Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Trump’s Decline Is Obvious…But Republicans Refuse To Acknowledge It + America’s AI Liability Crisis & Constitutional Breaking Points

Transcript

Full Episode - Trump’s Decline Is Obvious…But Republicans Refuse To Acknowledge It + America’s AI Liability Crisis & Constitutional Breaking Points · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: rates may vary. Hello, They're happy Monday, and welcome to
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: another episode of the Chuck Podcast. It has been a
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: busy seventy two hours since we've last chatted. I got
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: a lot to get to in this episode, including what
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I think is an increase what is going to be
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: increasing scrutiny and increasing concern about the President's ability to
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: do the job. His temperament. The most recent set of
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: meltdowns with his Wisconsin trip, he impulse control is one
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: of those things that you lose as you get older, right,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: your filter goes away. This was already a gentleman that
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: didn't have much of a filter to begin with. So
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I know it's very hard to see, but I think
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: it's increasingly clear that Republicans now know what it was
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: like for elected Democrats in twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: when they would avert their eyes anytime Joe Biden had
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: a public event. We are in that stage with Donald
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Trump on and to dig into that for a little bit,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Senate Republicans basically choked on an attempt to check the
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: president's power and the weaponization fund that I think is
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: a huge political mistake. I don't think they fully realize
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: how disastrous it is that they had a proactive chance
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: todentually kill it and do a favor for a whole
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: bunch of Republicans who maybe didn't have the guts to
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: vote against the president. But we're going to get to
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: that as well. We had huge primaries on Tuesday. Tuesday
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: is turning into as I said in a text back
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and forth with my friend Chris Eliza will have our
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: live stream of course on Tuesday night. Tuesday is going
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: to be lit. The Graham Platner primary is suddenly fascinating.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: We know he's going to win, but what is the
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Janet Mills number going to be? I gave you a
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: sort of a formula of what what should qualify as
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: as yellow flag or red flag and the Janet Mills
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: percentages there. But clearly there's something going on there. Clearly
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: there's something happening in South Carolina, Lindsey Graham hitting the
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: panic button over a primary challenger that could force him
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: into a runoff, which leads to a larger trend that
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I think is happening before our very eyes. Right, we
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: already knew, we've known for some time that there's an
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: anti establishment streak in both parties, but it is as
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: strong as ever inside the Republican Party. I think there's
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: still a debate inside the Democratic Party about how anti
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: establishment to get. Rhetorically, you can sound loud, but you
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: don't see the same results. But given what we've seen
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: sitting members of Congress being rejected as gubernatorial candidates in
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: South Dakota, Iowa, are we about to see that next
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: week in Alabama Senate on that runoff. We're going to
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: see it on this Tuesday. There's something happening out there,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: and unlike my friend my friends at Buffalo Springfield, I
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: think what it is is exactly clear in this case.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: So we will get to that. And then finally, I
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: think quite a few people ask me my two cents
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: of the sixty minute situation, Scott Pelley, what would I
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: do in that situation given my own experience having a
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: run in with network bosses more worried about a political
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: agenda rather than journalism. It's very, very difficult spot to
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: be in. And I know from experience how many people
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: are backseat driving at the moment he should have, would
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: have could all these different things, whether or Leslie Stall
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: or Bill Whittaker, And as anything you know there, everything
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: is complicated. Everything isn't an easy answer, and I just
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: want to sort of dive into there. Tremendous guests today,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: it's David French. You may know him from The New
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: York Times. You may also know him from The Dispatch,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the Advisory podcast that he co hosts with the great
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Sarah Isker. And David and I get into a lot
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: of sort of of of legal debates, if you will,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: from regulating AI to the Weaponization Fund, how constitutional is it?
