, every program in the federal government has to function. And all of the matt Gallagher’s that people like Martin O’Malley put you in charge of things, they’re all miscreants who are there to fundamentally, I mean, Vince McMahon’s wife is going to run education. She’s never educated anything in her life other than herself. I mean, like, what’s going to happen to transportation? I was talking to Bill COVID this morning on the show, I said, Pete Buttigieg, who? How’s the bridge getting built? How’s anything going to get built with people running the government, who hate government, who literally hate the foundational principles of government, right?

Matt Gallagher  30:47

Look, I’m not saying this is good news, but the truth is that, like the government survived a pretty rigorous stress test for four years. And I don’t think a lot of us didn’t want to see another stress test so soon, but we’re going to get another stress test, and hopefully the institutions can hold up, and hopefully there will continue to be a very, very bright light, like shown on everything that’s kind of going on, because you have to have

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Nestor Aparicio  31:15

whistle blowings. We need, right? I mean, whistle blowing is going to be there’s

Matt Gallagher  31:19

been a lot of whistle blowing over the last four or eight years. You know, it’s hard to say, like, people didn’t know what they were getting into with this choice and this decision, but the boxes

Nestor Aparicio  31:29

of files in the bathroom at Mar a Lago are, you know,

Matt Gallagher  31:33

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but it’s not going to be until there’s new fallout from the decisions that are made. And look, I You’re very kind calling me a policy guy. I’m a policy guy. I’m into ideas. I’m into functional government. Like, that’s kind of where I made my bones when I was kind of, you know, coming up in my professional career. The reality is, when you get into a campaign setting, every candidate wants to talk about policy. Every candidate wants to win on policy. And policy is probably less than 10% of the kind of the algebra people

Nestor Aparicio  32:01

don’t vote the Yeah, me, I mean, there’s no way these Republicans are voting on policy. It’s personality, people that voted on something that had nothing to do with policy. Personality.

Matt Gallagher  32:11

It’s perception. It’s, you know, can you harness the grievance of your potential coalition and make them feel like you’re gonna make more progress on those issues or ideas than the opponent does, and it’s unfortunate, and it’s, you know, it’s one of the reasons I’m a huge believer in kind of a free, unbiased, non profit press. We’ve been huge supporters at the foundation of the Baltimore banner, because people just need more information to make better decisions. And I think it’s really, really important, like as you’re evaluating these decisions and these trade offs, and you know what the right approach to this is to have more outlets out there, kind of, in an unbiased, fair way, reporting on these things. And you’re obviously in the media environment right now. You seen the contraction. You’ve seen the fewer number of newspapers. You’ve seen just a lot a lot of crazy stuff going on within the industry right now. And we have become big boosters of nonprofit journalism because we really think, slash hope, pray that that’s going to be the future.

Nestor Aparicio  33:17

Well, from your lips to God’s ears as a band ravens, journalists, where, this week, my employee has a church obligation on Sunday and cannot drive to the Meadowlands on Sunday, and I am banned. So my organization has, you know, I’ve seen this on this, what sports teams are willing to do when they’re taking $600 million of government money that, I mean, you work in that environment, giving any billionaire group $600 million worth of state money to fix up their their shed is really far fetched, but sports gets away with that, and I am exhibit a on that side. I’m worried on the governmental side as to what this is going to look like, and more than that, how it gets couched, how the media has been over during this century really used as the mouthpiece for whatever political cause you want to use it for, right like what Fox News taking the word news and usurping that word as something that creates legitimacy, that does not create legitimacy any more than the world weekly news did when we walked out of the checkout counter and aliens were taking over the planet, right? The Sinclair people buying the sun, isn’t it? I mean, that’s happened this year, right? So there really has been Who do you believe? And when I hear the president united states say, that’s your opinion about a fact, that’s that’s worrisome to me, the worrisome part is the disinformation that I’ve seen settle in, and what I read about Russian disinformation from 5060, years ago, that this is a part of this, and

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Matt Gallagher  34:51

we’ll have some hope. Look, I mean, the banner, look, there’s an incredible experiment going on in Baltimore right now with nonprofit journalism, and what Stuart Banham did. To pump $50 million into the startup of the banner is not happening anywhere else. I was gonna ask you, there’s nothing else like it. There’s nothing else like it. It’s growing faster than any other nonprofit news organization in the country. As of last month, they had eclipsed 51,000 paid subscribers, and they’ve got the largest newsroom in Maryland right now. So you know, when I talk to people, and two years ago did exist, it didn’t exist, right? Yeah, they got a newsroom down at the Inner Harbor. They are covering stuff in Baltimore County, Anne Arundel County, like they are, I think, the premier news organization in Maryland right now, and that’s happened in two years, and it’s

Nestor Aparicio  35:37

a Republican picks it up. He’s got to trust that it’s factual, that’s that’s really the issue, right? Yeah, but

Matt Gallagher  35:42

I think that when they start with their focus on local news, I really do think it all gets back to local all these issues that you’ve ticked off, all these places, all of these kind of concerns about where people live in their neighborhoods. You know it’s going to be authentic. People know that because they’ve been to places like this. They see, you know, they know these peace, you know, you talked about the situation with the mangiones Like, right now, an incredible family who’ve done amazing things in Baltimore, and they’re going through this, like, personal tragedy right now. You can’t, you know, go three feet without bumping into somebody who knows one of the mangiones right now, and they’re sympathetic to what that family’s going through, and obviously the victim of what happened in New York as well. But like, when you’re when you start with a focus on local, you’re local, I’m local. We know what’s going on. Like, you know, we can evaluate what’s fair and what’s not fair and what is honest and not honest,

Nestor Aparicio  36:36

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and what’s working and what’s not working, yeah, because you see with your own eyeballs, you

Matt Gallagher  36:39

see it when you drive home, you see it when you come to fade leads. You see it when you go to work, whatever it might be, you have, like, a lived experience. And hopefully that local journalism is capturing that on the ground reality, and hopefully is providing coverage that’s going to enhance what happens in those places, holding local and state government accountable, figuring out what the plan is going to be. You know, what’s going to happen with the replacement of the bridge, educating people that if the commitments that the current administration made are not honored by the next administration, that they’re they have that information and they’re equipped to make a decision going forward that, like, wait a minute, how could you not support the rebuilding of the Key Bridge? You know, like, those are the kind of things that we got to constantly bring up. And I think with all of this competing media out there right now, like repetition and constantly kind of going back to these things is really, really important.

