Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Trump’s “To The Victor Goes The Spoils” Diplomacy + How Independents Can Break The Logjam In D.C.

Transcript

Full Episode - Trump’s “To The Victor Goes The Spoils” Diplomacy + How Independents Can Break The Logjam In D.C. · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: over exactly this. Companies that branded themselves as unbiased while
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: allegedly pointing people toward whatever would pay them the most
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: as some sort of broker. So if your default is
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to distrust everyone in this space, honestly, I get it.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
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  Speaker 1: Medicare advisors whose entire model is that their advisors are
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: not paid to push any one plan. They're just trying
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to help. Yes, there's compensation that goes with it. but
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: it's across the board is what they're trying to do.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, they're advocating for you.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: They're not the insurance companies themselves. They're an actual person
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: who actually goes through your doctors, your prescriptions, your needs,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and then compares them to every single plan available to
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  Speaker 1: find the best one that will work for you and
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  Speaker 1: hopefully save you a couple dollars too. And here's the
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  Speaker 1: part that sets chapter apart. They don't disappear once you've
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  Speaker 1: been in They will keep advocating for you. They're kind
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  Speaker 1: of like almost like a concierge service. You're just there.
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  Speaker 1: I need help. You're like customer service. You know, the plan,
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  Speaker 1: you know, help me navigate this again. So you ever
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  Speaker 1: get hit with a wrongful medical bill, they'll help you
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: fight it. They want to stay an advocate for you
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: even after you've done this. So look, I get it.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Medicare and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: The whole point of this is to make this easier
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: already have in all of this, point it at your
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: own plan for 20 minutes. It's free. There's no pressure.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4200. three, nine, eight, five.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Hello there. And welcome to the Thursday episode of the
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Chuck Todd cast. We've got the long weekend episode coming up.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: So you know what that means? It means it ends
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: with a great college football preview. And trust me, I
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: don't have the most uplifting. One of my segments, is
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: it going to be the most uplifting? It's sort of
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the disaster that is America's role in the world. Um,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: So it's good to end the podcast on what is
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: going to be an incredible slate of college football games.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: When I went through it to prepare my preview for
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: this weekend, I was like, whoa, there are a couple
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: of playoff elimination games already. I'll get to that. We've
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: got some just key matchups. I think every conference features
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: something that could be quite consequential. And then, of course,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: it's the stuff we don't expect that college football usually
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: delivers as well. So that's the uplifting note. Let me
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: give you a full rundown of what to expect. My
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: conversations with Adam, the long conversation today is with Adam Brandon.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: And Adam is somebody who I've known back when he
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: was an activist with Freedom Works, which was one of
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: the original Tea Party organizations. Well, he's now working with
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the mansions trying to help independent candidates blow up the
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: two party system, if you will. and he works for
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: something called the Independence Center. And the conversation, I really
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: think you're going to enjoy it because he talks about
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: sort of the disappointment he had when he was in
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the reform space on the right side of the aisle, right?
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: He saw himself as a reformer coming at it from
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: a conservative point of view. And it's hard to be
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: a reformer in either party these days. And I think
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: that that's what a lot of people end up discovering,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: that if you truly want to reform the system, forget
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: which issues, but reform the system, you might be better
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: off working outside the system, for sure. So anyway, the
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: conversations with Adam Brandon about his work at the Independence Center,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: what he's doing, particularly we spent some time talking about
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: the Senate races that do feature the independents, including Todd
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Achilles in Idaho, Brian Bangs in South Dakota, Montana, and
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Seth Bodnar. You've got Dan Osborne in Nebraska. And also
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: probably the highest profile house race featuring an independent is
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Kevin Kiley, the former Republican who dropped the party label
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: to run as an independent in California. So that's a
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: good weekend conversation, a little nuts and bolts-y, but also
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I think understanding where the different sort of You know,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: every movement has various factions, including the unaligned movement, those
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: that are not with left or right, even in the
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: independent space. And I think Adam represents an intriguing point
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: of view there. I do before I get into a
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: couple of the couple of things I want to get
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: sort of set the table, if you will. One is.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Sort of a little update on the midterms. The other
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: is sort of the future of American foreign policy. I
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: am coming to you after just landing from a day
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: trip to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I sat down with
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: It's an interview that will air on my Newsphere show
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: this weekend. Sign up for Newsphere if you haven't. Get
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: your free trial so you can catch this interview. And
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: I focused my interview on a topic that most people
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: haven't asked him about, right? He's done a ton of
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: interviews and he gets a lot of the same questions
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: over and over. And I wanted to, instead of finding,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I think we all know what he believes. The question is,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: what kind of senator is he going to be? And
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: so I spent a lot of time with him on that.
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  Speaker 1: How can he translate his activism into the United States Senate?
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  Speaker 1: Because he's not the first outsider candidate who has promised
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: to really shake up that institution only to see the
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: institution essentially unshake it, if you will, right? And, you know,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: he's not the first one that thought, oh, you know,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: we're going to bring some youthful energy to this place.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: And the institution has a way of reining that in.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: And I've you know, I've watched left and right. Try it.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Mike Lee, Ted Cruz on the right. Cory Booker, Michael
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Bennett on the left. And it's it is I understand
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  Speaker 1: the desire. The institution makes it hard. But I really
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: think it focusing on that aspect of things. I mean, look,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: we got into a lot of stuff, some of it predictable,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: some of it unpredictable, but really focusing on what's realistic.
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  Speaker 1: How is he going to use the platform of a
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  Speaker 1: United States senator? How much of it is he going
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  Speaker 1: to be a big legislator? Is he going to be
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: a deliberator? And let's just say if you've spent some
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: time listening to him, watching him on the trail, and
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: the first thing he said to me, I'll give you
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: my one little sneak preview. He says, look, I want
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: it to be the world's most deliberative body. He's ready
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: to debate. And it'll be interesting to see How many
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: folks are really up for having a senator that comes
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: in and wants to sort of reinvigorate that process? Look,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: this century, that's kind of died, right? Great Senate debates
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: feel like they belong in an era before even I
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: started covering American politics. But I found the conversation fascinating, informative.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: And I think you will too. All right. So let's
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit about where we are less than
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: five weeks before, what are we at now? Less than, yeah,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: we're now at that five week, basically getting closer to
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: the five week mark before election day. And we're close
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: enough to election day that I don't think I need
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: to tell you about another poll to tell you how
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: the midterms are going. And these days you don't need
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: a poll. And I always say there's, you know, There's
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of nervousness. Are the polls accurate? Could they be,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: you know, is this one of those, you know, is
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: this just Democratic momentum? Are the polls off? Is there
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: going to be significant polling error that is underestimating the
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Republican vote? And a lot of times what I've been
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: telling you and how often I think you've heard me
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: say it recently is you don't have to just look
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: at the polls. Listen to what the candidates themselves are
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: saying and watch some of the behavior of some of
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: the candidates, right? And we've been chronicling right here on
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: the podcast over the last few weeks how you could
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: see the beginning of Republicans looking for a way to
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: escape Trump in one way or the other, whether it's
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: pushing back on him formally. And now you've gotten a
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: parade of Senate candidates in vulnerable Senate seats suddenly saying
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: they want to end the Iran war. Right. We heard
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: it from Mike Rogers. We heard from Ashley Hinson. We
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: heard it from John Husted. It is. So sometimes the
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: actions change. let you know whether the polls we've been
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: seeing are correct. But there's three leaders recently, J.D. Vance,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: the vice president, John Thune, the Senate Republican leader, and
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Tim Scott, who is running the NRSC, the campaign arm
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: for Senate Republicans. And they all made comments this week
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: that were some form of just give us more time.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: It's not over yet. Nobody was talking about the polls
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: are wrong. There's nothing to see here. Things are going swimmingly.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: And it's, in some ways, the talk, the chatter you're
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: getting out of Scott Vance and Thune actually is a
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: form of desperation. Let me get into the details a
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: little bit. So J.D. Vance earlier this week is out
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: there telling voters that, look, there's more work to do.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: It's going to take more time to recover. I've heard
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: this messaging before. And that Republicans need the support of
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: the American people to, quote, finish the job. So think about,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: and his words here were more work to do, take
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: more time, finish the job. Now, on one hand, it's
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: a form of humility, right? It's admitting this isn't Trump, right?
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Trump could not accept the premise that things aren't working
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: at the moment. Vance, in his own way, is accepting
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: the premise. He gets it. Hey, people aren't feeling good.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: They don't like this economy. He's trying to say, hey,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: we're trying to fix it. And this was a couple
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: of weeks ago, he was directly trying to say, this
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: is still Biden's economy. Nobody's buying that anymore. Now everybody
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: understands now the Iran war is what has really accelerated
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: what is this inflationary environment. But it's the closest form
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: of humility you're going to get out of the Trump
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: West Wing, right, is what Vance is doing. But it
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: is also an admission, right? If voters were already feeling
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the benefits of the Trump agenda, you wouldn't have to
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: tell voters to give it more time. You'd be saying,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: look around, look at what we did. You're better off. Instead,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Vance's argument is essentially, we know you're not feeling it yet.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Just give us another chance. And he's not alone, right?
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: John Thune talked about the Trump agenda and the big,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: beautiful bill as, you know, Republicans have set us up
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: for success. That's future tense. Doesn't mean we're feeling the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: success yet. And this was with Sean Hannity. He's talking
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: to the base. And he cannot bring himself to essentially
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: pretend things are better than they actually are. Tim Scott
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: was earlier this week telling Republican senators before they left,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: before they, you know, apparently the only thing they seem
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: to try to care about to get done is the
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: protect college sports bill. I mean, of all things, if
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: that's the last thing, you came back to Washington not
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: to lower the price of groceries, not to lower the
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: price of gas, but to somehow take money away from
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: college athletes. I know that's my spin to it, but
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: you get my point, right? You're more worried about appeasing
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Nick Saban than you are about lowering the price of groceries.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: You're more worried about helping out the SEC and the
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Big Ten than you are about lowering the cost of diesel.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Not the best look right now for a Republican Party
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: tried to justify their congressional majorities less than five weeks
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: before going into the election. But let me get into
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: a few more details of what Scott told his colleagues.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: According to Semaphore, Tim Scott said, we're in the fight
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: for our lives with a record number of toss up races.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: So this is Tim Scott being truthful about the environment.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: And his message was essentially, hey, remember 2022? Joe Biden
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: was unpopular. Everybody thought Democrats were headed for disaster. The
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: country didn't like that economy. And Democrats actually gained a
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Senate seat. So this was Scott's way. You know, it
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: reminded me there was a time and Democrats have stopped
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: doing this, but it wasn't just Democrats. There was a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: time when a candidate was down in the polls in
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the last week. They would invoke Harry Truman. Oh, you know,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Harry Truman, 1948. You know, everybody wrote him off, said
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: he couldn't win reelection. And lo and behold, he made
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: a comeback and he won. So you never know, right?
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: This was Tim Scott's attempt at the Harry Truman, the
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Harry Truman motivated speech. Hey, look what Democrats pulled off
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: in 2022. They turned the red wave into a red mirage.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: It's possible. Maybe the blue wave gets turned into a
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: blue mirage. But let's talk about 2022 for a minute
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: because Democrats had something in 2022 that Republicans don't appear
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: to have right now, the Dobbs decision. Dobbs is what
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: changed that election. Dobbs gave Democrats who didn't like their
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: own president, didn't love what was happening in the country,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: a reason to show up to the polls, right? And
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: there was a sense of urgency. Oh my God, abortion
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: rights is now, this is, there is something bigger than
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: ignoring a bad presidency, right? It gave swing voters a
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: reason to vote against Republicans, even if they weren't particularly
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: happy with the Democratic Party's governance. What is the Republican
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: equivalent right now of that? What's sitting out there that
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: changes the trajectory of this election in the final few weeks?
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: There's really nothing equivalent, right? They're trying some culture war issues.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: They're trying Trans athletes in sports and their gender reassignment
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: surgery stuff, right? You see they're trying so hard to
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: bubble this up into the zeitgeist and throw it out there.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: You see it in the ads. Elon Musk is creating
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: all sorts of just BS ads about it, but he's
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: trying so hard, right? He's got his own sort of
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: personal reason that he's obsessed with the trans issue. He's
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: still upset that he has a trans kid. And he
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: doesn't want to look in the mirror and he just
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: sort of wants to blame society for this issue. But
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure that creates a Dobbs level of enthusiasm
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: to show up to the polls to vote for the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: MAGA base. in some way. So it just, it doesn't exist.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: But what's interesting about all three together, right? Take what Vance, Thune,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and Scott are all saying. By the way, all these
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: comments have been said in the last 36 hours. This
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: is essentially what a football coach says at halftime when
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: his team is down four scores. Basically, hey guys, just
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: don't quit. Don't walk away. Don't lay down arms. You know,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: let's give it the good fight. You never know what
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: could happen. Maybe there's a turnover. Maybe there's this. And sure,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: about one out of 50 times, a team down four
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: scores comes back and win. Doesn't happen very often, but
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: it can happen. So sure. And obviously, if you quit now,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: bad can get worse in a hurry, right? And to me,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: what Scott, Vance, and Thune were trying to do is
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: prevent a tsunami. They're basically saying, hey, don't give up yet.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Please continue to give money. Please continue to show up.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: because if you just walk away now, if you sort
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: of throw in the towel, well, then it's not just
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: five Senate seats that you could lose. It's seven or eight, right?
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: You know, don't let the bottom, right? The bottom falling
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: out would mean South Carolina, Mississippi, maybe even South Dakota, right? Unlikely,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: completely unlikely, but that's what a tsunami does. It creates
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: political damage you had no idea was coming. But really what,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: what this Republican messaging is all about is, hey, there's
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: still a little bit of time left. They have more money.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: If they can spend that money, talk to their voters,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: bring out their base, maybe they can mitigate the damage, right?
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Who knows? Maybe you have some success. Maybe you get
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: lucky in New Hampshire and you flip a seat and
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: you change the math. Maybe you get lucky in Minnesota.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Maybe you get lucky in Michigan. Those seem to be
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: the three Democratic-held seats that Republicans have a realistic shot
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: at making competitive. North Carolina and Georgia, by the way,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: looks like they've been completely written off. But the thing is,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: is when you hear comments like this, just like when
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: you're hearing a football coach trying to tell a team
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: losing by four scores that all hope is not lost,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: what it does say is When a coach is having
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: to do that, a coach knows his players are starting
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: to wonder whether actually all hope is lost. And that's
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: what these Republican messages sound like to me. It's getting
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: late early. Early voting has already begun in a handful
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: of states. And there's, you know, to start changing the
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: trajectory of a race, you need a couple weeks. Well,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: if we're down to five weeks, right, if we're down
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: to less than six weeks here, right, and we're sitting
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: in there, how much time do you really have? I've
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: said that basically the end of this month, we're kind
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: of going to know where everything is. We'll have an
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: idea by the 1st of October whether any of this
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: late TV advertising that has certainly saturated your Ohio's, your Iowa's,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: and your Texas's, whether it has had any meaningful impact. Now,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: I do think we may see more people voting later,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: by the way. I know one. I know I said
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: it's getting late early, you know, using a Yogi Berra ism.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: But these days, because of the early vote, it is.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: But I do think because of the shenanigans Trump has
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: attempted to do with mail-in voting, we're seeing some evidence
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: in polling that a lot of Democrats may wait later
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: to vote, may decide to vote in person or early
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: in person rather than just through the mail. So I
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: guess perhaps you could say there might be a little
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: more runway for Republicans in and that Democrats might not
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: bank as many votes early here. But I do promise
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: you this, any votes that get banked early are likely
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: going to be Democratic votes. Hey, you know those pieces
• 20:19
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• 20:22
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• 20:25
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• 20:28
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• 20:33
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• 20:54
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• 20:57
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• 21:01
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• 21:05
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• 21:33
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• 21:43
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• 21:46
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• 22:16
  Speaker 1: dot com slash chucked. It brings me to Donald Trump.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: If Trump is going to try to change the political
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: environment over the next few weeks, there is one place
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: where he clearly understands he has to do it, and
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: it's prices, which brings us to diesel. The White House
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: is now preparing to respond to all of the Republicans
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: in swing states, particularly in the Midwest, who are panicked
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: about the price of diesel. They are preparing a proposal
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: for what is a 90-day ban on diesel exports. But
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: apparently there's a fight inside the administration over whether to
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: actually do it, because not everybody thinks this is a
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: good idea. And in fact, it may be like pretty
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: much most of Trump's financial ideas, right? He's borrowing from
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the future to try to get something now. And instead,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: when he mortgages the future, he's making it more costly
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: down the road. I get why Trump's desperate to do it, right?
