KSEV Mornings · October 8, 2026 · Hour 2
Craig considered padlocking the studio board and hiring two Italians to guard the door. Then he got to the equal-time rule.
After another morning of someone rearranging the studio overnight, Craig Coglianese opened Hour 2 by considering a lock box for his board, to come off only on Fridays when the Three Amigos arrive. Better yet, two Italians posted outside the door. Producer Jack got everything fixed, and Craig got down to business.
Late-night TV and equal time
Craig started with Scott Jennings on CNN discussing the FCC’s equal-time rule. He gave some background. In 2006, the FCC decided Jay Leno’s interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger counted as bona fide news. Craig’s argument is that late-night TV today is plainly one-sided, so the bona fide news exemption shouldn’t protect it. He explained that KSEV follows the rule itself: every time the show interviews a candidate, it goes into a public file, and the opponents can come on and get the same time. They usually decline, Craig said, “for reasons you can probably figure out.”
He said putting the James Talarico interview on YouTube amounted to an admission that the late-night hosts won’t book Ken Paxton. In the clip, Jennings called the Talarico interview a setup designed to claim Kimmel was being silenced. “No one is silencing Jimmy Kimmel,” Jennings said. Craig noted that the panel quickly changed the subject to White House press pool access, a different conversation.
Scott Bessent on Elizabeth Warren and capitalism
Craig is a fan of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s unapologetic style. He played Bessent telling Laura Ingraham he has received about 141 “inane letters” from Elizabeth Warren, and that after sending her “foreign exchange for dummies,” her office would now be getting “bond market for dummies.” Craig compared Warren to the most annoying kid in the classroom, the one who doesn’t even want to be there.
Bessent also made his case to young voters: median wages are up about 3.7% against 3.5% headline inflation, bottom-quintile wages are up about 4.5% to 4.7%, there have been a million new private-sector jobs, and there are 300,000 fewer government jobs. “Last year, we’re setting the table. This year’s the banquet.” Craig admitted he’s more of an all-you-can-eat buffet guy, which his wife says is the problem. His larger point was about bringing manufacturing home so China can’t turn off a faucet America needs, the same way Iran has tried to choke off the world’s oil. Put the Italians at the door, he said, and get the manufacturers back inside.
Marco Rubio and the anonymous source
Craig played Marco Rubio on a tarmac abroad, telling reporters he wasn’t going to play the game of responding to stories built on anonymous sources: “It’s not the gospel.” Craig said that shouldn’t be considered a takedown. It should be how every politician talks. He compared anonymous sourcing to a workplace where reporters only ask the coworkers who hate you what happened, and argued that many career bureaucrats see supporting Republicans as a threat to their own jobs. He also walked through what he sees as AOC’s path from a naive candidate to a fully developed politician, and noted that producer Jack is a fan.
The national debt, and a caller who wants more
A caller from Tomball said the topic nobody, Republican or Democrat, is talking about is the debt: more than $40 trillion, heading toward $45 trillion, and an economy he called debt-driven. Craig pushed back on the idea that nothing has been done, noting that the Big Beautiful Bill cut $1.4 trillion over ten years. “It’s not enough,” the caller said. Craig agreed, but said that’s different from doing nothing.
Craig then read Treasury figures: $3.98 trillion in total federal spending in 2017, $4.11 trillion in 2018, $4.41 trillion in 2019, and $6.55 trillion in 2021, the first year a Democrat took office. Both men agreed Republicans spend less than Democrats. The caller’s description was “Democrat light.” He pointed to Bessent’s 3-3-3 plan as the one idea in the administration he thinks would work. Craig wondered whether someone who actually turned spending around would get overwhelming support, or a TV ad with a single tear on a child’s face.
Bring it home to Harris County
Another caller wanted to take the debt conversation local, citing her figure that Harris County property taxes are up 60% since Democrats took over the Commissioners Court in 2018. Craig pulled up the numbers: the county budget was about $1.9 billion for 2019 and is about $3.1 billion now. His proposal was a Good Will Hunting approach. Keep asking “what happened?” over and over until someone breaks down and admits to waste, fraud and abuse. He floated making an AI video of it.
After the break, Craig read a listener’s message, the kind of correction he called fair, pointing out that the county’s total spending is about $7.1 billion. Craig explained that there are two numbers, the general fund and the consolidated budget, and that both have climbed: the consolidated total went from $4.4 billion in 2016 to $7.1 billion now, including a jump from $6.2 billion over the last couple of years.
Why local power matters
Craig closed with a story from a community where he used to live, where he said a 17-year-old honor student was killed by a driver on the wrong side of the road who was never charged. Craig said that as he dug in, he found the driver had close ties to a company that donated heavily in local politics. He talked about the case on air, heard from the girl’s grandmother, and said he lost that job on the same day a new break in the story came out. His takeaway for listeners: you probably underestimate how much power a few people wield in your own community, and Harris County needs more change at the local level.
Also in this hour
- Craig clarified, for the record, that he has quit almost every job he’s had, including WGN and WIBC, for better opportunities. Wayne’s on-air joke about him getting fired a lot was, mostly, a joke.
Hear Craig and Wayne live weekdays from 7–9 AM Central on AM 700 KSEV, The Voice of Texas. Visit the KSEV Mornings show page for live-listening controls and more episodes.
