Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Trump’s China Trip Was A Disaster For Democracy + Bill Cassidy’s Political Career Is Over

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Full Episode - Trump’s China Trip Was A Disaster For Democracy + Bill Cassidy’s Political Career Is Over · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: so use that code. Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: to another episode of the check podcast. So it's been
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: a crazy busy week in my world. I have been
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: for the last seven days. I've been on a plane
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: for five of the seven days. I have been to Chicago, Cleveland,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: San Francisco all in the last week. I've been involved
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: in a couple of different conferences, off the record panels
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: and discussions about the world, about democracy. I did a
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: commencement address on Sunday at John Carroll University, the alma
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: mater of my late great friend and mentor, Tim Russert.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: So it's been busy. We went live last night, Chris Lizza,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: this is in desk HQ. Excuse me, I am taping
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: here on a Sunday evening. But when I say on
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Saturday night, we had the Saturday Night Special Louisiana Senate,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: and I have to tell you, I don't have to
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: tell you that you guys that I did this because
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: many of you were there. An incredible audience that we
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: got for that on a Saturday night. I think a
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: lot of our other friends chose not to do that
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: on a Saturday night. I think it's a very monumental
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: thing that happened, even if though it was expected. But
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I have a lot to say that. So we're going
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: to talk about campaign twenty twenty six, the Bill Cassidy loss,
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  Speaker 1: what this means for the Republican Party, what this means
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: for open primaries or can close primaries, what this means
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: for the political parties. Obviously, Tuesday is a huge one
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: of the first big primary days. That's going to be
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: a sort of a succession of huge primary days for
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: the rest of this month. The beginning of June, we've
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: got the President's a very important trip to China and
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: a potentially catastrophic decision he's about to make on Taiwan.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: He may be backing basically no longer having the United
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: States defend democracy. I know that sounds hyperbolic, but this
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: is how what he's already done and said about Taiwan
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: in the last forty eight hours is couldn't be more
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: unwelcome by America's most important allies in Asia, Korea and Japan.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Are couldn't be more nervous about the United States and
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: President Trump's decision to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: It's I don't think we have fully comprehended that, So
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: we're going to focus on that a little bit. I've
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: got my time machine and I'll give you a little hint. A.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: We're going to go back at a time where there
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: was a massive technological advancement and miracle that absolutely scared
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the Jesus out of the public. That's your hint about
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: this week's time machine. We're going to do a little
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: extra extended Q and A a little bit. Because there is
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: no guest, there is no interview on this episode. As
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I said, I was traveling all week, so we I
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: had limited amount of time to do some long form interviews.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: But we or don't worry. This is a rare occasion
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: and guess what. In some ways, you my audience is
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the guest on the back end of this podcast, because
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: we're going to go pretty deep on questions. But let
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: me look, I've I cut my teeth covering campaign politics.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: So we're going to lead with the events on Saturday Night,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: which of course began on a February day in twenty
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: twenty one, when Bill Cassidy was one of the more
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: surprising Republican senators to make the decision to vote to
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: convict Donald Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors. It was
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: a vote Bill Cassidy won reelection in twenty twenty and
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: so it was a vote that was politically a gamble,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: it looks like at the time, and there was a
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: lot of questions about it, and people knew it was
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: going to upset a lot of Republicans. That upset a
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: lot of based Republicans at the time. I think many
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: of us assumed it was going to age well. Sadly,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: it did not age well as far as the Republican
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Party is concerned, and we will get into that there.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: But one of the things that I want to look
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: it is not news that a closed Republican primary is
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: going to favor Donald Trump endorsed candidates. It is not
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: news that any sort of republic right now that there.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: So Donald Trump's political standing is incredibly weak, but it
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: is still strong within his own party. We're going to
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: get another test of this Tuesday night in Kentucky where
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: we'll have Ed Gallerin and Thomas Massey facing off in
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: that primary. Look, even a Massy victory is not going
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: to I think be an indication to me that Donald
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Trump is losing his grip on the Republican Party. If
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Massey wins at this point, I mean, look, he's The
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Indiana primaries show that you know, what Trump says goes.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: We saw what happened. He was able to take a
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: candidate that arguably, probably ideologically was the least Maga of
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: the three Cassidy included and in Julia let Low, and
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: he got her into the runoff. In many ways, the
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: third candidate in that race may very well have been
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: the More. He's been arguing that he is closer to
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Trump and Mega than Julia Letlow is, but he don't
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: have any money. If John Fleming got a bunch of
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: money and ran a campaign trying to paint Julia Letlow
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  Speaker 1: is too liberal for the Republican Party. I guess in
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: theory he could could pull off that runoff, but I
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  Speaker 1: don't think so at this point. I think Donald Trump
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  Speaker 1: is not going to back down, back off of that
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  Speaker 1: endorsement since he accomplished what he really wanted to accomplish,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: which was punish yet another to punish yet another person
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  Speaker 1: who voted to either impeach or convict him. And we
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: should go through this a little bit. There are now
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  Speaker 1: only three people left in Congress who voted to eat
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Republicans who voted to either impeach Donald Trump or to
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: convict Donald Trump, Susan Collins, and she could very well
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: lose the general election. In fact, at this point I
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: would make her a slight underdog to win reelection. You
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: got David Valadeo, whose district has been rearranged by the
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: aggressive California Jerry Mander in response to the Texas aggressive
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Texas Jerry Mander low. David Valadeo has been a survivor.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: This is going to be his toughest test yet, so
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: he may go down. So it's possible come January third,
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty seven, that there will only be one person
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: left in the House or the Senate that voted to
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  Speaker 1: either impeach Donald Trump for his actions on January sixth
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: or to convict Donald Trump for his actions on January
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  Speaker 1: six And that would be Lisa Murkowskin. She's the only
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: person that's guaranteed to be there. Bill Cassidy lost a primary.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Dan Newhouse decided to retire. He, of course survived every challenge.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: We decided to retire. Don't forget why did he survive
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: in Washington State they don't have partisan primaries. Matt Romney retired.
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  Speaker 1: I think all of us are curious if he had
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: run for reelection in twenty twenty four. I think he
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: could have won that. But we shall see. Ben sass
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: resigned to take over the presidency at the University of Florida.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Peter Meyer lost a Republican primary. Jamie Herrera Butler lost
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: a Republican primary. This is to Joe Kent and Marie
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Glusen camp Perez MGP is a major figure in the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: future of the Democratic Party. Because of this, Liz Cheney
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: of course lost her primary. Rice South Carolina Republican House
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: member lost his primary. Richard Burr voted to convict he
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: was already retiring. Pat Toomey voted to convict he was
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: already retiring. Adam Kinsinger retired after voting to impeach him,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: John Katkow retired after voting to impeach him in the House,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Fred Upton retired after voting to impeach him in the House,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: and Anthony Gonzales chose to retire after voting to impeach
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: him in the House. What's interesting is Bill Cassidy has
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the second worst performing Republican in a primary of any
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: of the impeachers or convictors. He ended up with twenty
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: four point eight percent. Only Tom Rice did worse at
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: twenty four point six percent in his primary in twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty two. So it is not news that Republican primary
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  Speaker 1: voters who are Trump supporters. We're going to punish a
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Republican who chose to put character in fa above loyalty
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  Speaker 1: to Donald Trump. Now here's what we had did not
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: see in any of these races, except for Liz Cheney,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: is none of these people ran and defended their vote.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Bill Cassidy never defended his vote during this campaign. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: Bill Cassidy ought to be you know, he was pretty
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: His concession speech was, you know, certainly had a few
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: jabs at the President, understandably so. But Bill Cassidy got
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: talked into running a race and sucking up to Donald
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  Speaker 1: Trump via Robert F. Kennedy Junior and the catastrophic mistake
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: he made in voting to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Junior.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Because his vote to confirm was used as cover for
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: a couple other people to vote to confirm had Cassidy
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: voted against him in committee. Kennedy is not wreaking havoc
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: on the public health world right now. But Bill Cassidy
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: clearly got advice that said, oh no, no, no, do this,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: you know, and you can get your way back into
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: the graces of Donald Trump. Well, it's just bullshit. Whoever
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: told him this. He had to be very angry at
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: his consultants who talked him into this. There was only
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: two ways to go if he wanted to try to survive.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: One was to run as an end to do it,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: to pulla Lisammerkowski. Now she'd went right in after the primary.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: He could do that, but he won't. And it's a
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure it's a viable option in the way
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: that the Senate race is shaping up in Louisiana. But
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: what he could have done is quickly decided, look, I'm
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: not going when the when the governor decided to push
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: the Republican controlled legislature to change the rules of the
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: primary in Louisiana, to get rid of the all party
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: primary which Louisiana has had for decades, and to go
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: to a closed partisan primary situation semi close. Yes, supposedly
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: independence could vote, but according to Cassidy and his campaign,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: it was very difficult for some who were not registered
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Republicans to vote in this Republican primary. But if he
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: really wanted to, first of all, he should have defended
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: his vote, and second of all, if he'd run as
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: an independent and pledged that if he won, he was
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: going to be with the Republicans, just like Lisa Murkowski did.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: But he chose not to do that. He chose to
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: try to curry favor with Donald Trump, to run a
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: campaign that claimed he was more of a supporter of
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump than Julia Letlow was, or more of a
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: supporter of Donald Trump than John Fleming was, and it
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: was it was so inauthentic. I do believe Bill Cassidy
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: is a man of conviction ethics and morals. I do
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: believe that he voted his conscience in February of twenty
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: twenty one when he chose to convict, But I remember
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: when he did it. At the time, he was afraid
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: to talk about it. He did not want to go
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: on a lot of places to talk about it. He
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: put out a very uncomfortable video statement that some some
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: could argue came across almost as a hostage video. But
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: he was sort of like, look, he knew he had
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: to stand by his vote, explain his vote, and he
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: wanted to move on. Perhaps Cassidy thought that other Republicans