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Diesel is north of six bucks a gallon and probably
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: more likely to get to seven than it is to
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: get below six. And we know diesel just doesn't affect
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: somebody driving a diesel truck. It's farmers. It is the
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: fuel for our ag economy. Hard stop, right? It's how
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: the food gets to your grocery store. Diesel is what
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: powers food to get to your grocery store. It's how
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: the stuff you order gets to your house. Eventually, the
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: price of diesel shows up in the price of almost everything.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: So here comes the idea that sounds great on a
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: bumper sticker. Stop exporting American diesel. Let's keep as much
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: supply as we can here to keep costs down. Okay.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Sounds reasonable, except there's a reason even Trump's own energy
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: secretary reportedly is fighting the idea. And here's why. Refineries
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: don't make gasoline over here and diesel over there. Okay.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: It isn't two separate products in two separate refineries. These
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: products are actually produced together. Gas for your car and
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: the diesel for, for, for, uh, the products that need
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: diesel fuel like tractors, et cetera. If refiners suddenly can't
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: sell all that excess diesel overseas, they'll start to cut
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: refinery production. Well, what does that do? Well, then you
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: end up producing less gasoline. So you may lower diesel's
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: price temporarily and simultaneously raise the cost of a gallon
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: of gas. literally robbing Peter to pay Paul. And this
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: gets the predicament Trump is in, right? He needs something
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: voters can feel in a matter of weeks, right? He's
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: desperate for something, anything. He doesn't have time to announce
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: some grand economic policy that might produce benefits in 18 months.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Although he tried that, I'll send you a $ 5, 000 check
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: if you keep Republicans in power. He's desperate to bring
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: down prices or to get put money in or be
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: perceived to be trying to put money in the pocket
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: of his voters. And I expect we're going to actually
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: have a lot of attempts at Iranian diplomacy over the
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: next few weeks. Because I have a feeling he's going
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: to use opportunities for diplomacy simply to try to jawbone
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: down prices. One day it will be Iran better watch out.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: The next day, hey, we had a great conversation. And
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: then he hopes somehow the price of gas goes down.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: We're close to a deal, he may tell us. Although
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: regret it if they don't make a deal because he
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: realizes the Iranians are not blind to our political calendar, folks.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: And they know they have a lot more leverage over
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Trump after the election than they do at the moment.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: How do we know this? Trump himself said it during
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: his speech to the UN. He goes, they think they're
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: going to have more leverage over me. Well, they won't.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: The narrator, this is the part where the narrator jumps in,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: in the voice of Ron Howard and says, Oh, yes,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: they do. And so I suspect over the next couple
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: of weeks, you're going to be hearing about how close
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: we are to a deal. We've had some great conversations.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: We just heard it over during this UN week, right?
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: The objective is obvious. Anything to convince the markets to
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: bring energy prices down, right? He will say, we've got
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: oil moving through the strait. All the independent reporting has indicated, no,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: you don't. But again, it's about jawboning, buying time, et cetera.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know if markets are going to listen, right?
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: The more he does this, and he's kind of done
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: this crying wolf with a deal with Iran now for
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: pretty much the entire time that he started this war.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: And so your credibility with everybody wears over time. And
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: more and more, fewer will believe it. So markets may
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: not believe it. And at this point, are voters going
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: to believe it? And that's the most important question. Ultimately,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: you can't job own somebody's grocery bill there. And that's
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: the problem Republicans are trying to solve with very little
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: time left to solve it. Now, let's go to the
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Democratic side of the aisle, because there's another fascinating problem
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: developing on that side. It's money. And specifically, it's the
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: inability of the party at the moment to suddenly invest
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: in races that many people thought would not be that
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: competitive six months ago, but suddenly are now. But this
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: is where the finance problem that Democrats have been facing
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: all cycle long, going back to going into deep debt
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: for the 2024 campaign, is this money problem was going
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: to show up somewhere. And the question was, was it
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: going to cost them a shot at control of Congress
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: or was it going to cost them an opportunity to
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: turn a blue wave into a blue tsunami? At this point,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: it looks like at a minimum, it's going to cost
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: them an opportunity to turn and a blue wave into
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: a blue tsunami. There are three races in particular where
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party's money problems are preventing them from having
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: a real opportunity at flipping these long shot races. Mississippi Senate,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: South Carolina Senate, and Florida Governor. And Mississippi and South
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Carolina are particularly interesting to me because these aren't very
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: expensive states in the grand scheme of things. Scott Cullum
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: in Mississippi has Democratic officials in the state publicly pleading
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: with the national party to invest. Annie Andrews, the Democratic
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: nominee in South Carolina, you would think now that South
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Carolina is first in line for the Democratic presidential race,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: that there'd be a lot of presidential candidates that would
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: be motivated to help her. And I've been, I have
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: to say, I think that there's so many Democrats running
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: around who would like to be considered presidential candidates in 2028,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I think they've missed two incredible opportunities here to essentially
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: prove that they know how to be a party leader
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: and prove that they can marshal resources on behalf of
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: a candidate in one state. You want to demonstrate leadership
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party? Pick one. Pick Mississippi. Pick South Carolina.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Bring your own fundraising network to the state. Bring your
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: own donors. Bring attention. Raise money for your own super
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: PAC on their behalf. Show that you want to be
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: leader of the party as well as leader of the
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: free world. This opportunity has been sitting there, whether you're
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Andy Beshear, whether you're Rahm Emanuel, whether you're J.B. Pritzker,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: whether you're Wes Moore. Now, I know some folks have
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: their own races to worry about. Okay. There's plenty that don't. Right.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom could have done. There's a lot of folks
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: that could have done this. And they've, you know, they've
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: shown up in Mississippi to do, you know, a few
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: people have shown up to Mississippi to do an event
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: or two with the candidate. Ditto in South Carolina. But
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: none of them have said, you know what, instead of
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: just trying to hopscotch around the country, I'm going to
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: do everything I can to turn a red state blue. Anyway,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: with all these ambitious people wanting to be president, it's
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: amazing to me that none of them saw this opportunity
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: to demonstrate some leadership that would have been unique and
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: something that would have allowed them to stand out, particularly
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: with the single most important constituency in a Democratic presidential primary,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: African-American voters. But look, the other issue is this is
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: welcome to the Democratic Party's money problem. Now, the big
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: one is Florida. And Florida's different. Florida is entering the
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: category Texas had occupied for Democrats for a couple of cycles.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: By the time everybody looks up now in Florida and says,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, this race might be competitive, it's too
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: late to invest because it's such an expensive state. Florida
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: is enormous. It's not as enormous as Texas, but it's
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: a lot closer than you think. The media markets are expensive.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: And it is, just like in Texas, You can't decide
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: in late September that you're going to dump an extra
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: 20 to 30 million dollars into a state if you
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: didn't budget for it. And frankly, to just suddenly show
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: up and do this from scratch. So, look, I don't
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: think the Democratic Party's money problems are going to cost
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: them an opportunity to win the House or the Senate.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Money is not going to be the reason why if
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: they come up short in the House or come up
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: short in the Senate, that is not going to be
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: the reason. But if this doesn't turn, if they have
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: a blue wave that could have been turned into a
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: blue tsunami and they come less than three points short
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: in Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, those three are as good
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: of a test as any. That's where you can point
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: the finger at the Democratic Party's money woes as being
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: the explanation of why they came up, why they couldn't
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: take advantage of an opportunity that is just sitting there.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Mississippi is just sitting there. South Carolina is just sitting there.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Florida governor is a lot more expensive, but it's also possible.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: But like I said, like what used to happen to Texas, right?
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: This is the first cycle where Democrats actually planned to
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: put Texas in play more than a year out. They
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: were not thinking that at all in the state of Florida.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: And now that the opportunity stares them in the face,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: it's probably too late. Maybe it's not. You never know.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: The bottom could fall out, but it might be too late.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: All right. Now I want to shift gears because I
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: want to talk about something that I know isn't going
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: to decide very many votes in November, which is why
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: I'm not leading with this. But it may matter a
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: hell of a lot longer than whatever happens this November or, frankly,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: in November of 2028. Donald Trump went to the United
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Nations earlier this week and gave another one of those
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: speeches that I think Americans hear one way and the
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: rest of the world hears very different. We kind of
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: shrug our shoulders to his gobbledygook and move on. But
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: there was one line that stopped me. And I gave
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: you a preview with it in the previous episode. Trump
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: was bragging about Venezuela. The oil agreement administration, it struck
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: with the government now running the country. Although, again, it's
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: an illegitimate government. At least we used to claim it
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: was an illegitimate government, right? It's the Maduro crime family, essentially,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: still running Venezuela, except They now, instead of reporting to Maduro,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Delcy Rodriguez reports to Trump. But he said the line,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: to the victor belong the spoils. At the United Nations,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: the president of the United States of America, the country
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: that was one time a beacon for freedom and democracy.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Think about the message that sends. Because everybody else gets
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: to hear it too. And this gets at what I
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: think has become a fundamental problem with Trump's foreign policy.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: People sometimes say it's incoherent. I don't think it's fully incoherent.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: There's some consistencies to it, right? There is a coherency.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: The coherency is Donald Trump, right? It revolves around him,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: his instincts, his relationships, his grievances and whims. He doesn't
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: like multilateralism, right? That's a consistent policy. He wants to
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: deal with everybody one-on-one. I've always said the real reason
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: he loves tariffs is control. He doesn't really care up
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: or down. He just wants control. And tariffs give him
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: a perception of control in a relationship. He loves the
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: bilateral relationships, right? Because he somehow thinks it gives him
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: more leverage. All right. But you know what? The United
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: States doesn't unilaterally decide how the world works. They actually
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: used to be We used to be pretty influential to
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: help decide how the world works because we had credibility. Now,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: we may very well suddenly start being not quite a
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: shining city on a hill, but a shiny metal object
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: that people start to emulate in all the wrong ways.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: And that's the concern. And that's the damage that Donald
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Trump has done. And we're now seeing the consequences of
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: what happens when you create this sort of America first
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: foreign policy. If everything is America first and you don't
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: give a damn about what happens to the rest of
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: the world, guess what? Everybody else is going to follow suit.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Let's start. I think one of the great consequences of
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: lost trust and lost credibility is actually with Saudi Arabia.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: who I'm sure Donald Trump thinks is an incredible ally.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Certainly an incredible business partner to some members of his family.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: So the United States and Israel went to war with Iran.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Seven months later, that war is still going. Iran's proxies
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: have expanded the conflict. The Houthis are attacking Saudi Arabia again.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: The Saudis are asking the United States for help since, well,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: it was the United States' decision to go to war
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: with Iran that has caused Saudi Arabia to suddenly be
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: fighting with the Houthis again. And the United States is hesitating.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Now, why?
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Well, one obvious reason is we're pretty stretched. We're not
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: ready to, frankly, we were uncomfortable opening a one-front war,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: let alone having a two-front war. We've spent enormous amounts
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: of money and munitions on this war with Iran. And
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: we clearly were not, we never had planned for it,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: which is why we're scrambling constantly. all over the place.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: The Pentagon's own audit of the cost of this war
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: is somewhere in 40 to 50 billion. It's likely more
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: than that. And we have had repeated reports and leaks
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: out of the Pentagon that we have a massive munition problem.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: And part of it is we've been essentially giving Israel
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: and Ukraine our munitions for self-defense. And the idea, when
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: we sell arms, a lot of times, essentially, we buy
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: the new stuff from our manufacturers and our defense contractors.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: And what's in our stockpiles, we give, we sell, or
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: we give, depending on what we decide to do, to
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: our key allies. Well, we've been doing this a while,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: particularly with Ukraine and Israel, and it has really drawn
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: down our inventories. Then we start a war, which we
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: did not plan for. And it's clear the Pentagon had
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: no preparation for this war because look at how we've
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: had to move carrier groups. And, you know, we've had
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: to weaken ourselves in one area while we strengthen ourselves
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: in another. And so, but imagine you're Saudi Arabia and
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: I'm not endorsing whether, look, we started this war We
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: have an important ally and Saudi Arabia is suddenly asking
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: for our help and we're choking in the moment, right?
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: And this has real consequences. Trump apparently has gone back
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and forth about whether to open another front and help
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: the Saudis out with the Houthis. Put yourself in the
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: shoes of the Saudis for a second and forget whether
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: you like the Saudis. You may not want to have
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: them as an ally, but they are. We've made security
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: agreements with them, okay? If you're running... Saudi Arabia at
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: the moment. You have to answer a very simple question.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Can I count on the United States as my security
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: partner and my security umbrella? What's your answer today? Now,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: that's the same question in Europe. Can Europe assume that
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: the United States will always be there? It's a question
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Ukraine's asking. It's a question Taiwan's asking. How about Japan?
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: How about Canada? Canada is particularly important here because Mark
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Carney isn't just complaining about Donald Trump. He's trying to
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: do something about it. Canada is actively trying to build
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: a much deeper relationship with Europe unilaterally because he can't
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: trust the United States. Carney is talking about an alliance
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: of what he calls middle powers, basically anybody but China,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: the United States, and Russia. Canada is pursuing closer economic
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: defense and strategic ties with the European Union precisely because
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: he has concluded he can no longer count on the
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: United States. Think about that. Canada, our next-door neighbor. If
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: you had asked me 10 years ago to name the
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: country that had the least reason on earth to hedge
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: against the United States, Canada would probably have been number
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: one on the list, but Canada feels like it has
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: to hedge. Our allies still want us as an ally.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: What they increasingly don't want to do is build a
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: system that requires America to always be in charge because
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: of how poorly this president has led the world. Look
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: at what happened when this guy got put in charge.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: And this is the part that I think people underestimate.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: And again, I know foreign policy isn't a voting issue
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: unless it's impacting cost of living at home, a la
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Iran war. The next president can't simply walk into the
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Oval Office and say, OK, everybody, America's back. Forget the
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: last eight of the last 12 years. We tried that
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: once already with our allies. And then Trump came back.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: And that is what's changed the calculation for everybody. whether
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: you're Saudi Arabia or Canada. The first Trump presidency could
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: be viewed overseas as an aberration. The second Trump presidency
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: tells every government on earth that this is something the
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: American political system can produce again. So now if you're
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: an ally, you have to hedge. What choice do you
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: have at the moment? You have to build another supply chain.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: You got to build other military relationships, maybe other security relationships.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: You might need another, find another source of energy. You
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: have to ask whether American intelligence cooperation will still exist
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: four years from now. Whether you can trust the American
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: intelligence operation. You have to ask whether the treaty will
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: mean the same thing under another president. This is the
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: enormous damage Donald Trump has done to all of us.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: He's made us all less safe, folks. This doesn't get
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: repaired with one election. It's going to take multiple presidents
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: from multiple parties. to win back the trust and credibility
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: of some of our closest allies, never mind skeptics we
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: already had around the world. It's going to take administrations
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: honoring agreements made by previous administrations of other political ideologies
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: for us to get some credibility back. Because that's how
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: you rebuild trust. It takes time. You can destroy trust
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: in a single presidential term. It takes you multiple terms
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: to get it back. And then look at the weird
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: signals we're sending now as leader, supposedly leader of the
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: free world. We're rolling out the red carpet for Xi Jinping.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: I thought this guy was one of, was America's chief rival.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Now look, I want to be clear about something. I
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: have no problem with the president of the United States
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: having summits and sitting down with the leader of China
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: and the leader of Russia, talking on the phone, We
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: should always be talking with our adversaries. We should always
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: be open to talk. Talk to Kim Jong-un. Talk to Putin.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Talk to Xi. It's one of the few things that
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I think Trump, I'm glad he's gotten rid of that
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: sort of ridiculous protocol. You should always be opening, open
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: to talking, including with crazy-ass ideologues you don't agree with.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: The question's not whether you sit down with them. The
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: question is, what you stand for when you sit down
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: with them. Do you defend democracy? Do you defend your allies?
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Do you defend Western values? Do you talk about human rights?
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: Do you have the credibility to talk about human rights?
