Coming up, the vice president in town.

And it's been because of Roger Marshall.

The Republicans have been able to pass the largest tax cuts in American history.

All right.

We are.

Here is the Missouri map drama.

Finally, over day, every hitting streak comes to an end.

It makes us look like the hillbillies and hicks and the most raucous debates in Kansas we've seen in modern times.

My opponent is too woke.

Pretty sure if Jesus were here, you would call him.

Look.

Those stories and the rest of the week's news straight ahead.

Week in review is made possible through the generous support of Bob and Marlese Gourley, the Francis Family Foundation, through the discretionary fund of David and Janice Francis, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Nick Haines.

Glad to have you with us again on our weekly journey through our Metro's most impactful, confusing and downright head scratching local news stories.

Hopping on board the Weekend Review bus with us this week from 95.7 Facciamo Talk Radio Pete Mundo, Kshb chief Political reporter Charlie Keegan, the head of the editorial board of Your Kansas City Star, is Yvette Walker and Mr.

Kansas City Star on Substack.

Dave Helling, now America's number two vice president J.D.

Vance, was in town this week for his second visit in four months.

He made stops at the FBI Building in Kansas City and joined Republican U.S.

Senator Roger Marshall at a manufacturing plant in Olathe.

The Kansas stop comes as Marshall faces a tougher than expected reelection challenge from Democrat Adam Hamilton.

Roger has been the guy who comes to work every single day and fights for you, and in the process, he has made an incredible ally of our administration.

Roger.

He he hates Jesus.

Okay.

One protester sneaking in and being forcibly removed.

There's a thousand places J.D.

Vance could have been this week.

Pete was the main reason he was here to shore up support for Marshall.

I think it was a thank you to Roger Marshall.

He's been very loyal to this administration, and that may ultimately some way hurt him coming up in November.

But the least that they can do, J.D.

Vance, potentially President Trump, which Roger Marshall told me, there's conversations about the president coming here, is to try to rally that base out that may not show up in midterm elections to go out there and support Marshall.

Obviously, the president won this state by double digits.

If enough of those people show up for Marshall, then he's a good lock to get reelected.

That's a big if.

Right now, there's an Anderson poll that dropped on Friday showing that Marshall right now is down to Adam Hamilton within the margin of error.

But it's going to be close.

A lot of money for Hamilton, and Marshall is going to have to up it on that side as well.

I did see Charlie that you got to be in the J.D.

Vance motorcade special access when he came to town.

How did that come about and what did you get to see that the rest of us wouldn't get to see?

So it came about with the more of a logistical question.

J.D.

Vance made two stops, and I was like, how am I going to cover both the stops?

You know, you have to get swept by security.

So I reached out to the team and they said, why don't you just ride with us to both stops?

And so I didn't say no to that and we hopped in.

Unfortunately, I was never in a car with J.D.

Vance.

The motorcade I thought you were right up close to having fast food meals in the back seat.

Nothing like that.

Us press folks, we're all in our own van going down the highway.

So we didn't get a whole lot of special access with the vice president.

You know, the Marshall section of this whole trip got a lot of the attention.

But he also visited the FBI field office in Kansas City, and he was all about fraud.

But, you know, there were many places he could have made.

That speech could not have happened anywhere that way here.

Yeah, it could have.

I agree with Pete.

I think that there was double duty here.

He certainly, needed to shore up marshall.

I think as as Pete said Marshall certainly has been loyal.

His campaign has been very rocky, with a lot of new stories coming out and just things not looking good.

However, we're, you know, we're not that many years away from the next presidential election.

And I can't help but think that Mr.

Vance and Vice President Vance is thinking ahead as well.

When you make a visit like this, and he goes over to Missouri to make a, speech or have a discussion about fraud that makes it an official visit, and you can take some of the money that you would have to pay for the political visit and sloughing off on the taxpayers.

And I'm sure that's what happened here, but that that happens all the time.

I'm fascinated by what Pete just talked about in terms of President Trump coming in for Roger Marshall.

Does Roger Marshall really want Donald Trump to come into Kansas?

I'm not sure he does.

I wrote a column about two weeks ago that said that Roger Marshall has to make a decision on what I call the Trump Ectomy do you latch yourself next to Trump and ride that train?

Given $6 diesel fuel and tariffs and all the other problems, or do you try to separate yourself from Trump in the last weeks to show some independence?

And I'm not sure Roger Marshall has made that decision.

Well, listen, I think that right now Marshall is so tied to the administration, he almost has no choice.

He has to ride that that Trump train, so to speak.

Because people know what he's been in office since 2020.

In that U.S.