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: in the Senate would have the guts to do this,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: but obviously Mitch McConnell did not have the guts to
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: do this, and Mitch McConnell and neither did Rob Portman.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: And we can go through you know, the votes were
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: there had it been a secret ballot, but many Republican
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: senators didn't have the guts to do it. But I'm
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: sure Cassidy's upset on how all this has played out.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: And you know, when I advocated about six months ago
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: that Cassidy really only had when when when Trump decided
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: to do that. Cassidy if he really wanted to win reelection.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: There was only one path, and that was independent. A
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: friend of mine who's much better at digging into numbers
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: than anybody I know, put together an analysis and just
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: of just some polling and said that unfortunately, because of
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Cassidy's decision to confirm Bobby Kennedy Junior, he lost all
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: credibility with anybody in the middle or the left, and
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: so he was a person on an island. He had
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: alienated the Trump base with the vote to convict, and
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: the path back to you know, to reelection would have
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: been through independence. Republicans who care about ethics, morals, and character,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: which we now know is about looks like twenty five
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: percent of the Louisiana Republican electorate, and there was a
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: path there, but he chose not to pursue. He chose
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: not to pursue that path, and because he had alienated
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: there was just there was there was no way. He
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: did get to the point where there was no way
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: for him to survive. But this is the lesson that
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: folks ought to take away with this. If you take
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: a tough vote, if you take a vote that's unpopular
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: inside your own party, do you hide or do you
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: own it? He chose to hide he owned it when
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: he would be asked about it, but he always wanted
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: to move on from it. He voted to remove and
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: ban Donald Trump from ever holding federal office again, and
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: he never wanted to talk about it, and he wanted
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: to move on. I think voter sniff that out. I'd
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: love to have seen an alternative history here where Bill
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Cassidy owned his vote, defended his vote, and ran on
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: his vote, ran as an independent when the Louisiana Republican
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Party literally changed the rules in order to target him
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: in a primary. But his convictions clearly weren't deep enough
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: to pursue that path, and so he thought, maybe I
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: can curry favor with Donald Trump, or perhaps some consultants
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: who didn't want to advise him to leave the Republican
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Party for fear that they would cost them clients, chose
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: to advise him. No, no, no, get we can win
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: over Trump. We can at least keep him from endorsing.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: That was the initial plan. They could keep him from endorsing.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: They were never going to get him to endorse Cassidy,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: but they could keep him from endorsing, and he pursued
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: that fantasy, and he made a fool of himself with
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the Kennedy stuff, and he knows he did. He's been
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable with it the whole time. You can feel it,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: you can see it, and if people like us can
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: feel it and see it, the voters saw it, then
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: smelled it and sniffed it out. So this was a yes.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: You can sit here and say, boy, Donald Trump's got
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: a grip on the Republican Party. And he does. And
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: it is sad that the Republican electorate will not accept
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Republicans who disagree on Donald Trump's ethics, morals, and character.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: There is no room inside the Republican Party for people
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: who have qualms about Donald Trump's ethics and character. There
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: is no room for disagreement in the Republican Party. This
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: is a woke. This is you know, for everything that
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the right was attacking the left for that they and
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: there is no doubt there is stridency on the left
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: where if you at all misbehave on a certain issue,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: that you're going to get ostracized, you're going to get canceled.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Well what and supposedly the Trump Republican Party was you know, no,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: they're for free speech. There's no cancels here. Unless you're
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: not loyal to Donald Trump, then you're canceled. It's his
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: own form of I guess t what should we call it? TEI?
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Because if you at all criticize dear leader in the
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Republican Party, you are banished. You are ostracized. You are
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: not allowed to be considered a Republican in good standing
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: simply because you think that this man is unethical and
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: is of low character, something that two thirds of Americans
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: also believe. This is a majority of this country does
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: not believe he is honest and trustworthy. And apparently, if
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: you believe he's not honest and trustworthy, you're not allowed
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: to be in the Republican Party. This should alarm good Republicans,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: this should alarm ethical conservatives, and I think it has right.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: You're George Wills left the party of this nonsense, but
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Bill Cassidy couldn't leave the party. It's doing real damage
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: to the brand of the Republican Party long term. This
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• 21:09
  Speaker 1: partake in alcohol. For the most part. I think this
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: stuff is a lot safer than alcohol, a lot less
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: addictive than alcohol. And yes, I have to say I
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: love these drinks. It is the glass of wine and
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: you know after work, that's what this is. So no
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: hangover and no excess calories like this. I'm a big fan,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: so bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to
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  Speaker 1: and use the word toodcast that's getsol dot com promo
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  Speaker 1: code podcast for thirty percent off. And yes, I too,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: am a customer. And this is where the Democratic parties
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: pursuit of all out war against the Republican Party, where
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: you're no longer where the demo creds have decided not
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: to be the party of fairness, not to be the
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: party that is looking to that doesn't want voters disenfranchised.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: You had a Republican Party that doesn't believe in ethics
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and morals and character. You had a Democratic Party whose
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: leadership has decided they shouldn't care about these things either,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: that this is somehow all out war. And so what
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: I would say to a lot of you who I think,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: do listen to me because because I'm not a hard partisan,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: that you're here because you're as frustrated with the absurdity
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: of the polarization here in America, the fact that rationality
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: is not a mainstream currency at the moment but I
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: think I would say this to my frustrated independent friends,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: my frustrated disaffected Democrats and disaffected Republicans, people that would
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: like to stay members of their party in good standing
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: but are uncomfortable with the direction the parties are taking.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: You got to fight. You gotta fight for this. You
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: can't stay silent because you're afraid of offending the base.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: It's a massive problem on the right, and it's a
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: growing problem on the left. And so look, none of
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: us are surprised that Cassidy lost, but Cassidy made it
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: put He put himself in the worst possible position in
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: order to defend a tough vote. He didn't try, he
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: didn't lead. Liz Cheney went down fighting Bill Cassidy went
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: down claiming his Republican opponent wasn't supportive of Trump enough.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: I do think the concession speech that Cassidy gave his
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: proof that he probably regretted the entire campaign he ran.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Maybe I'm wrong. I know Senator Cassie a little bit.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I like him. He's a good person, he really is.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: I look forward to having him on this podcast. I
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: think I'm going to have him on if you will
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: agree to it, and he may not be happy with
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying. But I'm sure I'm not the only
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: person that had high hopes for him and is disappointed
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: now because the campaign wasn't the campaign. You know, this
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: is not some to me, This does not This was
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: not a campaign that somehow shows Trump at his strongest.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: He lost to a weakening Donald Trump, to a Donald
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Trump that is grasping for relevancy inside his own party
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: as he watches his presidency sink further and further into
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: an unpopular abyss. Cassidy didn't trust the voters of Louisiana
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: to see him as an independent conservative. It's okay to
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: be an independent Liberal and an independent conservative, because it's
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: pretty clear these two parties are just are just being
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: The leaders of these parties are running them into the
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: ground in hopes of grasping power, but they don't even
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: know what to do with it once they get the power.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: So look, this is and I've spent I told you,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: I've spent the week traveling essentially coast to coast, been
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: in a lot of group been in a lot of
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: off the record settings with a lot of people, a
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: lot of smart people, a lot of major business folks,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of major political folks who are all asking
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: when does this shit end? How do we get out
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: of this mess? And I'm like, it ain't gonna happen
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: in the next election. We're still we're somewhere in the
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: sixth or seventh inning. We are not in the eighth
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: or ninth inning. Maybe we're only in the third or
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: fourth inning of this cold civil war that's taken place
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: between the two parties. But here's the thing. There's clearly,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: unfortunately a silent majority of the rational rest of us
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: who are not fighting hard enough, who are not speaking
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: out enough. And part of it is there's no candidates
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: trying to appeal to the rational rest of us. So look,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: this is why I think we need more independent candidacies.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: We need probably a third and fourth party here to
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: threaten the supremacy of these two parties in order to
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: get braver politicians who are more comfortable speaking truth to power. Look,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Bill Cassidy tack the vote. He you know, he wasn't
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: a senator that was retiring, not running again. He did it,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and he ran again. So it was a gutsy vote,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: as gutsy as anybody. Tom Rice was a gutsy vote.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Jamie Herrera Butler was a gutsy vote because they went
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: and ran again. But he never defended it. He never
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: doubled down on triple down. My god, the guy is
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: literally Donald Trump is trading off of information he's stopped
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: doing essentially violating all sorts of parts of the Constitution
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: right now with the selling of the pardons, the Emolument's clause,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: he keeps violating that. Nobody seems to care that he's
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: lit enriching himself while in office. But Bill Cassidy is
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: one of the few people that actually voted to say
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: this guy is so immoral, so unethical, that he should
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: never hold federal office again. That was what the vote
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: to convict Donald Trump was about in the Senate. Remember,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: impeachment in the House is an indictment says you need
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: to go to trial. But the vote to convict means
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: you're guilty, and a conviction was going to lead to
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: him never holding federal office again. But he never explained
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: his vote. He never gave, he never debated, never let
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: the voters themselves have this debate. And so it's frustrating,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: I'll admit, for me to watch this, and he didn't
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: go down swing. It never gave his voters a chance,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: and again, maybe he thought that they weren't going to
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: change the rules of the primary in order to target him,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: which they did, and he decided not to counter. He
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: could have countered could file as an independent, but instead
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: he chose to Curry favor, thinking somehow there was a
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: tight rope to walk with Donald Trump. Donald Trump is
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: the living embodiment of the of the of the Scorpion
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: and the frog fairy tale. Donald Trump is the scorpion
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: and he stings you every single time. Everybody that has
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: pursued this strategy of thinking they can somehow convince Trump