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Do you actually advocate for democracy? I mean, The Chinese
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: government censors the press vigorously. And what is this president
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: trying to do in the week he hosts Xi at
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: the White House? Censor the press. He's jealous of the
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: power Xi has. Every other American president looked at the
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Chinese system and said, that's terrible. This president looks at
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: the Chinese system and wishes it was the one he
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: could run. Sit with that a minute. He weirdly respects
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: and loves the fact that what she says goes. It's
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: interesting to me that Trump's alone here in celebrating. I mean,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: you want to talk about a politically terrible timing to
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: vet the leading communist in the world at the White House.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: It's less than six weeks before a midterm election. Roger Wicker,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: so uncomfortable with this lavish welcoming. Trump is dragging his
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: ass out to Andrews to welcome Xi. Roger Wicker took
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: to the Senate floor to say how uncomfortable he was. Meanwhile,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: what is Marco Rubio report out this week that Donald Trump,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: he's confirmed that Vladimir Putin has officially been invited to
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: the G20 meeting in Miami in December at his Doral
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Country Club. By the way, nobody in the G20 wants
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Putin there. Putin is a menace to the world. Putin
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: is trying to destroy a country. And he's killed hundreds
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: of thousands of people, kidnapped children. And Donald Trump wants
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: his sidekick hanging out with him at Doral? Look, talking
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: to Putin, though, isn't the problem. But what are you
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: telling the world that America stands for that you want
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: him there when other members of the G20 don't? It
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: brings me back to the Victor go the spoils bullshit
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: that Trump said at the UN. If that's America's principle, well,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: guess what? It only reinforces Putin's worldview. It only reinforces
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: when Putin thinks, hey, Ukraine belongs to us, to the
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: victor go the spoils, although he can't win that war.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: Or China looks at Taiwan, to the victor go the spoils,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: going to take all the chips. Meanwhile, you're going to
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: have middle powers. Why shouldn't India think this way? Why
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: shouldn't Brazil think this way? Nigeria, South Africa. Why wouldn't
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: every aspiring regional power look around at a weaker neighbor
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: and say, you know what? To the victor belong the spoils.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: That's the permission slip Donald Trump just handed out at
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: the United Nations this week. If the United States announces
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: that its foreign policy is simply going to be in
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: the pursuit of American self-interest, not shared interests, not shared
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: alliances or values, but simply our interests, then everybody else
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: is going to do exactly the same thing. And you
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: may think you're going to like that world in theory,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: but I promise you all that does is create the
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: conditions for a lot more war. The more unilateral things are,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: the more trade wars that exist, the higher tariff walls are,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: the more fight we have over whose resources belong to who,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: it only increases the likelihood of war. America built this
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: post-war system for a reason. It wasn't charity. It was
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: security for us. And it was security for free people.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: We didn't build NATO because we felt sorry for Europe.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: We didn't create these economic alliances because we're nice people.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: We did it because an interconnected system in which America
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: had dependable allies actually made America richer and safer. And
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: now we're dismantling these pieces with astonishing quickness. And that's
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: the thing about Hurricane Trump. The storm eventually passes, but
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: the damage sits. Sometimes it takes years to recover from
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: a storm. And Hurricane Trump, when it comes to our
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: foreign policy, this is going to take decades. And I
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: think we're only beginning to understand the damage that's accumulated here.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Trump didn't blow all this up in his first term
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: the way some people feared he might. But the second
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: coming of Trump has changed things. Our allies now know
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: this wasn't a one-time accident. This can happen again and again.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: So they're now preparing for a world in which America
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: is less reliable, a world in which America has less influence,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: a world in which America is less safe. Because we
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: have less influence. Because we've become less reliable. And this
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: doesn't show up neatly in a midterm poll. Diesel prices does, right?
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: The grocery bill does. But foreign alliances and our personal
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: security don't. Until suddenly you need one. And you discover
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: that the country you've spent decades telling to trust you
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: decided it needed a backup plan. So this isn't going
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: to be repaired on January 20th, 2029 by somebody different
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: sitting behind the resolute desk. It took decades to build
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: up this credibility and it's going to take years to
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: rebuild it. Multiple presidents and multiple parties. And every time
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: an American president goes before the United Nations, and tells
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: the world to the victor go along the spoils, the
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: clock starts over again. I know we shrug away what
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: he's done to our relationships around the world. But all
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: of them, what he's done is made us poorer and
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: made us less secure. We've never been more vulnerable to
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: the outside world attacking us than we have during this
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: last two years. And there's only one person's foreign policy
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: you have to thank for that. All right. So on
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: that uplifting note, let's sneak in a break. When we
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: come back, my interesting conversation with Adam Brandon, who has
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: moved from the reform movement on the conservative side of
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: the aisle to the world of independent reform. I think
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: you'll find the conversation fascinating. And then after that, we'll
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: do a few questions. And of course, the exclusive college
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: football preview that I bring you every single Thursday episode.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: Let's do the break. Hey, this episode of the Chuck
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: Todd cast is brought to you by Ethos. Look, let
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  Speaker 1: rating was as of August of 2026. Well, I've made
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: no secret on this podcast that I think one of
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: the bigger problems we have with our politics is there's
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: a lack of choice. And I think voters have been
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: demanding it. latest framing that I've been using, whether it's
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: in speeches or whether it's in this podcast or others,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: is the voters are begging for the market to meet
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: their needs in politics, but they only have two ways
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: to communicate. And my next guest here is going to
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: help me walk through it. But they have two ways
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: to communicate and they have been shouting. They've been screaming
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: for this. Their one way to communicate is voting. And
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: they have voted out any party that's been in power
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: every single election since 2012, whenever they've gotten the chance
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: to do it. And the second thing they've done is
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: when they've been offered a choice to register with one
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: of the two major parties, they've instead chosen door number three.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Whatever the door number three is in their state, it
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: can be independent, no party affiliation, however one brands it.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: And those are the only two ways voters can express
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: their distaste for the system. The question is, can the system...
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: meet voters where they're at, or is there gonna continue
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: to be this forced binary conversation? So joining me now
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: to have this conversation is somebody who's in, the middle
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: of this independent movement, Adam Brandon, along with Heather Manchin. Yes,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: that last name should be familiar with you, daughter of
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: the former independent senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin. And
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: they have launched the Independence Center. And he's here now, Adam.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: Our paths have crossed quite a few times over the years,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: both in In the in the democracy space and also
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: the regular old journalism and principle space. So welcome. Good
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: to see you. And tell me what you're up to.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Tell me exactly what the goal of this group is
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: and the independence. And give me the full name.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: So I don't want to. There's a couple organizations, but
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: I'll just start off this way. I came to Washington,
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: I can't believe I'm saying this now, like almost 25
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: years ago. And the main thing that was motivating me
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: back then was debt and deficits. I'm a fiscal guy,
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: just so everyone is clear on what I came to
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: Washington for was to get our debt and deficit under control.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: So at the time, I thought the best way forward
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: for me was in Team Red. And because at least
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: Team Red was giving me a lot of like they
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: were talking like they cared about debt and deficits. Now,
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: their actions are a little different than what they say,
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: but at least that's where I was. And then for
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: on the journey I've been on in my old organization,
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: which was one of the one of the original Tea
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: Party organizations, I watched how the base that we worked with,
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: the conservative activist base, moved from being very serious about
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: debt and deficits to I don't know if they really
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: matter anymore. There's other issues we'll deal with. I've stayed
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: the same place. I do think that debt and deficits matter.
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: So I had to rethink for myself, how was the
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: best way to accomplish this? And I saw the rise
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: of independent voters. And when we started to get into
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: trying to understand who these independent voters were. I found
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: that independent voters, they care about debt and deficits. They
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: care about immigration. They care about health care. They care
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: about all of these major issues. They just lost faith
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: that either party was going to be able to do
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: something about it. And then they also like, hey, Democrats
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: have some good ideas here and Republicans have some good
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: ideas here. Maybe if we can merge these two things together,
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: we could actually get legislation. So part of my journey
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: was about three years ago, I shut down the organization FreedomWorks,
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: After you spend... you know, 10 years being president, doing
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: everything possible to keep the organization alive to then in
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: one weekend decide to.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: FreedomWorks was connected with the Koch network, right?
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: It was not, actually. That's a misconception. We were one
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: of the few conservative groups that were not connected to
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: the Koch network. We actually were born in a split
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: away from them, ironically. But we were a Tea Party organization.
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: We were really backers of the Freedom Caucus, again, fiscal conservatives.
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: But it ran its course. And I still but the
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: issue still remains. So it's a long way of saying
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: that my only hope is there's not a Republican or
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: Democrat way to solve our fiscal nightmare. You've got to
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: put people together. You've got to start having not only
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: conversations of Republicans and Democrats. You have to have retirees
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: and young people having conversations as well of what do
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: we want to do here. I set up an organization
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: called the Independence Center with a few colleagues of mine.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: And then in April of this year, I was getting
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: breakfast with the mansions. And they said, look, your strategy
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: that you guys are talking about running independence, we have
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: decided that this is probably the best path forward for
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: the country. So we temporarily, the Mansions had Americans Together.
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: I had Independence Center. We've created a vehicle for this
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: election called the Independent Leadership Council, which is our merged organizations.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: But most of our activity is going to be coming
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: out of what's called the Independent PAC. And what is
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: so funny about the Independent PAC is, is when the
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: independent PAC, when I went to register it, no one
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: was cyber squatting on it. That's how much people didn't
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: care about independence. I literally went in, signed my name,
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: registered the independent PAC. So there's a couple organizations, but look,
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: what we are doing is we've merged our efforts together
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: to just try and get to, I mean, maybe we
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: get lucky, you get three, but we've got to get
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: some independence elected from outside the system.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: So I've I want to peel away a bunch of things.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Let's start with ILC. Yeah. OK, because there is a
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: you said independent leadership council. I'm old enough to remember
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: a different letter as the first letter. But the L
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: and the C, I assume that is not an accident
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: that the ILC, then the old Democratic Leadership Council, which
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: was essentially what I would call the modernization effort inside
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party that that started by Al Frum.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: Popularized by Bill Clinton in the late 80s, early 90s.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: That is an intentional callback.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: Look, I'm a 90s boy. I graduated high school in 1996.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: And I when I look back on my.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: Listening to a lot of Oasis these days right now, I.
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: Actually went just so you know, I went to Buenos
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: Aires with my high school friends for the reunion tour.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: That's how much Oasis.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: That's how 90s you are. That's how 90s I am. Right.
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: But when I think back on American politics, look, you had.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: Republicans and Democrats fighting, but they were getting stuff done.
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: They were actually legislating. They were actually governing. Yes, you
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: had shutdowns when Gingrich and Clinton were fighting, but stuff
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: got done. Real legislation was getting done. So I think
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: when you look back on when the system worked. It
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: was working in the 90s. We had surpluses. We had
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: people that were fighting, but they were doing it in
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: a way they got stuff done. And so, yeah, I
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: think I look back at the 1990s as an era
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: we can learn from as a society.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I go hot and cold on it because I'm
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: more convinced than ever that the basically 1948 to 2001
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: is an outlier in American history. And that's my concern
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: in that, look, our natural state is polarization. And if
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: you look, if you separate out that period of time,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: if you take, you know, basically the Cold War and
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: sort of the eight years of peace dividend that we
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: thought we were getting, right? The end of history.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: Oops.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: That, you know, you had ideological diversity in the two parties,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: by the way. And even in the 90s, what's interesting there,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: because I concur with all that, but you also had
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: a different, you know, you sort of had two different
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: generations that were meeting each other in the 90s. You
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: had the new Gingrich culture warriors that were coming in,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: but you still had the old You know, you had
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of John Kasich's in there. OK, you had
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of guys that were of the of that
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: old Rockefeller wing, whatever you wanted to call it. I
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: know that sounds like a negative to the conservative said,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: but also the Democrats still had. You had you had
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: quite a few of the blue dogs. You know, that
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: was still there were still a healthy chunk of them.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: You know, there were still enough of them. that in 2010,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: when they passed healthcare, they had to do carve outs
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: for the handful of pro-life Democrats that still existed, right?
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: And so I go back and forth about whether is that,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: did our politics just allow for a little bit more
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: of that back then? There was an expectation from it.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: Have we just nationalized everything and there's just no room
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: and so now we need a third party? Like the
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: two parties used to offer room. You could be a
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: pro-choice Republican. You could be a pro-life Democrat. You could
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: be a pro-gay rights in the Republican side. And there
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: would be, you were given some space In the era
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: of Trump, there's no space. You're not allowed to- You
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: just talked about my journey right there.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: Look, I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and the area
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: that I grew up in was very, on social issues,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: was pretty tolerant. Gay marriage and abortion were not the
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: big issues when I was growing up in my area.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: But the fiscal issues definitely were something that appealed to me.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: And so when I started working in Washington professionally, I
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: took those values into what I was doing. I've always
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: been known as pretty hardcore on a lot of economic issues.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: But I'm pretty live and let live when it comes
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: to all the other stuff. I used to have a
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: home within the team red, within the GOP. But at
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: the end, I didn't. It was interesting being a professional,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: being someone who worked in the industry. When you look
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: at things like the grassroots activism, you look at the fundraising,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: you There was no room for my for my positions anymore.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: You either were all in on Team Red and Team
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: Red was by then all MAGA or you're out. One
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: of the two. I couldn't believe I watched it happen.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: And it did happen. So what I see is the
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: parties have become smaller and smaller and smaller tents. But
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: nature hates a vacuum. So what that's creating is this
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: new big tent in the middle. And that's what independents
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: to me are becoming is this big tent, which, by
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: the way, I hope we get into this. They do
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: believe in things. It's not.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: And I guess this is the question. And I, you know,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: I've always, you know, these words are not synonyms and
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: we treat them as which is independent centrism and moderate. Yeah.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: And they get. They all get thrown in that somehow,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: if you're not with one of the two parties, you're
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: automatically a moderate. If you're not with one of the
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: two parties, you know, and you can't be both a
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: moderate and an independent and a centrist, right? I think
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: that they are, the Venn diagrams can overlap at times. But,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: you know, for instance, I describe my independence as I'm
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: an incrementalist. It's not that I want to be an incrementalist.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: I'm an incrementalist because I know the only way to
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: move a country of 340 million people is one step
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: at a time.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: And I'm going to say it's practical, but I'll because
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: it's fine.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: But I don't you know, what I would say is
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: that it doesn't mean I'm afraid of a big idea.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: It just means that I believe in implementing it the
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: way we implemented Social Security, which is first we'll start
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: with the widows. Then we'll keep, you know, and then
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: you sort of because if you and by the way,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: I use this with same sex marriage.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: Civil unions looks ridiculous now in hindsight, but I promise you,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: had we not taken the civil union step in order
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: for us all to see how ridiculous this was, we
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have gotten the same sex marriage as fast as
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: we did. So I could make this, some people say, well,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: incrementalism sets us back. And I'm like, oh no, I
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: could make a case where incrementalism like civil unions actually
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: accelerated movement because you realized what the hell is that?
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: What are we fighting about? What is this distinction? This
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: is stupid. And and then we realize it and we
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: as a society move on. And so I think the
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: hardest part here is, is there a coherent third way
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: or is this just a bunch of, you know, center
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: left people and center right people that are kind of
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: Got to get in bed together for a while to
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: sort of reform the two major parties.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: Right here, you can't really see this, but this is
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: a most recent polling that we've kind of gotten out
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: of the field that I'm going to be going over
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: on a flight. I've got a five-hour flight tonight that
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be pulling over this. And it's on
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: all of these critical issues. But what is amazing on
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: a lot of the big ones, health care, immigration, debt
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: and spending, what we're seeing is the independent voter actually
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: has a more cohesive vision on where it should go
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: than base Republican and base Democrat.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Give me an example.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: So immigration, what independent voters are looking for is more
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: like the 2013 bill. They're looking for something similar to
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: what Canada has, where you have a point system So
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: it's not a free for all. You kind of target
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: who's coming into the country, but it's pretty robust. It's
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: a pretty aggressive form of bringing in people to the country.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: And then the other thing that people want is they
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: want a robust guest worker program. So people who are
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: showing up to do construction work or to pick grapes or,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: You know, any of those work in hotels, there's a
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: dignified legal way for there to come in and to leave.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: And we could start bringing these things above board. And
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: it's not that controversial. Right. It's like this is what
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: the majority of Americans want. They want to know who's
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: coming in. They want a secure border. But they also
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: want to have robust levels of immigration that actually help
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: prop up the country and the economy. And also is
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: very humane. I mean, this is an area where independence
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: could absolutely lead on. And because it's like once they
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: kind of plant the flag, like, look, this is where
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: the majority of Americans are, then that could create the
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: opportunity for jailbreaks from Republicans and Democrats who also want
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: to support common sense legislation. To me, immigration is probably
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: the easiest thing for us to solve.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, my frustration with both the debt and immigration,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: it's sort of like we don't need new plans.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: They're sitting on shelves like, you know, you want you know,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: you want to start to deal with the debt, you know,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: the three percent solution. is one that seems pretty easy
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: to begin implementing. 3% spending cuts, 3% tax hikes. We
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: could argue how you implement them each and you need
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: to have some care about not everybody gets the 3%
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: whack in every direction. Maybe something gets a 6% whack
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: while we do a 1% over a year, whatever it is.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: But the basic structure, it's sitting on a shelf The
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: issue is political will.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: Right. And I guess ultimately what you're trying to do
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: is elect people that can provide the spine or the will.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: Is that is that my is that my way of
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: pushing pushing your agenda?
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: Yes. But I have learned. Look, I have spent my
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: career learning the wrong lessons or learning the right lessons
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: after seeing the wrong thing. And one thing that I
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: constantly did throughout my career is you get these great
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: young candidates who. They would come to Washington. They'd be
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: so excited to get to Washington. And then when a
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: few years you're like, what the heck happened to this person?
