KSEV Mornings · October 21, 2026 · Hour 1
Vivek Ramaswamy’s ad featuring Amy Acton’s estranged mother, Trump’s $25 million fraud whistleblower program, Dade Phelan on Ken Paxton and a hidden-camera video out of Minnesota.
Wednesday’s first hour spent the most time on a campaign ad out of Ohio that a lot of people wish had never been made. Craig Coglianese and Wayne Dolcefino went back and forth on Vivek Ramaswamy’s ad featuring the estranged mother of his opponent, Amy Acton, then got into Trump’s new reward for fraud tips, Elon Musk on what AI does to jobs, Wayne’s SpaceX losses, a $13,000 mold bill, Dade Phelan’s CNN appearance and the first look at a hidden-camera video from a Minnesota polling place.
Texting etiquette and an Uber that would not cancel
The hour opened on texting, unreturned calls and the modern expectation that everyone answers within seconds, or else they must be mad at you. Then Wayne confessed that his car still is not back from his wreck in Austin because the parts have to come from Germany. So he ordered an Uber, saw it was 25 minutes from his house in the Heights, tried to cancel it and could not figure out how. “I literally did not know how to cancel the Uber on the app,” he said. He did get there eventually. “But I was thinking myself, you are so old.”
Will Craig ever stop keeping up with technology?
Craig, who is 40, said he prides himself on staying “fairly up-to-date” on technology and AI, and asked Wayne whether that fades with age. Wayne said he was never a technology guy to begin with. In radio, “I pushed a little red button and I was fine.” In television, “I was the guy that just said just cue me when you want me to start talking.”
Elon Musk on AI and the jobs that are left
Craig said Elon Musk was candid about how many jobs AI will take, but he liked one line in particular: “AI is never going to cook you a steak.” Craig’s take is that trades like plumbing, the jobs a lot of kids skip for college, “will probably be the best jobs in the country in the near future,” while anything done at a computer is up for grabs. Wayne asked whether we will always need lawyers, then found the real question: “Would the AI lawyers give campaign contributions?”
Trump’s $25 million fraud whistleblower program
Craig walked through the program Trump announced Tuesday: tip the federal government to fraud it recovers and you can collect a reward, with Nick Shirley already mentioned as someone who could cash in. Wayne was not impressed by the size of the pot. “Well, 25 million is not that much, though. That’ll go pretty quick.” He also wanted to know about one more feature. “Can we backdate it? Because I’ve done an awful lot of fraud reporting.” He said that when his staff arrives he will ask what they are working on that could be filed right away.
A free SpaceX share for every kid, and Wayne’s portfolio
Craig mentioned that Elon Musk said every child born, starting next year he believes, would get one free SpaceX share. Wayne had a message for Musk: he owns some SpaceX himself and is down 32% since he bought it. “So just Elon, worry about me,” he joked. “Don’t worry about the kids that are not even thought of yet.” Wayne also called himself the worst financial person you will ever meet. “I always buy houses high and sell them low.”
The $13,000 mold story
Wayne said his last house in Katy was finally going to make money until the inspection found mold in his daughter’s upstairs bathroom. Once the inspector finds it, he said, they control the whole process. “Literally, they ripped out walls in rooms, three rooms down.” The bill came to $13,000. Craig said he has only sold one home, and it did make money, but one buyer who did not trust the foundation wanted to rip out four walls. Craig said no and found a different buyer.
Government should act like it is broke
That turned into a talk about spending. Craig said government “should act like they have almost no money constantly and do everything as cheap as possible.” Wayne explained it with a bank: imagine walking in with a negative balance, asking for $10,000 more, never paying it back and coming back for another five a few months later. “And that’s America. That’s our government.” Craig also shared a story from Tuesday: he pulled over to help a woman he thought needed a jump, was asked for gas money instead, and drove off feeling a little bad, though he said it “kind of seemed like a scam.”
Should Vivek Ramaswamy’s ad have run?
Craig set up the story: the Ramaswamy campaign in the Ohio governor’s race made an ad giving a voice to Amy Acton’s estranged mother, and then reporting surfaced on a very messy family history, including a criminal case involving her stepfather. Wayne looked at it as an investigator. If a client came to his firm with that story and his team found what has since been reported, “I would probably call her back and say, we got a problem.” His question for the campaign: “How do you not do the due diligence to know what the other side of the story is first?”
Craig said he understands why campaigns want messengers like a family member, a close friend or a pastor, “because people just distrust so much other stuff right now,” and pointed to how the Hunter Biden laptop story was dismissed on the left because of who first talked about it. But he said Ramaswamy himself probably did not dig into the background of the ad, and “now is the right time to say this thing should go away.” Wayne’s answer: “Well, after you fire the idiot who did it.”
Doubling down with $4 million
What bothered Wayne most is that the campaign is now putting $4 million behind it. To do that, he said, you either have to believe it is working or believe the accusations are completely false. He was clear that he does not know the full story, and said family cases are often complicated. After the break, Wayne made a point of saying he never said the ad should not be out there, and Craig summed up where he landed: “It just seems too messy, even for the world of politics.” Listeners were invited to call in with their take.
Dade Phelan on CNN
Craig brought up Dade Phelan, the former Texas House speaker who led the House during the 2023 impeachment of Ken Paxton, going on CNN to say he cannot vote for Paxton. The two talked through how the impeachment and the speaker fights since then have split Texas Republicans, and how hard it is to keep the coalition together when not everyone wants the same thing.
A first look at Minnesota’s vouching law
Before the news, Wayne brought up a Muckraker hidden-camera video from a Minnesota polling place. Craig explained the state’s vouching rule, where one registered voter can vouch for up to eight other people living in the community. In the video, the man doing the vouching says the people with him are members of Hamas who just arrived from Gaza, and is still told he can vouch for them. Craig said the real lesson is that a confusing rule gets hard to enforce at the polling place, and that anyone actually trying to cheat “just wouldn’t admit that they’re Hamas guys.” Caller Jimmy phoned in to confirm it is a real video and a real Minnesota law.
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.