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: not to endorse. Right, watch Cornan do this, and he's
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I guess Cornyn can say he's kept you know, but
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: he's literally had two thirds of the Republican Senate begging
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Trump not to endure, and all they've gotten is him
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: not to endorse pact. Paxton weren't morally a morally questionable character.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Perhaps Trump art have already endorsed him. Maybe that's the
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: only thing that has kept him from endorsing him, is
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: that Paxson himself is carrying as much baggage as Donald
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Trump normally carries. But this is I know that everybody's
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: spinning this Cassidy race is you know, this is Donald
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Trump's Republican Party, and it is it is, But that's
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: all it is. He is I mean everybody that's left,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: everybody that's left in this Republican Party that is going
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: along with this, going along with self enrichment, going along
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: with self dealing, and more importantly out the United States
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: of America, which is what I'm going to get to
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: in a minute. But let me put a bow on
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: this Louisiana thing. Look, there was one other under covered
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: part of the Louisiana story, and that was the total
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: vote of Democrats. More Republicans showed up than Democrats, but
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: it wasn't It was sort of like fifty two forty
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: seven when you do the total vote. Louisiana Senate Democrats
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: are also going to be holding a runoff. The endorsed
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Democratic candidate is Jamie Davis, African American. He's going to
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: face off against Gary Crockett, who is a Navy veteran
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: and a businessman. Davis is going to win. Davis is
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: the endorsed candidate of the Democratic Party, and I think
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Davis was the beneficiary of a strong African American turnout,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: and I think this is just a preview of what's
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: coming in the fall in these Southern races, and so
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: this is why I think you should pay Look. Do
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I think that the eventual winner of the Republican runoff
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: between let Low and Fleming is going to beat Jamie
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Davis in the Senate race? Yeah, I do. Louisiana is
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: a pretty conservative state, but there's a large share of
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: African American voters, and if they are coming out on
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: presidential levels, it's going to be a competitive race. It's
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: going to be a race decided by single digits, and
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: maybe by lower single digits than anybody thought was possible.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: And I go back to something I've been saying for
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks, ever since this decision to
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: gut the Voting Rights Act, which has led to this
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: urgent decision by Republicans in the South to not even
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: wait one election cycle, but to hurry up and draw
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: out Democratic African American Democrats from congressional districts. The aggressive
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: way they're doing this, I think is gasoline on a
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: turnout fire, and in a midterm election in places like Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: You get presidential level turnout among African American voters, especially
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: when you will not be getting presidential level turnout among
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: rural Republican voters, you're going to see some I think
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: this is an entirely overlooked situation that's developing right now
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: in the South. It's early, but the fact that the
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: total number of Democratic voters to show up in a
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: race that many people thought was not remember the House
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: primaries were punted. Don't overlook these All these general elections
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: in the South and the fall could be something happening here,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: and it's something we're paying attention to. All right now,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: I want to pivot to perhaps the more consequential story
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: of the week, and that is the President's trip to China.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: And what's just remarkable about it is the one to
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: eighty that Donald Trump has done, even from the last
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: six months when it comes to China. Now, I think
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: the president's newfound love affair with She. Although he's actually
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: always try to have a good personal relationship with She,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: he's taken it to another level. And I think it's
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: frankly just simple desperation. He can't solve this Iran problem.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: So he needs China's help to push Iran on the
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: straight of Hormonve's issue. So that's my larger thesis on this,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: but I do think it's worth taking a step back
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: and realizing what an incredible one ady this is that
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is essentially selling out Taiwan because for nearly
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: a decade, Donald Trump built one of the central arguments
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: of his own political movement around a simple idea that
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: America had been weak on China. He would be out
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: there to say China stole our jobs, China manipulated trade,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: China exploited globalization, China took advantage of weak American leadership,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: and Trump promised confrontation and toughness tariffs, he tried it,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: got humiliated by him. He pushed for decoupling that has
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: not worked out as well as everybody thought it would.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: He pushed his economic nationalism, which has turned out to
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: be nothing but supercharging inflation. And then he was trying
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: to do strategic pressure, some of which was pretty was
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: picking up on the same things that the two administrations
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: have been trying to do. Right, create a sort of
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Asian block of allies to check China, and it's kind
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: of striking when you think about how aggressive Trump had
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: been on China and how all of a sudden He's
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: decided to go so soft. Because what happened after Trump's
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: summit was she last week deserves a much closer look
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: because this wasn't merely diplomatic niceties after a summit meeting.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: It looked like something a lot more significant. And this
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: has not gotten the intention it deserves. He went from
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: a shift of confrontation towards transaction. Now you may argue, well,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: this is who Donald Trump is. Yes, it is. By
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: the way, I don't think it's totally bad to be
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: practiced about China, but you can't piss away America's credibility
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: when you do it. Now we should know. Look, Trump
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: didn't even invent anti China politics. This has been a
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: through line in the Republican Party for over a decade
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: now frankly inside parts of the Democratic Party too. But
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Trump weaponized it as effectively as anyone in modern American politics.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Remember he called it the greatest theft in history. China's
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: ripping us off, currency manipulation, factory closures, manufacturing collapse. He
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: helped turn China into both an economic villain and a
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: political organizing principle. Now, to be fair, like I said,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Trump has always personally praised Shijipei. He did that during
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: the first term as well. But during Trump one point zero,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: the personal flattery coexisted with escalating structural confrontation like tariffs,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: like sanctions against anybody doing business with export controls, naval signaling,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Taiwan pressure right helping to sell them arms, things like that,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: and the semiconductor restrictions keeping China from being able to
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: buy uh important chips. In fact, Trump took the famous
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: congratulatory phone call from Taiwan's president before even taking office,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: and Beijing thought that was a delibered provocation. It was
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: a tough move. It was frankly good for him. I'm
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: glad he did it then. So, during Trump's first term
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: he used Taiwan as leverage against China. He's not the
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: only president to do that. But now Trump appears to
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: be treating Taiwan as leverage with China instead of leverage
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: against China. Well, this episode of the Chuck Podcast is
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  Speaker 1: quints dot com slash chuck. Use that code. Trump had
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: to tough policies against China in the first turn, and
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Biden didn't reverse the strategy. He changed the tone a bit,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: but strategically he largely kept the more confrontational policies against
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: China kept him intact. The terriffs remained, the export control intensified.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: He actually went harder at strengthening alliances with the Quad, India, Japan,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Australia in the United States. He expanded the semiconductor restrictions,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: and he maintained Taiwan deterrence. Now Biden used softer language.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: He called it competition without conflict. He talked about what
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: they were doing as guardrails, called them rules of the road.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Now Biden's framework was institutional, stable, managed rivalry, alliance based deterrence,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: sort of an old Cold War style of foreign policy.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: And look, Republicans have been structurally hawkish with China for
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: a while. Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, Josh Holly three of
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: the leading tough on China voices. So Trump wasn't just
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: reflecting Republican hawkishness in China. He was helping to create
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: a more modern version of it, which raises the obvious
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: political question here, what happens now if Trump himself is
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: moving somewhere different? I fear this. He's doing this simply
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: out of desperation for his to get China to help
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: him out of his Iron minus. Now it's striking so
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: far is not the open rebellion. It's the relative silence.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Many of the loudest Chinahawks in the Republican Party appear
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: reluctant to directly challenge Trump's post Beijing rhetoric. Trump is
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: selling the Taiwan, He's out in public, and Tom Cotton
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: hasn't said a frickin' word. You know, you're not going
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: to hear from Mark Rubio on this, But are any
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Senate Republicans going to push back on this? We'll find
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: out this week, won't we And I guess you know,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: he keeps winning these Republican primaries in purging the party.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: And if Tom Cotton cares about staying in the Republican
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Party more than he cares about confronting China and defending democracy,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: which supporting tyrone is also about defending democracy around the world.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: We'll see. But it's just shocking the president's tone after
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the summon in Beijing. He did not look the praising
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: is she that wasn't new, the Boeing purchases that was
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: part of the deal, soyben agreements, emphasis on personal rapport,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: talked about demailing all this demail deal making that he
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: was doing with she. Look, our economy is in bad shape,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: nobody's happy, so he has to make a deal with China.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: But Trump, I mean, he didn't use any ideological language.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: He didn't frame this as any sort of civilization challenge,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: and gone was his rhetoric on economic warfare. The fact
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump said out loud about Taiwan and whether
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: he's going to complete this arms sale to Taiwan, the
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: fact that he said it's a very good negotiating chip
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: for us. He has now done to Taiwan. What they've
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: always feared, what our allies in Asia has always feared,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: is that it's simply a negotiating chip with China. I
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: will tell you this, what he said landed like a
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: thunderclap in Asia. This Taiwan is no longer simply a
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: regional dispute. Taiwan sits at the center of semiconductor protection production,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: Indo Pacific deterrence, AI competition, and American credibility with allies.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: For decades, American policy towards Taiwan relied on something that
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: was called strategic ambiguity. It was kind of silly just
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: say it. We support democracies. I don't know why we
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: can't just say this, and yes, we will defend Taiwan's
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: right to be independent, but we didn't want to be
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: sucked into a, you know, binding agreement to go to
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: war on behalf of Taiwan if China chose to go
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: to to to invade the island. I'm not going to
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: sit here and say that that's a crazy way to
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: do this. And strategic ambiguity has worked as long as
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: the every president of the United States sort of accepts
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: the premise and at least rhetorically defends Taiwan. And this
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: is where the implications get much larger than Taiwan itself. Japan,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: South Korea, Australia, and the Philippines are all nervous about
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: and aggressive China. They're ready to defend Taiwan. They're ready
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: to build this alliance to deter China from being able
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: to encroach beyond their territory. But if the United States
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: is just going to fold, what are they supposed to do?