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: I remember that they were like going to solve this
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: problem and fix this. And then I meet up with
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: them later and it's like their soul had run out
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: of their face. And when I would talk to a
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: lot of people, often it was the deals and getting
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: on a committee. People don't realize that you.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: Have to- The House rules in particular are essentially anti-democracy.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know how else to put it.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: They really are. Look, what a congressman has been reduced
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: to in our world today, and we wonder why we
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: have this legitimacy deficit now with our elected officials- Is
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: an elected official, if you, you know, Chuck Todd runs
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: for Congress in Cleveland, Ohio, and you get elected, your
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: number one job is going to be either, you know,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: are you going to vote for the Republican for speaker
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: or the Democrat for speaker? And once you do that,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: you can go on your way.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: And people, there's this term we use inside Washington called
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: the four corners, the speaker, the minority leader, the majority
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: leader of the Senate, minority leader of the Senate, those
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: four offices end up controlling all legislation. That's not how
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: the system is supposed to work. So this is why
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: we look at this incredible opportunity. If you could get
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: into elected outside of the system, like literally Mr. Smith
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: goes to Washington style stuff who come here and be like, look,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: I'm going to come for a term or two. Notice
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: I say a term or two, and I'm not going
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: to try and get on the committee and last everyone,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: but I'm going to come and just try and legislate.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: I think it's just an absolute breakthrough breath of fresh air.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: So look, without giving away too much here, I was
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: involved in an organizing meeting about sort of like, okay,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: what does it take to change house rules? And the
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: idea is if you can essentially elect enough group, enough
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: house members, they don't all have to be independent. They
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: can be sort of you know, D's and R's who
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: simply want to have an opportunity not to let leadership
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: tell them what to do. Like we saw what happened.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: There was this example, Jared Golden and Marie Glucincan Perez
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: basically went against leadership on a rules committee vote in
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: order to get a piece of legislation that Jared Golden
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: cared about onto the floor to actually get a vote.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: And so we had some members of Congress and I
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: don't want to name names because it would get them
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: in trouble, but it was a bipartisan group essentially saying, okay,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: you know, what, what, you know, what's it gonna take
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: here to break? Because technically the house can, gets to
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: write brand new rules on January 3rd of every odd
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: numbered year, right? It's a new Congress and you don't
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: have to, you know, this idea that a bill has
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: to go through the rules committee before they decide to
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: bring it to the floor is a choice. There's nothing
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: in the constitution about it. And listen to this. We
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: had one member of Congress say this to us. All
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: I want is just let us, every member of Congress,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: should be able to put one bill on the floor
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: for a vote every two years, meaning every Congress. And
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: I sat there and realized, I wonder if you told
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: the American people that that's not the case, that there
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: is no guarantee that their elected official can even get
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: a bill on the floor if they want to. is
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: just astonishing to me. I always say, sometimes it's the
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: story not reported that is the bigger story. What if
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: I told you an individual member of Congress does not
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: have a right to introduce a bill on the floor
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: of Congress throughout their entire term without getting permission from
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: a committee or a member of leadership. What do you
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: think the average voter would think of that?
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: Well, I was just talking about committees and how you
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: have to pay to get on committees. When I tell
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: people these committees- On.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: The House side, you do. That is not the case
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: on the Senate side. I've learned, I've had some friends who-
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: You know, only in Washington do you develop friends who
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: were former parliamentarians.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: But like, you know, the beauty of the Senate is
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: if Dan Osborne refuses to caucus, if Brian Bangs refuses
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: to caucus, he gets a committee.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: That is true.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: You do. All senators are guaranteed committee slots and you cannot.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: So there is actually a lot more power for an
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: independent senator if they choose to use it.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: Well, that's actually, now I don't want to get too
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: far off of where, I mean, originally my project was
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: very focused, going to be focused on the House of Representatives.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: Well, I think it's the bigger problem. I think the
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: House is the sickest organ. I look at it as
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: if the democracy, like we've got to fix, no other
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: organ is going to work properly until the House works better.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: Chuck, I'm so glad you're saying that because one of
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: the things that shocked me in Washington is that for years, again,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: when I was working on the Republican side, one of
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: the things we always complained about was all this power
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: going to the White House.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden it's like, well, Trump
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: gets elected and everyone is suddenly fine with all this
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: power going to the White House. I have a complete
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: like shock to that. Like, I don't care if you're
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: a Republican or a Democrat, you need to pull that
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: power back. And yeah, and that's why for me personally,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: in the long run, independence, we need to take the
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: House of Representatives. And what does that mean? Well, look,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: in a Washington that is like right now, the majority
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: is two. But I think we're getting into an era
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: where majorities are going to be in the single digits
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: for a while. If you have 10 independents who are
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: not caucusing with either party, all kinds of crazy stuff
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: could start to happen quickly in the House of Representatives. And,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: of course, my goal is that you make the House
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: really boring. You get someone like a General Petraeus to
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: be the Speaker of the House, whose job is just
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: to make sure the body moves on time and the
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: Speaker is not a political position anymore. And you were
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: talking about individual members' offerings. People forget about the House
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: Freedom Caucus, which has been really which is identified today
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: as like a Trump support group. When the Freedom Caucus
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: was founded in the first moments, it was because David Schweiker, congressman,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: was struck from his committee for just trying to offer
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: an amendment on spending that he knew he was going
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: to lose. But he wanted to offer an amendment. And
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: then when he got in, the Republican leadership didn't want
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: to embarrass themselves by having a legit spending amendment. And
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: they punished him. Well, that was what the Freedom Caucus
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: was about, is a small group could come together and say,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: you know what, we're going to force these amendments. And
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: so that is a lesson I learned from that point
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: in my life, which is a small group in the
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: House can come together and actually, if they're serious, start
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: forcing real legislation.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: Well, Adam, and this is something that I think that,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: you know, it's funny what you just said about the
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: Freedom Caucus, right? What it was trying to be and
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: what it's become are two different things.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: Two different things.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: And it's now the brand is... What we really need
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: in the House right now is– and I don't want
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: to hear the words problem solvers caucus, and I say
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: this with no disrespect to Nancy, who's done a lot
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: of work in this space. But this problem– sometimes the
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: caucuses get too big, and the bigger they are, the
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: less they do. It's clearly– it's just something so you
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: could say you're a part of it, and it feels
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: like it's something you send out in direct mail during
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: campaign time, but you don't actually– there isn't a pact there,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: but what you really need is a, is a, is
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: a almost like a shadow rules committee that will do
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: everything they can to break the cartel, right? We basically,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: it's the two-party cartel here that has prevented the people's
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: house from react, responding to the people. I mean, it's
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: as simple as that was the founder's intent and we
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: don't have founder's intent. No, no.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: Look, the founders also knew about the great Roman Cincinnatus
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: who came out of retirement, helped save the early Roman
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: Republic and had all this power. And what does he do?
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: He goes back to his farm. It's where we get
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: the name Cincinnati today. But our founders knew about Cincinnatus.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: That's one of the reasons George Washington, after all that power,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: he gave it back. And I think that when we
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: look at the problems of where we're heading to in
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: the future, Maybe we just look back at what our
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: founders kind of thought this country should look like, where
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: you have more citizens who are getting involved in the process,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: people who get involved in the process who are not
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: necessarily career politicians who really want to get in, serve,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: go back home. I think that that would strengthen our system.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: But what we have right now, there's a couple trends
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: that are coming together I find incredibly exciting. And this
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: may be my most controversial take, but I am watching
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: the value of money in politics collapse.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: It's funny you say that. Yeah, it is. It is
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: sort of like, it's sort of like how I feel
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: about NBA salaries. Like when I hear these contracts, you're like,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: is it even real money anymore? Like everybody's a 50 million,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: making $ 50 million at some point in their career if
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: they're just an all-star. And suddenly now every race is a,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: you know, every race is a $ 10 million house race.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: Every Senate race is a $ 100 million Senate race. Eventually
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: there's real money involved. But it is clear, I'm with you, that-
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: If you're smarter, you can use smarter money. You can
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: moneyball this. Exactly.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: Look, I'm a Cleveland Indians fan or Cleveland Guardians fan.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: That's how small teams compete, right? You figure out we're
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: not going to be able to go get your 330
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: hitters and sign them for a long contract. We've got
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: to get young guys and put them together and try
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: and get them to play well. But AI does allow
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: us to do research and data analysis that lowers the cost.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at like Seth Bodnar, who's running for Senate
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: as a three way. There's a Republican. There's a Democrat.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: There's Seth Bodnar in the Montana Senate race. And in
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: all candor, this is a we're getting heavily behind him.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: Millions and millions of dollars.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know if the math works, but I hear you.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: Hey, I'm really confident on this one, actually, that we
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: can pull this off and I could get through the
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: exact numbers of how it goes. But he needs two
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: hundred and ten thousand votes.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: The Senate seat in Montana, 210,000 votes. When you think
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: of it that way, and here's the good news, using
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: some modern technologies, we're able to map out where those
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: 210,000 votes are in groups of 10, 15, 30,000, and
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: then hyper-target our message at them. It takes money. It
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: takes millions of dollars. It just doesn't take tens of
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: millions of dollars. That's what's different.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: At what point do you think, you know, Like for me,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: this independent movement, I view it through two prisms. One
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: is it's an attempt to force the two parties to
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: reform themselves. Yes. Right? That's what– that was the– you could–
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: our experience with what I would call successful independent periods,
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: whether it was Teddy Roosevelt, George Wallace or Ross Perot,
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: they all had an impact on the parties.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: Right? Yeah. You can debate the individual people we're talking
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: about there. I don't want to get into the politics
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: of these individuals, but they had that way. It impacted
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: the two parties. Is that the movement you're building or
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: do you want to see a permanent structure here that
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: breaks up the- Honestly, this.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 2: Is a funny question. I'm sitting in donor meetings and
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: they're like, what is your long-term success? And I give
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: them the worst answer. Honestly, I don't know. But what
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: I do know is this. If you can prove that independence-
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: as a group, this political group, can be a political force.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: That is going to change everything. If you can prove
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: that you could get elected outside the two-party system, that
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: changes all the incentives overnight. So once you do that,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: Then you start seeing what is possible and what is capable.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: And I would like to think that once you do that,
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: my lessons, again, my time in Washington, actually, I'll take Peter,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: Peter Meyer, who was a Republican congressman from from Michigan.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: He told me something that was really he's like, look, Adam,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: we were talking about him. He's like, the only way
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party is ever going to change is if
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: the Republican changes. And if the Republican Party, the only
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: way the Republican Party is going to change, if it's
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: forced to from the outside. And by the way, I'm
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: pretty sure if I was talking to a Democrat member,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: they would probably say the other way around.
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: So by the way, it's true, though. I mean, it's
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: already happened. I always say it this way. I said, look,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: and I had Jared Moskowitz I recently ran into. And
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: he goes, you know, when you first said this, I
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: didn't believe you. And now I do. And I said this.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: Because I said it before 24. I said the second
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: election of Trump is going to change the Democrats more
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: than the Republicans. And and here we are 18 months later.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: And it's done exactly that. Right. There's always a moment.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: Both parties do this. You get to the point of
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: you think, well, they're wrong about this. This will blow
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: up in their face. And then when it doesn't, you're like, well,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: you can't beat them. Join them. And if they're gonna
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: operate this way, then there's a democratic think tank going, huh,
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: how can we abuse executive power? I'm not kidding. They're
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: like building their own. And I'm like, and their argument is, well,
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: if this is the rules, then we've gotta play within
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: the rules that are. And I'm like, All right. Well,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: that's why you're not a reform party. Neither major party
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: will ever be the party of reform because they're too
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: entrenched in grabbing power.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: So I had one of the most fascinating things in
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: my new world here in the last couple of years
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: is I've spent more time in the last year talking
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: to Democrats than I have my entire career. Which has
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: been fun. It's been interesting. I've learned a lot. And
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: what's funny is the things I always assumed about them,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: they always assumed about me. And that's kind of like
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: so funny when you actually sit around and.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: It's funny that when you sit around and you find out, oh,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: you're a three-dimensional person? You have feelings? It's funny what
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: talking does.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: But I talked to someone and they actually said this
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: with a straight face. They're like looking at where- Look,
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: a lot of the money coming into Washington comes from
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: blue states. And people make this wrong assumption. Red states
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: actually are getting more federal dollars because their populations are
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: now older and poorer than your typical Democrat base. And
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: so I was talking to a Democratic operative that is like,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: let's get these Republicans where it hurts and let's keep
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: the money where it's coming from. And we could start
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: stripping money from red areas. And it's like they're serious
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: about this.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: Well, that's what Trump did. I mean, that's the thing there. Right.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: Trump is punishing blue state universities and trying to reward
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: red state universities.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: I should have been a history professor at some point.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: But when you go back to ancient Greece, this is
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 2: how they lost their democracy. When you go back to
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: the fall of the Roman Republic. it was a similar
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: thing that started to happen, the bread and circuses and
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: the power moving from the legislature up to the executive.
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: You go to medieval Europe, you go to medieval Florence,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: medieval Venice, you then get back to the Americas. You
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: look at what happened to all the republics in South America.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: It's generally the same things. You see this power moving
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: from the executive. And then what do they do? They
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: start stripping the state to reward theirs and punish. And
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: I think we're We're really close to that right now.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: And I think- We're behaving like a Latin American country
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: from the 80s.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, we're basically becoming Brazil. And in a
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: lot of ways, when you look at our politics, and
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: Brazil's a great country, but it's not the United States.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: And it's a very flat, by the way, you want
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: to talk about a fragile democracy. I mean, they slipped
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: into an authoritarian regime for a period of time.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: It can happen here. Yeah, it can happen here. In fact,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: history says that's what almost inevitable. And that's what our
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: job is, is to prevent that from happening. Look, I
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: got a five and a three year old. I'm very
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: concerned about their country that they're going to be growing
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: up in. And that's why we're doing this project.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about what's realistic this cycle. You've got.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: You have more independence on the ballot than I can...
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, we're trying to quantify it. You have more
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: serious independence on the ballot right now than any period
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: I could.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: Actually, before I get there, why can't the Libertarian Party
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: be an alternative? Because I say this, you strike me
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: as a libertarian.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I am.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, look... Now, what I always say is, actually...
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: I think our default, I think America's default is libertarianism,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: meaning essentially that's how we were built on a foundation
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: of libertarianism, which may explain why the party itself doesn't work.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: Because frankly, both parties believe in their definition of freedom,
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: but they, but there's other parts where they're, they're not like,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: you know, they're not a pure libertarian on, you know,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: their cultural freedom here, but not fiscal freedom and vice versa. Right.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: And that's always But what's your diagnosis as to why
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: the Libertarian Party can't become a more serious player?
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: So I go back to when I came to college
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: in 1996, one of the first things I scoped out
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: was where's my Browns backer bar here in D.C.? Because
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: I grew up every Sunday was about the. Yeah, I
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: watched the slop on a day on a weekly basis.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: So we'll get off of that topic. But when I
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: went into the Browns bar, I'm a pretty good Browns fan.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: I've even been a season's ticket holder. But they had
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: a raffle. And I didn't know who the fourth round
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: draft pick in 1984 was. And people were ragging on
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: me like I'm not a real fan. So what I
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: learned then about the libertarian parties, you get into the libertarians.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: It's like everyone then has to argue, OK, we're all libertarians.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 2: But who is the most libertarian in this room?
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: I'm not for driver's licenses.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: I think you should be able to own a nuclear missile.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: I think you should. We should privatize sidewalks. And it's
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: kind of like. This we have an opportunity. So in
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: my book, I wrote the exhausted majority that came out
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: a week ago. The founder of the Cato Institute, Ed Crane,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: who was one of my mentors in life, you know,
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: he and I were talking a lot about this. And
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: he even agreed with me that the problem with the
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: Libertarian Party, which he helped found in the 70s, was
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: that it almost doesn't want to win. It wants to
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 2: be right. It wants to be pure.
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: Well, this goes to my favorite quote I've been over-quoting
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: in the TV show Andor, right? Where he says, do
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: you want to fight or do you want to win?
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: And I think both parties' bases right now want to fight.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: They don't want to win.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: Well, I see.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: But for me, the argument that I do to my
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 2: libertarian fellows is that what America wants is small L libertarian,
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: not big L. Because big L is dogmatic. Small L
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 2: is practical. Mm-hmm. And so I consider myself a small libertarian.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: I would like the smallest state possible, but I believe
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: there should be a state. I'm not going to say...
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: Like you look at American healthcare, I think the reform
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 2: is not like just canceling all federal spending on healthcare.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 2: I think it's like we should... But there are changes
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: that we can improve the system and have a more
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: limited government system that allows for markets, but still... ensures
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: that we're going to be giving everyone the care that
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: they need. Like that to me is like, so I'll, I'll,
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: I'll deal, do a lot of deals again, going back
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: to this practicality to start getting slices of the loaf
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: to get to a society to me that is prosperous
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: and is in the government is very clear, small, and
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: in its lane. I'm not hiding those, but that also
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: means I'll get in a room with someone who's on
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: the farm. You know, one of my best friends is a,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: Marxist professor. I mean, I still hang out with him.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: He's one of my best buddies from high school. But
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: we get into arguments over the right size.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: By the way, this shouldn't be a shock anymore. I mean,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: it really bothers me. I mean, all of my friends
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: in the 90s, you know, I got out of college
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: in 94, and we all had political disagreements.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was fun, right?
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: But it was just normal. We've learned from each other. Now,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, I always now think, well,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: I grew up in a pretty bipartisan area, and I
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: grew up in a bipartisan family. So maybe, and that's
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: where I start to question myself. Well, okay, I might
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: be an outlier. I happen to grow up in Miami-Dade County,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: and Miami is one of the more bipartisan urban areas
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: you're going to find in the country. And it certainly
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: helps me understand today's America. That's the beauty of Miami. Miami,
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: tomorrow's problems are today, and Miami used to be our motto.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: But I do think we went, and I don't know
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: when it happened, but at some point we decided you
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: cannot socialize with people that you knowingly politically disagree with.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: And I don't understand where that began. And I don't under,
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: you know, I guess it's social media, right? I mean,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: it made it easier to identify people. folks that way,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: or we put, I think social media gets too much blame.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, the fact is we were polarized in the
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: 19th century. We didn't have social media. So you can't
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: tell me that social media is the polarizer. Social media
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: maybe amplifies it, but that's something, I don't know how
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: we cure that. one.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: So my theory on that is that what I noticed
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: is when politics became entertainment for people, that's one thing.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: But the other thing that I noticed, and frankly, sometimes
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 2: I look back at the work I used to do
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: and I ask myself, well, was I a big part
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: of driving some of that? Maybe. I look back, I
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: didn't think I was at the time, but I might
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 2: have been, is this existential nature that we're putting into
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: American politics, where this every election is the most important.