Nestor Aparicio  37:30

Matt Gallagher’s our guest. He runs the gold sector foundation. We’re here at fade. Lee’s all that it brought to you by our friends at the Marilyn model. We have some Raven scratch off skidway. It’s a little dark today. It’s wintery out. We encourage everyone to order your crab cakes at a time. Dami gave me this great kitchen towel and sing crabs for Christmas. But I do love that it’s got crabs and Christmas trees on it. They have all sorts of gifts. You go to fade Lee’s crab cakes. Calm if you want to ship and order the crab cakes down here. I don’t know last thing for you on the hope side of Baltimore. And give me some things that are lifted in Baltimore as you see it. Yeah, a couple of reasons to jump on board, other than just the baseball team might be good in the football team has been struggling but, but you live here and you’re down here. I’m down here two, three days a week, no matter what. I was here last night. I’m here today. I’ll be to meet you, by the way. Chris Gorman, Baltimore banner sports editor, is my guest at amicis on Tuesday, so we’ll talk more about the banner. But no, but no, crab kicks. Right pane rotunda, we’re gonna have that sit in. It’s as good as a crab kick. And that’s very hard to say that. But come on, you’re an amici guy, you know I got

Matt Gallagher  38:35

you? Oh no, I like a me cheese. Yeah,

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Nestor Aparicio  38:37

I just had it’s my plates. It’s my it’s my Arnold’s from Happy days. It’s my place. So I want to go down there and do the show. So that’s we’re gonna that’s great. I’m bringing a bit so for you with the city, what are you digging?

Matt Gallagher  38:48

It’s really exciting right now that some progress is finally being made on homicides and non fatal shootings. You

Nestor Aparicio  38:55

know, that’s a lead story, right? Crime, crime has always been the lead since I’ve known you, right? Crime, crime, crime in the city, crimes coming down. That’s a good thing. That is a

Matt Gallagher  39:01

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very good thing. That’s a good that’s a good lead store, absolutely. And look, I mean, between 2020 14, you had under 300 homicides. You had under 200 homicides. One year, we’ve had a horrible run between 2015 and last year, everybody’s got their fingers crossed that, you know, we’re turning the corner and that we’re going to be able to sustain this progress going forward. It’s really, really great that between what’s going on in city government, the State’s Attorney’s Office, the, you know, the federal prosecutors in the US Attorney’s Office, and then having, you know, a state government where the public safety apparatus is really engaged on what happens in the city, it’s so hard to kind of get all of that alignment at the same time. And you really, really need all of that stuff working together if you’re going to start make progress. And we’ve had a good run, and we just got to keep that sustained, because if people don’t feel safe, you know, coming into Baltimore or living in Baltimore, it makes everything. Else hard, economic development, public safety, public transportation, public health, tourism, yeah, if you’ve got those strong public safety kind of headwinds that you’re going into all the time, it makes everything else so much more difficult. But the bottom line is like, Look still an incredible place to live, still has incredible culture, still has incredible affordability relative to other cities, like, you know, if you want to buy a house in Baltimore, it’s a much more realistic proposition if you’re a cop, a firefighter or a teacher, and if you’re in, if you’re in DC or Philadelphia or New York, you know, and that’s why you see, like a wave of these, like huge, accomplished artists leaving New York and Brooklyn and all of these places and coming down here, because you can still get incredible affordability here, but you still have Amtrak and I 95 and you can access everything else that’s going on on the East Coast, including

Nestor Aparicio  40:53

the crab cakes here at Faith lease, oh yeah, the best Matt Gallagher’s here. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. We have Raven scratch offs giveaway. We’ll be at amicis on Tuesday. We will be on Wednesday, wrapping up the holiday portion at Costas and Dundalk. We’re actually doing it in the bar there. Next week, lots of friends stop by. Too many to mention, I got rough and Bell from COVID state going to be joining us here, momentarily copied state ladies winning that in the desert last week, and Dr Anthony Jenkins also very supportive. What we’re doing here for our cup of Super Bowl. We’re gonna be back here at fadelies as well as all of our sponsors the week of the Super Bowl for that dude, always great to see you need to come up with number 6789, and 10, and we need to go eat something neither one of us have ever eaten. That’s like hot tea tots. Have you been to the hot seat at ramen place at 27th degree mount the Tokyo underground. Yes, I have not that’s what we need to do. Happy to go with that’s on my list. Okay, that’s on my list. And my wife’s going out town for two weeks. And you and I like ramen, we’re gonna do that. All right, good, good, good game. Um, Mac Gallagher, uh, government, man, goldsecker Foundation, Baltimore eater. Is that fair enough to say that? Very fair. All right, I’m Nestor. We’re back for more here. Fatally, uh, Robbie Leonard’s gonna come out. We’re gonna talk about the Democratic National Democratic National Party and voting, and how people get elected, and who the next person up is going to be in the Democratic Party. And I hope it happens soon. I’m back for more. We’re at, fates, stay with us. You.