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Because if Taiwan is negotiable, what else is negotiable? South
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Korea would like to know, the Philippines would like to know.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: This issue isn't simply whether Trump's going to defend Taiwan.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: The issues whether America's alliance system itself begins to look
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: conditional and transactional. You cannot count on the United States
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: of America, at least, that is the message that this
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: President of the United States has sent to the world.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: This is a massive weakening of the United States, massive
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: and the relative silence on this. And I know there's
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: so many things he's done to sort of screw up
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: America's place on the world, the surround War being right
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: near the top of the list that I understand it's hard,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: but my god, was this China trip a disaster. Donald
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Trump is more worried about his short term political standing
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: than he is about freedom, independence and democracy and about
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: leaving America stronger than when he got it. But instead
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: he is making America week. We have not been this
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: week internationally, probably not since Jimmy Carter, where the perception
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: of us is somehow a fading power, and these are
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: all his actions. Is systematically upset our allies, attacked our allies.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: He's not been a reliable partner, not to anyone in
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: the middle. And then when he needs allies to help
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: us out with this straight of or moves mass, they're like, now,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: yet you're on your own, buddy. Never mind that he
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: has just undone the American economy, made everything more expensive
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: his even I mean, you name it, whether it's the tariffs,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: whether it's this war of choice with I wrong, whether
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: it's too aggressive on immigration deportations, which have also made
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: everything more expensive. Mother than that, this has been a
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: really successful presidency. Now, look, there's a part of me
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: that says that there were some things we probably got
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: too aggressive with China, because I think over the last
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: several years many in Washington have discovered that decoupling carried
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: real costs, massive inflation shocks, supply chain disruptions, the rare
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: earth dependency. We weren't ready for this. The pharmaceutical ingredients
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: that we need, a lot of it comes from China,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: the semiconductor exposure and the manufacturing bottlenecks, and of course Beijing.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: You know this idea. You know, Trump always assumes he
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: can be tough and that somehow people aren't going to respond.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: And it's been true inside his own party. Right, He's
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: tough on Cassidy, but Cassidy was too weak to respond.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: Beijing wasn't going to be too weak to respond. Beijing
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: demonstrated an increasing willingness to weaponize interdependence itself, and they
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: threatened rare earth restrictions and Trump to Taco, and they
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: leveraged supply chains and got Trump to Taco. And they
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: used market access as geopolitical pressure to get Trump to Taco.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: And then there's Iran, and that's probably the biggest unappreciated
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: variable in this entire story. China's buying Iranian oil. China
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: has what is now going to have more regional influence
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: in the Middle East than before we started this war,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: and now Trump knows that China has economic leverage over
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: Iran and is desperate for China. You know, it's funny.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: They put out their own press release over the weekend
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: talking about their great trip to China and bragging about
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: basically all they could say of what was success in
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: this trip was the Boeing sale of two hundred planes,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: which was actually less than expected. That was the minimum.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: They're hopeful that it's more than two hundred planes, but
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: China just said yes to the minimum. And the other
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: thing that the White House put out in its release
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: on Sunday night was that and she agreed with President
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: Trump that the straight of horn moves ought to be open.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Oh really, they thought that was a win. Now, some
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: defenders of Trump might say, hey, this is Nixon going
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: to China. That comparison doesn't go very far. Nixon's opening
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: to China came with an entire strategic architecture behind it.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Cold War triangulation. That was real Soviet containment, open a
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: pathway to China as a way to be a little
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: bit of a check on the Soviets. That was geopolitical
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: realignment executed from a position of strategic coherence. That phrase
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: strategic coherence is something that has never been used to
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: describe anything Donald Trump does. This was improvisational as usual,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: very transactional, and not institutional. Now it's possible Trump's finally
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: figured out that she can't just get tough on China,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: that there has to be carrots and sticks, which pretty
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: much every other president had figured out a long time ago,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: just like Trump has to figure out for himself that
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: you can't bomb your way into a solution with Iran.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: But what's frustrating is all of this was well known.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: He just chose to ignore it. He blow hearted his
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: way into these confrontations. And now he's found out the
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: hard way, and he's got the American economy in a
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: terrible place. The very voters that he promised that he
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: was going to lower their costs his policies have raised
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: their cost of living. And by the way, his own
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: voters now know it. Everybody now knows it and he
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: and he's now selling out small d democratic allies. And
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: this is just a huge blow to democracy. If the
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: United States isn't going to be the defender of democracy
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: around the world, who is. We're gonna have to look
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: to Mark Carney, no offense to our Canadian friends. I'm
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: glad these middle countries are working hard to figure out
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: a third way since the United States under Donald Trump
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: is not reliable. But I really hope some of my
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: conservative friends who know this is just a terrible development,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: who know what we have just done to Taiwan is
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: also undermined our alliance with Japan, undermined our alliance to
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: South Korea, undermined our alliance with the Philippines, and with Australia,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: all of these countries nervous about the growing threat that
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: is China counting on the United States. And because he
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: got himself into a bad situation by starting a war
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: he couldn't win against the Iranians, he is capitulating left
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: and right because he's desperate for China to help solve
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: his political problem in twenty twenty six. And if he's
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: willing to sell out a democratic ally like Taiwan and
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: everything that comes with it, what else is he willing
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: to do. It's a terrible development. This is not good
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: for America. And I will just say this to anybody
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: that is happy that Trump is screwing up. It's bad
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: for the country. And I'm sorry that there's not a Republican.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: There are not any Republicans left who have the guts
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: to stand up and say he's wrong. This episode of
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: the Chuck Podcast is brought to you by Fandel, which
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: means you're gonna get some picks for me in a minute,
• 55:04
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• 55:53
  Speaker 1: sports gambling every now and then, probably more now than then,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: for what it's worth. And I'll tell you how I
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: am looking at this game one between the Spurs and
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: the Thunder. Right, you've got one team that's been rested
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: a week, and you've got one team that is only
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: on a two days rest. I think it appears to
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: excuse me, three days rest. But a team that was
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: four and one against the Thunder during the regular season, Right,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: the Spurs were four and one even though the Thunder
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: won two more games, and as the one seed to
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: the spurs two seed, the Spurs dominated them during the
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: regular season. So you have a rest versus rust situation.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: So how do you play? Well, I'll tell you how
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna play. I like the Spurs in the first
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: quarter to cover that spread, whatever it is, and it's
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: going to keep moving by the time you hear this,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: and I like the Thunder to win the whole game.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: My assumption in this game is the Spurs come out
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: with a lot of confidence and the Thunder has a
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: little bit of rust, so that's likely to you might
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: see the Spurs come out to a quick lead early.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: Especially we've seen this with Wemby. Right when Wemby starts
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: the game, and and and the Spurs kind of a
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: big lead. At some point about halfway through two thirds
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: through the first quarter, he takes a rest and then
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: that's when in the in the timberwol series, that's when
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: the Wolves would make their run. It's likely when when
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: the Thunder would make a run. Here now we know
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: that the Thunder has been game planning for the Spurs
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: the entire week. They're going to have new looks at Wemby.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: They're going to throw a bunch of new looks at them,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: and by the time the second quarter rolls around, and
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: certainly after halftime, the Thunder will probably be beak Thunder
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: by the third quarter. So it's hard to imagine the
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: Spurs stealing game one on short rest with with the
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: Thunder and long rest. But that's why the way the
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: way I'm looking at this game is Spurs first quarter
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: Thunder to cover for the game and right now that
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: line I believe was six and a half at the
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: time that I recorded this at So of course, this
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  Speaker 1: the terms at FanDuel dot com slash predicts, Slash Bonus
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: Hyphen offer hyphen terms. So Sunday afternoon, I was just
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: outside of Cleveland, Ohio, on the campus of John Carroll University,
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: where I had the amazing honor and privilege of giving
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: the commencement addressed to the class of twenty twenty six.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: And of course, as you know a couple of weeks ago,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: when I was down in Miami for my daughter's graduation,
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: she is also a member of the class of twenty
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: twenty six. With you some of the advice I've been
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: sharing with her, and a lot of that advice is
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: the advice I shared with those students there. But I
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: also made you know John Carroll is a is a
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: Catholic university Jesuit education. It's also obviously the alma mater.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: My late great friend and mentor Tim Russer, and that's
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: why I was invited. They've after Tim died, we set
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: up at Meet the Press this incredible fellowship program for
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: John Carroll University students and it has just been star
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: after star after star who came through that program. Still,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: by the way, still an active program. Kristen Is continues
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: with the fellowship program with John Carroll. It's just a
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: tremendous developmental place for for those that are interested in
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: political journalism. And I've just been really impressed with the
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: values that John Carroll instills in their students. And that
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: was the best part of the commencement ceremony was that
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: it was really it was it was long on sort
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: of on making sure these students had a moral center,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: had an ethical education, not just a technical education. And
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: that was also part of my message that in this
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: age of AI, you know, AI can give you the answers,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: but they can't ask all the questions. They can't. You know,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: AI can't you know, it can imitate empathy, it actually
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: can't be empathetic. It can't feel that empathy. So it
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: was just a you know, there's nothing that puts you
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: in a better mood after you see everything that has
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: happened with so many of our elected leaders not having
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: a moral compass, or if they do have a moral compass,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: it doesn't work anymore. Who have forgotten their ethic, ethical codes.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: And to see these young men and women exude morals
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: and ethics all over the place. So it certainly certainly
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: gives gives me a lot of hope to optimism. And look,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: it's it's not an easy time for this class. This
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: was the COVID class in high school and now they're
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: graduating into a really rough job market. But you know
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: what this is going to be that this has been
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: a generation that has had to adapt, that has had
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: to be resilient, not because they wanted to, it's because
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: they were forced to. And the upside of that means
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: this is going to be a very capable generation and
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: perhaps this is the generation that steers us out of
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: this mass that we're in. But anyway, I just wanted
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: to do a shout out to especially to my friend
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: doctor Alan Mickeyak He is now the retiring president of
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: John Carroll. This was his last commencement. I've had a
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: great friendship with him since he's been there, and so
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: it was it was a true honor that he asked
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: me to do this for his for his last commencement,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: And like I said, I just I feel like, of
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: all the things I inherited from Tim, the love of
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: John Carroll in this relationship with John Carroll is as
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: good as any of the things that I got to
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: inherit from Tim. So anyway, just to shout out to
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: that class of twenty twenty six, just a tremendous group
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: of young men and women who are gonna, I think,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: make us a better society. There's a hell of a
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: lot of great human beings that have new degrees from
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: John Carroll. All Right, it's time machine time, and we're
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: going to go back to May of eighteen eighty three,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: the bridge people had to believe in. There are technologies