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: Of my- Have you ever voted in one that wasn't important?
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, come on. It's like, this is a little too,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: and it becomes existential then. And it's like, and I
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: watched in my career where Democrats went from being wrong
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: to the enemy to being fricking evil.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: Un-American, right.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: But look, you mentioned Miami-Dade. I grew up in Cleveland
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: where I remember family picnics. We had the union workers there.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: We had the people from upper income. You had everyone
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: mixing in my family in Cleveland. And that's one of
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: the reasons I feel very blessed to be from Northeast
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: Ohio is that experience was, I look back on it,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: You were forced to deal with people who had different
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: views from you. And it made us better and stronger
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: in a stronger community.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: Not to go off unattended. This is why I worry
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: about the gutting of America's public school system. Like I
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: understand it's all being done through the prism of, hey,
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: it's all about what's best for your kid. But all
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: of a sudden we are siloing ourselves away from each other.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: even more than ever. And I don't think we understand
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: the unintended consequence of all this.
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: That is a great point, especially I could talk for
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: This is not an official issue. This is not something
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: that I'm working on an independent.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: I got a soft spot.
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: In my heart for national service. Like you get people
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: to go serve for a couple of years. And a
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: lot of that going back to when I was growing up,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: I heard so much from my older people in my
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: family about what the GI Bill did for them, what
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: World War II meant for them and how it mixed
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 2: people up and how it. And I think there's things
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: we can learn from those periods of policy going forward.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: Adam, an obvious, you know, it's funny, I've been obsessed
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: with national service and I am convinced now that this
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: is going to be, that we actually will have an
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: opportunity for national service because I look at, you know,
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: I've got two, I've got one out of college and
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: one in the middle of college and the job market sucks.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: But, you know, two or three years of service, After college, frankly,
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: as a bit of an AI transition as this economy,
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: there is multiple ways that this will be both good
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: for society, good for the country, good for the economy,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: healthy for young people. I think in this, as our
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: fear of AI job displacement grows, and this is only
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: going to grow.
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 2: It's a real fear. You've got to take it seriously.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: I think you do. And in fact, frankly, that was
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: part of the motivation of the GI Bill. It was like, hey,
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: we got to do something with all these soldiers. They
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: need some skills. We're putting them all back in. They
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: need some skills. Let's give them the GI Bill. Let's
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: basically let them decide what skills they want. Here's a
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: bucket of money for you to do this. We're not
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: going to tell you what skill to have. This is America.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: But we're going to provide you the opportunity to do this.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: I think that this is what a really good, smart
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: set of political leaders would be running on right now
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: on dealing with AI. It's like, look, we got to
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: manage this. Okay, but go back.
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 2: AI has not been a partisan issue just yet, right?
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, we know that, you know, we just listen
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 2: to what Trump is talking about. He's just like, let
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 2: it all fly. And I'm not really sure what the
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 2: Democrat position is. And I think there's a position in
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: between the two that is a logical position. I know that,
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: you know, for our kind of close with a lot
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: of the arguments we're going to be making to voters
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: about our independent candidates, it's going to be on AI.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: But there is a middle path forward that there are
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 2: certain guardrails that we want. Like, look at all these
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: studies that are coming out about, I was reading one
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: recently from China with 25,000 students that showed the more
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: AI they were exposed to, their scores went down in
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 2: the classroom. I think we need to readjust. So I
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: think we need to rethink some of these things, which
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 2: is exciting. It's an opportunity.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: And we get to remodel the public school system, but
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: it's a remodeling that's necessary anyway.
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: But there's another point here, too. It's like we're also
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: in this crisis of loneliness.
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: And I'm seeing this with my own parents who are
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 2: very elderly right now. I mean, they're kind of getting
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: struggled to get out of their cocoon. And then I
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 2: talk to young people in my family and they're really lonely.
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: And it's like all of these. But what party can
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 2: deal with that? You got Republicans running around screaming tax cuts. OK,
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 2: the 90s want their issue back. And then Democrats screaming
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: about DSA like, I don't know, the 60s want their
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 2: issues back. And it's like, so who's talking about these
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: issues about Democrats? the crisis in education that we have
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: right now, the crisis that we have in loneliness, I
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 2: think these are issues that independents can jump on and
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: explain that these issues of where we're going, we need
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: to be addressing these, and these are the issues of
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: the future.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: So realistically on this map, there are more opportunities for
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: independents to get elected to the Senate than there are
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: to Congress. I mean, Kevin Kiley is in, I think,
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: is in as good of a place as anybody can be.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: We'll see, right, what happens there in California. And let's
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: focus on the House. Finding independents to run the House
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: is the issue. Finding good candidates, what's been the issue?
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: Because you could finding independent candidates to run have been
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: actually pretty successful. Why is the House a struggle?
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: Well, I think a lot of that came down to
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 2: the other one I would say right now, if I
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 2: was going to place a bet, who's going to run
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: as an independent, when is Bill Hill in Alaska? Right.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: There's one, right.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: So there are a couple.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: That's the one where the Democrat took the knee, right?
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: Correct. Correct. And so you and then there were some
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: others like I'm looking at Chris Getty and he was
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 2: in a suburban district in Chicago. Michael Bridgeford, who had
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: a great start running in Iowa's first district. I just
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: think the problem there for a lot of these House candidates, frankly,
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 2: the movement just doesn't have the backbone yet to support
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 2: a lot of these House races as much as I
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 2: would like them to. That's one of those hard gut
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: check moments for me is that we still don't have
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 2: a group of volunteers. The parties have the groups of volunteers.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: You had to put a lot of effort into signatures
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 2: and stuff like that. Well, that took a lot of
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 2: early energy out. So there's a lot of lessons I've
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 2: learned And some of these House Senate races, which if
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 2: you would ask me a year ago, I'd have been like, no,
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 2: they're not going to come together. Boy, I look dumb now.
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 2: They really did come together. And I think there was
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: just some natural advantages in some of these districts. Again,
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 2: I mentioned Bodnar. Todd Achilles is going to get that
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 2: Idaho Senate district a lot closer than people think. Now,
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: Idaho is still a. row Trump state. So will that
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 2: be enough to carry, carry reach over? I could tell
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 2: you right now, the big issue for reach and running
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: in that state is he's 83 years old.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 2: When people find out that he's 83, they all of
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 2: a sudden start looking at Kelly. It's like, there's weird
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: things happening, but look, my goals for this cycle. I
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: don't care if it's house or Senate. Let's get two
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 2: people elected. Let's get two independents elected so that when.
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: We get to 2000- Because one can get explained away,
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: two can't.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what I'm saying. By the way, our strategy
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: in my organization is that we want to win one three-way.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 2: That's why we picked Montana, Seth Bodnar.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, to prove that you can win a three-way and
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: not just take a knee strategy.
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: Correct. Because I think going forward, if that's the only
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 2: way we can win, that may open up the movement
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 2: to a lot of shenanigans by parties to say, well,
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 2: I'm an independent. You know, running in a deep blue
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 2: or deep red place. That's not the goal. So if
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 2: we can prove we can fight on the field. Look,
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 2: I don't want to say this is a George Washington strategy.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: But it's like you've got to take all your energy
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 2: and figure out and like attack the British baggage train
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: and take your victories where you can. So I also
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 2: what we've learned in this cycle, I think going forward
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: in the next cycle, you're going to see in the West,
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 2: particularly the Mountain West, I would expect in 28, you're
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: going to have candidates in Arizona. You're going to have
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 2: candidates in Colorado. You're going to have some of these
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 2: other mountain West.
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: It's funny how some States sort of their profile stays
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: the same through generations. Right. So my first cycle covering
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: politics was 92. And it was the, and basically we,
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: I create, We built a beast at the hotline at
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: the time, the electoral scoreboard, we called it. And we
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: would put out a map every week based on where
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: the polls were, who's leading in the map. And there
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: was points in time in the summer where Perot was
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: at 300 electoral votes, just all that stuff. Basically, before
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: there was real clear, Nate Silver, right? We were the
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: OG on this stuff. Sometimes I think we created a monster. Yeah.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: But what was interesting is we sort of, we noted
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: that there was this crescent moon in the country and
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: essentially everything west of the Mississippi, Perot had real traction.
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: And really outside of, I think Connecticut was the only,
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: and Maine were the only two essentially east of the
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: Mississippi states and Florida, which was not, it was different
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: than almost the other southern states. Where the west in particular,
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: you know, Perot's one of his best performing states was Utah,
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: but it was like, I think he was over 20
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: in Montana. I think he was over 20 in a
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: couple of those plain states. There's natural independence out there,
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: isn't it? It's almost like the more of the default.
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: Well, let's go back to, and we're going to we're
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: actually in the field again. We keep going in the
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 2: field to test these things. And one of the reasons
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: is that Americans are pretty fickle and move pretty quickly
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 2: on a lot of issues. There is being very static,
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: but it is interesting to watch how This election is
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 2: about affordability, and we're starting to see a lot of
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 2: shifts to this election may be more about AI in
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: the close than it was about affordability in many ways.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 2: It's fascinating to me. But I think one of the
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: problems when we look at the voters, we're used to
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 2: this outdated system that is based on what's called a
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: PVI model, partisan voter index. This district is plus five Republican,
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 2: plus three Democrat. And that model was literally built in
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 2: the 1930s when everyone really was falling neatly into these
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 2: two camps. What I would love to start to see
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 2: is an evolution where You have because like the real
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 2: reality is if you take an independence, some of these
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 2: states you just mentioned, Arizona is not going to be
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 2: even split between Republicans and Democrats. It's going to be
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 2: a plus five independent. Colorado is going to be a
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 2: plus four independent. And if you start thinking of the
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 2: month of the states in that light, it changes everything.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: Well, it's funny you say that. Like I always say,
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: you know, Virginia is a blue state, but it is
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: not a liberal state. No. versus, and just like Utah,
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: it turns out to be a red state, but it
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: is not a MAGA state.
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 2: It's not nearly as red as people think it is.
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: Right. It's light red.
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: But it also, it's a very different type of red.
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 2: It's a Rob Portman red. It's a Mike DeWine red.
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 2: It's not necessarily a MAGA red. And I think there's
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of misunderstanding of what that looks like. And look,
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 2: we haven't even gotten into so much of this when
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at who the independent base is. There's this
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: giant line of age 50 in the American population. If
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 2: you're over 50, it's hard for you to see independent.
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: Well, because you see that it's not that you're not,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: but I wonder if the over 50 crowd, because that's me.
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm 48, so I'm like right there.
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: Looks at the Perot example and say, look, he was
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: the best version of this. And, you know, at the
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: end of the day, people still default to their two parties.
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 2: Chuck, when you went to the supermarket, you had Skip
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 2: and you had Jiffy peanut butter. Those were your choices. OK,
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 2: my choices when I was growing up. If you're under 50,
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 2: you are a digital native. You grew up with Amazon.
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 2: You never went to a travel agency. You just grew
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 2: up on the Internet. You grew up with 50 different
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 2: types of peanut butter. Well, this is why I don't
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 2: understand why there's not more. I do think that.
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: Well, and this gets at to, where do you spend
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: your efforts in this movement? I think the only way
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: we're going to fix our politics is to break up
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: the two parties. And I think we'd be better off
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: as a four or five party system. I think I
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: said to you earlier, I'm a Madisonian on this. We've
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: got a problem with factions. Well, the only thing worse
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: than four factions is two factions. We actually need four factions,
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: five factions, so that there is no majority. so that
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: every government is a coalition government. Because ultimately it always
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: has been. We just have had the illusion that we're
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: going back and forth between parties.
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 2: It's very true. I mean, and frankly, I would love
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 2: to spend all my time working on a political party
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 2: that's socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Like, that's my home.
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 2: That's where I'd like to be every day. But that's
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: and hopefully I get there someday before the end of
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 2: my career. But for right now, I like this broad
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: tent that I'm finding in the middle here of these
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 2: independent voters, which even though it's so much fun, I
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 2: always say this about the fundraising team I've put together.
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 2: One of my people from FreedomWorks, Tea Party person, and
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 2: someone who just joined us from Emily's List, right? Like
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 2: that is an insane room that works. And we always
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 2: joke about how crazy it is that it actually works.
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 2: But what we're seeing, and this gets back to, I think,
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: the American strength, is like we're stronger when we don't
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 2: agree all the time. We're stronger when we actually have
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 2: to argue through things a little bit and we have
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: to actually score points and present a coherent argument. That
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 2: makes everything, that's the competition that makes things stronger and better.
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: And that's what- Is political competition a good issue to
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: push voters for? Because that's the other problem we have
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: is a lack of competition, particularly in the two bases.
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: And one of the interesting strategies that I know my
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: friends at Forward have thought about, I know you guys
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: are thinking about, which is, you know, the uncontested House members.
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: Should they be the ones that that are targeted first
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: with independent candidates. Okay.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: Now that's a, we got to get into primaries when
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 2: you start talking about that one, because that's where it
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 2: starts getting harder, but we have begun to see, and
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 2: this is some of the big lessons that I'm learning
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 2: right now. I used to think that there was only
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: 25 congressional districts, the districts that were plurality, majority independent.
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 2: They were the only districts that could support the independent movement. Boy,
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 2: was I wrong. I actually think you could go into
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: deep red and deep blue districts because of the lack
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 2: of competition. So remember I said this age 50 line?
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 2: What we found is that you're a spoiler. Really, we're
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 2: hearing that from people over age 70. And when you
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: go under 50, it becomes a positive because people are
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 2: hearing that what you're spoiling is a broken system if
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 2: you're under 50. And what we're also hearing is that
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 2: people are telling us, I like competition. So I don't
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 2: view you as a spoiler. I view you as you're
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 2: putting in competition. And frankly, I think that is part
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 2: of those American values. Competition does make things better.
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: So if you're that is a way to you think
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: that is a persuasive issue with some independents? Oh, yeah.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 2: We're especially younger independents. They want choices like what we
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 2: keep hearing when we did our initial surveys and studies
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 2: on who the independent voter is, what it came back with.
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 2: is the most common two different lanes. On social issues,
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 2: we heard tolerance. And what tolerance is, live and let
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 2: it live. We generally think that abortions should be like
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 2: what Bill Clinton said, safe, legal, and rare. Gay marriage settled. Now,
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 2: on some of the other issues, like you start talking
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 2: about talking about sex to kindergartners. The general reaction to
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 2: the group is, why are we talking about sex to kindergartners,
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 2: whether it's gay or straight or trans or whatever? Can
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 2: we let kids be kids? And maybe we shouldn't even
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 2: be talking about these things to young children. So you
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 2: start seeing these like nuances on these issues. So it's
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 2: very live and let live very. Let's move on. And
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: what I thought was interesting is the word tolerance. It
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily mean acceptance. It means like you could be
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 2: this and I could be that. We could be great
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 2: neighbors and never have to agree on things. It's called pluralism, right?
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: Nobody realizes that pluralism is ultimately what this American experiment
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: is about.
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 2: But isn't that awesome?
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: When we govern with people we disagree with. Yeah.
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 2: That's great. And then on the economic issues, what we
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 2: saw that people really kept saying they wanted is more choices.
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 2: And they felt that the government and monopolies and others
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 2: are making choices for them. Like even on an issue
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 2: like health care, like most people don't have a choice
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 2: in health care. Look at these Obamacare exchanges. They're often one,
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 2: you know, you get a choice of one or you
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 2: get a choice of two. And so people just look
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 2: around their lives and they're like, I don't get as
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 2: much choice as I would like. And so we start seeing, well,
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 2: there's where you start having this mesh of a If
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 2: we could be socially inclusive and economically work to give
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: people choices because we also see an affordability, that's a
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 2: choice issue. If I can't choose where I live, you're
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 2: taking my choices from me. So there is something really.
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 2: And then when we've seen in all of this, I
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 2: know there's this talk that young people in America are
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 2: crazy radical. Well, try this out. You want young people
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 2: in America want today? They want to retire. They want
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 2: to work and go on vacation. They want to buy
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 2: a house. I mean, bonkers radical stuff that they want.
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, what they just want is the same American dream.
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 2: But why are they voting DSA? Why are they voting
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 2: for this or that? Well, if you're feeling the system
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 2: is broken and not listening to you, you're going to
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 2: pick the hot choice.
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: Well, you're going to pick the ones that are You know,
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: I've always said if my choice is change or status quo,
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: even if I don't like the change, I don't like
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: the status quo. It's like that was the Kamala Harris problem.