Senate, he's been a loyal foot soldier for the administration.

So I think in many respects, politically, he has to live and die with Trump, which is why he's been on my show for months talking about we've got to end the war.

We got to get these gas prices down or within 50 days, it's almost impossible to see it get back to where it was in February by the election.

And as we know, many people vote much, much earlier than yes they do.

So I just think that right now he's he's got to ride it and just roll with it and see how it plays out and hope that those Trump voters say, you know what, I may not love everything going on right now, but it's better than putting the other party in power.

I didn't notice, though.

Charlie.

Also, while Marshall is getting the attention and JD Vance's visit, I looked at all of the video footage.

You've got Kris Kobach is there?

You've got Mark Alford.

Is there Danny Hoskins, the secretary of state, Eric Schmidt, the U.S.

senator.

Lots of people are was was the vice president also doing private fundraisers for some of these other candidates while he was here?

I didn't see any kind of private fundraisers.

He did give, Ty Masterson a big shout out for a Republican governor race in Kansas.

So he's definitely campaigning as much as he can.

Well, has the dust finally settled on the longest, most complex political drama of 2026?

I'm talking about the Missouri congressional map.

Just when we thought the Supreme Court ended this legal fight last week.

Hold the front page.

The Federal Court of Appeals in Saint Louis holds an emergency hearing on the reconfigured map Thursday that could spell the end of Kansas City.

Congressman Emanuel Cleveland's political career.

I've spoken with judges.

I've spoken with, college professors in law schools, and nobody can remember anything like this happening in history.

This is not normal.

It is easy, often in politics to say, well, everybody does it.

No one else is doing it at this level.

You can have people who are going in the general election and casting ballots in districts that are different than the ballots that they cast just a couple of months ago in the primary that, to me, is an affront to the democratic process.

Today, every hitting streak comes to an end, and today's the start of a new hitting streak that makes us look like the hillbillies and hicks.

All right, just some of the faces and voices from this ongoing drama story this week, but put us out of our misery as we record this program.

Friday morning.

I was just sticking with the old map, Charlie.

Or is it, as local election authorities argue, simply too late to change with military and overseas ballots being shipped out this weekend?

Exactly.

Yeah.

As of this moment, right now, we're sticking with the 2022 map for November's election.

There was a big, hearing with this eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, but they haven't made a decision.

That panel of judges as of now, we keep we keep hearing this is the end.

This is the end.

But, is this heading back to the the United States Supreme Court for a third time effect?

I have to tell you, I was listening to arguments yesterday, and I kept waiting for that magic moment where we would figure out something.

Right.

And of course, we did not get it.

Yeah.

I think it's going back to the Supreme Court once we get something from the Eighth Circuit, no matter who wins or loses the losing side.

And that could still change the Al, the court has to me anyway, seemed pretty clear to all the parties that they want, Missouri to proceed with the, earlier map and set aside the HB one map.

They've had two opportunities to tell Missouri to go back to 2025 and declined it twice.

But one time with Judge Kavanaugh and one time with the whole court.

So the message from the Supreme Court seems clear.

But everybody gets their day on the steps and they'll my my assumption is whatever the Court of Appeals decides, it will be appealed.

And then we'll have some finality, either late this week or early next.

Well, listen, I think this is, one of those things you look at and you say to yourself, who's losing in all this?

And obviously the answer will be Rick Bratten, who would go up against Cleaver.

But the bigger answers, Mike Kehoe, the governor of Missouri, has had a very tough few weeks.

His income tax, reduction plan got blown out 8020.

He does this as a favor to DC.

This goes to an entire rigamarole of arrests of a mess.

Excuse me.

Go to late last year the way the chief's deal went down.

A lot of that is because Kansas offered a fortune, but still, Mickey Joe's had a had a rough stretch here for a guy who came into power with a big win, overwhelming majority.

And I think he can't wait for 2027 to get here.

He's done with this year, arguably.

You know, Emanuel Cleaver is the biggest winner in this.

If we keep going with this old map, he's going to skate to reelection.

In this map, who in your judgment is the biggest loser in this whole, saga, Charlie?

Well, my heart goes out to the elections authorities in all these counties.

And, in municipalities, just trying to figure out what the what they're doing.

They're just folks who want to come in and print a ballot and run an election, and they're kind of caught up in the middle of this back and forth.

I'm one of the biggest losers.

It's been like, I think I'm on my ninth script for this topic this week.

That who who did you put down as the biggest loser in this whole map mess?

Oh my goodness.

I think the voters we are, we are.

And I'm saying we we are confused.

We are in many cases upset.

I just have to say us.

I agree with you.

