Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - Tuesday Was A REALLY Good Night For Democrats + Top 5 Republican REBUKES Of Donald Trump In Term #2

Transcript

Chuck’s Commentary - Tuesday Was A REALLY Good Night For Democrats + Top 5 Republican REBUKES Of Donald Trump In Term #2 · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todcast is brought to you
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake from
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: frozen subscription box for sour dough breads, artisonal pastries, and
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: fresh pastas, plus all the items conveniently baked in twenty
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: five minutes or less. Unlike many store brought options, Wild
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Grain uses some simple ingredients you can pronounce and a
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: slow fermentation process that can be a lot easier on
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: your belly, little gut health there right, and richer in
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: nutrients antioxidants. There's also no preservatives and no shortcuts. The
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Wild Grain boxes are fully customizable. In addition to their
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: variety box, they have a gluten free box, a vegan box,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and a new protein box. I will tell you I
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: have done the gluten free box. I have done it
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: a second time. I have also used the code, the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: todcast code. If you use the promo code toodcast at checkout,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: you get thirty dollars off. I've already used it as
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: a gift to somebody else who loves this bread. It
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: is hard to find good gluten free bread. It is fantastic.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: They give you step by step instructions. I really dig this.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: There is nothing like having an artesian bakery in your freezer.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Right now, Wildgrain is offering my listeners thirty dollars off
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: your first box plus free croyissants for life. Come on
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: when you go to wildgrain dot com slash podcast to
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: start your subscription today. That's thirty dollars off your first
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: box and free croissants for life when you visit wildgrain
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: dot com slash podcast, or simply use the promo code
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: podcast at checkout. This is a sponsor I absolutely embrace,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: so use that code. Well. I am coming to you
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: very early on Wednesday morning. Even by the time you
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: do this, I am taping after our election night live stream.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: For those of you that tuned in, I appreciate it.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I get a huge election night, obviously, just having California vote,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: that's a big deal. That's but New Jersey, Iowa, Montana,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: South Dakota, New Mexico, California literally races coast to coast,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: and look a full disclosure here, We're not going to
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: have any California results for days. Okay, so we've got
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: some directional ideas of what's happening in California, but I'm
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: gonna set California aside here if you, because we don't
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: know what that situation is, and it could make what
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I'm about to say completely overshadowed if things go in
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: any different directions in California. But Tuesday night was a
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: really good night for Democrats nationally. If Democrats are if
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: if you are the Democratic Party, you are in better
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: shape to win the House on Wednesday morning than you
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: were on Tuesday morning. And if you're the Democrats, you're
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: in better shape to win the Senate on Wednesday morning
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: then you were on Tuesday morning. And why do I
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: say that, Well, on the House, it's because of a
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: handful of developments, the biggest being in New Jersey seven.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: New Jersey seven is home to Tom Kaine Junior. We
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: still don't know where Tom Kane Jr. Is. He has
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: not divulged where he is. He has simply said he
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: will run. Donald Trump endorsed him late in this process
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: just to make sure he gets the nomination. The more
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: important development is the Democrats that got the candidate they wanted.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: And in this case, that candidate is a former Navy
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: helicopter pilot. And if that sounds familiar, you're like, wait,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: isn't the governor a former helicopter pilot in the military,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: and the answers, yes, she is. Well, so is this candidate,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Rebecca Bennett. This was the candidate that they wanted it to,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: that the national Democrats were hoping would win this primary.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: She won this primary. She'll be facing off against Tom
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Kine Junior. Likely. Why do I say likely, because there's
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: only one other explanation for how New Jersey, how the
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Kane family and the New Jersey Republicans have been behaving
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: in this race. There seems to be he basically, he
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: got out, he went, he disappeared. We last saw him
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: in early March, a few weeks before the filing deadline.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Filing deadline happened in the end of March. He didn't
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: get a major primary challenger. Obviously, had this come out,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: he might have and he might not have won this primary.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: But he's now won this primary. New Jersey is the
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: easiest state in the Union to essentially switch nominees after
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: a primary. Democrats have done it famously in a Senate
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: race Bob Torselli was headed for defeat and they famously
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: were able to switch candidates. They got Frank Lautenberg and
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: they were able to save a sendancy. It's his idle
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: speculation from a few consultants who are like the old
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: plausible explanation is X. So that's the only thing I
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: would say to keep an eye on when New Jersey seven.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: But the whole larger issue is this Democrats got the
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: candidate they wanted. They didn't get somebody that was going
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: to be easily painted as too far outside the mainstream.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Moving to Iowa, they were already before the night began,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: three house seats there were really major primaries that were
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: you know, there was a primary to decide to the
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: nominee was going to be in the seat that Ashley
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Hinson is vacating to run for the US Senate. But
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: we knew that three were going to be competitive, the first,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: the second, and third. They're kind of always swing districts
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: in Iowa, those three. But the fact of the matter
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: is the Democratic statewide ticket got stronger after tonight. Democrats
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: got the Senate candidate that Rob san was hoping that
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: they get, that national Democrats were supporting. They threw a
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: bunch of money. Vote Vets essentially was an unofficial arm
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: of the Senate Democrats in this campaign. They poured a
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: ton of money in this race to raise Josh Turick's name.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: I d at worked. He swamped Zach Walls. Both of
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: them has stirred in the state legislature in some ways.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Sack Wall started this race with higher name recognition than
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Josh Turick. He explicitly ran an anti Chuck Schumer campaign,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: and he got thumped tonight. He lost two to one.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: But Walls was also running a more progressive campaign. He
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: was endorsed by Elizabeth Warren. Josh Turick was endorsed by
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Tom Harkin, was getting all of this extra help from
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Boat Vets. He's potentially a very strong candidate for the
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Democrats for Senate. We'll see Ashley Hinson, the Republican congressman
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I talked about before he was vacating that second congressional district.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: She's also going to be a very strong Senate candidate.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: She won quite easily. She had nominal opposition. But the
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: biggest problem for her is not the fact that Josh
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Turk won the nomination, though she would have preferred running
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: against Zach Walls. The biggest upset of the night anywhere
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: in anywhere in the country took place in Iowa was
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: in the Republican primary for governor where a gentleman by
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: the name of Zach Lane forged a path in the
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: forged a path in the Iowa governor's race in an
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Iowa state wide race that many an Iowa Conservative has
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: done before. There's always there's a strong network of what
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I would refer to as sort of non establishment Christian
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: conservatives in Iowa. This is the network that Rick Santorum
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: famously was able to tap into to tie or win.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: It all depends on your point of view of what
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: happened in that infamous twenty twelve Iowa caucus between Rick
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Santorum and Mitt Romney. But it was the pizza ranches
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and sort of and there's always been this. It's a
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: very well organized Gary Bauer back in the day was
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: able to tap into this. Ted Cruz tapped into this,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: and this the candidate here always gets thirty to thirty
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: five percent. I've seen, you know, there have been other
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: statewide Republicans over the years. Chuck Grassley had a primary
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: challenge once from somebody from this wing of the party
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: that was once again able to get into the mid thirties.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: But when you have a crowded primary, the mid thirties
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: are suddenly a winning number, and that's essentially what happened here.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: So Zach Lane, running more sort of a first time candidate,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: use some of his own money. His spouse has some money,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: but also tapped into the MAHA movement to Make America
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Healthy Again movement. This, of course, we learn from the
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Iowa reporters that we have in our livestream. And so
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: while Donald Trump came in very late for Congressman Randy
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Fiinstro from the fourth Congressional District, that is the most
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Republican district in the state. So in theory, Fienstro was
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: running from what is the state's Republican base, the fourth
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Congressional District, mostly in western Iowa, northwest Iowa, but most
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: of western Iowa. But he's also known as the guy
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: who defeated Steve King, so he was the mainstream Republican
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: who came in to get rid of the far right
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: congressman and Steve King. He endorsed Ron De Santis during
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: the presidential CAUCUSUS So the fact that somebody got to
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the President and convinced him to do this basically by saying, hey,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: it's the only way we could be This was a
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: case where Trump got talked into being to taking one
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: for the team, to doing what was best for the party,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: and that the National Party folks, both in the Senate side,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: they didn't, you know, they said, no, you got to
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: make sure Fiensture is the nominee here. And it looks
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: like Elaine decision has projected and Fiatures already already conceded
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the race. This Zach Lane won by less than two
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: thousand votes. But there's a couple of ways to look
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: at this. First of all, we had Maha versus MAGA.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: That's fascinating. That's something that the fact that the Maha
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: movement might have proved to be stickier, might have proved
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: to be more of an outsider credential. Right, Mega, you
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: get a Trump endorsement. Yes it's MAGA, but in some
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: ways it's an insider credential. But you know, the politics
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: of i are very sort of are sort of in
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: flux at the moment. Right this is still a right
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: leaning state, don't get me wrong, but the tariffs have
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: done enormous damage to the agricultural economy. This is also
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: a state that Donald Trump's never really Yes, he does
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: well in general elections. I remember he lost the Iowa
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Coxes when he ran in twenty sixteen something. He still
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: won't concede that happened, but it did. The sitting governor
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: endorsed DeSantis. Randy Feinstrop, basically the leading Republican congressman in
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the state, endorsed DeSantis. Jony Ernst was not really a
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: big Trump what you would say. Partner in the Senate,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Chuck Grassley has always felt comfortable criticizing the President on
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: tariffs and on a few things that he thinks. He
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: also hit him pretty hard on the weaponization fund earlier
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: this week too. So look, I think it's it's hard
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: to sit here and say what was the definitive reason
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: why Zach Lane beat Randy Finstra. But to me, there's
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: a confluence of events you can tap into. Number One,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Randy Finscher's first name is congressman. And I think just
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: being perceived as an incumbent not good. As John Covilian
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: said during our live stream, you know this has been
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: true in a lot of Republican primaries in general, where
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: incumbents in competitive Republican primaries, incumbents are usually more in
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: more trouble on the right side of the oven, on
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the left side of the album. We saw that with
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: John Cornyn getting ousted, and now you have Randy Feinstrat.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: By the way, South Dakota, which is going to feature
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: its first ever run off for governor, had another sitting
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: member of Congress, a statewide elect official who happened to
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: be a sitting member of Congress, and Dusty Johnson, and
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: it doesn't and it looks like he is going to
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: miss out on the runoff. Certainly underperformed, so having the
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: last name of Congressman not being seen as fully mega
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: throw in the tariffs, which yes, is a little bit
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: mad at Trump, but a little bit mad at you're
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: elected officials in general. So it's just a large stew
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: of discontent in various ways, and then you just sometimes
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: just campaigns matter. Zach Lane ran clearly ran a better campaign.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: He went from zero to relevant. And it looks like
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Fainstred just sort of and his team just sort of
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: took this race for granted, it'll come, it'll happen, it's natural,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: and it didn't. So what does this mean Democrats if