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: that changed the world the moment they're invented, and then
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: there are technologies that only changed the world after people
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: stopped being afraid of them. This week, at eighteen eighty three,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: New York opened what was then the largest suspension bridge
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: ever built, the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge. Today it
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: feels permanent, it's timeless, it's obvious, But at the time
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: this was a BFD. Many people thought the thing might
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: collapse into the East River, and just days after the opening,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: panic actually did break out one day and people were
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: crushed to death, not because the bridge failed, but because
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: there was a rumor that it was failing. So to
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: understand the Brooklyn Bridge, you have to under standing how
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: impossible the idea of a suspension bridge connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: and how impossible it looked in the eighteen seventies. At
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: the time, Brooklyn and Manhattan were separate cities. Brooklyn was
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: its own city. It had not been made part of
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: New York City yet, that would happen later at the
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: tail end of the nineteenth century. Brooklyn and Manhattan had
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: to be connected by ferries. The East River was crowded,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: it was dangerous, and it was unpredictable. Winter ice could
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: stop crossings entirely, storms would disrupt travel constantly. And then
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: came this proposal, let's build a bridge across the East River,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: longer than anything that had ever been attempted in the
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: modern in that part of the modern world at the time,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: many New Yorkers thought the idea bordered on a fantasy, right.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: It's like Elon Musk today saying we're going to build
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: tubes and get you from DC to Baltimore in like
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: ten minutes. That's what kind of fantasy This was back then,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: with a bridge connecting Manhattan Brooklyn. So the man behind
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: this idea was a gentleman named John A. Roebling. He
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: was a German immigrant engineer already famous for building suspension bridges,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: but this project was different. This one would become the
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: longest suspension bridge in the world. It'd be one of
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: the first major structures to use steel wire cables, and
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: it would be a symbol of modern engineering ambition. And look,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: it had its tragedies. Almost immediately the project turned tragic.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: While surveying the site, Roebling's foot gets crushed in a
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: ferry accident. Tetanus sets in and he dies weeks later
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: before construction actually began. The bridge that would define New
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: York began as a project memory people thought was impossible,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: and it almost immediately looked cursed when the designer died.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: So after John Roel dies, his son, Washington Robling takes
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: over the construction project, and then another disaster hits. To
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: build the foundations, workers descended into massive underwater chambers that
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: were called casons. These pressurized chambers at the bottom of
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: the East River. Workers would emerge from them dizzy, paralyzed,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: sick't They weren't the safest things as they were trying
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: to put these pylons in the water. And back then
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: we didn't know what they were experiencing, but now we
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: know it's called decompression sickness. Anybody that has taken a
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: scuba diving lesson knows all about decompression sickness the bends,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: as it's known. While Washington Robling himself becomes severely ill,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: he went into one of these cases, and he is
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: then largely confined to his home. He's unable to oversee
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: the project directly, and this is where one of the
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: great forgotten figures in New York City history enters the story.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: Emily Warren Roebling, Washington's wife. Emily begins relaying engineering instructions
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: between Washington and the construction crews, but eventually she becomes
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: far more than just the simple messenger between her husband
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: and the cruise. She studies mathematics on her own, the
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: stress analysis, the cable construction, the engineering specifications, and she
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: effectively becomes the project manager, the technical liaison, and the
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: public representative of the bridge. And this is at a
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: time when women almost never occupied such roles publicly. Remember,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: women don't have the right to vote yet, and she's
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: overseeing this project. The Brooklyn Bridge was built by a
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: man who died, a son who nearly was destroyed by it,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: and a woman history almost forgot. It's quite the legacy.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: All that. And then we finally have opening day of
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: the bridge, May fourth, eighteen eighty three. There's fireworks, there's celebrations,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: the sitting President Chester Arthur attends. Thousands pour onto the bridge. Pedestrians,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: horse drawn carriages, elevated walkways are packed with spectators. People
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: weren't just crossing a bridge, they were crossing into the
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: modern age. They were walking over water. It was a
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: big deal. And the bridge instantly transforms Brooklyn. At the time,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: Brooklyn was an independent city. It wasn't yet a borough
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: of New York City. But the bridge changed everything, commuting, commerce,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: real estate, identity. Suddenly Brooklyn is connected permanently to Manhattan,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: and of course the logic of consolidation accelerates and Brooklyn's
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: identity as a major urban center explodes and again before
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: the turn of the twentieth. From the nineteenth to the
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: twentieth century, Brooklyn officially become part of New York City.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: By the way, and those of you that listened to
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: Dynastic in our first episode you already know this. The
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: same year that the Brooklyn Bridge opened, eighteen eighty three,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: a baseball team not yet known as the Brooklyn Dodgers,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: they had all sorts of other names at the time.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: They were just a Brooklyn baseball team. That franchise begins
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: emerging through this new baseball club in Brooklyn, all part
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: of Brooklyn becoming a bigger and bigger presence and importance
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: as a part of the New York City area. But
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: just days, less than a week after the bridge opens,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: there's a panic. Six days on May thirtieth, eighteen eighty three,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: A huge crowd fills the pedestrian promenade and then something happens,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: and there's various accounts on this. A woman trips, someone's screams,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: and rumors start immediately spreading that the bridge is collapsing,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: and suddenly fear moves faster than facts. People surge backwards,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: afraid that the bridge is about to drop into the water,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: and others push forward, Some climb over bodies trying to escape.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: Women and children are knocked down, people are trampled against
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: stairways and exits. Twelve people die during this stampede out
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: of fear that the rumors of a bridge, that the
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: bridge was collapsing. By the way, the bridge was fine.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: So here the bridge didn't fail structurally, it failed psychologically,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: and that became the real challenge. It wasn't the engineering,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: it was trust because now the public has seen panicked
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: attached to the bridge, and fear, especially public fear, can
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: spread very quickly. So enter PT. Barnum the story. This
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: is where the story becomes almost unbelievably modern because the
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: person who helps restore public co defendants is not an engineer.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: It's essentially an influencer of his day. P. T. Barnum.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: By the eighteen eighties, Barnum is one of the most
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: famous men in America. He's a showman, a promoter. He's
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: the circus in Perceario right, he has its P. T.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: Barnum Circus. Some of you may know Barnum and Bailey.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: Eventually he partnered up with a guy named Bailey, and P. T.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: Barnum was part entertainer, part marketer, part national celebrity, part
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: bullshit artist. Let's be honest here, but he under stands
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: something that many institutions still struggle to understand. Facts alone
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: don't restore public confidence. People need spectacle, They need visible reassurance.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: So in eighteen eighty four, Barnum stages an event. He
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: marches twenty one elephants, seventeen camels, and circus animals all
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: across the Brooklyn Bridge, including his most famous attraction, Jumbo
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: the Elephant, and the message is obvious. If the bridge
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: can support elephants, including Jumbo, it can support you. P. T.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: Barnum understood something engineers sometimes don't. Public trust isn't purely rational.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it requires theater, and remarkably it works. Public confidence returns,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: the bridge survives and eventually becomes one of the most
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: defining symbols of not just New York City, but of
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: the United States. And this is why the Brooklyn Bridge
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: story matters far beyond engineering, because the story keeps repeating itself.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: New technologies arrive elevators, airplanes, subways, nuclear power, vaccines, artificial intelligence,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: and the question is never just does the technology work.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: The deeper question becomes do people trust it enough to
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: use it? And all those things I checked out, Yeah,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: you like elevators. We're good with airplanes. We're okay with subways.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: We're not there in nuclear power, are we. We haven't
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: gotten over that fear. It's a bit irrational vaccines. We
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: thought we had gotten over that. Then we got a
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: bunch of misinformation from Bobby Kennedy Junior. The point is,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: innovation doesn't move at the speed of invention. It moves
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: at the speed of public trust. And that's a pretty
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: good warning for our friends in the artificial intelligence space.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: They may have a great technology that they do not
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: have public trust. So the Brooklyn Bridge didn't become a
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: symbol of modern America because people immediately trusted it. They
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: did not at first. Many feared it, doubted it and panicked.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: But over time people crossed it anyway, and eventually the
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: fear faded. The bridge help and the city around it
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: got transformed. And you can now buy any type of
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: aoli in the world in Brooklyn now, and you can
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: find a food truck to serve you anything in the
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: world thanks to this Brooklyn Bridge. New technologies don't change
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: society when engineers finish building them. They change society when
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: the public stops being afraid of them. There's your history
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: lesson for the day or for the week, and now
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: to the star of this program. You all right. First
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: question comes from Kelly X Aubrey, Texas. And Kelly writes,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: on a recent episode, you mentioned Democrats losing some moderate
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: voters over cultural issues, and it made me think about
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: how transgender rights have become a central part of that conversation.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: How should Democrats approach this, both in standing for transgender
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: Americans and in communicating those positions to a broader electorate.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: Is there a way to frame these issues so they're
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: better understood with out being dismissed as distractions Kelly X
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: and she signs she's a transgender Texan from Aubrey, Texas. Look,
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: I think individual liberty is the phrase I'd be using
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: the most if I were if I were a Democrat
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: on this front. You know, I think that you can
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: you can agree to disagree on what the rules of
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: of what the NC double A ought to do with competition,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: but that does not erase liberty, right, It does not
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: erase a person. And so I think the channeling the
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: the you know, both parties don't channel their inner libertarian
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: streaks enough, and this to me is one of the
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: This is the way you know, I certainly would be
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: approaching this is that you know somebody's transgender, isn't saying
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: you have to become transgender? Right, it goes. It's really
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: no different than how less scared politicians, and there were
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: plenty of scared politicians back in the seventies and eighties,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: but less scared politicians handled gay rights back then. But that,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: to me is how I would approach this, which is
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: more about you can you know I to me, it's
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: not about either or you can be saying you know, no,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: I don't think transgender women should be participating in women's sports.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: Maybe you can call for saying there should be separate
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: categories or come up with different if you wanted to
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: do that, but you can. I think you can have
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: one position on what the rules are, but at the
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: same time not throw an entire person's identity under the boss.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: So I think that there can be nuance to this,
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: and I think that over time it may be that
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: more people do accept the premise that we should decide
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: competition and you know, in a variety of ways. But
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: that's I think that's the way. I'm surprised to me,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: either party should be able to endorse you know, you
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: be you and in this country you being you with
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: the whole premise right, if you believe in religious freedom,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: then you should believe in the freedom that people can
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: live their lives how they want to live their lives.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: That's why that phrase at the end of the Declaration
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: of Independence matters so much. Pursuit of happiness. So I
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: would be ground I think I would be grounding myself
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: in that, and at the same time say, look, you
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: know we're I'm not you know, if if said politician
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: isn't comfortable endorsing transgender women in women's sports, that doesn't
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: mean they have to be anti transgender too on this look.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: I uh. I had actually had this conversation with Congresswoman
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: Sarah McBride from Delaware about trans women in sports and
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: whether that, you know, whether she could support a Democrat
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: that was you know, he's uh not in favor of
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: allowing trans women in sports, but we're not somehow again,