My wife said to me, I don't even know when they say 22 map 26.

I don't even know what that is at this point in time because it's become so confusing.

Not everybody follows it so religiously.

The Biggest Loser I think there's been serious damage done to the judicial system and the esteem in which the public holds judges.

We've had circuit judges, we've had supreme courts, state supreme court judges, the U.S.

Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, a federal district judge, all looking at the same fact pattern, all looking at the identical laws and coming up with diametrically opposed rulings and decisions.

The public has a right to say, if you don't know what this is all about, why should we know what it's all about?

Once we lose trust in the courts as sort of umpires in all of this?

Nick, I think we're in serious trouble.

And that'll be the lasting damage, I think, from this entire affair.

Now, if there's one person who's been at the center of this entire map dispute, it's the state's top elected official.

Missouri Secretary of State Danny Hoskins, high, Missouri secretary of State Danny Hoskins here.

I'm continuing to bat a thousand in his trademark bright red jacket.

He's been getting more news attention than the governor.

Now, Hoskins is in triple trouble after being held in contempt by the Missouri Supreme Court.

He's now being hit by three lawsuits, two over his handling of the map and a third a whistleblower lawsuit from a former high ranking employee in his office who accuses Hoskins of charging local election, changing election results among other claims and using the phones to avoid being detected.

Anyone, of course, can file a lawsuit.

How seriously should we take this?

And could this force him out of office?

Charlie?

I think we should take it seriously.

The person who filed this lawsuit is a Republican, just like Danny Hoskins, who's been elected to the serve people in Pettis County near Sedalia.

Whether or not it will lead to him getting kicked out of office.

Still to be determined, I don't know.

I haven't heard a whole lot of folks planning to gather signatures, for a recall whether or not he would, certify them.

But we did have some lawmakers even calling for an impeachment.

Pete.

Yeah.

You know, I think sometimes in politics, the it's worse to not be talked about in some ways than being talked about.

And right now, I think in this state, if you're Jenny, Danny Hoskins, he's pretty calm, cool and collected.

Maybe that's just his public persona, but I think for a guy like Danny, he may have further statewide aspirations.

And in a strange roundabout way, when you're getting attention right now in a state that is all red, that is run by Republicans, where there's primaries where Danny only won his primary like 25% a couple of years back, hey, he's getting attention, he's getting notoriety, and there's something to be said for that.

When you're a state that is controlled by one political party.

Something to be said for getting all those negative headlines in your newspaper.

Is that.

Well, but, Pete, you know, you just mentioned Kehoe.

Don't you think that similarly, Hoskins has been being very loyal, doing what I can only assume he was told and not getting a lot for it.

Don't you see a similarity there?

I do, I very much see a similarity.

But he wants higher office.

And I think right now no one really knows the secretary of State unless they're involved in things like this.

This is in some ways a good thing for him.

We're not.

Danny Hoskins is not going to be in an orange jumpsuit.

Okay.

That's not going to happen because he prefers red.

And as someone pointed out on Twitter this week, the same color as the British uniforms during the Revolutionary War.

So, Danny Hoskins has no chance of statewide office beyond secretary of State.

He has ballocks that office beyond belief.

And the people of Missouri, and certainly the Republican Party may believe it has better alternatives than someone who gets sued repeatedly.

The other loser or person to keep an eye on is Catherine Hanway, who may be one of the people in the attorney general who's been very active in sort of advising Danny Hoskins on what the law is and how to deal with this redistricting mess.

You get the sense sometimes that Hoskins is just a bit player and that, Hanway is running the show, and she will have to answer for that, I think, to go, okay, well, let's go back to a Missouri governor, Mike keyhole.

And is he trying to pivot quickly out of this whole map saga?

Did you see him in the headlines this week?

He's making big news as he issues an executive order restricting flock surveillance cameras.

And a news release in his office says Keough is now the first governor in the nation to protect the privacy of citizens, while preserving legitimate law enforcement uses of this technology.

Charlie, what would this audit do?

When is it just an effort to move on from the failure of the Map plan?

It may be an effort to change the public's attention to something else, but it would, a set of a series of regulations on municipal, police agencies and law enforcement agencies that they can't keep this data for so long.

They have to have policies in place for punish people who, unauthorized.

Lee, go access that data and kind of add some guardrails.

How much of a difference with this really make, Pete?

And I was just looking at it from his own words that it would only be for cameras from cities that are using state dollars to purchase them.

Well, places like Blue Springs, where it's a big contentious issue.

They use their local safety tax money for that, so they wouldn't even actually be involved at all.

Yeah.

I think it's Mike Kehoe getting himself a win right now, which he needs.