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: there's a Gooba natorial nomine in the country that they're
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: more excited about than Rob sand I don't know who
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: it is. Rob Sand is the only statewide elected Democrat
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: in the state. He won in twenty twenty two by
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: the skin of his teeth, but he was able to
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: win even during that big red wave that did sweep
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: across most of Iowa. Sand's been running in a pretty
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: interesting race so far. He's already done one hundred town halls.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: He's really been running for governor for almost a full
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: four years. Ever since he won that race, it was
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: clear he was I in this moment to run for governor.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Nobody thought cam Reynolds is going to seek another term.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: There's no term limits in Iowa, so she could have
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: if she chose to. She chose not to. Clearly the
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: split with the president right, she was on team Desantas,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: and we know what happens to anybody that's on Team
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: DeSantis from the presidential era. It's not something that Donald
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Trump will ever forget. So on paper, you know, Sand's
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: been preparing to run against Fienstra. Now. When I ran
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: into Rob Sand at a at an event that I
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: was moderating where he was a participant in the panel,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: he said, I frankly thought he was spinning me a
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: little bit. He said, ah, you know, Finstre's not it's
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: not a done deal yet. He's got a tougher prime.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: He's still got to he's still got to deal with
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the primary well turned out. You know, Look he's traveling
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the state. All these candidates run into each other, so
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: they keep track of this. Sand's been prepared to one
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: run kind of race. Now he's running against an outsider.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Sand was the was essentially challenging the Republican estestablishment. Well,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: now his opponent is an outsider who was not endorsed
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: by Donald Trump. So you can't really run the He's
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: too far, too closely associated with Trump mindset. So look,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: it's possible Zach Lane is just too much of a
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: neo Fhight. He gets painted as too far to the right.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Sand is able to pull off a high single digit,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: made even low double digit victory, and if he could
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: pull that off, that drags other statewide candidates, in congressional
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: candidates across the finish line. This is why this Iowa
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: race if if Zach Lane cannot be competitive against Rob
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Sand and look, whatever anybody thinks of Randy Feinstrett, he've
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: been the nominee. This was going to be a three
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: to five point race. No matter what in going in
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: either direction. Now there's a lot more unpredictability. Look, I'm
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: not going to assume that an insurgent outsider that is
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: able to topple a sitting member of Congress in or
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: primary for governor. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna underestimate
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: this gentleman. But if he has a hard time sort
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: of getting with the rest of the Republican ticket, this
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: is this is a cause for some concern for Republicans,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: and this puts down I mean, I have identified Iowa
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: that if you want to test whether is twenty twenty
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: a wave election or not, my definition of wave will
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: be dependent on what the results are in the three
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Iowa congressional districts that for grabs that US Senate seat,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: and that governor's race. If this is a blue wave year,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I expect a sweep or near sweep of those five races,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: with maybe one of the you know, I think I
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: think one of the two members of Congress could survive
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: in a blue wave year. But if you if this
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: is going to be a blue wave, the only way
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: I think you can call it a blue wave is
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: if these Iowa statewide races go blue. And I'm just
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: telling you tonight, the results that we saw that came
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: in are going to have the Democrats getty here on
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Wednesday morning. They're going to feel better just simply on
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: what happened in Iowa. Forget everything else. And look, we've
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: got a long way to go to find out everything
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: all the different various matchups, did any parties get locked
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: down in the top two with the whole California mess,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: But just with what happened in Iowa, this was a
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: big positive development for Team Blue and Democrats have their
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: best shot at sweeping the top two state white offices
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: in Iowa since the Vilsack Harken era. Believe it or not,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: that's nearly twenty fifteen, twenty years ago. And that's that's
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: the possibility they're staying. And if that happens, I promise
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: you at least two probably the first and the second,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: but maybe all the first, second, and the third could
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: all come over there. You know, when you think about
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: how small the battlefield is and for the House in general,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: right we think we may have about twenty five competitive
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: House seats. The fact that three of the twenty five
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: are in the state of Iowa. One of the most
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: competitive Senate races now might be in the state of Iowa.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: The number one target race now for Democrats to try
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: to pick up a governor seat is Iowa. You can
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: see why. To me, it's the state we will use.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: It's the barometer to test is this wavier or not?
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Iowa will deliver that answer. But for this primary night,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Iowa delivered for the Democrats in a big, big way.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: And this upset in the governor's race. Look, we know
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: it's going to make the president nuts. Obviously they got
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: to him. Look, there was a poll that started circulating
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: John Colvulliam's firm, that circulated last Friday that showed that
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Feinstro was trailing. It was that poll that was used
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: to convince Donald Trump, you've got to endorse fiinst in
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the same way that he endorsed Mike Rodgers, even though
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Mike Rodgers and Michigan wasn't his favorite type of Republican,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the same way that he endorsed Johnsonunu, even though the
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Sonudu family was not a big fan of the Trumps
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: in New Hampshire. But it was the candidate that the
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Senate Republicans wanted, considering what he just did to the
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Senate Republicans with Ken Paxton and essentially costing them two
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty the million dollars in extra spending that
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: is going to be necessary to try to save their
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Texas Senate hide. He went ahead and agreed to endorse
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: a one time Dessanta supporter, Randy Finstrom. He's going to
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: he's not going to be happy about this. So let's say,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to find out who who's going to
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: get blamed for forcing that decision on him, because especially
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: when he finds out that the Maha folks were already
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: behind Zach Lane, and I wonder if the person or
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: people who got him to endorse Fienstrom let him know
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: that the Maha side of the world had been siding
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: with another candidate in the race. Anyway, just a few
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: things on that one to think about. This episode of
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: the Chuck Podcast is brought to you by f You
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: can predict the playoff action all the way to the finals,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: and we're here with fan Duel Predicts. All you have
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: to do is sign up to get a twenty five
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: dollars bonus. You get to follow all of the finals dishes, swishes,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: wishes and misses. Every move is a potential plot twist.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: You'll predict the spread, the total points, even the game
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: winning moments to make the playoffs and especially the finals,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: where one run, one rebound, one shot can change the
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: entire trajectory of the Finals from opening tip to the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: final buzzer. Stay locked in with every pass, every play,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: and every moment that moves us closer to crowning a
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: new NBA champion. And yes, it's going to be a
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: new NBA champion. Sign up now for your twenty five
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: dollars bonus on fan Duel Predicts. So Game one is
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: going to be Wednesday night. So one thing I will
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: say is I think that over under to eighteen that
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: where I'm a little I'm not ready to go automatically.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: One of them is going to be shocked at how
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: the other plays. And so I think Game one is
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: a feeling out game and I don't want to pick
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: a side. I'm going with the over. That's going to
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: be what I do. But it is notable to me
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: that the money line for Nicks to win the game
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: and the money line to win the series is must identical,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: which to me provides you an intellectual way to handicap
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: the game. This is an offer by FanDuel Prediction Markets LLC.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: It's a registered Futures Commission Merchant eighteen plus. Bonus is
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: non withdrawbal and expires seven days after receipt. Trading derivatives
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: involves significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Find out if that's you. Manage your activity with FanDuel's
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: consumer protection tools. Restrictions apply. See the terms at FanDuel
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: dot com Slash predicts, Slash Bonus, hyphen offer hyphen terms.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I do want to spend a minute on out the
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: coda because this is so South Dakota in the mid
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: eighties made that so. One of the reasons why we're
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: obsessed with the Iowa governor. One of when the night
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: began is Iowa has a quirky law. If no and
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: this is true in either side's primary, if no candidate,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: and this applies to all races, not just statewide races,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: If no candidate a primary receives thirty five percent, then
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: a convention will decide who the nominee is. And it
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: doesn't and it couldn't be anybody, not even necessarily anybody
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: that filed in the ballot believe it or not, and
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: there was a real chance that the Iowa governor Republican
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: primary was going to feature no candidate receiving thirty five percent.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Well the two winning The winning candidate got thirty seven percent,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: thirty seven point eight percent, and Feedstrup just finished bying
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: them at thirty seven percent, so they across the threshold.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: There's no runoff. South Dakota had the same law, but
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: in the eighties, instead of letting a county convention do it,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: they decided to say, well, if this happens in a
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: primary state wide primary, and this one they just do
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: for statewide primaries, well then they would hold an actual runoff.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: They've never had to do this, they will for the
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: first time. So July twenty eighth circle year calendars, folks,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: July twenty eighth will be the only Tuesday, the only
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: state in the Union that will be voting on a
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Tuesday in July. Last Tuesday in July. It's going to
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: be our friends in South Dakota, and it's going to
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: be a runoff between the populist outsider who we know
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: for sure, Toby Dodan either against the sitting up governor
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: who assumed office after Christy Nome was appointed Department of
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Homeland Security, and know once she got fired from that,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: she didn't get to go back to be governor. Or.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: The sitting member of Congress, Dusty jo And right now
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: is sitting in third place. Look as I'm taping now,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: there's still still anyway from five to ten percent of
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: precincts still remaining, and you got to wait for every vote.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Account we know it's going to a runoff. No candidate
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: at this point in time. Nobody's even crossed the thirty
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: percent threshold. Believe it or not, Four candidates in this
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: race received at least twenty percent of the vote. Yet
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: a sitting Speaker of the House, sitting member of Congress,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: sitting governor, and then this populist outsider, and of course
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: it's the populous outsider that ends up the top vote getter,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: fitting the pattern that we've been seeing where when in doubt,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the undecided Republican primary voter is voting out, voting against incumbents,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: which has been a phenomenon, as John Covillian noted, that
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: has been taking place really since the Tea Party movement.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: But in these competitive primaries, you'd rather be somebody who
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: didn't have a resume filled with political offices than have
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: the resume filled with political offices. One other note on
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: both Randy Fiinster and Dusty Johnson. Right, these are two
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: sitting members of Congress, Conservatives, okay, but conservative members of
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Congress who are not bomb throwers were not theatrical guys.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: And I'll just be honest, I'm kind of personally disappointed
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: what I'm about to say. But basically they were too
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: moderate in temperament. They weren't. They're not too moderate in
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: ideology and in their policy positions, but they're too pragmatic.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: They're too they will they don't want to own the Libs.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: They want to defeat the policy, but they're not interested
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: in sticking a finger in the eye of somebody type
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: of politics. Right, They're not performative guys. I say this
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: with a bit of a lament. Right. I think there's