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: There was only one change candidate on the ballot because
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: she didn't offer change. She said, no, no, no. You know,
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: she never even gave herself a chance to offer change. Right.
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: She ended up sticking by him. And Trump was in
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: a change in election environment. There was only one candidate
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: for change.
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 2: Well, to see independence can be what's so fun about independence.
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 2: is you could be the most practical, calm, level-headed. At
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 2: the same time, it's the most radical thing in American
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 2: politics today at the same time, which is really exciting.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 2: And I kind of juxtapose what we're trying to do
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 2: to when Steve Bannon talks about burning the system down. Well,
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 2: he talks about burning the system down, but then you
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 2: live in a pile of ash. What we're talking about
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 2: doing is, yes, we're pissed off and upset at the
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 2: current system, but we also want the system to work.
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 2: We're talking about Congress. The goal of this is Congress
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 2: is a functioning body again that is actually doing its
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 2: job on time and actually watching the purse strings and
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 2: is actually passing legislation and actually going to conference committees
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 2: and things like that. Whoa! And so that's the type
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 2: of change I think that we could bring. And that's
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 2: exactly what the country needs.
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: Two more quick questions. And then I know we got
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: to land this plane. One is, does corruption pop? Yes.
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: As a swing voting issue, you think?
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 2: So this is what I think. And this is what's
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 2: devastating for me. Because look, I'm a free market guy.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 2: Capitalism is really negative. But entrepreneurship is really positive. And
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 2: so when we've done focus groups, what we see is
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: that younger people look at Wall Street and they look
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 2: at all the deals and everyone getting ripped on the
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 2: crypto insider trading rumors and everything else that you see.
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 2: And so they look at capitalism as rigged right now
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 2: and not free market. But the reason they love entrepreneurs
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 2: is that actually they love the competition. It's interesting if
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 2: you look at an issue just in the black and
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 2: white area, it leads you to the wrong conclusions. You
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 2: got to get down a little bit and you start
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 2: to see the nuance there. And the nuance is people
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 2: do want free market.
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: They want real capitalism.
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 2: They want real capitalism.
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: I think so the better message here is, look, this
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: is a perversion of capitalism.
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this isn't what it was supposed to be. They
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 2: want competition. They want to see that.
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: And it's interesting that the better messaging there is to
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: sort of, yes, you're right. This system is broken. This
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: version of capitalism has been perverted by a bunch of
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: greedy monopolists or whatever it is, but that doesn't mean
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: you have to go to socialism.
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 2: It's an interesting- How ridiculous is it that Team Republican
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 2: is still talking about a free market in healthcare? Where
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 2: is this free market exist in American healthcare? It is
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 2: a completely managed system, completely regulated by the government and
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 2: the government's spending all the money. protecting the free market
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 2: is silly. Like, let's talk about the reality of the
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 2: situation and where the money is and how we're spending it.
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 2: And by the way, like there's, you know, I thought
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 2: this was really interesting when I worked at my last
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 2: job at FreedomWorks. One of the last things I worked
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 2: on was a bipartisan debt commission. You know, Democrat Peters
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 2: out of San Diego, Republican Huizenga out of Michigan. The
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 2: first group, when we got that thing through committee, never
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: saw a floor vote. The first group to come out
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 2: and really that I heard that all the offices were
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: calling me, hospitals. That's what I didn't see coming. But look,
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 2: if you're going to start tinkering with Medicare, Medicaid, that's
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 2: a lot of hospital money and they don't want you
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 2: to touch that. So the only way I think you're
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 2: going to really drive change in America is if you
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: have these independent candidates that are elected with an independent
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 2: base that doesn't have the claws and talons of the
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 2: swamp kind of. when all the interest groups kind of
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 2: sucked into them yet, to actually show America, here is
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 2: a new vision forward. And that to me, you were
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 2: asking earlier, what is victory in all this? I think
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 2: if once independents start showing a big platform forward and
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 2: how we can lead our way out of some of
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 2: these problems, it's going to force the two parties to
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 2: either address the issue or who knows, maybe we put
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 2: one of these two parties out of existence. Maybe the
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 2: splinters parties, who knows what success looks like. But when
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 2: independents make their mark in politics, it's going to change everything.
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: So Bodnar's priority one to you. After that, what, Bangs, Osborne, Achilles, Kylie.
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 2: Kylie and Bodnar, my org, we're going to be spending
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 2: a lot of money on Kylie. We've put money in
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of different races right now. But when I'm
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 2: looking at the close, I know the first two we're
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 2: really looking at is getting Kylie and getting Bodnar across
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 2: the line. And then we're looking at other races, too.
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 2: Like there's some other ones we haven't mentioned. Like I
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: really have to give a shout out over. You go
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 2: to Indiana, the Secretary of State.
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: Yes. No, I was just there and I've become pretty
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: friendly with the former mayor. and it's really his campaign
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: manager who made all this happen. I mean, the Republican
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: party is gonna have minor party, they may finish third
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: in this race, which because it's the only state, it's
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: a fascinating little problem in the state constitution.
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 2: And then you go up to Maine, running in Maine
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 2: as an independent for governor, like you may have a
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 2: couple of people get elected federally, you may have some
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 2: state people who win. And then what I think quickly
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 2: starts to happen is then we have to co-elect. So
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 2: like if we do get some people elected to the House,
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 2: you got to support them, right? It's like, you got
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 2: to make sure that you're there with support. So the
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 2: campaign continues after day one to build that up. And
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 2: then immediately, like, I'll tell you, like, it is amazing
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 2: how many people have reached out and like, I found
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 2: out about this movement. How do I run? I want
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 2: to run in 2028. And so that's why it's so
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 2: important to get a couple wins in this cycle to
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 2: prove the point so that we could start building a
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 2: whole movement And this is where all the outside groups
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 2: would exist. We're all going to have to get to,
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 2: I'm already talking to people about some December rendezvous where
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 2: we could get together and start figuring out, okay, you're
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 2: going to do grassroots. You're going to do comms. You're
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 2: going to do this. And start figuring it. You're going
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 2: to work within the party system. You're going to work
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 2: outside and figure out what that looks like.
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's, look, there is this coalition of
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: groups that want to open up primaries that want to basically,
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: break up the duopoly. And I think there's enough in
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: common there where that group can be its own, not
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: an ideology per se, but agree on a set of
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: principles that bring us a different infrastructure.
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 2: Going back to the civil rights movement, When you think
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 2: of the civil rights movement, you had people like Martin
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 2: Luther King Jr. basically preaching Gandhi. And then you had
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 2: Stokely Garmichael showing up with pistols like they are all
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 2: part of the same movement. And then I think about
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 2: that stuff that happened before this, because we when we
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 2: study the civil right movement, all of a sudden it's
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 2: the freedom riders showing up with buses burning in this,
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 2: you know, and things like that. It's all that happened beforehand.
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 2: you know, the, at the synagogues and the churches and
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 2: all of that, that's what's happening right now in the
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 2: independent movement is the beginning of that organization of coming together.
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 2: And that's why it's so important. We get a couple
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 2: of victories and if we don't get victories, we at
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 2: least have to have some really good losses that we
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 2: can learn from. But frankly, I think, I think this
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 2: is going to look like a lot of the Mondami
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 2: race where a week out, he was down and then
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 2: searched to the end. I think you're going to get
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 2: a couple independents elected. And once that happens, politics is
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 2: going to change. It's like, It's not it's it's not
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 2: going to change overnight. But when you prove you can
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 2: change the incentives, all of a sudden everything does change. Well,
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 2: we're always going to replace MAGA as the driving force
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 2: in American politics, not the essay. It's going to be.
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: Well, look, there's this how much of these new independents
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: are just motor voter candidates. enrollees and how many of
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: them are doing it as a choice? What do you
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: think that percentage is? Because we see this Gallup number
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: of 45%. Now, motor voter puts a lot of people
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: just automatically defaulting as no party or independent, whatever the
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: state is. So what would be your guess? You've done
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: some of this research. Who are the truly passive indies?
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: So we found about 25%.
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 2: Of the population is what I call the socially tolerant,
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 2: fiscally responsible.
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: 25%.
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 2: Not a majority. That's a hell of a lot of
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 2: Americans right there. And especially since they do tend to
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 2: congregate in certain districts in certain states, it could be
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 2: a disproportionately powerful group. But I also, when I push
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 2: down to it, what I'm really seeing is that your
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 2: base Republican and your base Democrat are each probably around 15%
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 2: of the population. So about 70% of the population, I believe,
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 2: could support an independent candidate. if they feel they're viable,
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 2: if they see them, that they're real. And if they
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 2: think that they could actually like, Oh, this person stands free,
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 2: but it's hard to cut through the clutter. Like we're
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 2: not just competing against Republicans and Democrats. We're competing against
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 2: Sunday night football for attention. We're competing against soccer practice
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 2: for attention. So it takes a lot. And that's why
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 2: I keep coming back to how we were using, you know,
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 2: vertical video to really target into the voters. Because I
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 2: think it's, this is like the, the, the, the emperor
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 2: has no clothes. The minute that, that, that, Because Americans,
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 2: one of the biggest challenges is they think they're the
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 2: only independent out there. They don't realize half the, when
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 2: the aha moment, like really close to half the population's independent.
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 2: Then all of a sudden they're like, well, let's do
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 2: something about this.
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, you don't, something's unbelievable until it happens.
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: Nobody thought Trump could win. Nobody thought a MAGA movement
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: could take hold until it did. And, you know, whatever you,
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: whatever folks think of that, good or bad, you know,
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: the point is, is that it is, you know, Once
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: you cross that barrier of the hockey stick moment happens,
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: then you don't know where things go. Then it sort
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: of changes the calculus.
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 2: How awesome. This is the 250th anniversary of America this year.
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 2: And I think we're getting into a rebirth that would
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 2: make the founders very, very happy because George Washington, when
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 2: he left, Everyone remembers his final speech for don't getting
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 2: involved in international entanglements.
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but the other important one, yeah.
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 2: It was like he warned against not partisanship, but factionalism.
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 2: That's what he was warning against.
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: Adam, I go a step further. We've only really had
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: two independents as president. Yeah. One is Washington. Yeah. And
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: I think the other one's Eisenhower. And what's interesting is
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: the two most important farewell addresses ever delivered to this
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: country that have been incredibly prescient. and have turned out
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: to be exactly the right things we should have been
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: listening to at the time. is the military industrial complex.
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, this Pentagon is running out of munitions. How
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: the hell did this happen? You wanna talk about corrupt process?
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: This is not a money problem. I am really pissed
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: off here as a taxpayer. For 25 years, all we've
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: done is given the Pentagon more tools because, hey, we're
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: fearful of another 9-11. We're fearful of all of these
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: people coming to get us. And we can't even, we
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: can't number one, have enough troops to provide relief. to
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: sailors on the USS Lincoln? And number two, we can't
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: even give them bullets? Are you kidding me? Where's this
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: money going? You want to talk about, you know, so
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: the fact is Washington and Eisenhower, they could be North
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: Stars to this movement.
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 2: Let me throw in a third because I'm going to
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 2: throw in a third because I, after some podcasts, got
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 2: a long letter from someone and I went and checked
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 2: it out. Do you know Abraham Lincoln ran that in
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 2: a unity ticket for his reelection? He ran first as
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 2: a Republican when he got elected, but it.
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: Was a fusion.
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: Well, right. He was right. It was a fusion ticket. Yeah.
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 2: So that's so cool when you see that. in the past,
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 2: this stuff has happened. And guess what? It's up to
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 2: us to do it again.
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: And like now he ended up with the wrong vice president.
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: It's it turns out.
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 2: Well, fair enough.
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: That is that was that was a it was it
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: was a.
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 2: Part of the plan, though.
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: You know, it was important to get elected. He needed
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: to get reelected, you know, and it was important to
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: send that message that, hey, there was going to be
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: you know, this was going to be a there's no doubt. Right. But.
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: It did produce perhaps our worst president. Yes.
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I'm not going to get into that
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 2: one because I don't want to get I don't want
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 2: to stick my foot in something by getting.
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, the debate, Andrew Johnson debate is one
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: that you can get, you know, when you're having the
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: battle of who's the worst, you know, there's a few competitors.
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 2: Now you are a 90s guy because you did sit
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 2: or because I did sit around my college dorm drinking
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 2: cheap beer, having that argument.
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: Well, I think, you know, I always said, well, James
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: Buchanan always has to be one, because if you've lost
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: the year, if secession happened on your watch, you lose. Right. Like,
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: you know, that used to be my argument. But I'm now,
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: you know, Johnson did more to damage things than I
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: think we fully appreciate.
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 2: I just think it's important for Americans to realize this
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 2: is a really difficult situation and you should be alarmed. Right.
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 2: You should be alarmed at everything you're seeing in the
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 2: news today. But we've gone through 1968. We've gone through
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 2: the 1930s. We've gone through a civil war. We've gone
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 2: through some really hard stuff. This isn't the first time
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 2: as a culture in a country we've gone through really
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 2: hard stuff. And I think we have this myth that
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 2: our democracy is so strong nothing could ever happen to it. No,
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 2: it is incredibly fragile. That's why it's so precious. And
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 2: that's why people need to get involved. This is my
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 2: other big lesson. This is a fight at Thanksgiving with
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 2: my parents-in-law. They're like, politicians don't listen to us. I'm like,
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 2: you would be shocked at how much they do. If
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 2: you call your congressman, but if you ever got off
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 2: your butt and went and visited your congressman's office and
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 2: told him, the congressman will hear about that. They are
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 2: scared of their voters. And that is something we still
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 2: have with all of AI, with all of.
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: No, they are. They just need a better, right now,
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: they're only scared of their primary voters. Right.
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 2: Well, now we got to blow them up and scare
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 2: them with other stuff.
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: And then- It's amazing what they'll do.
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 2: And once they do that, they will react. And then
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 2: I think we'll look back and be like, man, that
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 2: was a weird era in American culture. And I'll tell
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 2: my kids about it. But it's like, look, we're stronger.
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 2: And look at what this country we have today. We
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 2: regenerated ourself. That is the strength. When we stop regenerating ourself,
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 2: that's when we're all going to– that's when the culture goes.
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: Adam, I got to land the plane here, but– Come on,
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: let's keep flying.
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 2: This is fun. Like we didn't even get into 90s
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 2: baseball and all that other kind of fun stuff.
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: You want to hear about my Browns a little bit? Yeah,
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: I hear you. I mean, you know, you could talk
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: about that great coaching staff that was in the Cleveland
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: Browns Super Bowl victory in 2000, right?
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: Is that the Ravens team, the Ozzie Newsome team?
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 2: I have a poster, not a poster, I have a
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 2: Bernie Kosar jersey, you know, kind of throwing to my
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 2: Ozzie Newsome jersey. And all my Baltimore friends are like,
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 2: Ozzie Newsome? I'm like, just It's a dangerous ground you're
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 2: on now.
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: It really is. Well, Bernie's a friend being a hurricane. Oh,
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah. You want to talk about one optimistic man.
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: That guy always every day wakes up with a smile
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: on his face, no matter how bad things get for him.
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 2: And they are pretty hard. He is just a wonderful
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 2: human being. So that would a great place to see.
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 2: We agree on that. That's something we can agree on
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 2: all day long.
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: There you go. And get rid of Deshaun Watson as
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: the starting quarterback. Anyway, Adam, this is terrific. Independent working people,
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: if they want to support what you're doing. Independentcenter.org.
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 2: Independentcenter.org. IndependentPAC.org. For our political activities and for the things
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 2: we're doing with Joe Manchin and his incredible family, which
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 2: the more I get to know them, the more amazing
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 2: they are. The Independent Leadership Council.
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: Sounds good. All right, brother.
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 2: Good to see you. Thanks very much.
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: Dear Chuck, first, hello to Mrs. Todd. I hope she's
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: having a beautiful September. Well, she's glad to hear that.
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 1: This comes from Douglas, a Ravens fan living in PG County,
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: Maryland's fourth district. During your Super Tuesday discussion about Kamala
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: Harris's 2028 chances, you mentioned the limited examples of candidates
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: successfully running for president multiple times, including Trump and Grover Cleveland.
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 1: What about Richard Nixon? Are there any parallels or lessons
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: from Nixon's political career that Harris could take if she
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: decides to run again in 28 or 2032? You know,
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: it does, right? I mean, you want to talk about
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 1: your parallels, right? She was There was a whole bunch
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 1: of people trying to get her to run for governor, right?
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: Because the field and she... Look, had she chosen to
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: run for governor, she'd have walked into the governor's mansion.
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: I think Richard Nixon thought he was going to rock
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 1: into the governor's mansion after he lost the presidency in 60.
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: And he ran into a juggernaut that was Pat Brown.
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: And that doesn't happen. Instead, it was a guy named
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan that was able to defeat a guy named
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: Pat Brown, something Richard Nixon could not do. But yes,
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: I think... So this is where, you know, what did Nixon,
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: why was Nixon able to come back in 68? Because
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: of what happened in 64, right? And so in that sense, yes,
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: this is why Harris shouldn't run in 28. Now, the
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: question is, what makes her viable in 2032? A the
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: Democratic nominee, I'm making the assumption it'll come further to
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: the left than where Harris is, farther to the progressive side.