I really think that's part of it because these flock cameras are and just the, the I, the data center conversation, which I know you've had plenty of here on this show, is really a uniquely bipartisan issue right now where there are Republicans and Democrats.

It's really a populist issue right now, with both sides of the party leaning in or at least asking questions about what is fair when it comes to privacy concerns.

So it's an easy way for him to get a win.

And boy, does he need one.

I want to throw out here, Nick, that I actually just spoke with Kcpd Chief Stacy Graves right before coming on the show, and she wanted to caution that you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, that these cameras have helped the department solve crimes.

And she told me that their department's really so busy.

They're not just looking at everybody's license plate.

They're using very specific things.

Perhaps that might change when they start doing the interviews for the new police chief, which I will be doing shortly.

They may have a different take on that.

Debate season officially got underway this week with two raucous exchanges at the Kansas State Fair between the candidates for governor and United States Senate.

And today's debate.

You're going to see that my opponent is too woke.

He's too weak.

I'm pretty sure if Jesus were here, you would call him.

Look, she's the most radical, liberal, socialist democrat ever to be on a statewide ticket.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Brownback 2.0.

But don't be giving people $5,000 in order to get them to vote for you.

This is criminal.

This is not the first time I've disagreed with President Trump, and it probably won't be the last.

The most important thing we can do to protect those rural hospitals, expand Medicaid.

She wants to get Medicaid too illegal.

She wants to get married.

She wants to take your health care away, put you all on Medicaid already.

For the most part, it was actually hard to hear the candidates amid the heckling and booing from the crowd.

What did we learn, if anything?

Dave Helling from these two exchanges this week amid the pig races, carnival games, corn dogs and cotton candy in terms of new information, I don't think we learned a lot.

I do think the Senate debate, with Roger Marshall and Adam Hamilton may move some votes.

So I think that there is a general consensus that Roger Marshall, who, by the way, not only has to answer for Trump, but he's had this story about potentially at least being involved in lawsuits against former patients.

Where he lives continues to be an issue.

You put all that together.

He seemed to be much more on the defensive in those debates, in that debate than you would want to be as the incumbent, so that may make a difference.

I was always told, you know, candidates don't like risk.

In fact, former US Congressman Steve Watkins in the Topeka area told me once, you can never win a debate.

You can only lose one.

Why would Roger Marshall even participate in that debate, knowing it was going to have a lot of risk to it?

With uncontrolled crowds, you can't really manage because then you look like you're a debate dodger.

Yeah.

Which is worse.

That's why Ty Masterson did that primary debate that he was apparently going to not show up for back in June on on Fox four.

You got to show for at least one time.

Masterson apparently has said now this week he's done debating Cindy whole sure is now calling him a debate dodger.

She obviously wants more.

That also tells you where some of the polling is.

You got to do at least one.

If you're going to do one, it's going to be the state fair.

And you just have to know.

I think the big key here is to just have your calm and your wits about you.

And I thought that, the Republican candidates who I think had the right message did not necessarily had the right demeanor at times throughout the debate.

There may be no debates, even in the U.S.

Senate race, because there's no commitment at this point either, between Roger Marshall and Adam Hamilton for another exchange.

But if that on the broader point that Dave was making her do, does it really change opinions, though, because, are they just really for the partizans who already made up their minds?

How many people are looking at a debate and saying, oh, I'm going to change my vote?

According to this, I would say that there's a large percentage of people who have made up their minds.

But, you know, just like we saw, a long time ago in televised debates, I believe it was Kennedy and Nixon.

When you see someone on TV, when you see someone in person and you get a chance to see how they interact and how they react, I mean, if nothing else, and maybe this wasn't a surprise, but if nothing else, we saw that Hamilton is a great speaker.

He's more calm.

He can deliver a message.

You know, the conventional wisdom, Nick, is that debates don't move votes.

But, you know, Joe Biden and Donald Trump had a debate and Joe Biden got out of the race as the incumbent president so they can move votes, but not based on voters, though, based on the partizans and the people controlling campaign and money, who are the ones who decide.

And it also depends, to a certain degree, on the reaction of the press and public after the debate, because not a lot of people watched it.

But when the stories start to be written and the analysis is done and the people start talking about it on Peep Show and other places, a narrative is built.

And if you don't do well, and I don't think Roger Marshall thinks he did well in the state Fair debate, that can get to have a bit of a snowball effect with voters.

And that may be happening here.

Well, the Chiefs were finally back this week.

It was also the first game at Arrowhead since the team announced it's moving across the state line to Kansas, and now it's become official.

One piece of the old home won't be making the trip.

Chiefs owner Kansas.