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: a there's a there's a there's a certain if if
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: if sort of being polite to other people is a
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: net negative and a primary right now is is kind
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: of a big disciplointment because again, if you're apparently the
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: biggest sin that Randy finsterra and Dusty Johnson committed we're
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: simply being not being bombos, not being performers, not being
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: social media bs artists. That's a challenge, right, If this
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: is what the system is going to reward, at some point,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: maybe we'll burn out on this. I don't know, but
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: this is this It it's notable. You can't ignore it.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: And as much as maybe I'm guessing some of you
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: that listen to this podcast probably share my view that
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: you know, this style of politics is kind of destructive.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: It doesn't really get much done, but it's being rewarded
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: by voters. And as long as it gets rewarded by voters,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: trust me, it's going to get replicated and we're going
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: to see more of it. But this, it's a pretty
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: notable trend. And right, John Cornan, the more running is
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: the more reasonable Republican. Randy Feinstrow part of the mainstream Caucus, Right,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Dusty Johnson, the chair of the of the mainstream Caucus.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Not not a trend to ignore on this one. This
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: very much is Donald the Donald trumpification of the Republican Party,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: even though he didn't necessarily. The irony is he endorsed
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: the least Trump like candidate and the voters went ahead
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: with the more trumpy or the more outsider, the more
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: as my friend Charlie Cook likes to call them, exotic,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: can't It's on that one, But history is made. South
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Dakota will hold its first ever runoff for a statewide office,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: and in this case, it will be for governor. The
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: question is will the current governor who assumed office after
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Christino was appointed cabinet sectary? Can he get the second
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: spot in the runoff. I have a feeling that we
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: will have the answer to that question sometime on Wednesday,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: after before I get to California. One another note that
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: I wanted to make here. I had a few things
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: I wrote down here that I didn't want to miss.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Deb Holland, who was a Cabinet secretary. She was member
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: of Congress Cabinet secretary in Joe Biden's cabinet, is officially
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: the Democratic nominee for governor in New Mexico, handily defeating
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Alex Bragman's father, Alex Bragman, the baseball player. Well, Alex
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Brigman's father is a city official in Albuquerque, and it
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: wasn't very close. Holland one bay, but if elected governor,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: and she's going to be the heavy favorite for governor.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: She'll be the first ever Native American woman to serve
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: as governor. So I just wanted to make a note
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: of that. So that brings us to California, and it
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: is going to be days because let me remind you
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: of something. The California law works as this for mail
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: in ballots. If the ballot is received by the county official,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: is postmarked by election day, and that ballot makes it,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: they know you have to have mailed it on election day,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: so you have to have a postmarked by election day.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: But they will receive ballots in the mail and process
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: ballots for up to one week after election day as
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: long as the ballot is postmarked on election day as
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: an election day postmark. So the point is ballots are
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: still going to be coming in all week. And this
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: isn't a small thing. Why do I say it's not
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: a small thing? Talking to my So this is about
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: sort of how this process worked this cycle. Because of
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: the topsy turvy nature of the California gubernatorial race, Democratic
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: voters were holding their ballot very late every just to
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: remind people, every single voter gets mailed to ballot in California.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: The typical early voter is usually the sort of the
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: sort of the rank and file I always vote in
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: primary Democratic voter. Well, that voter voted but didn't drop
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: off their ballot until the last thirty six hours. Up
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: until the last seventy two hours, there was some concern
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: that turnout for twenty twenty six was going to be
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: lower in California than turn out for twenty twenty two.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: And at twenty twenty two there was no it wasn't
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: an open race for governor. There really won this serious
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: you know, there's not a serious contested race for governor
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: that's just going to it's going to automatically bring down turnout.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: There was some thoughts, I mean, the early vote was
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: coming in so low that there was some thoughts, Boy,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: are people holding their ballots at the very end or
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: is there going to be a low turnout primary. Well,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: all the ballots now have come in, we have an
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: idea turnouts likely now going to be higher this cycle
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: than it will be in twenty twenty two, which it
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: should be because there's an open seat race for governor,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: really the first purely wide open race for governor probably
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: since nineteen ninety eight, and that was the last time
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: we had a shockingly high spending candidate for governor, a
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: guy named al Checki, and the boring candidate, Gray Davis
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: ended up winning the primary. Well, apparently jave Absara is
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: benefiting from being the boring candidate, the moderate and temper.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: So here we were talking about the boring candidates don't
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: do well in Republican primaries, but the boring candidates sometimes
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: do well in Democratic prior to this is an all
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: party primary. But given particularly post swallwell, there suddenly was
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: an appetite for somebody that was a little less bomb throwing,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: that was a little and the stier TV ads have
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: sort of are starting to wear people out, and so
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Bessarah seems to be benefiting from that fact. Now, look,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: in the first hours that the votes were coming in,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: there's a bit of a what I'd call a red mirage,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: which was kind of expected, and it's probably a bigger
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: version of it, but we're going to find out as
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: the votes come in. And why do I say it's
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: a bigger version of it, because of this unusual situation
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: with the early vote. Right the early vote came in,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Republicans knew who they were voting for early. They knew
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: they were voting for Spencer Pratt. They knew they were
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: voting for Steve Hilton, and that's why the earlier numbers,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: as you've seen in and in fact, at this point,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Hilton may still be leading. My guess is by the
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: time some of you listen to this, Hilton probably will
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: have fallen into second place. The question is going to
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: be this count again. If they're receiving ballots for up
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: to a week, we're not going to have this. We're
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: not going to know for sure the second candidate is
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: in this California governates. We think until at least for
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: a few more days, we got to see what kind
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: of spread there is between second and third. But as
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: I record this, at the moment, Hilton still is narrowly ahead,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: but it's narrow It's only by about thirty thousand votes.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: But Sarah is second, and then there's a pretty big gap.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: There's about a two hundred thousand vote gap between Besarah
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: and Styre, basically about a six percentage point gap. Stier's
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: number is going to grow, Hilton's number is going to
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: go down. The Besarah numbers probably going to grow a
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: little bit too. So we're sitting at twenty seven twenty
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: six twenty. Essentially at the moment with stire twenty, is
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: that a big enough gap for Hilton to hold on? Well,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: A lot of it's going to depend on Bianca Bianco
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: was the other Republican in the race. With about half
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: the vote in, Bianco was still getting more than double digits.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: That's not good for Hilton's chances of hanging on in
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: the primary. The expectation though, is as this later vote,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: these later ballots come in, Hilton's numbers should hold fairly
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: steady and Bianco should start going down. Especially you've had
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: you had a bit of a paid Republican effort. Hilton
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: ran ads and was running messaging trying to consolidate vote
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: for him to prevent the Republicans from being locked out
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: of the general election. And then Donald Trump came in
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: with the endorsement really to try to guarantee the same thing.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: I think there's a wide enough gap here between Hilton
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: and Stier for Hilton to hang on. My expectation is
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: is that when all the votes are counting, but Sarah
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: will be the top vote getterer. The question is is
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: how close does Styer get. We've seen a total collapse
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: of the Katie Porter vote total collapse of the Matt
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Mayon vote, and that number continues to go down as
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: newer ballots get counted. Right, they were sitting at seven
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: and six percent when the first wave of early vote
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: came in. They're both now dipping below five. Well, how
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: many of those folks went to Stire? I guess you
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: would assume that the progressive voters are going to go
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: to Stire, the less progressive voters are going to go
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: to Bisera. How does that shake itself up again? I
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: think the Hilton number is large enough to hold off Stire,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: but we know Stire had the money to run a
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: very sophisticated get out the vote effort, a very sophisticated
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: male balloting effort, So you know he's done spent an
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: enormous amount of money of trying to do this. If
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: you're Besarah, you obviously don't want to run against Styre.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: You want to run against Hilt, no matter, you know.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: I think of the three scenarios, right, the Sarah v. Stire, Baseravi, Hilton,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Hilton b Stire, the most competitive would be Baseravi Styr,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: though I would suspect that most of the establishment were
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: rolling around Basara. There is a there is an exhaustion
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: that Styer has created with frankly political reporters, the political
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: side of it. I mean, he's just relentless right and
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: he's just saturated television ads to the point where we
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: ran one of them. But Sarah ran A ran an
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: ad that that was just if you have YouTube TV,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: if you ever gotten the the the instead of a commercial,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: in lieu of a commercial, you can just get this moment,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: a zen type of you know, it's just like nature
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: and crickets and all of this. Well, that's exactly the
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: ad of Bsera ran because tired of the Tom Stier ads.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: But nobody speaks in the ad. It's just writing on there.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Bseravi Stier would be. I mean Styr spent over two
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: hundred million dollars for this for this first half of
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: the campaign. Uh spend at least that for another five months,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: and it will tear the party apart and it will
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: cause all sorts of problems. It'll probably raise boat right,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: I guess, might help Democratic candidates a bit down the ballot.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: A but Sarah Hilton race, I think is a very
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: conventional d versus our race probably won't be what the
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: shift Garvey margin was, but it will likely be double digits,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: you know, I think fifty six forty four or something
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: like that. With the wild card being this scandal that
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: could touch Besara and if you're unfamiliar with it, a
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: former chief of staff of his who actually has also
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: has ties to Gavin Newsom, was essentially, you know, sort
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: of getting some campaign money on the side and whatever
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: he was doing. Joe Biden's Justice Department opened an investigation.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: So this isn't Donald Trump's Justice department supposedly doing political weaponization, right,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: this is a democratic justice department investigating a Democratic former
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: chief of staff both to Kevin Newsom into Javier Vesara.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: What did be Sarah know? Right? Did he did? He
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: really not know that his chief of staff was looking
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: away to supplement his income and was complaining about the
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: fact that he had to take a pay cut in
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: order to work out in Washington with him at HHASS.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: So it is I don't think it's as we were talking.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: In some ways, it's a run in the middle scandal
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: these days. I don't know if it breaks through the
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: way Swallowell broke through, but it's not helpful. And so
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: you know, that's the only wild card that hangs over
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Besarah here on that. But Basara v. Hilton is a
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: fairly conventional race and probably it's probably look it actually
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: helps both parties, right, it makes for a clean general
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: election campaign for the Democrats, but there's a statewide effort
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: to get Republicans to the polls, so it might be
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: able to help them save a couple of House seats.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: And you know, for me, the most interesting I think
