KSEV Mornings · October 9, 2026 · Hour 2
An iced coffee run that took a whole segment, a missing Senate candidate, and a cousin with more followers than Wayne.
Hour 2 opened with Wayne Dolcefino’s video box sitting empty in Bee Cave. He had gone down to the hotel lobby for an iced coffee right before the break. Craig Coglianese guessed he was making a waffle at the free breakfast. Wayne’s real story when he got back: three women ahead of him in line, one of whom couldn’t decide between a strudel and something else. “Honey, I’ve got to get on the roof.” He also explained that he always gets a room right by the elevator, because he’s old and, in his words, a legend.
Where is James Talarico?
The hosts turned to James Talarico, who had been off the campaign trail for 13 days. His campaign says he has the flu. Trump has made fun of it, and the Paxton campaign has been asking for a proof of life. Wayne wondered why Talarico hasn’t just posted a video from bed with a box of Kleenex. Craig floated, clearly labeled as speculation, that the timing is a little convenient in October. Wayne’s response: “You’re a crazy good detective, you should hire me.”
Craig also made the case for Ken Paxton. Paxton is faithful to the Republican Party and to Trump, he said, and he won’t be a John Cornyn who says no to things like the Save America Act. Wayne put it more bluntly: he doesn’t care if it’s a stool, as long as it votes the way he and the listeners think. Angela Paxton is right about one thing, Wayne added: there’s a red team and a blue team.
Iran, Israel and “ostensible” allies
Producer Russell played the Michigan Senate debate clip in which Abdul El-Sayed called the question of whether Israel or Iran is a bigger threat a “ridiculous hypothetical” and called Israel an “ostensible ally.” Craig objected to that word in particular. He noted that the IAEA had warned Iran was disregarding inspections before the 2025 strikes, so the idea that Israel invented the conflict and shoved the U.S. into it doesn’t fit the timeline.
Mamdani vs. Mullin on the ICE shooting
Next was an ICE-involved shooting in New York City, in which an agent shot a man they were trying to arrest. He was not killed. Craig played Zohran Mamdani’s statement, which described a crowded street after school, a five-year-old in the back seat, and two hours of phone calls with President Trump and Secretary Mullin. Craig said the framing was built to make it sound worse than it was. Officers sometimes have to fire with people nearby, he said, and that doesn’t mean those people were in danger.
Wayne remembered taking a shoot/don’t-shoot course as a young reporter. He shot everybody, the suspects, the victims and fellow cops, on the theory that it guaranteed nobody shot him. “Don’t do as Wayne does,” Craig advised. Wayne’s serious point: this is very hard work, and the split-second decisions are hard to imagine. Craig shared his own experience playing a fake active shooter in a police drill in Illinois, and a story he heard there from an officer who was still upset about having to shoot a man swinging a machete through a door at his face.
Craig then played Markwayne Mullin praising NYPD officers and pointing out that one was recently stabbed seven times by a man in the country illegally whom New York had released despite a detainer, while neither the mayor nor the governor said a word. Wayne, whose cousin was a sergeant in the Bronx, said his New York family must be apoplectic.
Vince Coglianese joins the show
Craig brought on his cousin, nationally syndicated host Vince Coglianese, whose X following, Craig noted, is bigger than Wayne’s Facebook following. Vince said the left always runs the same playbook: leap to massive conclusions and cast the federal agents as the bad guys, when ICE, Border Patrol and HSI officers have some of the toughest jobs in the country. He said the masks are there to protect agents’ families from threats. He also pointed to how the media reported a claim that Trump would be fine with Iran nuking American cities, when Vince said Trump actually called an energy price spike a small price to pay to avoid that outcome.
Vince also loved Jamie Raskin’s proposal for a Smithsonian exhibit on the MAGA era. He said Trump should embrace it and fill the exhibit with red hats and rallies. Craig said he’d want the “fight, fight, fight” moment after the assassination attempt in there.
On Talarico, Vince said a 37-year-old man usually gets past the major flu symptoms in less than a week, so whatever this is, he doesn’t believe the official story. He did share a rumor, and labeled it a rumor more than once. Craig said he struggled to believe it, given how comfortable Talarico has looked in his TV interviews. Vince also previewed his interview with Senator Mike Lee.
Michael Jordan’s flu game and a call from a listener
Wayne said he doesn’t buy the flu explanation either, because a sick candidate in bed surrounded by tissues would make a great sympathetic moment. Craig suggested Talarico take a page from Michael Jordan’s flu game. A caller jumped in to say there’s no way anyone still has the flu 13 days later, and admitted Craig had won him over after he’d been ready to dislike him.
The salary cap fight
With no more breaks, the hosts closed with baseball. Craig was depressed about his Yankees getting swept and worried about a coming lockout. Wayne wants a salary cap, a pot of money for every team so they’d actually need skill. Craig wants no cap, just harsher luxury tax penalties. He said caps hurt players, and he called low-payroll “welfare teams” the real problem for baseball. Both agreed deferred contracts like the Dodgers’ are a joke. Russell chimed in that the Tampa Bay Rays have the third-lowest payroll, and Wayne told Russell he has his own show.
Also in this hour
- Craig’s wife, he revealed, gets excited about every hotel’s free breakfast and pool, and almost never swims.
- Wayne’s weekend send-off went out to listeners, viewers, followers and “mutants.”
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.