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: But what it would take is what happened to the Republicans, right?
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 1: Barry Goldwater took the Republicans to one of its worst
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: performances in the 20th century. And suddenly it made, it
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: was sort of like, oh, whoa, well, Nixon almost won
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: in 60s. Goldwater got trounced in 60. Maybe we ought
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: to take a second look at Nixon come 68, right?
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: And there was a little bit of the Rockefeller wing
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: and all this stuff. And then Nixon presented himself. He
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: was the candidate that conservatives didn't hate, but that the
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: Rockefeller Republicans thought they could tolerate. In fact, one of
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: the most important Rockefeller Republicans to join the Nixon movement
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: was Henry Kissinger, who had begun that campaign. He was
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: a Rockefeller guy. And then he ended up And a
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: big critic of Nixon's. Then he ended up in the
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: Nixon camp. So if you were looking for that parallel,
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: it sits there, right? So what are the ingredients? A
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: shellacking in 28 that suddenly makes Kamala Harris's performance in
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: 24 look a lot better come 2032, which is essentially now.
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: Can she position herself as this person that can bridge
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: the divide between the progressives and the sort of the
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: business left, if you will? That would be the open
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: question I would have. But I think that if you're
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 1: asking for the Nixon parallel, Nixon doesn't come back in
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 1: 68 if Republicans are more competitive in 64, even if
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: they lose, right? What gave Nixon an entree in 68
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: was the shellacking in 64. That's one theory of the case.
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: That's at least my theory of the case. All right.
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from Nan from Sacramento's California's 6th District,
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: where she says, we're going to send Kevin Kiley packing.
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: All right. Dream big. Assume Democrats take both the House
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 1: and Senate and you're suddenly majority leader and speaker. What
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: are the five most important issues you'd want Congress to
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: tackle when the new majority takes over in January? And
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: what legislation would you want to send to Trump's desk first?
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: Love the show. Well, you know, this was a conversation
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: I actually had with Abdul El-Sayed. So I hope you
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: will take a listen. He had an idea. I think
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: if Democrats win the House and the Senate, they need to,
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: you said your five things. I think you have to
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 1: decide what's the mandate, right? Why did voters send you there, right?
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: Number one, to put you a check on Trump. So
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 1: there's an accountability piece. Can't be the only thing. but
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: there's an accountability piece. So I think you have aggressive oversight.
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: Maybe you start with the pardons. Maybe you start with
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 1: the donors to the East Wing building or something like that.
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 1: So there's an accountability piece. I think the most egregious
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: stuff is the pay-for-play pardons, but that's where I come down.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: Other people may think it's other stuff, but either way,
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: there's an accountability piece. Then there is... You know, can
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 1: you put together, can you get legislation passed in the
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: House and the Senate that you send it to Trump
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: for a signature? And maybe he vetoes it. In some ways,
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 1: you might be happier if he vetoes it. I don't
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 1: think Trump's going to, is going to quickly veto stuff.
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: And this is what's an interesting game of chicken that
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 1: these congressional Democratic majorities have. Do they send them legislation
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 1: that they want them to sign or do they send
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 1: them legislation that they hope he vetoes in order to
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: rile up the country, build their movement and things like this?
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: So that's a political decision. That's a tactical decision. What
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: I would say is I think you got to sort
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: of do both. I think you got to be– I
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: think the first thing I would do is get rid
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 1: of all the Canadian tariffs. and send that to him, right?
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: Restore the relationship with Canada. That's like a near term thing.
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: There's sort of universal agreement on that. If you look
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: at if Democrats do as well as you're outlining here,
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: you know, in large part, it is because of our
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: trade war with Canada that will have helped Democrats in Maine,
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: helped Democrats in Michigan, probably, you know, kept probably helped
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 1: Democrats in Minnesota and in a place like Kansas or Iowa.
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: which also has important trade relationship there. And you, because
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 1: I think you want to send a symbolic message to
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: the world that, hey, America's open for business again. This
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: is not a one-sided argument. And you see what Trump
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 1: does with it. He might veto it. But it's like,
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 1: we all know the way Trump, I mean, look at
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: the way Trump sidles up to Mamdani, right? In fact,
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: I promise you, he's going to have a meeting with
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: Abdul El-Sayed. You just know he will if he wins
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: a Senate seat. Anybody who's considered a new rising star,
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 1: Trump always wants to be close to. He's like the
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: influencer that wants to hang with another influencer and if
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: they don't agree, so they could somehow collaborate together and
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 1: dominate the algorithms, if you will. So I'd probably, like
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: I said, I'd probably focus on, I think that the Actual,
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: because you're trying to lower costs, you're trying to increase,
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: you have a tourism problem because Canadians won't come over,
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: repair the Canadian relationship first. And it is focused on
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 1: costs and all of those things. I think you do
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 1: an immediate war powers resolution on Iran. My guess is
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 1: you'll get a whole bunch of Republicans to sign on
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 1: to that as well. So that's the, but I do
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: think you got to do meaningful, start the meaningful oversight process.
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 1: But you got to, you know, the one thing that
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: I think Democrats ought to be careful of on the
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: oversight stuff is that you're going to have quite a
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 1: few people like, I want to do oversight and I
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 1: want to do this one and I want to go
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: after this. Have a plan. Have some sort of agreement
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 1: what you're going to go one, two, three, four. Right.
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 1: And be careful chasing a shiny metal object story. Do
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: try to get at substantive graft first. And the pay
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: to play pardon system is to me the most egregious
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: thing he does because it undermines the rule of law.
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 1: And once the rule of law goes, man, Katie, bar
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: the door. I start worrying about whether the republic itself
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: can stand under those circumstances. But those would be the
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: places I would begin first. All right, Eric R. in
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 1: Minnesota 4 writes in. He says, hey, I'm responding to
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: the Chris Sims rant and your support of it. While
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 1: college football has a lot going for it in its favor.
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 1: I struggle to see how the current model is sustainable.
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's not. When programs within the same
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: conference operate on vastly different financial levels and players are
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 1: effectively free agents every year. As a Minnesota alum whose
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: realistic hope is an occasional playoff in appearance, what I
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: am missing, what am I missing? Why should fans outside
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: the handful of powerhouse programs believe this version of college
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: football is sustainable long-term. Look, it's not. The point, though,
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 1: is this bill is the wrong way to go about
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: it because, again, it seems to be that the response is, well,
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: the players are making too much money and we've got
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: to stop that. Look, there's no doubt you need to
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: have some sanity on the player side of things. And
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: what is the, and I think we don't have an agreement.
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 1: I was having this conversation with a college basketball coach
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: about this issue, which is what constitutes employment? And, you know,
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 1: is a student athlete an employee? And if they're not employees,
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 1: can they collectively bargain? And I brought up the Screen
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: Actors Guild, right? Like not every actor is an employee
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 1: at the moment, but they're a member of the guild.
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: And then when they get hired, right? And I think that,
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 1: I think there's, this could be sort of a blueprint,
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: but If you're going to keep the cost side down,
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 1: you're going to have to collectively bargain. And in order
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 1: to have some sort of, I mean, it's what the
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: NFL did to try to rein in costs for how
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: much quarterbacks are being paid in the first two years.
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: And they put in a system to try to essentially
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: give teams more control over their QB costs over time.
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean over time they weren't going to spend
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 1: an enormous amount of money on a quarterback. but it
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 1: allowed them to sort of budget for it, right? If
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 1: you will. So I think that that's, the point is
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: this bill doesn't solve this problem. And, you know, now look,
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 1: with Sims going on, you know, he was basically saying,
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 1: you know, this idea that college football is dying. Look,
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 1: my issue is with, there's all sorts of ways this
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 1: is screwed up, right? Minnesota doesn't, is lucky to be
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 1: in the Big Ten on one hand. On the other hand,
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: you know, you're kind of at the, you're at the,
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: at the whims of what Michigan and Ohio State decide, right?
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: And I guess USC, USC and Michigan have played outsized
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 1: roles in, right, how private equity works and all of that.
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: I think the, I think the conference structure doesn't work
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: and it creates an unfairness. And then, you know, if
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: you're going to this is where I think you've got
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: to treat all of the teams equally. That's how the
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: NFL has become this powerhouse, right? Why does Green Bay
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: have as much power as Dallas, as much power as
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: the Giants? Because of the way the TV revenue is
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 1: shared and how it's distributed. And so I think that
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 1: ultimately to get, to, to make, an alum at Minnesota
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: feel as if they, that the playing field is leveled,
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: not level, but it's level, it's closer to being level.
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 1: I think that it's the structure of how TV rights
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 1: are negotiated, right? And that's what's so frustrating about this bill, right?
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: The Big Ten and the SEC are both trying to create,
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: keep their velvet rope. And with the support of ESPN
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 1: and Fox, actually keep the costs, keep the rights deals down, right?
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 1: If these were on the open market and in order
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 1: to get an Ohio State game, you also had to
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 1: negotiate with Washington State and Oregon State, right? Again, if
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 1: the NFL negotiated its TV rights the way college sports does,
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: the Jacksonville Jaguars would always be in the CW. And
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: yet the NFL is enormously successful and enormously popular because
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 1: everybody thinks they have a fair shot. And I guess
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: that's where I'm hoping. I want college sports to feel
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 1: fair again. And I say this as somebody who I know,
• 2:15:27
  Speaker 1: I'm a fan of a program who has bought their
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 1: way into the being in the powerhouse. I get it,
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 1: but they're just playing by the rules that that have
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 1: been established by Georgia, Alabama, the SEC, and the Big Ten.
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 1: This bill doesn't solve the problem. This bill entrenches what's
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 1: left of those powers at the expense of the players.
• 2:15:56
  Speaker 1: I get it. We need rules. You need to have
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 1: this stuff. They ought to abide by contracts. You agree
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 1: to all those things. And you're going to need You're
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 1: probably going to need Congress to give them antitrust exemptions
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 1: in some cases. But you need to create a system
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: that allows for Oregon State and Ohio State, Minnesota and
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 1: Central Florida to feel as if this system is accessible
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: to them. And this bill doesn't do that. All right.
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 1: This comes from Jay. Greetings from California's 24th district. With
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 1: recent high-profile AI security incidents and conflicts over data centers,
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 1: public concerns about AI seem to be growing. Do you
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 1: think Congress could turn those concerns into meaningful legislation, either
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: now or in the next Congress? And could an AI
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: Bill of Rights addressing personal data, copyright protections, and practices
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 1: like personalized pricing become a larger political issue heading into 2028? Look,
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 1: I hope so. I've been waiting for my privacy Bill
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 1: of Rights. For 20 years now. John Tester talked about
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 1: this in his 2006 Montana Senate race. And, you know,
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: when we were talking about a privacy bill of rights,
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 1: it was more than just about the internet. It was also,
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 1: you know, there were plenty of people on the right
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 1: that were concerned about it when it came to, you know,
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 1: if they wanted to purchase a gun and who could
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 1: find out that information. But I've been waiting for this
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: privacy bill of rights for 20 years now, if not longer. right,
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: especially right after the 9-11 legislation that sort of took
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 1: away a bunch of our rights. And, you know, I
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 1: went off on a rant about this a couple of
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: weeks ago where I said, I really do think that
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: we got way too comfortable right after 9-11 giving up
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 1: private in exchange for security. And then we morphed right
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 1: into handing it all over to big tech, right? Europe
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 1: never did it as much as we did. And what's
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: the difference? 9-11. So I do think, and I think,
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 1: you know, things like surveillance pricing, you know, the whole
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 1: idea that I have, you know, you want to use
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 1: my app, you've got to update it. You've got to
• 2:18:15
  Speaker 1: hand over your data and you get to use the app, right?
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 1: That it's sort of a, it's like, remember, for those
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 1: of you old enough, you went to RadioShack, you had
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 1: to somehow fill out a form in order to buy batteries.
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 1: And you're like, why am I handing you my data
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: just to buy a goddamn pack of batteries? Why, if
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 1: I want to use your app, I got to hand
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 1: you all this data. And oh, by the way, maybe
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: even hand you money for the app too. So I
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 1: do think this is a really popular thing to do.
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 1: And I would focus it on privacy. And I would
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 1: focus it on protecting people's, this is consumer protection. And
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 1: I think that this stuff sells better when it's consumer protection.
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: And I would be putting it under consumer protection. It's
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 1: about protecting consumers from being exploited by large language models,
• 2:19:06
  Speaker 1: from being exploited by the big tech companies. But that's where,
• 2:19:10
  Speaker 1: and if you, look, it's not about being anti-tech. We
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 1: can be pro-tech and pro-technology, but it's about being pro-consumer.
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 1: And so I would be framing it as that. But
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: I absolutely, if this moment doesn't trigger this focus of
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: the next Congress to worry about privacy, to worry about
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: who owns our data, And what kind of control can
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 1: we have over our own data? If that does not
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: have salience now, then, man, we are all in trouble.
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 1: So I anticipate that we're going to finally see some
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 1: movement on this. And I do think the best way
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: in and the broadest coalition you can build on this
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: is through consumer protection and privacy rights. All right, last
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: question comes from Ray, and he says, hey, Chuck, it's
• 2:20:04
  Speaker 1: Ray again from Florida's 21st District. If Democrats take control
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 1: of Congress this fall, what could they realistically do to
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 1: change the direction of the administration at home and restore
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 1: America's relationships abroad? Could we see efforts involving officials like
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: Patel or Hegseth, a change in the approach to Iran,
• 2:20:21
  Speaker 1: or a reset with allies like Canada, or would major
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: changes largely have to wait until 2028? Love your insight, balance,
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: and honesty. Well, as you kind of ask a similar question,
• 2:20:31
  Speaker 1: that we got earlier sort of, you know, imagine these
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: big majorities, what, what could be done and where would
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 1: you focus your priorities? And so in some ways, I think,
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 1: like I said, I think, I think there's some meaningful,
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 1: if the majorities are big enough, because I think Republicans
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 1: will be there on, on some of this trade war
• 2:20:47
  Speaker 1: stuff with Canada and all this stuff. So I think there's,
• 2:20:49
  Speaker 1: I think there's real opportunity to, to start the reset
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 1: with Canada before the next president comes in to office
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 1: in 2029. And I think that's an important reset. I think,
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think, I hope all of us are
• 2:21:03
  Speaker 1: better informed of how important our relationship with this Canada economically.
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 1: I know my friends in the state of Florida realize this.
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: I know my friends in Las Vegas realize this. And
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of people in the Midwest who
• 2:21:14
  Speaker 1: realize this, right? Canada is an incredibly important customer to
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: the United States and maybe America's most important customer. So
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: I think, and I do think some reset on that
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 1: can be done. As for personnel, look, I, you know,
• 2:21:31
  Speaker 1: Remember after 2006, Trump, Trump, after 2006 and Democrats winning
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: both the House and the Senate, Bush fired Rumsfeld. He
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 1: made a dramatic decision to change it. And he basically
• 2:21:44
  Speaker 1: sort of accepted the premise that the management of the
• 2:21:48
  Speaker 1: war was a disaster. He had to change directions, hires
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 1: a new defense secretary. It's Bob Gates who ends up
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 1: being the same, you know, Obama's first defense secretary. So
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 1: I do think that, like I said in the previous episode,
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: I think the fact that articles of impeachment are sitting
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: there for a lame duck Congress and Hegseth days, somebody's
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: got to take the fall for the mistake of Iran.
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 1: And Trump's never going to be the one to do it, right?
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: It's not going to be his fault. Rubio has done
• 2:22:17
  Speaker 1: a pretty good Homer Simpson into the bushes on this one.
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 1: I think America is going to blame Bibi. And I
• 2:22:25
  Speaker 1: certainly think Trump's going to start blaming Bibi. But you've
• 2:22:29
  Speaker 1: got like the Pentagon wasn't ready for this war. Now,
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 1: is that is that a Trump problem or is that
• 2:22:34
  Speaker 1: a Hegseth problem? Well, you probably make an argument for both.
• 2:22:38
  Speaker 1: So I do think Hegseth could. That that's something. And Patel,
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you're you're you know, let's see.
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 1: This is where I think oversight has to be strategic
• 2:22:50
  Speaker 1: and has to be sort of. Look, I think you
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: say to yourself, like whose lives are being hurt right
• 2:22:56
  Speaker 1: now by this bad leadership? Well. Look, Kennedy is literally, right,
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 1: this measles outbreak, right? There are deaths directly connected to
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 1: Kennedy's irresponsible leadership. So I think that issue, although I
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 1: think there's a lot of Democrats afraid of going after him,
• 2:23:16
  Speaker 1: but I certainly would be prioritizing that. There are literally
• 2:23:19
  Speaker 1: people dying in Pennsylvania due to Bobby Kennedy Jr. 's
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 1: irresponsible rhetoric and leadership on being a vaccine. anti-vaxxer. I
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: think Patel and an FBI that isn't trusted at the moment,
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 1: that's a very dangerous thing that's not good for the country.