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: the house race I'm the most fascinated with is California six.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: And California six is the one one where Kevin Kylie,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: who was a Republican, decided to drop his Republican party affiliation,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: become an independent and run in the sixth congressional district
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: as an independent rather than to try to either run
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: again do a member versus member race and stay a Republican.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I've spent a little time with Kevin Kylie. I think
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: he's dead serious about staying as an independent. I think
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: he's enjoying the freedom. I think he sees the freedom
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: of not feeling the pressure of partisan you know, leadership
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: forcing you to vote certain ways, and especially if Democrats
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: are going to win control of Congress, I think he's
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: likes the idea of a free agent, so it'll be
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: interesting to see he was he was leading early, he
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: should make it into the top two. Is he going
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: to face there was there's a Democrat and a Republican
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: and I don't know if it's a I you can
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: that's an interesting scenario. Now. I assume he ends up
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: facing a Democrat because the district was drawn to help
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: a Democrat and to try to help a Democrat win.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: So I assume the Republican that was very it was
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: a very fairly tight three way race with about half
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: the vote in. I assume the Republican candidate in the
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: same sort of red mirage that we were telling you
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: you were going to see a slow fade of the
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: Republicans across the board, so that it would probably probably
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: not quite get there. So it's likely to be Kighlie
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: the independent versus a Democrat. And the question is is
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: Kylie take help from Republicans? Does he say no, he
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: doesn't want help with Republicans because he doesn't necessarily want
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: to organize with them. So that's going to be an
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: interesting decision because at the moment, the party hasn't decided
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: whether to help Kylie out. Let's see what happens when
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: he's the official I guess whatever we call him now
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: in nominees in the top two system. So that's just
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: a pet race of mind. And you know, look, I've
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: spent a lot of time. I've made no secret I
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: think the two parties are in a bit of a
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: rough spot and could use some independent third party disruption.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: And anytime I'm seeing a disruptive Canada show up, I
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: think it's worth making note of. Obviously, the other race
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: in California that certainly gets plenty of media attention is
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: La Mayor and the Man from the Hills and Spencer Pratt.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: And here's what we can tell you there. Maass is
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: definitely gonna make it. The question is she gonta run
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: against Spencer Pratt or Media Ramen. Now, Spencer Pratt is
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: running essentially to Bassa's right and Ramen is running to
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Vassi's left. Pratt is really good at getting a lot
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: of attention. Pratt has made the issue of the fire
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: in the Palisades his issue. The problem for Pratt is
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: what's he going to promise the rest of the city. Right,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: the rest of the city doesn't care about the rich
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: people as much as the rich people care about the
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: rich people when I'm referred to Baalisades. If you're Karen Bass,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: you might prefer to run against the guy that Donald
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Trump likes the best, and Spencer Pratt, then running against
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: somebody that's on Mom Donnie likes the best. Because Nitia
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Ramen has been running essentially a running as a Mom
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: Donnie acolyte running to Bass's left, that is a much
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: more complicated race before I know. As I'm filing this now,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: we have about about half the vote in at this
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: point in La Bass is going to get there. Pratt's
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: got a nine percentage point lead over Ramin. That's probably
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: enough to hang on. That number is going to shrink
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: over time in the same way, and she'll get a
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: little bit closer. Pratt will go down, but it's hard
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: to imagine that he loses that much altitude, especially since
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: he was actually starting to get even more attention and
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: momentum in the lighter part of this campaign, So even
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: late deciders may have thrown him a bone or two.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: But as unpopular as Karen vass is, it's a lot
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: easier for her to run essentially a Democrat versus returning
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Spencer Pratt into a trumpet Republican is going to be
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: a lot easier than running against somebody that's a mom
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Donnie acolyte. And so it looks like Bass is going
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: to get what she wants there. So there you go. Look,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: we got a lot more to go in California. There's
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: about seventeen thousand more house races that I would love
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: to dig into, and including Ken Calvert and Young Kim.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: We actually called Ken Calvert spot in the runoff a
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: little bit quicker than we were able to count Young
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Kim's and what happens in you know, we some of
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: those races will be easier to handicap once we know
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: will there be a Republican in the top two for
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: the governor's race or not? Right, that has all sorts
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: of implications on that. STI Besara is one type of
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: campaign and Hilton v. Besera is another. I don't The
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: one scenario I don't think we're going to get is
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Stire b. Hilton. For what it's worth, I do think
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: it's the one scenario that Hilton would be a bit competitive.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: There is I think I think there is a very
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: low ceiling for Styre and the question is does he
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: even have a high enough floor to crack the top two.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: We shall see. But if he doesn't crack the top two,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: that's a lot of wasted money. That is a lot
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: of money when you throw in how much money we
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: are talking. He is getting awfully close to have spent
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: in two campaigns about a half billion dollars and I
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: don't think he got a single delegate for the presidential race.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: And I'm not sure what he's gotten out of this.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: I'm not counting him out yet, But there's there's there's
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: a there's an old saying about you know, it doesn't
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: matter what the packaging says. Sometimes dogs won't eat the
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: dogs just simply won't eat the dog food. There's whatever
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: it is. Maybe it's his personality, maybe just simply the
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: fact that he's a billionaire. There's something that seems to
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: be and he's running sort of almost an aggressively progressive campaign,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: so you would think, and there's a there is a
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: a progressive electorate to tap into, but there's something something
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: about him that seems to turn off a certain chunk
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: of voters that in theory he should be politically aligned with.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: But he has had a hard time connecting as a
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: presidential candidate, and I'd argue he's had an equally hard
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: time connecting as a gubernatorial candidate. One more note on
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: the gubernatorial race and then I'm gonna I'm gonna wrap
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: up this analysis for the night. Matt Man. Maybe we
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: have may have rest an independent journalists former Ally Times
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: reporter on the election night live stream, and she made
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: an interesting observation that I think has been that that
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: deserves some deserves some highlighting sort of you know, up
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: in tweet if you will, and that is that if
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: you knew who Matt Mahon was, the one thing and
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: you weren't from San Jose, the one thing you knew is, oh,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: he was big text candidate. And she seemed to think
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: that that actually was a problem for him, that he
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: was too defined by the fact that he was the
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: candidate that the tech community like, because guests who ain't
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: popular right now and on frankly either side of the aisle,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: the tech community, you know, Man was running as more
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: of a technocrat. He was on this podcast. Some of
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: you probably heard him. I mean, you you know, he
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: he's sort of he screamed technocrat, which you know is
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: something that that. You know, I'll admit I'm always you know,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: the technocrats, that the data driven folks, So I'm always
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: I'm the type of person that gives them a second look,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: but not everybody else does. Uh. But as we've discussed,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: you know, you got to you gotta do a little solid,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: you gotta do little singing for your supper. So we
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: hit that wall. But I do think it's I do
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: think we shouldn't ignore the fact that perhaps his biggest
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: impediment was simply he was associated with the wrong group
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: of people in the wrong campaign here. And who do
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: I mean by that? The tech community. So anyway, I
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: just didn't want to let let my stream of consciousness
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: analysis from this night go without making that point. So overall,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: if you're looking at it nationally big picture, really good
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: night for the Democrats, really challenging night for the Republicans.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: I'd say, I'm not going to sit here and say
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: it was a bad night for them, but it's a
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: challenging night for them. A couple of incumbent members of
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: Congress can't get through gubernatorial primaries. You know that for
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: me is a Canarian. The coal mine about just being
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: an incumbent member of Congress. Not a great cycle. Democrats
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: got primaries to turn out the way they wanted to
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: turn out in New Jersey the way they wanted to
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: turn out Montana. I left on Montana Montana Senate Democratic
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: primary is likely now is going to be one by
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: somebody who has hinted that they might be willing to
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: drop out of the race. Why does that matter? John
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: Tester is supporting the independent candidate Seth Bodner in that
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Montana center race. Seth Bodner would like a deal with
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: the Montana Democrats that Dan Osborne was able to put
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: together in Nebraska with the Nebraska Democrats in that center race,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: which is to get the party to essentially take a knee.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: Don't feel the candidate. Nebraska Democrats have agreed to do that.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: A lot of Montana Democrats were grumbling about this, weren't
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: ready to do this. But at the last minute there
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: was one candidate that seemed to not you know, seem
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: to be at least open to the idea of doing this.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: And magically, this candidate, Alani Bankhead, got suddenly got a
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: little bit of money spent on her behalf to make
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: sure because Riley Neil, who was also in this primary
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: had said that she was not not going to drop out,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: which would have been a death sentence to Bondner, would
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: have just absolutely allowed the Republican nominee. Remember this is
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: that race where Steve Daines literally dropped out decided not
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: to file like an hour before filing, in order to
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: guarantee that Kurt all Me the US Attorney, didn't have
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: a serious primary challenge. If it's all Me v. Bodner,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: that's a very tight Senate race that is up for grabs,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: that it's a fifty to fifty race. But if it's
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: all Me Bodner and there is a somebody on the
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Democratic line, unwinnable race for Bonner, it just isn't winnable.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: I mean because a Democratic you know, there's enough sort
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: of people that just say, oh, what what party do
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: I vote for that will always vote one of the
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: two major parties. If it's five percent or more, it's
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: over right. The numbers don't add up for Bodner. And
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: I guarantee you if there's a Democratic name on the
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: line in the Senate race on the ballot, they're going
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: to get more than five percent. They'll probably get somewhere between.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: Even if they don't campaign fifteen percent and that that
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: becomes that just makes the math there impossible. But Democrats
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: got somebody who they think they can convince to do. So.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: The point is everything went their way in New Jersey,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: everything went their way in Iowa, everything seemed to go
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: their way in Montana. And we got a long way
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: to go. But at a minimum, they're not getting shut out. Right.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: The big fear in California in the top two is
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: that they could actually get shut out. That's not going
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: to happen there. So all in all, a really good
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: night for the Democrats at best, a really challenging night
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: for the Republicans. And depending on what kind of candidate,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: what kind of candidate that Zach Lane turns out to
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: be is the Republican nominee for governor Iowa. If he's
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: a bad candidate, then tonight we'll look back and say
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: this was a disaster for the Republics because one bad
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: statewide candidate for the Republican Party in Iowa could cost
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: them three House seats a Senate seat. Put all that
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: together could actually cost them control of both thousand in
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: the Senate. So that's why for now I'll just say
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: challenging because I think we got to give Zach Lane
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: a chance. Here see what kind of candidate he is.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: But if it's if he turns out to be a