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Things like this, the simple fact that so few members
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: of Congress seem to understand the Constitution, that maybe we
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: need a baseline of acknowledgment before you take the oath
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: that you actually read all of the Federalist papers. I mean,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I think not asking all Americans to read the Federalist papers,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: but can we just ask those that have aten elected
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: to Congress to have read the Federal's papers? Right? You've
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: got to have a commercial driver's license to drive a
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: eighteen wheeler in this country. Maybe to be a member
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: of Congress, you better certify that you read all the
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Federal's papers. I'm not asking you to come down on
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: a certain side based on what you read, but fricking
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: read them, because it's pretty clear we have a lot
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: of members of Congress that probably didn't get past the
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: preamble if they got there at all, let alone read
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the supporting materials with everything there. So I think you
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: will enjoy that, And I propose a radical solution to
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: basketball tanking that he endorses, Mister David French endorses. If
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: you don't know David French is a huge basketball fan.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: When you grow up in Lexington, Kentucky, you can't help
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: but become a big basketball fan. I also have my
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: podcast time Machine to give you a little hint of
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: what's coming in the time Machine. I quoted I use
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: the most famous quote that I'm building the time Machine
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: off of in my monologue on Thursday. That is the
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: one hint I'm going to give you. But I'm going
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: to start with what the Germans would called Schodenfreud, I guess,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: and that is what elected Republicans are now having to
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: experience with their president and the fact that he is
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: now we are, as of this writing, less than a
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: week away from when he turns eighty. He is creating
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: a celebration to himself, as we know, for his eightieth
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: birthday with the whole UFC business, something that apparently like
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the Eiffel Tower, would like to keep the uf C
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Claw as the apparently it is called, which I guess
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: encompasses the steel cage as a permanent structure on the
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: South lawn. I'm sure Andrew Jackson would smile about that.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: That's probably the only president that would smile about something
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: like that. So it is. I say all this because, look,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: let's not kid ourselves. He's not he's not doing well,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: and you kind of know it because of how we're
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: watching Republicans behave almost identically to how Democrats behave when
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: it was painfully obvious what was happening with Joe Biden.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Because there's a particular kind of quiet that settles over
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: a political party when it has decided collectively and without
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: ever voting on it, to essentially stop seeing what's in
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: front of him. Democrats lived onside that quiet for just
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: about all of twenty twenty three and into twenty twenty four.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Everyone knew Staffer's new donors, new members of Congress, knew
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the reporters covering them new We all knew this, you know,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: we reporters were struggling to convey it because of all
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: the chicken chits in the party that wouldn't go public
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: with it. What no one had was a reason to
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: be the first to say it on the record right then,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: and so the thing that everyone could see became the
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: thing that no one would describe right up until that
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: debate stage in Atlanta made a description unnecessary. Everybody saw it,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: and it was almost like Okay, we can all now
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: admit what we've been thinking for months when it comes
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: to Joe Biden. Well, it's pretty clear now. Republicans are
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: now living inside the same quiet and they are doing
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: it with less self awareness than the Democrats managed, which
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: is frankly saying something. The evidence is no longer subtle.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Just consider this. Three years ago, twenty eight percent of
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Americans told pollsters at the Washington Post that the president
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: wasn't healthy enough to serve effectively. That was back when
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden was president. This bring the same pole asked
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: the same question, and the number was up to fifty
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: five percent. It was about a different president. By the way,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Reuters and Hipsos have found that sixty one percent of
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: the country, including nearly thirty percent of Republicans, believe Donald
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Trump has become more erratic with age. Now, these aren't
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: numbers of a fringe concern anymore, right, They are the
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: numbers of consensus that has not yet been granted permission
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: to speak. Right, we were sort of dealing with the
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: same thing during the Biden presidency. Large majorities thought he
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: was too old to serve, and yet none of that
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: was beyond Dean Phillips right, convincing many Democrats to speak
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: out publicly. You had plenty of reporters that were even
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: speaking out about this, but you didn't have a lot
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: of that. You know, you had certain coverage, and I
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: will always defend some of the you know, I think everybody,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: you know, somehow wants to blame the media, not the
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party or not the Bidens for everything that happened
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: there that somehow the media was supposed to make them speak,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: make the sources say things that we couldn't make sources
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: to say. So all you could do was show things
