MidDays with Gerard Gibert 2026-06-24

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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Get ready to go beyond the headlines and join a meaningful conversation with people from around the state. You're listening to MidDays with Gerard Gibert here on SuperTalk Mississippi.

**Gerard Gibert** (1:02)
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to MidDays, SuperTalk Mississippi. I'm your host, Gerard Gibert, and I'm on Founder Square at the world famous Neshoba County Fair, Rhino Safe and Sound. Back in the SuperTalk Mississippi headquarters, we'll be guiding you through the middle of your day with facts, fodder, and fine music on this hump day. It rained on me the whole way up here from central Mississippi to the Neshoba County Fair. It is a muddy mess, but that doesn't seem to have dampened the spirits, shall we say, of fairgoers, Rhino. It's a pretty good crowd in front of me. He's positioned here as we always are, facing the pavilion at Founder Square. We've been taking in the political speeches this morning, and we've got a packed line up for you. First, the Neshoba County Fair. Mississippi's a giant house party is back and bigger than ever. And SuperTalk Mississippi is, of course, live from Founder Square. Our coverage of the Neshoba County Fair is brought to you by Build Mississippi. If you've got a student wondering what's next after high school, Build Mississippi can help show them the options. It's also brought to you by Southern Farm and Ag Equipment. They work as hard as the people running their equipment. No doubt about it. So we've got a jam-packed lineup, as we always do, in store for you today at 1035 It's Ty Pinkins. He is an independent candidate for the United States Senate.
I got some questions for him because he just spoke. I took in his speech and some, let's just say some items of interest, some topics of interest that we'll cover. And then we've got Mississippi's state treasurer, David McRae. He will kick off Hour 2 of MidDays from Founders Square, followed by Mississippi's Lieutenant Governor, Delbert Hoseman, and then Shahuaski Young. He's been on several times. He is a candidate for Secretary of State of the Great State of Mississippi, and also serves as the Secretary of the Neshoba County Republican Executive Committee at 1205 for two segments. It's Mississippi's Attorney General, Lynn Fitch.
And then we'll wrap things up today with Mike Hurst. He's the General Counsel for the Republican National Committee. And of course, Mr. Hurst is the Chair of the Mississippi Republican Party.
And something we'll probably talk to Mike about today, Rhino, is we are still awaiting the Supreme Court to hand down some decisions on some extremely high-profile cases. That could happen literally any day as the court is wrapping up its term, birthright citizenship on the docket. Deportation and tariffs, this involves cases evaluating, considering the legal bounds of executive powers to impose tariffs without explicit congressional authority, and then limits on temporary deportation protections. But one in particular that we're watching concerning the state of Mississippi involves a lawsuit that was filed by the Republican National Committee naming Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson as the defendant. And this involves whether or not states can consider, count, accept mail-in ballots received in the days following the official election day in the state of Mississippi. That's five days. If it's, if a mail-in ballot is postmarked with the date of election day in the postmark officially, if it's received in the circuit clerk's office by five days, within five days after the election, that ballot will be counted. After that is no good. However, there are some, certainly the RNC believes, nope, you got to have it in hand by election day. Otherwise, we cut it off. And that's the way it should be. We should not consider ballots to come in after that.
So I want to be clear that even though Secretary of State, Michael Watson is named as a defendant in this lawsuit, I do not believe that this is his position. He's not arguing in favor of this policy. Rather, it is his responsibility as the Secretary of State to defend Mississippi's law. So the Secretary of State is not a lawmaker.
And that's the case with the other heads of these statewide agencies, if you will, the Secretary of State, the State Treasurer, the State Auditor, the Insurance Commissioner. These are all statewide elected offices, but they are bound by law to simply discharge the duties assigned to them and execute the policies that have been promulgated in code in law by the legislature. So, if we want to change this law and disallow the consideration of ballots that are received after election day, we should change law. That's the way it ought to work. So, we're going to see what the Supreme Court says about that. And then another one is the transgender sports and medical bans. This also affects the state of Mississippi because we do have bans concerning gender treatment for minors in Mississippi. That is prohibited. That is unlawful. And then biological males in Mississippi are not allowed to participate in female sports. So, we'll see how the court rules. If the court says, you know, Mississippi, you and other states who have these laws in place, as I just described, says those are not lawful, well, then heck, we would be required here in the state of Mississippi to allow sex change treatments on minors, because our law prohibits that, bans it, and we would also be required to allow, as Rhino likes to say, dudes in dresses, to play sports against females.