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: you know, wanting to you know, make it impossible for
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: somebody who's trans to live their life how they choose
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: to live their life. Uh, And whether there could be
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: room for disagreement on some of these things, and I
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: look there there's to be I think that this is
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: where anytime you have cultural transition, I think everybody needs
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: a little extra space. And over time, as we all
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: know all this, as people learn more, as they get
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: to know more people who are transgender, just like we
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: saw more people got to know people who who were gay,
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: it changed the perception. And that's sometimes that takes time.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: That's not fair to you. That's not fair to other
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: transgender folks who feel as if why should they have
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: to wait for others to decide. I get that, and
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here and tell you that
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: my answer should be anything other than frustrating to you.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: I get that. But you're asking me how Democrats shoul
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: approach this issue. I think you can agree to disagree
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: on how these you know, how this stuff works in
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: in youth sports or college sports, and what the lines
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: are under eighteen and all of that stuff, you can
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: I think, and at the same time not deny the
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: existence of transgender Americans. So I think I would be
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: on the side. I think the best way to approach
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: this is from the libertarian like live and let Live,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: because ultimately most Americans are in the live and let
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: live space, and I think that is the as good
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: of a place politically to be on this issue, Max
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: w And Alexandria Virginia writes, You've talked a lot about
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: the erosion of political norms and trusts, which made me
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: think about the recent reporting that some Americans believe major
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: events are staged. Is this just another example of political
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: actors sowing distrust or are we reaching a point where
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: trust in institutions is fundamentally breaking down? And if so,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: can it be rebuilt? Oh? Hang, come and listen, let's
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: justesse read. So I look at this issue in two ways.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: One is I believe that there is a pretty aggressive
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: manufactured campaign to so distrusted in America from four entities
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: North Korea, Iran, China, and Russia. There is constant bots
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: and intentional misinformation and stoking of division by hackers and undesirables,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: whatever you want to call these folks that are stirring
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: the pot thanks to our unregulated social media world. So
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: I think some of this is I think a lot
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: of this is manufactured. I think so I would. So
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: we have that issue, and I think we need to
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: have a more And unfortunately, because Donald Trump thinks he
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: politically benefits from these hackers created this distrustful world. His
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: administration has done nothing about this, zero about this, right,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: there has been denial about it. He just called January
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: six bullshit again in his attack on Bilcassidy over the weekend.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: And so you know, some of this is systemic, and
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: the and the United States government is doing a piss
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: poor job of protecting Americans from these attacks from this
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: quad quadra these the we call it if it's four
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: as it's can you call it an access still? I
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: guess right of China, North Korea, Iran in Russia, I'm
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: getting I'm more and more convinced that institutions are going
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: to be harder to rebuild than they are to just
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: build a new And I think that I think that
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: restoration is not going to restore trust, but renewal can
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: restore trust. Right, it's restoration versus renewal. So I think
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: these institutions need to be built anew with more twenty
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: first century ground rules. They probably need to be codified,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: not just accepted, and they need to be based in
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: protecting the consumer and protecting the voter. But like I said,
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: I believe most of this, especially with this idea that
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: we believe everything is staged, is coming, most of it
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: is begun by intentional bad actors, and then we just
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: have a lot of gallipal people and social media algorithms
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: that are terribly regulated and are designed to stoke virality, right,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: rather than truth. And it's it's you know, this is
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: this is the fundamental flaw. This is why so many
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: Americans are skeptical of AI. I believe they're skeptical of
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: AI not because of the of AI as a standalone technology,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: but because the same people that brought us this social
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: media disaster are the people behind AI. Right, the guy
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: behind acts, Elon musk Is, We're supposed to trust him
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: to build an artificial intelligence, large language model that isn't
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: going to be full of shit and full of racist
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: crap in it. And you wonder why a large majority
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: of Americans are skeptical of this new technology. Again, it's
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: not the technology they're skeptical of. I think they're skeptical
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: of the people that are building this technology because of
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: what they've done to us on social media. So anyway,
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: do I yes, I I'm never going to give up
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: hope that we can't rebuild these institutions but I do
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: think they need to be new In some ways. I'm
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: starting to come come around of the idea that we're
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: not restoring a thing, it's time to build a new.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: Next question, John W and Buffalo, New York Rights. Hey,
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: love the show. It's a Musclesten. I generally agree with
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: your incremental approach policy, but with recent GOP jerry mandering,
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: it feels like the playing field is becoming more uneven.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: How do you think Democrats would respond to that, stick
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: with incrementalism or take a more confrontational approach. And I'd
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: be curious to hear you debate someone like Brian Butler
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: on this. Thanks for what you do, John W. Look,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: I think it's a terrible position for the Democrats to
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: put themselves in. I know, the fight fire with prior approach.
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: And you know, again, if you believe that somehow all
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: of this jerry mendering is being done so that and
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: that's I just I think that if you the way
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: to deal with the disenfranchising of voters is not to
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: disfranchise voters. And I know you've heard me say that
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: a number of times. I think the Democratic Party is
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: giving up their adult in the room voter. I think
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: their success in twenty eighteen and in twenty twenty, and
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: they're better than expected success in twenty twenty two is
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: because they've been trying to preach themselves be the party
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: of fairness, and now they're not for fairness. And again
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: this race to the bottom, they're never going to win it.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: And who wants to win a race to the bottom.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: But I look, I don't know why they don't zag.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't sit here in Zig. I triple down on
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: reforming the democracy to get rid of partisan primaries, rippled
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: down on fair districts. I'd put it to the voters.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: Wherever you could put it to the voters, I'd make
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: it part of the campaign. But now they can't, can
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: they because they spent all this money trying to jerry
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: rig districts in Virginia and in California, so they lost
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: the high ground they got. And this is I think,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: this is what happens. Sometimes you get baited into you know,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: it's sort of like, well, I didn't mean to commit
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: the crime, but they were already committing crime, so I
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: had to stop them. There's there's you can you can
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: come up with an explanation and It can feel dispensable
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: and you can make yourself feel better about it, but
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: is it going to lead to a less polarized country
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: or a more polarized country? Why be if one party
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: is trying to be polarizing, why contribute to it? Again,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: I understand the tactical rationale, but this is not going
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: to deliver what you think it's going to deliver. The
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: only way we get out of this is when one
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: party figures out how to become a sixty percent majority.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: And I'm not saying you win sixty percent, but that
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: you attempt to appeal to the sixty percent of the country.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: And right now, neither party is deciding to try to
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: appeal to a sixty percent. This is all about finding
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: the fastest, most efficient way to fifty percent plus one,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: to seize whatever power you can seize. And I'll just
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: end with something we were taught by our parents as
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: little kids. Two wrongs never make a rip. So sorry
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: for sounding a bit sort of self righteous about it
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: or sanctimonious about it, but I've really been depressed about this.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: I can't stand how Democrats are doing this. I think
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: it is absolutely disastrous that they're doing this now. I
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: think they're going to hurt themselves. I think they're going
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: to turn off a group of voters. They're going to
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: go look for another alternative. They're not going to go
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: to the Republicans. Republicans are filled with corruption, But I
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: think the Democrats, I think this is you know, the
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: brand's already in bad shape. Why double down and make
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: it worse? You know, I look at this massive surge
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: of independent registrations among young voters who are refusing to
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: register with either of the two major parties. That is
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: their protest against the two major parties. And behaving more
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: partisanally is not a way to appeal this to the
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: fastest growing block of voters in America. So that's why
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: I think it's self defeating. By the way, be confrontational,
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: but be confrontational and be principled. This doesn't mean surrendering.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: Just means waging a campaign. It means recruiting candidates that
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: can win anywhere in the country. It means trying to
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: compete everywhere in the country. You're only going to eradicate
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: Trumps and when you convince Republicans of how bad it
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: is for them. I may be naive and pollyannish, but
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: I think every problem, every problem that we're facing, can
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: be confronted with an aggressive, small D democratic campaign. And
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: this idea of just trying to create districts to avoid
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: dealing with voters who may not always agree with you
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: all the time is no way to fix polarization and
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: it's no way to move the country forward. So that's
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: why I just think this is this is self defeating.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: If one side is cheating, it doesn't justify cheating to
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: stop them all. Right. Next question, this is a fun,
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: non political one. So they promise, if Major League Baseball
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: expands and realigns into smaller divisions, how would you structure it?
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: You know, there's some rumors that they're going to go
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: if they add two teams, or they're going to go
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: to eight divisions of four. I think, right, what factors
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: would you prioritize, geography, rivalries or competitiveness, And what do
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: you think the league would actually do? And where do
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: you see a team like the Phillies fitting into that mix?
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: Thanks Jr. And Chevy Chase ps. Despite living in the DMB,
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: I'm from the Lehigh Valley and a diehard Phillies fans.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: Feels like they could be a pivot team. Do they
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: end up in a division with the Yankees, Mets, and
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: Red Sox, or do they stay grouped with the Nats
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: in more of an NL style setup. Yeah, I've seen
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: this back and forth. First of all, let me just
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: first put on a wish list. I would love to
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: see some form of relegation of divisional realignment in some way.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: I think that the game is so national now and
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: all of this that if you make sort of if
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: you group divisions. I had this. I wrote this column
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: got thirty years ago back when I used to write
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: a column called on the Trail for National Journal, and
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: I did a whole thing on if you had grouped
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: the team's by payroll size. So the idea was like,
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: let's let the Pirates and the A's compete in the
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: same division if they're going to be small market teams,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: and then have the Dodgers and Yankees compete in the
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: same division if they're going to be the big market teams. Right,
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: you just do it by payroll and then you create
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: a strategy. Right, Oh, well, maybe we won't spend you know,
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: we'll spend a little bit less this year. See if
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: we can compete in a division with the Saint Louis
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: Cardinals or Milwaukee Brewers or whatever. But that was that's unrealistic,
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: and I get that. As for what you're asking to
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: be grouped about. I think the one thing we've learned
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: about baseball, and it's it's been true, is that baseball
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: really is a local, regional sport, and the more you
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: group it geographically, the better. Now I'll say this, here's
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: where I'm torn about your Phillies. I want the Phillies
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: with the Pirates, right, right, The Phillies and Pirates need
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: to be in the same division. The question is are
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania teams. Should the Pennsylvania teams be with the
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: Ohio teams or should the Pennsylvania teams be with the
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: mid Atlantic teams? Right? And I think that that's right.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: Philly obviously is in east coast city. Pittsburgh is not.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: And that's why one became east, one became central. And
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: maybe this is my own childhood when Phillies Pirates, you know,
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: that was a really good rivalry for in the late seventies.