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: in public. Right, Hey, guess who's using the short staircase
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: on Air Force one? Now? Look at how few public
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: events they're doing, right, sort of we were treating viewers
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and voters with a lot more intelligence than frankly, the
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party was. Well, we're sort of seeing the same
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: thing now with Donald Trump, and I think, frankly, there
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: is some new some coverage that we haven't seen, that
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: we actually did see during the Biden presidency, that we
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: haven't seen during the Trump presidency that I think is
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: quite necessary. I'd start with something simple. I've done a
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: cursory a bit of research on this, but I don't
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: have the archive of video that a TV network has
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: because they archive. And I know of this, I know
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: we did at NBC. All the networks, you know, want
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: to keep everything right. You don't want to lose anything
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: anymore after that small period of time in the sixties
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: when networks throw everything away. But that's a whole long story.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: All you have to do is see that the president
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: won't do any events where he has to stand for
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: a long period of time anymore. Right, All events are
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: designed for sitting, right, All of the things at the
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: White House more and more are now taking place in
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: the oval office. He sits right. There's very few standing
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: events anymore, right, few rose garden events. The weather's been
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: terrific in Washington. There's not been bad weather, but they
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: which normally during previous White Houses, anytime you could do
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: an event outside, you did an event outside. It was
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: just better, better TV, better everything, better coverage. You know,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: you ask any White House press shop veteran, then they'll
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: tell you, oh, yeah, good old fashioned rose garden events
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: much better than an oval office event because loss events
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: are crowded and all this stuff, but they have to
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: do so many of them. Then look at that Wisconsin event.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: He you know, he's not standing for twenty minutes, and
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: I'm very curious he's going to give a rally speech
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: at some point during this birthday celebration sometime at the
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: end of June. Will he stand for it or will
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: will they figure out how to sit? If you notice,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: again is Wisconsin situation, he's sitting. He's clearly you know
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: it's not it's something it's either hurts for him to walk,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: it's uncomfortable for him to walk, whatever it is. He
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: clearly there is something going on here. And again they
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: don't have to acknowledge anything. You can show the visuals,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: just like with Biden. The reason the country figured it
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: out is because the media did show the visuals. The
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: media did show, Hey, this is what he was, this
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: is what's going on now. He seems to be using
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: a shorter staircase. He seems to be using a shorter staircase.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: He seems to not have a lot of big events
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: with a lot of people coming in and into the office, right,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: and so you're starting to see a little bit. And frankly,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: there's been some reporting in January see and reported the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Trumpet personally directed his team to start patting his public
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: schedule to start listing quote closed door meetings that had
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: previously gone unmentioned. Many presidents don't put all the meetings
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: that they have there, but it was specifically intended to
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: push back on this idea that he was having stamina
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: issues that basically he couldn't really have more than a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: six to eight hour day. What it appears to be
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: he doesn't really have six to eight hour day, although
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: he can't sleep at night and he post untruth social
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: so it does sort of allow people to think, well,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: he's always on. Well, just because somebody's always on doesn't
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: mean they're always on top of things, right, So it
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: is so there are little things that you're starting to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: see on this. So the irony to all of this
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: obviously is almost too neat to dwell on. So I'm
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: not going to dwell on it. But let's not forget
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: that Trump built his entire campaign on the premise that
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: the other guy was too old. And he will mark
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: his eightieth birthday this month, having just completed his third
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: annual physical in less than two years in office. Okay, fine,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: we'll note it. We'll move on. You know, the interesting
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: question was never about whether there's the symmetry exists. We've
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: always been seen that the symmetry exists here. The interesting
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: question is why one party silence broke in ninety minutes
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: of a TV news debate and why the others hasn't
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: broken it all yet. Now, part of it is Joe
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Biden didn't have a hold on a piece of the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: electorate that Donald Trump has, right, So there's a little
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: bit of that. But in some cases the reason why,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: you know, the Biden team had effectively threatened Democrats from
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: speaking out against him by saying, the more you speak
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: out about his health, questioning Biden and his health and
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: his stamina, you're only helping Donald Trump. So the basically
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: it was this idea, if you speak out right, and
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: that's sort of essentially what the what the Republicans or
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: what the Trump White House is going to try to do.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Speak out about this at you know, it's your own peril,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: and you know, look, when when we decide to come