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: bad nominee. Tonight was a disaster for the JAILBA. This
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: episode of The Chuck Toddcast is brought to you by Soul.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: So if you love that end of the day unwined
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: but hate the hangover, Soul's out of Office is for you.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: These sparkling THHC drinks and gummies give you the same
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: relaxed social feeling without the alcohol, without the calories, and
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: without the crash. Soul is a wellness brand that believes
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: feeling good should be fun and easy. Soul specializes in
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: delicious hemp derived THCH and CBD products designed to boost
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: your mood and help you unwind. They're best selling out
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: of Office gummies were designed to provide a mild, relaxing buzz,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: boost your mood and enhance creativity and relaxation. With five
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: different strengths, you can tailor the dose to fit your vibe.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: So also has a variety of products specifically designed to
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: help you get a better night's rest, including their top
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: selling Sleepy Gummies, a fan favorite for deep restorous sleep. Look,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: I have made no secret I am a believer in
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: this stuff, in cannabis and hemp derived. I do not
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: partake in alcohol. For the most part, I think this
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: stuff is a lot safer than alcohol, a lot less
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: addictive than alcohol. And yes, I have to say I
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: love these drinks. It is the glass of wine and
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: you know, after work, that's what this is. So no
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: hangover and no excess calories like this. I'm a big fan.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: So bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: Sold today. Right now, Soul is offering my audience thirty
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: percent off your entire order. Go to getsold dot com
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: and use the word toodcast that's getsold dot com promo
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: code podcast for thirty percent off. And yes, I too,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: am a customer. Top top it's top five list time
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: and I got an intriguing one today. It's sort of
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: built off of the news that Donald Trump is trying
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: to replace Tulsea Gabbert with one of his personal you
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: might call him weaponization czars, Bill POULTSI, who was at
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: over you know who was using a perch over at
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: the Housing Authority to investigate people to try to get
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: Lisa Cook on the FED fire to try to get
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: some members of Congress that were enemies of Donald Trump
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: in trouble over mortgages. Basically, he was clearly violating some privacy,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: sort of weaponizing a government agency in order to do
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: some bidding. So what does Donald Trump do. He wants
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: to appoint him to replace Tulca Gabbard, who has resigned
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: Slash been fired from DNI, and we're going to talk
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: about DNI here in a second. Well, what's interesting is
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: that almost immediately the Republican Party started pushing back on this.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: And what's astonishing is what John Thune said in the
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: immediate aftermath of finding out that he was the nominee.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: John Thune told reporters, quote, we don't need a weaponized
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: director of National Intelligence. Chuck Schumer didn't say this. John Thune,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: the Republican Senate leader, said this his immediate reaction. He
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: did him and Hall. Look, there's most of the actions
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has taken in personnel or something that John
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Thune hasn't been in favor of, but he always dances
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: around it. Well, you know that's we're going to let
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: the Senate work its will, or he would hide behind
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: one of those cliches. There was no mincing words here.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: We don't need a weaponized his quote director. Now some
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: of you might say, Tulsa Gabbard used her purchase D
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: and I to do all this phony beloney twenty twenty
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: election stuff. So we've already had a weaponized Director of
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: National Intelligence. Now, look, I think the bigger issue is
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: this is a useless position. The only thing it is
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: useful for is foreign adversaries getting a crack at an
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: individual person who happens to sit at the nexus of
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: all intelligence information supposedly coming into one. So there, you know,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: after nine to eleven there was worry about stove pipe
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: of information. The intention was to make the Department of
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: the Director of National Intelligence, he said, essentially the head
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: of the intelligence community. It may be on an ORC chart,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: but it is not. The CIA has won this turf battle.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: I told you this before. They won this turf battle essentially.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: Right after Obama's first DNI failed, and his failure just
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: everything shifted back to the CIA. Barack Obama put his
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: chief intelligence picks at the CIA, not at DNI. Donald
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: Trump did the same thing in the first term. Joe
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: Biden did it in his first one term, and in
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: some ways, Donald Trump did it again in this second
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: term by moving by putting Ratcliffe at DNI and putting
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: somebody who couldn't have been more un Well, that's not true, right,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: He she was incredibly unqualified Telsea Gabbard for the job.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: Bill Polty actually is making Telsey Gabbert look a bit qualified.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Long story here, This is a kind of my big
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: wind up here in the top five list? Why am
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: I signaling out Poulty and why am I singling out
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: John Thune? Because you're starting to really see that if
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: Republicans want to push back at Donald Trump, they can,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: And in this second term, we've seen a handful of
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: times where not just disappointing rhetoric, where actions actually changed
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: because of semi unified pushback by congressional Republicans beyond just
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: complaining about what he was doing, and not anonyness, not
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: anything like that. So I thought, with my top five lists,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: I will do the five instances where Republicans have actually
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: successfully pushed back at Donald Trump and made him change
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: either pull back a nomination, change a direction of a policy,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: or retreat. Bill Poulty doesn't make the list yet he
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: hasn't been. He hasn't been his nomination have been pulled yet.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: So it's Poulty's not going to make my list, but
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: it's my opportunity to bring this one up. And by
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: the way, for the Bill BOLTI doesn't have a lot
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: of friends within the administration. Poulty is the guy that's
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: got Besn't threatened to punch in the face because he
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: was upset at what Pulty was doing in harassing somebody
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: that bessnt cared about, that was trying to get a
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: job in the administration. It was clear that Poulty was
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: just using the government databases as basically personal opposition research files.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: Imagine putting that at d NI. I mean it is.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: This is completely irresponsible, and so kudos to John Thune.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: Do immediately say we can't have a weaponized Director of
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: National Intelligence. He went right there. No Democrat has to
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: say the word. This is the Senate Republican leader saying it.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: So Poulti's nomination is dead. The Senate Majority leader isn't
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: going to vote for him. We already know the Yolo
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: Caucus in the Republican side of the Ale is going
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: to vote for him. So it's dead. But it's not
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: dead yet, so it doesn't crack my top five lists. So,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: but where are the five instances where you can tangibly
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: say Republican pushback? Maybe Trump change directions number five in
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: the let's see Epstein files right. In some ways, it's
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: one of the cleanest forced reversals that we've seen in
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: the Trump era. He personally whipped against the discharge petition.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: He was trying to prevent the files from being released,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: prevent the discharge petition from happening. It didn't work. At
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: the last minute, when he saw that it was going
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: to pass, he flipped and said, Okay, they've passed it,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: go ahead and release the files. Well, we know he
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: didn't like it. Why because you know, he was so motivated.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: The only reason he went after Thomas Massey was not
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: over his lack of support for Israel, although that certainly
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: won the President allies in helping find financial resources to
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: defeat Thomas Massey in a primary. He went after him
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: for one reason, because he was the chief Republican making
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: this bipartisan. And he went after Marjorie Taylor Green, and
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: he threatened primary Jenne of Loan Boberg. And in the
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: threat of all of that. In the face of all
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: of that, these folks still did it. They still push
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: back and you would see, I mean, the House passed
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: the bill that distart position eventually four in twenty seven
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: to one. So have we gotten everything? We don't know,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: do we, But we certainly have gotten more stuff than
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump wanted to see released. And again I go
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: back to he's petrified of the story. We have yet
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: to find the thing in the file that makes him
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: so petrified in the story. But we do know he's
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: petrified in the story. That's number five in the list,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: number four, his threat to take over at Greenland, right,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: and it was some of the more loud Republican opposition,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: and Mitch McConnell went on the Senate floor and warned
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: that it would shatter the trust of all of our allies,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: and he was hearing pushback all over. And this is
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: when this instigated the essentially the Mark Carney split, the
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: fact that Middle Powers and allies are cutting deals with
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: China out from under the United States. It did enormous
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: damage just his threat to take over Greenwell. But he
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: finally gave up the push in January. And he had
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: to give up the push because he wasn't getting any
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: Republican support for this. Now the White House calls it
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: climbed down and they just simply say it's for now.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: But I think it qualifies in the list, and that's
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: why I put it at number four. You've noticed Cuba
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: maybe on the list, but Greenland is no longer on
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: the list. J Powell is number three on this list
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: where you saw successful Republican pushback. Basically Tom Tillis, who
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: had the ability to do this, said that he was
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: going to block every FED nominee over this manufactured investigation
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: into then FED Chair J. Powell over the over the
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: remodeling of the Federal Reserve offices, and Tillis stuck to
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: his guns, and after the loss and the attempt by
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: the administration to fire Lisa Cook on the Supreme Court
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: said that they couldn't do that, and you had and
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: then finally they realized they weren't going to get a
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: new FED chair unless because tell Us wasn't going to
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: let it happen, and he had the power in the
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: committee that he sat at to do that. And so
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: the Department of Justice in April twenty fourth drops the
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: probe on pal Donald Trump gets his nominee, and Japwell
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: stays on the FED, and Lisa Cook is still on
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: the FED. So this is a case where Republican pushback worked.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: It made him change behavior, and it made him pull
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: back on that weaponization attempt to target j. Powell. Number four,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: excuse me, number two on my list, not number four,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: number my fourth one, but number two. I'm going in
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: first order here the Matt Gates nomination. Now, there's a
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: part of me that believes Matt Gates was never intended
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: to be a confirmed attorney general. That the whole point
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: of Matt Gates was to basically throw you know, throw
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: some you know, throw a bleeding fish to the sharks,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: let him gnaw on it. And then meanwhile, you know
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: you let you get Haig Seth Kennedy and gathered the
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: three incredibly unqualified cabinet secretaries to be confirmed. So if
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: you wanted to push back on me and say, well,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: the Gates thing was that it's possible that that's what
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: it was, right, that Gates was never an actual intentional
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: nominee to be Attorney general. But the universal pushback, and
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: yes it was technically before he actually became president, it
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: was universal, and it was threatening to derail everything from
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: the start. If he actually stuck to his guns and
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: tried to get him through. Now, I'll be honest, that's
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: the sliding doors that I'm always very curious about. Could
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: Trump You know, how stiff were the spines of the
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: Republicans at that moment in time. There's no doubt in
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: my mind Matt Gates never would get through today. But
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: if he'd really twisted arms, I mean, I look, I
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: never thought Pete hag Seth would get confirmed as Defense
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: Secretary based on the conversations I had, based on the
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: emphatic opposition that existed on the Republican side of the aisle,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: and yet Donald Trump and his cronies were able to
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: intimidate a handful of Republican senators to cave. So there
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: has always been a question that hangs over the head
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: for me on Gates. That said, it's still important to
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: put on the list, and that's why I put it
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: on a number two because it was early, but it