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: Those were just two great teams late seventies, early eighties,
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: those Phillies Pirates teams. So I and maybe there's so
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: it could be my own nostalgia where I missed that.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: I missed that rivalry a little bit. But when you're
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: putting in I think, so what are we going to
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: have to you know, look, you the Red Sox would
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: probably drop would probably drop out of MLB if they
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: weren't in the same division as the Yankees. Right They're
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: they're sort of defined by being in the same division
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: as the Yankees. So you're going to have Red Sox Yankees.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: The question is you you know, I don't want to
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: see the Yankees and Mets in the same division. There's
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: the reason, you know, put them, keep them in the
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: different leagues. And I think that that's a good thing.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: And if you're not going to put Philly and Pittsburgh
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: in the same division, do you put them in different leagues?
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I just throw that out there, but
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: I could see I could make an argument for a
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: division that was Philly, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Cincinnati. So you
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: put Ohio and Pennsylvania together. I believe those For me,
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: those two states have more in common with each other
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: than either one of those states has in common with
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: any other state that it borders on. You can make it,
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: you know, there's no baseball team in New Jersey seeking
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: so right, and you know, Pennsylvania and Ohio both feel
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: right there. They're sort of they're they're the bridge from
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: the East to the to the Midwest. So if we're
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: going to do these eight divisions of four, that feels
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: like a pretty good squad. Now, my guess is you
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: might miss the rivalry with the Mets. You might miss
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: the rivalry with the Braves. We're also likely to have
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: a team in Nashville. What do you do with that
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: Nashville team? Although I think now so then what I
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: think what I would do there is then you would
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: have Mets, Washington, Nashville, Atlanta. Right. There's been some talk
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: though of a Southeast division. Right, you might have Miami.
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: This idea of and this I agree with, put Miami
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: and Tampa uh in Tampa Bay in the same in
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: the same league and slash same division. So do Miami, Tampa, Atlanta, Nashville.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: Is that a Southeast? And then you have Washington, the Mets,
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: and I guess we're starting to you know, then you
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: have this Northeast thing. Is it suddenly Nats, Mets, Yankees,
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: Red Sox or where are the Oriols in this is
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: it Nats and Oriels in the same do you want
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: to keep them split? So you're I mean, look, I
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: could make a case for phil Baltimore, Washington and the
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: Mets in one division two, right, So but I guess
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: I come down to I think, I think I want
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: regional I certainly want in state rivalries preserved if that's possible.
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: But then the question is when do you keep them
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: in state and when do you split them up into
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: the two leagues? Right, feels like the Mets and the
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: Yankees should stay in different leagues, but that Pittsburgh and Philly,
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: since they've both been to National League teams forever, then
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: keep them in the same league and in the same division, right,
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: keep Washington and Baltimore in the different leagues. So look,
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: you know what this is going to be. This is
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: going to be quite the negotiation by different owners, right,
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: who are going to care because this is a case
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: where remember, ticket sales are one of the few things
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: that owners keep. That revenue is their revenue. That's not revenue.
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: They have to share it as much of than the
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: other revenue that they have to share. But it's a
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: You're right, Philly is a pivot team. You could they
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: could become part of the East, one of these East
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: Coast divisions, or you could do what I described and
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: making them sort of this Ohio Valley if you will division.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: And like I said, I know Philly's fans, I think
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't mind the Pittsburgh bringing in the Pittsburgh very
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: but I'm guessing that you could care less about Cleveland
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: or Cincinnati. But this will be uh, this will be interesting. Look,
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: I know people hate change, especially these long and the
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: legacy at baseball, but look, the Houston Astros have moved
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: from the National League in the American League and the
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: World survived. The Milwaukee Brewers moved from the American League
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: in the National League and the World survived. The Atlanta
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: Braves were once in the NL West and baseball survived.
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: You know, the Chicago Cubs have been in the East.
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: They've been in It was so weird. I I used
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: to you know, as a kid. You want to talk
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: about these days, right, the college football conferences have no
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: geographic consistency whatsoever. But it wasn't that long ago where
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: the American League team in Chicago was in the American
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: League West and the National League team from Chicago was
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: in the National League East, and of course in Chicago
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: they're divided in north south, but in baseball they were
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: divided east west. Right. Go explain that to your geography teacher,
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: will you? Fun question. I don't have a good answer
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: other than I think I leaned on I guess I
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: leaned towards this idea of putting phillies and pirates together,
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: and I think what you could do phillies, pirates orioles
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: now anyway? Just another thought? All right? Next question, greading
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: from Soggy Seattle Love the podcast part of my Daily Walks.
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: You've mentioned the possibility of a viable third party candidate.
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: I think someone like Liz Chane or Adam Kinsinger could
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: actually have a shot, or is the political environment is
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: still too polarized for that kind of path to work?
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: Thanks Tim, So, I think that path only works as
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: if it comes from if it's in tandem with another
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: sort of person who leaves their party on the other side. Right,
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: if you had, you know, Adam Kinsinger and Ram Emmanuel
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: right running as sort of a cross partisan ticket, I
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: don't know. I'm just throwing two names out there. I
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: say this because I feel like rom is sort of
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: zagging while the rest of the Democratic Party is zigging
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: at the moment. But I also don't think that Ram's
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: resume is going to make it easy for him to
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: appeal to Democratic primary voters who want new and who
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: want to break from the past. I think he's campaigning
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: as a candidate who's trying to break from the past,
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: but I think his resume is going to make that difficult.
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: But if he left the Democratic Party to pursue the
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: presidency as an independent or is a third party in
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: a way to sort of also, you know, sort of
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: try to merge sort of this sort of the party
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: for the rest of us type of mindset, right, you know,
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: maybe then a Cansinger makes sense on that front or
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: something like that. I will tell you this, I would
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: love to go back to a you know, I always
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: wanted to see Kamala Harris promise to make Liz Cheney
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: DHS secretary during the campaign that you're sending the signal
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: that look, you're going to have Republicans in the cabinet,
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: You're gonna have conservatives in the cabinet, and you're going
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: to put a conservative Republican in charge of DHS. Anyway,
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: it was just a that would have been an interesting Now,
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: you can't promise jobs, right, it's a violation you could
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: technically get in trouble, so you can't promise specific positions.
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: But it should have been hinted at in some form
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: or another, but they never did on that, so that
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: could be I still think that the most viable third
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: party candidate is not going to be somebody that has
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: run for elective office and either the D side or
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: the R side. I think the most viable third party
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: candidate is going to be somebody who's never run before,
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: who maybe served the country in the military, serve the
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: country in another capacity, you know, maybe as chairman of
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: the FED and then and then ran as sort of
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: a deep polarizer that way. So I'm a little more
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: skeptical that if you did what I described Kinsinger, Ram
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: ram Kinsinger, or list any of that that then it
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: would have a hard time appealing to younger independents who
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: are looking for a true break from the past. Right,
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: And even if politicians are breaking from their party, they may,
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know how credible they'd be as change agents. Two,
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: what is I think among the fastest growing parts of
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: this independent electorate, which is voters under the age of forty.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from Christy and she writes, thanks for
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: all the years of great reporting the podcast as a
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: must listen. I concur so thank you. Yes, please tell
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: your friends and neighbors. After recent incidents of reporters being
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: publicly attacked, why doesn't the press pool ever collectively push
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: back or draw a line on that kind of treatment?
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: Is it just the competitive nature of access journalism or
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: is there a broader reason we don't see more unified responses?
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: Thanks go bucks, Christy. Look, I don't know. I mean,
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: you know, I regularly spoke up when these things would
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: happen back certainly in the first term. You know, I
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: think that there's a you know, I think what stops
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: some reporters is that you don't want to constantly. You know,
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: this is the trap of Trump. Right. He attacks reporters,
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: and the minute reporters defend themselves, they look like they're
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: being partisan because they've been a because they're pushing back
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: against a partisan right. You know. It's like I always
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: try to remind my conservative friends just because someone's not
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: a conservative doesn't mean they're a liberal right, and same
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: on the left. Just because somebody's not a progressive doesn't
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: mean they're a right winger, right. It could very well
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: mean there's somewhere in between. And so I think that
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: I do think some of this is access journalism. And
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: I think that now that said, I'm somebody who believes
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: in trying to cover this place as dispassionately as possible.
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: But you got to stand up for the First Amendment,
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: You got to stand up for the press, yes, but
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: in defense of those that don't stand up when when
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: the comp when when your employer won't stand up and
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: defend it makes it harder for the individual reporter to
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: feel like that that they have that there's any safety
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: in numbers. And you know, whether it's Disney and what
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: they did with Stephanopoulos hanging him out to dry like
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: that and not using the constitution to defend themselves, or
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: it's CBS doing what they're doing with that stupid settlement
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: with sixty minutes again refusing to use the constitution. They're
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: you know, refusing to use their constitutional rights. It sends
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: a chilling message to individual reporters who work for these entities,
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: who feel as if if they stand up, their employer
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: is not going to have their back and everybody. You know, look,
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: reporters have bills to pay too. So now the other
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: thing to remember about the White House press corps is
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: that there it has been diluted with sort of fake reporters,
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: basically sycophants, you know, cherry picked supporters of the administration
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: who pretend they're reporters, but who are there really to
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: just troll journalism and sort of own the libs and
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: so it create and so that also means that there
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: isn't going to be an attempt to speak with one voice, right,
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, look what happened at the Pentagon. Traditional reporters
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: tried to speak with one voice, and all of these
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: sort of fake you know reporters or fledgling influence machines
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: fill the void, and then suddenly the Pentagon press core
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: gets diluted. But there's also a way to push back.