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: after you, it's terrible, it's uncomfortable, and most of the
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: people we lose. Right, Ask the Indiana State senators who
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: are not going to be in office next year, Ask
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Thomas Matthey. Massey's not going to be an office next year.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Ask anybody who's worked for Brian Camp, asked Brad Raethensberger, Right,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: so they certainly have, you know, proof positive this list. Right,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: That's what always made what the Democrats did head scratching,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: because Biden had no kind of hold on the party
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: like that, right, there was death. Nobody could somehow claim
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: that they wouldn't be in politics without Joe Biden outside
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the state of Delaware. And I'm not saying this to
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: be dismissive of Joe Biden. It's just that is not
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: that is not the type of poll he had inside
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: his own party. Donald Trump has influence and poll inside
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: his party. They're just stronger. And in some ways it
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: at least explains the behavior. It certainly explains the fear.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: But my goodness, these Republicans are going to look really silly, right,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: And the basic questions that local reporters are going to
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: ask them about the president's obvious slowing down, obvious health issues,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: obvious like he can't seem to stamina questions, the falling asleep,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: the nodding off. Again, he's acting like a typical eighty
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: year old, right, this is not unusual behavior for an
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: eighty year old. It's just unusual behavior for a president
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: of the United States. And obviously the amount of hey,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: the Republicans made about this with Joe Biden and the Democrats,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: all this is doing, you know, And of course this
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: is where, you know, by Republicans ignoring what's right in
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: front of them and not sort of being honest about
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: what's right in front of them, they're doing enormous damage
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: to everybody's credibility left and right, right. They're essentially reinforcing
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: this notion that everybody's a freaking liar. In politics, both
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: parties just say whatever it takes to get elected. This
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: is the majority view because it's true. I somehow sometimes
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: want to sit here and explain to you why politicians
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: behave certain ways. Yeah, they make some compromises to do
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: this in order to do that. Look at ain't easy
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: being an election of office because you have to make
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: compromises and the public never wants you to make any compromises.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, I saw some silly progressive get all angry
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: at the Amy Acting campaign in Ohio. She's running in
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: a state that Donald Trump carried by nearly double digits,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: and she pledged that if she gets elected governor, she's
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: going to appoint Republicans to her cabinet. And this progressive
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Democrat was like, why do Democrats always do this? And
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: it's the sort of like, you know, criticizing a Democrat
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: for attempting to actually rise above partisanship is exactly what's
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: wrong with the base of both of these parties, right.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: The base of both parties do not want our system
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: to function. They want the other side defeated, humiliated, and ostracized.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: They're not interested in accepting the premise that in a
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: country of three hundred and fifty million people, not everybody's
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: singing from the same song sheet. And if you want
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: to govern this country incrementally, you better govern incrementally, all right.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: And it is very difficult to bring sixty percent of
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: people along, let alone one hundred percent. It's really easy
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: to get thirty to forty percent of people to be
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: on your side. But you're never going to get anything done.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: And all you're going to do is make the country
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: worse by being divisive. Even if you think you're right,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: even if your policies look great on a spreadsheet, if
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: you don't have the will of the majority, you don't
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: have a good idea, So you better work harder at
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: persuading for a will of the majority. And if you're
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: going to criticize, right, I mean just ridiculous. If you're
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: going to criticize a Democrat running in a red leaning
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: state for pledging to have a bipartisan cabinet, then you
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: don't want pluralism. And this country thrives when we embrace pluralism.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: When we try to unilaterally govern with a forty percent mandate,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: which is what the Republicans have been trying to do.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: They don't have a majority mandate, let alone barely over
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: forty percent that want them to go in the direction
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: they're going. Democrats didn't have a fifty percent mandate, let alone.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: They were also sitting in about a forty to forty
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: five percent when they went for what they went for
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: and didn't get it, and then they had to default
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: to what was actually a majority mandate, and then it
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: looked like they lost something rather than the fact they
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: actually won something. But it's all about prioritizing, right, It's
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: all about expectations, it's all about how you sell it.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: But I think this is increasingly for the short term
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: going just more credibility problems for the Republican Party right.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: One of their effective knocks on the Democrats is that
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: they were, you know, they couldn't tell the truth about
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: what was staring them in the face. Can Republicans tell
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: the truth? But what's staring all of us in the face.