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: was one can only imagine what MATC. Gates would have
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: done it as attorney job. But number one just happened,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: and it appears to be the death of this anti
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: weaponization fund. The Republicans in Congress basically said we're going
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: to stop working with you, We're going to stop legislating,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: We're going to stop these reconciliation bills in order to
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: fund DHS and fund some other things. And he clearly
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: didn't want to pull back. But after the judicial ruling
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: that made it clear that this was going to be
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: exposed as a shady, intentional deal that somehow was cooked
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: up by the president's personal lawyer, who, for some ungodly
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: reason is technically the acting Attorney General. That in itself, right,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: you want to talk about losing the plot. We have
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: lost the plot here that we've allowed somebody's personal defense
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: attorney to become the chief weaponizer of the Department of Justice.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: But unfortunately that's what we have here in mister carte blanche.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: But guess what there's clearly I mean the defeat that look,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: this was an this was enormously unpopular. You can argue
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: this was easy to do, but it also is important
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: you know the timing of this. Right, most filing deadlines
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: have passed I think every filing not quite every filing deadline,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: I think there's a couple of more, but most filing
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: deadlines have passed, so it is safe to oppose Donald Trump.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: You may say, wow, he could still rally a primary
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: challenger in twenty eight He could, there's no doubt, but
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: he's incredibly unpopular right now. And if they lose both
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: houses of Congress, his own more people in his own
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: party are going to start turning against him. Not in droves,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: but is you know, an erosion of sorts. So I
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: think you're starting to see I think the death of this,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: essentially this weaponization fund that they that Donald Trump and
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: Todd blanche are trying to concoct using taxpayer dollars, your
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: money in my money in order to pay off January
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: sixth rioters. That apparently was an enormousge too far for this.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: So look, it's there's two lessons they take away from this.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: One is they can push back on him if they
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: want this idea. They're powerless. They're not. Yes, it can
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: be career painful to the career, but it's not totally destructive.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: But this is how guardrails work. It's not pretty, they
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: get dented up, it gets kind of ugly, but that's
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: you know, they're not it's not a clean it's not
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: a guardrail. That's going to make you stay straight on
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: the tracks. But they're there. And I know many of
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: you were concerned they didn't exist at all. You know,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: you can sit here and say, but they didn't do this,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: and they've let this go, and they've let this go,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: and they've let this go. Yeah, the question is what
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: are they going to do with the really bad stuff? Well,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: guess what with the really bad stuff? They stood up.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here and give him a
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: gold star for essentially doing the bare minimum mirror, but
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: it's pretty important for the Republican for the system that
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: there is a line that can't be crossed. Right, the
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: line moved, the line shifted, but there's still a line,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: by the way. If you need one more reason why
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: Bill Poulty will never be a confirmed head of the
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: Department of National as Director of National Intelligence. And I'll
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: I will, I will eat the cover. I will. Let's see,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: I will eat the cover of a Roger Stone book
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: if I'm if he's actually becomes a confirmed Director of
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: National Intelligence, Bill Poulte. So why am I saying Roger Stone?
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: Because a guess who's being credited with convincing Donald Trump
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: to a point? Bill Poulty to that position. Guests who
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: saved Tulsea Gabbard a couple of times before she finally
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: decided to walk It was Rogerstone. I think it's a
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: fair question to ask why Roger Stone cares so much
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: about this particular position that serves as the nexus of
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: all intelligence that comes into the United States government. As
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: I've hinted at before, if I were running a foreigned
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: intelligence agency and I were looking to find somebody to
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: flip or to use, or to coerce into giving me intelligence,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: it would be in the office of the Director of
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: National Intelligence. So you want to talk about this, ain't
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: a yellow flag for me. It's a big frickin red flag.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: If Roger Stone is working with Bill Poulting, that guaran
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: that is likely a death sentence now for Poltice nomination
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: at Vienna. So there's your top five lists, the five
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: things that Republicans successfully got Trump to change, pull back,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: or change his mind. Number one that weaponization fund, Number two,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: Matt Gates's attorney general. Number three, the probe into j. Powell,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: Number four Greenland, and number five we think the full
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: release of the Epstein closs. Ask Chuck, all right, let's
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: do a little ask Chuck. First question comes from Michael
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: T Chicago, Illinois. He goes, Hey, love the podcast, especially
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: the recent Common Cause interview. You asked for some reform ideas,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: and I wanted to throw out a few, including one
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: banning congressional stock trading, two fanning the House, three improving
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: member travel. I'd like to understand that more improving member travel,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: and five strengthening the FEC, the Federal Elections Commission. Curious
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: which of these or others do you think are most
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: realistic in today's environment. I'd like to understand more. On
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: improving member travel what you mean by that, per se,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: because it's for all right, you know it's it's you
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: know some members, you know you live across country. How
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: often do you go back and forth? Can you make
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: it easier for members to do their work in their
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: district offices, considering how expensive it is go back and forth,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: how time consuming it is, things like that. But anyway,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: I will confess Michael that I'm not quite sure the
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: reform you're asking about an improving member travel, what the
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: specific thing is. But let me take the other three
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: Congressional stock trete. I think it's Look, this is this
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: this isn't hard to implement, and it seems to me
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: that it is that this is a this we need
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: a structure, We need a system, because this isn't just
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: about I mean, the fact is Cabinet secretaries shouldn't be
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: stock trading. Anybody pulling a six figure government salary as
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: a political appointee or an elected political representative shouldn't be
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: trading stocks on this. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: allowed to have investments, but they should not have It
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: should be and you can actually, I mean, look at
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: this point, I'm not I know some of you're gonna say, oh,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: we don't need a bureaucracy, but we might and you
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: might need an actual agency that just simply handles this
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: blind trust stuff. And I and I actually think if
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: you institutionalize it, it's it's more likely to stick than
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: if you just do a congressional ban. But then what
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: are you going to have whether you have you know,
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: look at look at the corruption inside the Defense Department.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: We've got Pete Hegsett's attempts to try to uh make
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: invest it deals off of defense contracts. Right, So it
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: is you know, you can't sort of solve this problem.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: And not do this. And I don't want to not
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: do something just because it isn't going to have the
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: reach it should have inside frankly, the judiciary and the
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: executive brand. That's why institutionalizing it gives it where essentially
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: it's it's across the board. Again, I this is the
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: hemin and hawing on This tells me that whatever gets
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: past is going to have so many loopholes. Sort of
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: reminds me of following the name, image and likeness bills
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: that all these college football programs have been lobbying their
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: own state legislatures that pass. You know, they're like, oh, no,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: we want we need to have some certainty, but within
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: the certainty or nothing but loopholes for rich downers to
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: be able to go in and manipulate the system. So
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: I am a little concerned about that. But I think
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: there's no doubt that in order to rebuild trust in
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: government this isn't necessary. It absolutely is necessary, but it
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: has to also apply to the executive branch and the judiciary.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: So this has to be whole of government. Does that
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: mean we may need to you know, it's possible we
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: need a constitutional amendment, But I also think what Congress
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: ought to do not only do it for themselves, but
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: set up the institution that you said, because this isn't easy,
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: and I wouldn't you know, I've put it in blind trust.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: You know, my brother in law handles it. Now. You
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: don't want that either, right, You kind of need, I
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: think in this case, and an institution to deal with this,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: strengthening the Federal Elections Commission. I think the question is
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: do you strengthen it or do you start all over
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: and come up with something a bit different because this
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: isn't working just simply getting a quorum of enough commissioners
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: appointed at the right time so that you know, essentially
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: everybody's going to aim the system of control on this
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: or or at stalemates to too, and there's you know,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: there's no third entity. I'd like to see a massive
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: reform of the FEC that had the commissioners not be
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: members of Congress, like I think we ought to have
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: this as jury duty or something like that, something akin
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: to that. Meaning, I don't trust the Senate Republican leader,
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: president United Democratic president the United States or Republican president
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: the United States Senate Democratic leader to appoint commissioners who
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: are going to do anything other than look out for
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: the partisan interests of their sign So h you know,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: for a long time we thought bipartisan could could sort
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: of that tension could could balance us out. I'm not
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: sure that works anymore, and we might be better off
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: with actual individuals being recruited or getting you know, outside
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: and to ease or a random rotation of judges. You know,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: the the members of the FEC need to be as
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: far away from political stickiness as possible and yet at
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: the same time have credibility. But we've you know, you've
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: also got to have a you know, the part of
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: the FEC's challenge, Michael, it's the fact that there are
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: no laws that stick. So you pass one set of
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: campaign finance laws or one set of disclosure laws, and
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: it doesn't apply to a different type of committee that
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: is oh no, no, no. This is an education committee that
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: is just educating voters. It has nothing to do with
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: the campaign and it technically meets that that, you know.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: So in order for the FEC to be viable, we
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: probably have to simplify and strengthen our actual campaign finance laws,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: and we probably need a constitutional mement on that. So
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: I've here, I've taken two of your ideas and already
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: complicated by saying you might need a constitutional amendment. It
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean they're not necessary. It just means, this is
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: why it should explain why these are been harder. You know,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: these aren't new in somebodys are not new ideas. They're
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: just have been harder to make happen because ultimately you
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: run into whether it's separation of powers, or you run
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: into other constitutional issues. But the simplest one expanding the house.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: But you know, you know that itch I scratch it
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: almost every day, and that's something you don't need a
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: constitucial mement for. It seems to be painfully obvious to
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: me that we need to expand the house for a
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: variety of reasons, but fairness is the biggest. If we
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: are going to clean up this and create the perception
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: of fair representation again, we're going to need to expand
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: the house because I don't think you know, the more
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: you're relying on people drawing fair lines, the harder this
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: is going to be. More districts mean less necessity. Gerrymander.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: Bottom line is, all of your reform ideas are good ideas,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: in some cases necessary ideas. Much harder to implement than
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: they should be. Next question comes from Jim Tobahana, Pennsylvania,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: and he says, how often here you say Democrats are
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: held to a higher standard because they claim to be
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: the party of higher standards? And I'm not sure I
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: fully understand that. What do you base that on? And
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: is it something you've heard directly from politicians on either side?