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: You know, you don't want to always push back in
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: a hysterical way. You know, you just sort of push
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: back matter of factly, and you try to do it
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: with facts. You know, there's some people who who get
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: really defensive too quickly in how they do it, and
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: I think it just it ends up making us all
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: look worse, which was the not the intent. It does
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: make it look like it's a partisan hit and it's
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: a partisan response, so I think some of that is there.
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: But look, I think the biggest reason you don't see
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: the pushback that you saw in the first term is
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure these major news organizations have the backs
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: of their reporters. And I will tell you this. Reporters
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: don't think their employers have their backs, which is why
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: they're much more careful than they have been. So, you know,
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: you could say we've already lost a little bit of
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: our constitutional rights just via intimidation of the corporations that
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: own certain news organizations. Mike and Honolulu writes, first, congrats
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: on your daughter's graduation. What a great milestone. Hey, she
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: did all the work, so congrats to her. You've talked
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: before about the possibility of a party collapsing, and recently
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: mentioned that if a handful of major Democratic figures left
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: together could seriously weaken the party, who would those key
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: figures be and what else would need to happen, especially
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: with Downers, for that kind of shift to actually take hold. Thanks,
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: as always, I think it has to be ideologically diverse
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: within the party, right for this to work, right, Bernie
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: Sanders already isn't a member of the Democratic Party, but
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: you'd want Bernie Sanders and Josh Shapiro in the same
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: group essentially, and then fill in the blank, right, Mark Kelly, Raphaeld, Warnot,
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: Gretchen Whitmer, AOC. You know, it's almost like the left
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: and the center of the Democratic Party just says, you
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: know what, this brand is shit, and it is. The
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: legacy is is harder and harder to defend. It's time
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: to start the Freedom and a Dependence Party. And here
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: the you know, it's so it's I'm not saying every
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: one of those people name, but I think for it
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: to have if you had a cross ideological group of
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: by the way of Democrats to do this, then I
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: think you would have it would at least give you
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: an opening with I think these younger independent voters who
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: have total distrusted both parties saying, okay, what you know,
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: what is this new Freedom and Independence Party about? But look,
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: there's the technical issues have to do with ballot access,
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: have to do with all these state laws and stuff,
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: and that's that's the hard part of it. But if
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: you're asking me what, what how would that how how
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: would that collapse work? Is it's literally I would start saying,
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: it starts in my head with Sanders and a Shapiro right,
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: which is sort of arguably an opposite ends of the
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: of the of the two Democratic ends of the coalition,
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: and you know, throwing Andy Basheer Wes more, you know,
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: but that's what it would have to look like. And
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: it would be those names in there that would left,
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: and maybe you recruit a guy like Barack Obama to
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: go along with it as well. But I think that's
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: what it would look like, you know, especially if you say, look,
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: this Democratic Party is just not equipped to confront the
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: challenges of the twenty first century. We need a new
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: coalition party. And this coalition party is going to be
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: home to both progressives and center left folks, and it's
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: going to be a little more of a coalition and
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: then you have more open prime right, whatever you get.
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: There's a variety of ways you could do this, but
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: there is a point where sometimes you might just need
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: to change the brand name. Right, do you remember Philip Morris,
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: There was a point where their brand was unrecoverable, so
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: they became Altria. Are we there yet? With the Democratic brand, right,
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: we were kind of there with the Republican brand, which
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: is why Trump sort of rebranded at Magan. Just something
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: to think about, all right. Last question and uh comes
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: from Raj g in Indianapolis, and he writes he have
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: been following the recent developments around tariffs, especially after the
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: Court of International Trades struck down the Section one twenty
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: two tariffs. What do you what do you see happening next?
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: As it said back through appeals and potentially the Supring Quarter,
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: can we end up with overlapping refund issues? And as
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: July approaches, as our likelihood the administration will shift to
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: another mechanism like Section three oh one. In In your thoughts,
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: roj Genianapple Appolis, Indiana, PS. I'm an independent mourning the
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: retribution taken against Indiana State senators for doing what they believers. Right, Yeah,
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: I you know it is it is what it is, right,
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: This is this is a party that has been that
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: certainly has a president who wants to purge. He is
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: not interested in having people who disagree with him inside
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: the party. And I would just put that challenge out
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: to people who consider themselves Republicans. Do you want to
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: be a member of a party that won't let you
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: disagree with Donald Trump on anything. Just something to keep
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: in mind. Look, I uh, I do think we're going
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: to have that this gets struck down again. I think
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: they know this gets struck down again. I think, and
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: we could have competing refund issues, but there are I'll
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: tell you what's been going on right now is the
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: law being community has been quietly telling companies that if
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: you don't want the wrath of Trump, don't ask for refunds,
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: which is pretty tough on smaller businesses who would like
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: refunds from their bigger suppliers, who then if they pay
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: the refunds, they need to get it, you know. So
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: this thing could be costing a lot of people money
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: and I do believe they will try to shift to
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: another mechanism. Look, he this is what he doesn't have
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: many things that he believes in. He really believes in
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: the in these teriffs. But he believes in them not
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: for the reasons he you know, he believes in them
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: because he wants leverage. He just sees tariffs as a
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: way for him to control commerce, him to control this stuff,
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: and it does give him control, right, We've seen it.
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: The lobbying community in d C. I've talked to them.
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: They don't lobby Congress anymore. You know what corporations want,
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: They hire people that can get them into the Oval
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: office to have to lobby one person. And it's exactly
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: the way Donald Trump likes it. So what he likes
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: best about garofs are not all the variety of ways
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: that perhaps you can you know, it's a way to tax.
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: In his head, he thinks he's taxing others rather than Americans.
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: What he doesn't understand, or maybe he does and doesn't care,
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: is that it's it's essentially a tax that gets passed
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: off on the American consumer. But the reason he's going
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: to continue that if these get told that they're unconstitutional,
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: he will go to another mechanism because he wants the leverage.
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: And the fact is it is it has he has
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: gotten the desired outcome out of it, which is everybody's
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: dealing directly with him, and he wants one on one
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: deal making. Doesn't believe in multilateralism, right, and so doing
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: this country by country, doing this sector by sector has
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: people ow he's coming to him for relief, Like it's
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: not tariffs that he believes in it's the leverage that
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: he believes in. And because that's what he believes, then
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: the answer to your question is, yes, he is going
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: to shift to another mechanism like Section three oh one
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: if the other mechanism gets shut down as unconstitutional because
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: he wants to be he controls it. And it's you know,
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: it's whether it's a way to have power, whether a
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: way to self enrichment in order to exert leverage. There's
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: also a variety of ways that this leverage can benefit him,
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: both politically puts them at the center of everything, and
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: in many ways is certainly led to plenty of financial
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: success for his own family. All Right, I'm gonna put
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: a pin in and in this there's one other thing
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: I am. I have not celebrated the incredible early results
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: of the Nats. They are one game below five hundred
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 1: after taking two or three from the Oriols. By the way,
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: Baltimore Oriols fans call your office, what a disaster this
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: is turning into. But I digress. The Nats are one
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: game below five hundred through nearly fifty games, and they're
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: the worst fielding team in the league. They lead the
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: league in airs, they lead the entire Major League Baseball
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: in airs, and they have the highest ERA in the
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: National League and they're only one game below five hundred.
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: Imagine if this team could field and pitch. I think
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: what this new regime has done with the Nationals lineup
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: is just remarkable. It's transformational. Jacob Young, they have fixed
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: it appears they have essentially fixed his batting stance, and
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: he has become a frankly, a good hitter, a reliable hitter,
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: and he's already one of the best defensive center fielders
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: in baseball. But this management of the lineup by these
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: young guys has been amazing. Their their game plan, they're hitting,
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: game plan every game is fantastic. And like I said,
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: what I really am impressed with, and this is the
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: sort of the Ray's way. What I'm impressed with is
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: they every game they have a game plan to win
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: that game. And you know, this is the raise the
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 1: way the Rays have been playing for a while. And
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden you show up and you're like,
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: holy shit, the Race have ninety two wins and you
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: can't name a single player on their team and their
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: lineup changes all the time. Well that's the Nats, you know,
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: there's a couple of guys that are always the same
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: James Wood of course, c j Abrams, but almost everybody
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: else gets moved around, reshuffled, all sorts of parts of
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: the lineup. Are they in? Are they out? So Hey,
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: we're not quite a third of the way in this
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: season yet not quite. We're getting close. We're almost, we
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: might say we're at the third No, not quite. Be
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: the another couple of weeks we'll we'll hit the one
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: third mark. But I have to say I love everything
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: I'm seeing now. Look, the bullpen is a mess. We
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: could use another starting pitcher, Caid Cavalibo. We've got at
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: least one great starter in Caid Cavali. But if we
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: can clean up the fielding, that's three or four more
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: wins right there. So needless to say. While I've been
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: filled with most of this episode with a lot of
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: pessimism about America's role standing in the world, about American
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: politics and the state of polarization, and the fact that
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: nobody in either major party seems to care about the
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: rest of us right now, I am really optimistic about
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: the Washington Nationals. So with that, I will see you
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: Tuesday night for live election coverage. We've got the Georgia
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: primaries Kentucky primaries in particular, those are the two big
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: ones that we're gonna be paying attention to, but they're
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: not the only ones. A one of the busier primary
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: nights of the year, and we're gonna have live coverage
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: my Friends and Decision death S, HQ, Jeffrey s Kelley,
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: Chris Slizza, and our team here at the Chuck Podcast. Then,
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: of course Wednesday and I have a whole slew of
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 1: incredible interviews coming up then I think you won't want
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: to miss. So with that, I'll see in forty eight hours.
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: Thanks for subscribing, thanks for liking, and I'll see you
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: Snay