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  Speaker 1: And yes, I too, am a customer, which leads me
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: to a I think colossal political mistake that Senate Republicans made.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: They had an opportunity to kill this weaponization fund once
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: and for all, codifying the death of this weaponization fund
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: with an active with an amendment to the bill for
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: this homeland security thing. The votes initially were there, and
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: John Thune and the Senate Republican leadership decided not to
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: allow it to happen, and they twisted enough arms, and
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: they clearly made some promise that maybe it was coming.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Whatever it is that they did to sort of get
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: the Yolo caucus to basically, I don't know, it's no
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: longer you only live ones apparently only dream of living ones. Right,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: They're just the dreaming Yolo caucas Since they didn't actually
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: not doing this, You've just opened up every Republican running
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: for reelection to the easiest attack ad there is. They're
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: so not looking out for you. They're trying to pay
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: off people that beat up cops. Whose side are you
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: on and who's on your side? Who wants to protect you?
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Who's trying to hire more cops? Who's trying to pay
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: off people that attack cops? Right? What are you doing? Guys?
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: This seems like a really massive You had an opportunity,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: a small minority of you had an opportunity to essentially
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: take one for the team. This is terrible politics. John
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Houstad is not going to be able to answer this
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: very well. He's going to fumble and mumble, and these
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: are going to be the debate questions per se. Are
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: just going to be horrible moments for these guys. That's
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: if these debates take place. I hope they do. But
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: my goodness, the Senate Republican leadership, John Thune, you began
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: the week asserting your leadership and seeing you know, calling
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Bill Poulti's acting appointment for what it was, a bunch
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: of bs. You're not going to put a weaponizer in
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: charge of our intel, by the way, I think it's
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: I think it's illegal for him to be the acting
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: d and I. While while the President of the United
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: States can certainly declassify by information for anybody he chooses
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: to declassify it, for there is a specific written set
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: of credentials you have to have to be the dn I,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I cannot imagine that an acting DNI is not supposed
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: to have those same credentials. Bill Pulti does not have
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: those credentials. Therefore, I do not believe, even though that
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: there is there that because Congress wrote into the law
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: this specific that the executive branch come out can can
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: overdo this even temporarily. So I actually don't think Pulty
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: can legally do the job. Now, it doesn't mean that
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: the president can't declassify things and allow Pulty to pull
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: his weapon hiss as in garbage like he's been doing
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: with them, digging into people's mortgage mortgages, like he was
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: doing with elected and political enemies of the president. But
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: it does mean it's probably illegal for him to hold
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: the acting title at all under any circumstance, because it's
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: written through now that you know the problem is with
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: any of these fights with the judiciary, in order to
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: have standing, the Act has to take place. Well, the
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Act has taken place, and now you've got to sue.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: And it does mean he can operate, and he's going
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: to have operated into the job for maybe as long
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: as a week two weeks before the courts I do
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: think will ultimately say he is ineligible to serve as
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: the acting DNI because he does not meet the credential
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: that Congress wrote into the law. Again, it is written
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: into the law. It is very specific. Mitch McConnell pointed
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: this out. Very few Senate conferbabile positions come with a
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: statutory set of qualifications, and there are deliberate reasons D
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: and I is one of them. This is what the
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: statute says. A D and I quote shall have extensive
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: national security experience and management expertise, and then it says
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: specifies that the Principal Deputy DNI Director, currently a gentleman
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: by the name of Aaron Lucas, shall act for and
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: exercise the powers of DNI during a vacancy. So it