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 1: But you better have the goods, right? And I certainly
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 1: think exit. But I wouldn't underestimate, you know, Trump doesn't
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: like to be dealt out and Trump wants to let
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 1: other people take the fall for his problems. And this
• 2:23:56
  Speaker 1: is where look, some of it will depend on, on
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 1: whether Democrats get both the house and the Senate and
• 2:24:03
  Speaker 1: whether they are governing majorities or if they're narrow majorities,
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 1: but if they're governing majorities, um, there might be things
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 1: Trump goes ahead and let's happen. And in that sense,
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 1: I think that, you know, Democrats have to be prepared
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: for that. I know that's it. And I, I don't
• 2:24:25
  Speaker 1: know if they are, um, And that's why I'm curious.
• 2:24:28
  Speaker 1: Will they create legislation that they hope he signs? Or
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 1: are they going to send over legislation that he hope
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: he vetoes? All right, let me do. When I went
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 1: through the schedule this week in college football, I was like, whoa,
• 2:24:51
  Speaker 1: this is a, you know, okay. Ohio State, Texas, LSU,
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 1: Ole Miss, right? We've in some ways they had been
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 1: hyped up even before the season began. But now that
• 2:25:02
  Speaker 1: we're in the middle of this season, right? You know,
• 2:25:06
  Speaker 1: we are at the end of the beginning. We are
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 1: now the beginning. We are now, I think this is
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 1: the first week of the heart of the schedule and
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 1: the heart of the season. So look, the two, probably
• 2:25:23
  Speaker 1: the most consequential game for playoff purposes, uh, is Texas,
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 1: Tennessee with, uh, and it's Texas at Tennessee. I think
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 1: this is a real test, by the way, Arch Manning
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 1: versus Peyton Manning's alma mater. I'm sure. Right. We've got
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 1: to see a bunch of Manning show up for that game. Um,
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: You know, do you believe Texas is one of the
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: top teams or do you believe Texas just sort of
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 1: took advantage of Ohio State kind of playing with their
• 2:26:00
  Speaker 1: food in the last quarter and a half of that game? Right. Well,
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 1: we're going to find out. So I think this is
• 2:26:06
  Speaker 1: a huge for me. It's a huge test for Texas.
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 1: You know, I think you talk to some of my
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 1: friends who are Tennessee fans. They're hopeful about this year.
• 2:26:16
  Speaker 1: But they're kind of realistic. They know they have a
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: brand new quarterback. And the assumption was, hey, they'll be competitive.
• 2:26:22
  Speaker 1: But really, it's next year that they hope to make
• 2:26:25
  Speaker 1: a run at the playoff. So everything here for Tennessee
• 2:26:29
  Speaker 1: might be gravy. But one thing Josh Heupel is, is
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: a really good game planner. I think this is going
• 2:26:34
  Speaker 1: to be a terrific game. And like I said, I
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 1: think we're going to learn a lot more about Texas
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 1: than we are Tennessee. Florida, Mississippi. Ole Miss... Its reward
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: for knocking off LSU at home is to travel to
• 2:26:48
  Speaker 1: the swamp. Florida just beat Auburn on the road quite handily,
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 1: mind you. What's amazing here is Ole Miss, who has
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: defeated two ranked teams, Louisville, who's ranked, and LSU. In fact,
• 2:27:03
  Speaker 1: they may be the only undefeated team who's got victories
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: over two ranked teams already. They've had three games. Two
• 2:27:10
  Speaker 1: of their wins are ranked teams. And they're the underdog
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 1: to Florida in the swamp. And I understand why they're
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 1: the underdog. There's a little bit of assumption that there
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: might have been a little bit of a hangover, a
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 1: celebration hangover from defeating LSU. How much did they focus
• 2:27:32
  Speaker 1: their time and energy in preparing for the LSU game,
• 2:27:34
  Speaker 1: and now all of a sudden they've got to prepare
• 2:27:36
  Speaker 1: for Florida? Florida's got a ton of skilled position players.
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 1: This guy J. Bao. First of all, I'm very happy.
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 1: I sold a $ 350 PSA 10 of a Jaden Bao
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 1: auto out of 50, so I was happy about that.
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 1: I actually listed it. I didn't think it would go
• 2:27:56
  Speaker 1: for that, but then suddenly he's just been on fire.
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 1: and got to love my Florida fans. If only that
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 1: guy found out I was a Hurricane fan telling him
• 2:28:04
  Speaker 1: a Florida Gator thing, right? But I'm just telling you
• 2:28:07
  Speaker 1: about my side hustle. A little bit probably told you
• 2:28:10
  Speaker 1: too much, but that's all right. In many ways, I
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 1: think Ole Miss can lose this game and they're still
• 2:28:18
  Speaker 1: fine for the playoff. But what this game is going
• 2:28:21
  Speaker 1: to tell us is how seriously should we be taking
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 1: Florida as a contender? I'm skeptical that John Summerall somehow
• 2:28:28
  Speaker 1: turned this around that quickly. Um, so I'm, I'm a
• 2:28:32
  Speaker 1: little bit of a skeptic here and I kind of
• 2:28:33
  Speaker 1: think that the, uh, I, I, I understand all the
• 2:28:36
  Speaker 1: love for Florida and all the assumption that, that Ole
• 2:28:38
  Speaker 1: Miss could be, this could be a sleepy spot for them. Um,
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: but if Florida wins this game, eh, we, are we
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 1: suddenly asking her and remember they get, you know, we
• 2:28:51
  Speaker 1: asking ourselves, are they a playoff contender?
• 2:28:53
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: Uh, the biggest game, the big 10 is Oregon at USA.
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 1: This is an elimination. It's a playoff game for Oregon, right?
• 2:29:03
  Speaker 1: Losing to Oklahoma State means they can't lose another game.
• 2:29:07
  Speaker 1: A two-loss Oregon team where one of the losses is
• 2:29:10
  Speaker 1: Oklahoma State, I don't know if they're on the edge, right?
• 2:29:18
  Speaker 1: So they can't afford a second loss as much as
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 1: maybe other teams could. Now, look, Miami made it. by
• 2:29:26
  Speaker 1: losing at Louisville and SMU, but both Louisville and SMU
• 2:29:28
  Speaker 1: were better than what Oklahoma State. Now, maybe Oklahoma State
• 2:29:31
  Speaker 1: ends up being better than we think. And if you're Oregon,
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 1: you better hope Oklahoma State goes into West Virginia this
• 2:29:37
  Speaker 1: weekend and beats West Virginia in Morgantown, making your loss
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: to them look a little better. But boy, is there
• 2:29:44
  Speaker 1: a lot to learn about Oregon. As for USC, this
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 1: is an important game for them. This is a prove-it
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 1: game for Lincoln Riley. He's been on the outside looking
• 2:29:52
  Speaker 1: in with this playoff business. This is at the Coliseum.
• 2:29:58
  Speaker 1: If not now, when? Right? USC clearly has the skill
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 1: position players to be a top contender. The question I
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 1: have is whether they have the depth. It's been interesting
• 2:30:09
  Speaker 1: as they build a big lead when they bring in
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 1: their second and third team. Their second and third team
• 2:30:13
  Speaker 1: hadn't been so great. I think they're a little thin.
• 2:30:16
  Speaker 1: And I think one of the things we're all learning
• 2:30:18
  Speaker 1: in this college, you know, you got to survive 16
• 2:30:21
  Speaker 1: games now to win the national title. That's what Indiana
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 1: went 16-0 and even had a bye. Because you're either
• 2:30:29
  Speaker 1: playing an extra game in the conference championship or you're
• 2:30:32
  Speaker 1: playing three games in the playoff like Miami did. But
• 2:30:35
  Speaker 1: if you play two games in the playoff, it probably
• 2:30:36
  Speaker 1: means you played your conference championship game. So either way,
• 2:30:40
  Speaker 1: it's a minimum 15 games and to win the title,
• 2:30:43
  Speaker 1: it's 16. That's a long season. You've got to have
• 2:30:48
  Speaker 1: depth to handle that. Miami's depth is being tested right now.
• 2:30:53
  Speaker 1: We're already on a We were on our fourth string
• 2:30:56
  Speaker 1: running back in that Wake Forest game. And I think
• 2:31:01
  Speaker 1: there's a reason the play calling got as conservative as
• 2:31:03
  Speaker 1: it did because of that. And that's the open question
• 2:31:07
  Speaker 1: I have about USC. But it's a huge game. And
• 2:31:10
  Speaker 1: Texas A & M at LSU. This is a playoff
• 2:31:13
  Speaker 1: elimination game. Period. Loser leaves town. Loser's season is over.
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 1: A & M losing back-to-back to Kentucky and LSU. Yeah,
• 2:31:25
  Speaker 1: I guess you could say they could run the table
• 2:31:26
  Speaker 1: and 10-2 A & M could get in. I believe it.
• 2:31:29
  Speaker 1: But it's hard to imagine if you've lost to Kentucky
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 1: by double digits and then you go in to Baton
• 2:31:36
  Speaker 1: Rouge and let's say you lose, it's hard to see
• 2:31:40
  Speaker 1: how you become a contender again. And there's going to
• 2:31:42
  Speaker 1: be all sorts of hand-wringing about that if that's the case.
• 2:31:45
  Speaker 1: Then if you're LSU and you blow this game, the
• 2:31:49
  Speaker 1: assumption is, oh, you let Ole Miss beat you twice, right?
• 2:31:52
  Speaker 1: Your head wasn't in the game. It's a home game.
• 2:31:54
  Speaker 1: So It's a big game for both teams. And like
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 1: I said, I think the loser might be out of it.
• 2:32:00
  Speaker 1: And by the way, I told you to watch out
• 2:32:02
  Speaker 1: for A & M in that Kentucky game. So with
• 2:32:05
  Speaker 1: that said, let me tell you who I think is
• 2:32:07
  Speaker 1: on upset watch this week. This is what I mean
• 2:32:09
  Speaker 1: when this cards. You have these three marquee games that
• 2:32:11
  Speaker 1: are going to have playoff implications and a fourth if
• 2:32:14
  Speaker 1: you throw in A & M and LSU. Then there's
• 2:32:16
  Speaker 1: a bunch of sort of secondary games that I think
• 2:32:20
  Speaker 1: one of them is going to be more meaningful than
• 2:32:23
  Speaker 1: we expect. UCLA travels to Maryland. UCLA feels like they're
• 2:32:28
  Speaker 1: riding high. Then they're going to go across three time zones.
• 2:32:31
  Speaker 1: Look what USC almost blew it against Rutgers. Maryland's licking
• 2:32:35
  Speaker 1: their wounds after losing to Virginia Tech. You know, on paper,
• 2:32:40
  Speaker 1: UCLA should come into Maryland and have no problems. I'm
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: a little suspicious of that one. How about Notre Dame
• 2:32:48
  Speaker 1: traveling to West Lafayette and playing Purdue? Purdue's had some
• 2:32:53
  Speaker 1: competitive games. They were competitive with UCLA. They lost an
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 1: overtime game to Wake Forest. They may be sitting at
• 2:33:03
  Speaker 1: the bottom of the standings in the Big Ten, but
• 2:33:05
  Speaker 1: they're not a cellar dweller this year. They're pretty competitive.
• 2:33:11
  Speaker 1: They've got some pretty good running backs. This is one
• 2:33:15
  Speaker 1: of those, if Michigan State gave Notre Dame trouble at home,
• 2:33:21
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if this is a one-score game
• 2:33:23
  Speaker 1: at halftime, just like the Michigan State Notre Dame game was.
• 2:33:26
  Speaker 1: Oklahoma at Georgia. Oklahoma, their season's on the line here.
• 2:33:31
  Speaker 1: They lay another egg. Maybe losing close at Georgia keeps
• 2:33:36
  Speaker 1: them in the conversation. Losing by double digits at Georgia
• 2:33:40
  Speaker 1: eliminates them. Utah at Iowa State. Utah's running this crazy offense.
• 2:33:46
  Speaker 1: You've got to take a look at it. It's like
• 2:33:47
  Speaker 1: two quarterbacks that go back and forth. It's a lot
• 2:33:50
  Speaker 1: of fun to watch. If you've got 10 minutes and
• 2:33:52
  Speaker 1: you see this on your YouTube TV or ESPN or whatever,
• 2:33:57
  Speaker 1: spend a few minutes watching Utah play football this year.
• 2:33:59
  Speaker 1: It's a fun offense, man. It is crazy. It's a
• 2:34:02
  Speaker 1: little bit different. It's a lot of fun. Iowa State's
• 2:34:05
  Speaker 1: been a little stronger than I expected, and Ames is
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 1: always a tough place to play. Iowa at Michigan, will
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 1: either team score 21 points? I think that's a fair question.
• 2:34:18
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin's at Penn State. How good is Penn State? I
• 2:34:21
  Speaker 1: think Wisconsin's not going to be a walkover. South Carolina's
• 2:34:25
  Speaker 1: at Alabama. You see where I'm going here. It's sort
• 2:34:28
  Speaker 1: of like, okay, there's not these super marquee games, but
• 2:34:32
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of really good games. And I promise you,
• 2:34:36
  Speaker 1: we're going to... I mean, I left out Missouri at
• 2:34:38
  Speaker 1: Mississippi State. They're both undefeated. Mississippi State might have the
• 2:34:41
  Speaker 1: most exciting quarterback in the country, not named Trinidad Chambliss
• 2:34:44
  Speaker 1: or Darian Mensah. So it's an... I will just tell
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 1: you this. I think it's an incredible week. I didn't
• 2:34:52
  Speaker 1: even talk about my hurricanes. We're playing central Michigan. I
• 2:34:55
  Speaker 1: think they have their triple option team. All I care
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 1: about the good news from my year, my Miami hurricanes,
• 2:35:01
  Speaker 1: they're playing on a Saturday for the very first time.
• 2:35:03
  Speaker 1: They actually get to play a football game on a Saturday. Well,
• 2:35:07
  Speaker 1: the Todd family will be well represented there. I'm not
• 2:35:10
  Speaker 1: making it to that game. Um, but I have offspring
• 2:35:13
  Speaker 1: that will be there. And, uh, All I care about
• 2:35:17
  Speaker 1: is no injuries and a little more offensive line competency.
• 2:35:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:35:23
  Speaker 1: These are the, that's how I'll be watching the game.
• 2:35:26
  Speaker 1: It's a, like I said, I think they're triple option.
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: I got a lot of confidence in the coaching on
• 2:35:31
  Speaker 1: the defensive side of the ball. I get a little
• 2:35:33
  Speaker 1: nervous about the micromanaging of the offense at times. Sometimes
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 1: the play calling is fantastic and they're in a rhythm,
• 2:35:41
  Speaker 1: but it's pretty clear that Dawson is a rhythm play caller.
• 2:35:45
  Speaker 1: And sometimes he's it's, You know, it's like somebody at
• 2:35:49
  Speaker 1: a craps table that can't roll the wrong number. And
• 2:35:53
  Speaker 1: sometimes it doesn't matter what he calls, nothing works. And
• 2:35:57
  Speaker 1: that was sort of his excuse. He claims he didn't
• 2:36:00
  Speaker 1: change his play calling in the second half of the
• 2:36:02
  Speaker 1: Wake Forest game. Certainly seemed to us that they didn't
• 2:36:06
  Speaker 1: go down the field as much as they should have
• 2:36:10
  Speaker 1: or could have on that front. I hope some lessons
• 2:36:13
  Speaker 1: were learned by the coaching. I know the coaching staff
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 1: was upset with some of the players. But a massive–
• 2:36:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm still upset at my Miami Hurricane beat
• 2:36:23
  Speaker 1: writers who have not brought up what could have been
• 2:36:26
  Speaker 1: the catastrophic coaching decision going for that meaningless field goal
• 2:36:32
  Speaker 1: when they should have gone for it and not handed
• 2:36:33
  Speaker 1: the ball back to Wake Forest on that. I kind
• 2:36:37
  Speaker 1: of wish there had been more public coverage of that.
• 2:36:39
  Speaker 1: I really, really, really, really hope the coaching staff accepts
• 2:36:46
  Speaker 1: the criticism on this one that they blew that one.
• 2:36:48
  Speaker 1: And that they don't make that same mistake again. All right.
• 2:36:52
  Speaker 1: So with that, like I said, do check out Newsphere
• 2:36:56
  Speaker 1: this week. Abdul El-Sayed's my exclusive guest. It's a terrific interview.
• 2:37:00
  Speaker 1: And we spend a lot more time on what is
• 2:37:01
  Speaker 1: he going to do as a senator if he gets
• 2:37:04
  Speaker 1: the chance to be a senator? Like I said, it's
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 1: a conversation. He's had a lot of conversations out there,
• 2:37:09
  Speaker 1: but I don't think he's had an extensive conversation about this.
• 2:37:13
  Speaker 1: If you could check into the interview, you'll find out.
• 2:37:15
  Speaker 1: Is he going to move his entire family to Washington
• 2:37:17
  Speaker 1: or not? I'll let you check in with Newsphere to
• 2:37:20
  Speaker 1: find out. With that, enjoy the weekend. And I want
• 2:37:25
  Speaker 1: to give a special shout out to my cousin who's
• 2:37:26
  Speaker 1: going to be getting married this weekend. I'm looking forward
• 2:37:30
  Speaker 1: to it. Congrats, guys. And we'll see you at the wedding.
• 2:37:35
  Speaker 1: And with that, I'll see all of you on Monday.