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: Shouldn't all elected officials be held with the same standard,
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: especially at the highest levels. Appreciate you elaborating. So it's
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: a little bit of just looking at their behavior, right,
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: the tolerance of Trump and what he's done. There's obviously
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: this lower standard here. If the Democrats are out here
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: preaching that no, no, no, no, we think there needs a
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: higher standards, they got to live by the same. They've
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: essentially as they are. You know, look free districting. No,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: we're for fair districts. Then they're not. Then they get
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: mad that we're somehow you know that some of us
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: in the media are holding them more accountable for their
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: flip fop than from Republicans who never were serious about
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: it in the first place. They weren't the ones that
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: owned it. So it's more on some of these important
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: reform or some of these important character questions. Democrats have
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: been running multi year campaigns about it, and then suddenly
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: they look the other way when it happens to them.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: Then they get mad that the media sometimes gets harsher
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: on a Democratic misstep like that than on the Republican Party.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: But the Republican Party's not out there saying, you know,
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: we're going to nominate people of the highest ethical standards.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: They're not trying to do that anymore. They're the party
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump. They have become the party of self dealing.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: They have become the party that you know, ends justifies means,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: And so I think it's a that's what I mean
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: by that? Do I think? Of course, I think everybody
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: should be judged by the same high set of standards.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: But I'm going to be tougher on somebody. You know,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: It's like we're going to be tougher on the Catholic
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: priest that tells us to live a moral life and
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: then doesn't. Then we would on somebody who isn't claiming
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: to be on the highest of high high ground and
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: then misbehaved. So that's what I mean by that. And
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: you know this is it's the basis for my column
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: this week, which you can find on both the Newsphere
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: and substack, which is simply you know, and I think
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: Democrats are they're playing with a little fire here come
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight. It may not matter in twenty twenty six,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: but you know the idea that they look, you know,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: they have questionable characters on their side of the island.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: They rationalize it away, just like the Right was doing well.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: Here we go hypocrisy all around. And I'm not saying
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: Platinu is somehow done things that are worse than can Paxton. No,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think so. But again, you can't claim high
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: moral ground over here and then ignore it over there.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: And I think that's why, you know, when when Democrats
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: get annoyed or peeoed at me because they think, you know,
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: I get tougher on them, I'm like, yeah, they the
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: party has promised to be better, and I think the
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: party's benefit of the last ten years by not being
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: Trump I promising not to to sort of play by
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: the Trump rules. And I think this decision to essentially
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: play by Trump's rules, whether it's un redistricting, character, you
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: name it, it's gonna bite you in the ass, I
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: don't know when. Maybe it'll work this cycle maybe, and
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: if it just because it works this cycle doesn't mean
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: it's a good idea, all right, So Fia T right Hey,
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: I recently saw your take on potential twenty twenty eight
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: Democratic candidates and agreed with your points, especially on more
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: Whitmer and Footagic. Surprised to see Wes Moore left off
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: some recent discussions. Given his background and potential appeal, do
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: you still see him as a top tier contender even
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: as he publicly downplays a run. Look, I do I
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: think he's being I think he's being correctly. I think
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: he's correctly showing a little bit of humility about a
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: second term. Doesn't want to be presumptuous about winning a
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: second term in Maryland. I think that that's you know,
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: you gotta be careful of that. Bill Clinton in nineteen
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: ninety he was running for reelection and there was some
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: concern he could you know that, and that his opponent
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: could use his presidential ambitions against him. Now, Bill Clinton
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: pledged to serve four years and of course broke that
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: pledge within nine months. Barack Obama broke his pledge. But
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: when I meet the press to announce that he's breaking
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: his pledge not to seek the presidency in twenty oh
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: eight when he decided to do it. So there's certainly precedent.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: It's why I treat him as a top tier candidate.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: But he has said it a few times. He's careful
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: with how he says it. I mean, for a guy
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: that's not interested in running, he's already made a number
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: of trips to certain early states, including South Carolina. That's
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: certainly in Texas Tribune Festival things like that, there's no
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: doubt he's thinking about it now. I do think the
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: real issue, and it's my understanding and done my own
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: reporting on this, is his family. And I think that's
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: a serious thing with him. Meaning if he doesn't think
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: his family can handle the scrutiny, handle the spotlight, all
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: of that, he's you know, he's in his mid forties,
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: no reason why he has to run in twenty twenty eight.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: But I still, you know, when you look at his resume,
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: you know they're you know, for me, there are you know,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: there there have been three, maybe four candidates that stand
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: above everybody else right now on the Democratic side, uh
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: Rafael Warnock, Mark Kelly, John Ossoft Wes Moore for uh,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: and I'll put Pete bootage it's there. Although I think
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: I still think biden baggage is heavy, you know. I
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: think those are in that sort of none that that
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: sort of I think those are all Democrats who have
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: a good shot at unifying the party. That could that
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: could get the business Democrats and the Progressives comfortable in
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: the same tent. Maybe not excited, but comfortable. And I
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: think all would be on paper pretty strong to potential
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: general election candidates. Now, look, who knows how they'd wear,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: how well they'd wear, and all of that, But right now,
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: right it's it's there. I'm I'm I've got got a
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: little more skepticism. And all the other governors, I'm not
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: saying any of them, may you know, Look, I think JB. Pritzker,
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: if he grabs the progressive lane, there's no AOC or
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: Bernie and Pritzker is able to grab it, not ro Conna.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: Britarck's got the resources to be a formidable candidate there,
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: and I don't want to underestimate him. I'm just not
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: quite sure he could unify the party right away. I'm
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: not sure. In Josh Shapiro, I'm not sure in anybushier
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: I think they are all going to be excellent potentially
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: excellent candidates and and and could provide opportunities. But no,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm you know, there's a reason I put more
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: on my most likely you know of people who have
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: not run before, most likely to be in the UH
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: in the top tier of the twenty twenty eight race
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: should he choose to run, He's got he's got it,
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: I think a very good story to tell. Now, like anything,
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: how will he hold up? Right, there's going to be vetting,
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: there's going to be you know, people can look good
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden they look like Graham
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: Platner does at the moment. Right. You know, this is
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: a guy who a month ago people are saying, hey,
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: could he end up being a presidential candidate? Right now
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: there's talk of whether does he stay on the ballot? Right,
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: So this is how quick this stuff can come and go.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: But this is why I sort of him leaning on
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: the candidates who I think have shown an ability to
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: stick around and have had staying power and have kind
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: of already maybe been around the block, gone through a
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: rough go. Right, you know, Warnock's been through some tough
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: campaigns already. Two of them Osoff has Mark Kelly has
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: been vetted once for VP. You know. Probably the one
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: guy that hasn't really had it had to take real
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: incoming just yet is Wes Moore. So he will be,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: you know, so he will be you know, taking incoming
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: for the first time winter if he does decide to run.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: But you know, right now, the in the on paper primary,
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: I think Wes Moore is a top three candidate, all right,
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: Tim c and Mount Clemens, Michigan rights. Hey, if Republicans
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: were to lose more than forty House seats, do you
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: think Mike Johnson's position as leader would be at risk?