The team's new Wyandotte County stadium, won't carry the Arrowhead name and hold the front page.

Team president Mark Donovan confirms it will be a corporate sponsorship name.

So what does that mean, Charlie?

Well, yeah, the Nick Hain Stadium, home of the Chiefs.

Right.

We can get something like that going.

No, I think you can't write a check that well.

Look, we have our own screening.

It could be a stadium.

That's the name of the independence, data center.

You know, that's getting a lot of bad PR.

It's going to be twice the size of Arrowhead Stadium.

They may be able to rehabilitate that image with this.

Well, how about a flock field?

You know, those cameras actually taking a bit of a hit there?

Pete, how about ChatGPT Stadium at Flock Camera Field?

Nick.

There.

You double dip.

Okay.

You like that?

Absolutely.

Is this also going to be the photo of the Royals?

Do you think at this point I think that's going to have a corporate sponsorship?

Yes, I think it's likely because the Royals have to come up with a lot of money for their share of the costs, and this seems to be a way to do it over many years.

I do think the reaction to not naming the stadium for you and Kauffman might be tougher than losing the Arrowhead name for the Chiefs.

I I'm not sure I, I haven't thought it all the way through, but I think there is some attraction to to naming the baseball stadium after the former.

I mean, I think we're used to seeing this corporate sponsorship, certainly all over the country, so I don't so whatever, whatever happens, I think people will accept it.

There are people, of course, who are concerned about, the name Arrowhead and any Native American related names.

And so some people will be glad to see it go, but I think that people will accept the new name.

Maybe not flak for you.

Well, this has been a massive news week with so many stories we could have talked about.

There's the shocking death of Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zande inside the Platte County Courthouse, which was closed as part of that death investigation.

He was just 53.

Here are some other big stories we missed.

It's bad.

It's real bad.

This is astounding.

More than a month after storms ripped through Wyandotte County, some KCK residents still without power.

To you heads to London for the first American college football game at the iconic Wembley Stadium.

The Jayhawks getting $2.7 million to make the trip.

And how come we can't figure out bus service in a metro this large?

Johnson County?

The latest to threaten big cuts, including eliminating its K ten connector route to Lawrence amid a $600,000 budget shortfall.

And this may be your last chance to stock up on 200 rolls of toilet paper, gigantic sheet cakes and mega size liquor bottles.

Costco in Midtown has announced its closing date.

A sign on the door says October 1st.

That's less than two weeks away.

The warehouse store will shut down for five months and reopen as a Costco business center in the spring.

Charlie, you just over at Costco before the show to make your final stocking up there just around the corner.

What story did you pick?

Charlie I went to I went to Tonganoxie for my story this week.

More than a thousand people showed up for public hearing against a data center project there.

And so I just kind of continues to show how engaged people are and how much they dislike these products.

So like the Missouri map, that isn't going away either.

Pete, I think the Jayhawk story is big because I think college football belongs on college campuses.

It's a big hit to these college communities.

When you take these games away, and they've been going to NFL stadiums all around the country for a while now.

We're going overseas, and the greatness of college football is the pageantry.

It's the tradition.

It's the home field.

And to take that away from a big 12 conference game, I think is a major mistake.

But everything in college football right now is about money.

And that's a shame.

Yeah.

And they get $2.7 million worth of that.

I'd say the Wyandotte County story.

It's amazing when you think about it.

The people in this heat, particularly people, have been without power.

The problem is that we've been told that the the repairs to the homes have to happen before the provider.

The utility BPU, can get the energy there.

But I think you have to ask, what responsibility does a community have?

Does do those well?

Does the BPU have or the city of K.K.

have, and getting its residents up to speed, fixing their homes and getting them the most basic of services?

Energy in this heat?

Thank you very much, Dave.

The end of August, I did a column on taking a look at Nick, at the, details, the financial details of the Royal Stadium and one of the line items in that, proposal includes $80 million for land acquisition, presumably from hallmark.

But I looked at the value, the Jackson County value of the two major properties.

There was only $17 million.

This may turn out to be a major issue for people to talk about what hallmark gets out of the stadium deal.

For decades, hallmark has helped Kansas City.

Now, it may turn out that Kansas City will have to help hallmark.

And on that, we will say our week has been reviewed courtesy of the stars in that Walker and 6 to 10 weekday mornings on 95.7 of MKV oh talk radio Pete Mundo.

Whenever important news is happening, you can bet Charlie Keegan is on the scene at Kshb.

41 A news icon and Mr.

Kansas City stack on Substack Dave Helling and I'm Nick Haynes from all of us here at Kansas City PBS.

Be well, keep calm and carry on.