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: I don't think Mike Johnson is going to be the
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: House Republican leader if they lose the House, whether it's
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: nine seats or forty seats. Mike Johnson was only Speaker
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: because nobody else wanted the job and had the votes,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: and Donald Trump decided he would have Mike Johnson's back.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: But I think the last thing Johnson wants to be
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: is House minority leader, So I don't think he'll be
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: minority leader. My guess is it's probably going to be
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: somebody like Jim Jordan that it's that it's a little
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: bit more fire brandish. We'll see, But I you know,
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: I I think Jordan's been kind of staying quiet sort of.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: You know, it's almost like he wants to follow the
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: path of MacArthur. Remember McCarthy got denied the speakership before
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: he ever got there the first time, and then sort
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: of licked his wounds and came back and ended up
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: leader again and all of that. So I think that's
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: what Jim Jordan is potentially eyeing. Maybe it's somebody new,
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: maybe it's somebody younger, but I would I you know, look,
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: I know that once people get some power, they don't
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: want to give it up. But I'm just just on
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: a personal note, I think this job's just wore him down.
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: I think he'd like a break. I don't think he
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: and it's tough to go from being the most powerful
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: member of Congress to minority leader. You know, despite the
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: title she gave herself a Speaker of America, there really
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: is no title for Speaker of Aerona. So I imagine
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: that if they lose the House by one seat, let
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: alone nine or forty, as you put in there, Mike
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: Johnson can be later Michael al Wrights. Hey, do you
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: think here Starmer can survive as prime minister? Do you
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: think Nigel Farrage is on his way to becoming prime minister? Well,
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: I will tell you this, I'm surprised that Starmer, as
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: of this writing, and as of your question, and as
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: of this moment in time on June second, and I'm
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: recording this, I'm surprised he's still prime minister. So it
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: certainly seems as if we get a snap election today
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: that Nigel Farrage will be the nominee, would be the
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: likely next prime minister. In some ways, there's a it's like,
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: all right, you want the car, go ahead, let's see
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: how you do. I am skeptical for As is going
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: to be a successful prime minister. I have a feeling,
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: you know, when you get when when a you know,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: it's it's when a when an insurgency grabs power. They
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of times the insurgency doesn't know how to
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: govern and and doesn't know how to stop being an insurgent. Right.
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: Trump has really struggled with this. He hates being the establishment.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: He wants, you know, he wishes he were an insurgent
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: figure still and he struggles with it. And I think
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: this explains why Trump has been terrible when he's been
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: the incumbent, whether whether in a midterm or or running
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: for reelection. And he's and he's much more comfortable being
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: a challenger, as he says, a counterpuncher. So uh, you know,
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: I if the Reform Party is going to be the
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: leading party, I don't see how Farage doesn't get a
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: shot at this. So now I fully expect that Farage
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: is going that the next the next Prime minister after
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: the next elections in the UK will be Farage. I'm
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: not going to sit here and say the next prime
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: minister after Starmar is going to be Farage. It's you know,
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: it still seems as if the party's desperate to find
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: a replacement for Starmer, but the fact that it hasn't
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: happened yet, I think it shows you that there's just
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of factions, right. It's like, you know,
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: Biden was nobody's first choice, and I don't think Starmer
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: is anybody's first choice. But you know, you can't beat
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: somebody with nobody and is as hard to you know,
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: It's like maybe it's an equivalent of answering the other
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: question about about Mike Johnson, like watching Republicans desperately look
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: for somebody that could get two hundred and eighteen votes.
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: It doesn't appear that there's an alternative to Starmer that
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: can get a majority of Labor to make this happen.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: But there's no question that Labor's got to find a
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: new face, right Starmar is just not you know, he's
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: trying not to. He's just he doesn't he doesn't project strength.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: I think he's ideologically about where Labor needs to be
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: and when they're the majority, but he's kind of weak
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: in how he projects his ideas and how he projects
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: his power. And I think that and I think that
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: weakness certainly. And then you've got the whiff of losing
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: on you right now, as it does right because the
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: party just seems but you know, there's a part of me,
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: are we really blaming Kre Starmer for this? Right? And
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: it was just sort of like, you know, Labor won
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: because they weren't the Tories, and I think this is
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: this is it's very similar to like the Democrats won
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty because they weren't Trump, but then they
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: governed like they had won some big landslide and the
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: voters totally rejected that, you know, the UK. I continue
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: to believe the UK is a little bit ahead of
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: the United States on this sort of rejection of its
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: two major parties. Right already you've seen both of the
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: UK's major parties or not even in the top two. Right,
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: it's reform its it. Maybe it may be the lib
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: Dems and it may be the Greens that end up,
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: you know, ahead of both Labor and the Tories. Our
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: system makes that a little more difficult, but it's pretty
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: clear if you just look at voter registration role that
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: voters are rejecting the two major parties in this country
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: in droves, particularly voters under the age of thirty five.
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: So no, I don't expect sir Starmers survive, and yes,
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: I do expect that in the same way that it
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: was pretty clear there were enough Republicans that are like, no,
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: we want to try this Trump experiment. We know everybody
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: thinks it's a bad idea, but we want to try
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: it anyway. That's what Nigel for ours feels like to
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: me to the UK electorate. All right, last question, Caitlin
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: Nee and Bristol, Pennsylvania rights longtime follower from your White
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: House correspondence days. Thank you, big fan. Really like your
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: idea of expanding the House, especially given how much larger
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: districts have become over time. Do you think a more
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: virtual governance model could work alongside that keeping members more
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: rooted in their districts will still convenient when needed. Yes.
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: In fact, I want to share with you one of
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: the fantastic ideas one of my students, and I'm I
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: still plan to do this. I want to share one
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: of the things that I had my class at USC
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: do for their for their final essay was to essentially
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: pick something to fix to make Washington work better. So
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: one one of the ideas that one of my students
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: had was to move Congress. Move the entire basically, and
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: I'm i'm i'm I'm adding some flourishes to this, but
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: think of it as, Hey, every year the NFL now
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: holds the NFL Draft in a different city, well maybe
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: every two years, Congress is going to go to a
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: new city. And wouldn't it be great if residents in
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: Montana got to host Congress for a session. Wouldn't it
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: be great if the citizens of Mississippi got to host
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: Congress for a session. Wouldn't it be great the citizens
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: of Maine got to host Congress for a session to
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: sort of you know it. I love the spirit of it.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: And it gets to this virtual governance. I look, what
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: I think is, you know, I'd like to see Congressional
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: offices be more only staffed in the districts, and they
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: are in Washington. I think the committee staffs should be
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: in Washington, and your personal staff should be in your district.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: And you figure out the balance of that. But the
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: ability to do so many things remotely. Ultimately, you're a
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: representative of your constituency. You need to be as close
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: to your constituents as you can at all times. So
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: I'd love to see the ability for members to vote
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: from their offices, and maybe you would only you know,
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: they can't vote from their bedroom, they can't vote for
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: their home office. They actually, you know, a district office
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: almost becomes a virtual you know, you make it a ski,
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: a skiff, a place where it's secure and all of that.
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: So I would have some limitations about where they could
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: remote vote, but I think that there's some especially look,
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: especially if you're going to have eight to nine hundred
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: members of Congress, like I am advocated it is going
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: to be hard to put them all up here. And
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: I think everybody should get offices in DC when they're here,
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: and we have plenty of office space. If mem of
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: Congress or committees didn't have suites of eight to ten
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: to fifteen offices, right, they could have that in their communities.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: They don't need it here in Washington, DC. And you
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: can have your staff in different places like that. So
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: so the answer is yes. I mean, I have partnership
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: the production company I partner with for this podcast. We're
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: all over the country and we're able to have all
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: sorts of meetings, make all sorts of decisions. We all
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: you know, frankly, the downside is we're all always available
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: to work. You know, that's the But if you're working
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: for the PAXs payers, that's a good thing that you're
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: always available, You're always on the clock, you're always available
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: to work. So, yes, I'd like to see more virtual governance.
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: And I take it a step further, and yeah, it's
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: a little you know, you might you know, I'm you know,
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: the the idea of moving Congress. I've actually wanted it.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: We believe that if you know, make the lobbyists go
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: find you. Right, I'm not saying you're ever going to
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: get rid of a lobbyists and they're good. Look, lobbying
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: is is necessary, and they're good lobbyists, and they're bad lobbyists.
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: But lobbying itself is neither good or bad. It's the
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: lobby It's the person behind the lobby that decides whether
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: it's good lobbying or bad lobbying. But I think just frankly,
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: bringing Congress to different parts of the country, bringing the
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: focus of different parts of the country, front and senator
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: members of Congress, you know, And one hand it sounds
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: crazy pie in the sky, right, And on the other hand,
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: it seems like, you know, what if the if we
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: had had the ability to do this in seventeen eighty
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: nine when we were devising this constitution, the idea of
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: Congress rotating among the thirteen states would have been an
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: easier sell. Then well, we got to find a capital. Yeah,
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it should be New York. No,
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it should be Philly. Why don't
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: we manufacture a city. The point being is, if we
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: logistically could have pulled it off in seventeen eighty nine,
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: My guess is the founders would have been all for us.
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: That you know, Congress is an institution, is permanent, but
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: that Congress when it meets to decide, they rotate again.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: It's a crazy idea that makes way too much sense.
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: And with that I will it's been a you know,
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you coming in for the live stream. By
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: the way, I've got a new episode. Let me give
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: you a few things. I got a new episode of
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: Dynastic Up. We do the Warriors from the Philadelphia Warrior
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: Days to the San Francisco Warrior Days to the now
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: current Golden State Warrior Days. We go from Wilt Chamberlain
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: to Rick Berry to Steph Curry, and I will tell
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: you I learned a bunch and I hope to share everything.
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: I hope I shared everything I learned with you in
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: this episode with my pal Jayadande. But it was a
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: labor of love and I hope you will check it out.
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: That episode is now streaming wherever you get your podcast
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: is also obviously I share my own feed with it.
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: And of course I appreciate all the election night live streams.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: Appreciate you coming in with the long election night that
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: we have nothing like the West Coast and the never
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: ending counting that comes with the state of California. So
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: with that, I will see you in twenty four hours.
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and until I upload again,