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: is all spelled out in this On other things, at
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: who the acting or the should be is not spelled out,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: this one does. So this creates two legal questions on
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: this vacancy, whether the extensive national security bar essentially constrains
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: acting service or any of only formal nominees, and whether
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: the DNI specific succession provision overrides the Federal Vacancy's Reform Act,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: which is the general law that otherwise lets the President
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: install any acting, any official as acting for a two
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: hundred day window. So I'm very curious to see. I
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: think this is something that somebody should file suit in question,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: because we've got to find out whether Congress writing these
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: specific qualifications into the law matters. One thing about judiciary
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: when it comes to these political disputes between branches. Usually,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: and it hasn't meant whether judiciary is leaning left or
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: right usually on these things. They when there's a dispute
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: between the legislative and the executive. Usually the legislative gets
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: the nod here, and I can't imagine that it wouldn't
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: write even with the tariffs, right, the legislative branch and
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: an Article one got the nod, So I would assume
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: that that will be the case. But we shall see.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: And by the way, just a simple thing that David
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: French and I talked about later in the interview. Have
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: you ever made a list one, two, and three and
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: made the most important thing too? Just stew on that.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: When you hear people talk about article one, Article two,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: and article three of the Constitution, again, ask yourself, what
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: list have you made of one, two, and three where
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: number two was more important than number one? Right, I'm
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: not saying I'm just saying, all right, I want to
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: pivot to Tuesday. So it seems as if there's sort
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: of multiple things worth watching on Tuesday, which is why
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: our livestream, I think, is going to be lit. First
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: of all, you got the South Carolina. How many runoffs
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: are we going to get? We know we're going to
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: get a run off in the in the South Carolina
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Republican primary for governor. Does Nancy Mace make it into
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: that runoff or not? The President has endorsed the lieutenant governor.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: It does not appear as endorsement has had the impact
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: he hoped it would. This would be Can you imagine
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: if second time in our second state in a row
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: where the endorsed Trump can actually this would be the
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: third time we're endorsed Trump candidate finishes second, not getting
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: in the runoff. Even Cornant, I guess Cornan and Paxton
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: were unindorsed at the time, So that's a I won't
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: I won't use that example. But we saw it with
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Fienstra where the last minute Trump endorsement did not have
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: the impact that they thought that Trump endorsement was going
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: to happen. We're going to find out a lieutenant governor
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: evert whether she gets the benefit from this endorsement. Who knows,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: but you have that. The other more interesting situation going
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: on is with Lindsay Graham. And look, Lindsay Graham, There's
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: always been a thirty percent of the Republican Party who
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: has never thought Lindsa Gram was conservative enough. This goes
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: back to when he was hanging out with John McCain.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: This goes back what wing of the party, the South
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Carolina Republican Party has always actually been in some ways
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: a bit more ideologically diverse. You've had your business community,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: you've had your more culturally conservative, you've had more religious base.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: But it's been a it's a tapestry, and there's different facets.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: It's why South Carolina makes for such an interesting, interesting
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: sort of battleground during the Republican presidential primary process, because
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: there are different facets of a military community, retiree community
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: in South Carolina that's not nearly as religious but certainly
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: is right leaning. Then you have this more religious So anyway,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: the point is is that there's there's different flavors of
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: the conservative movement all over South Carolina, and Lindsey Graham
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: has has always been seen with a with a skeptical
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: eye by members of the of the certainly of the
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Christian Conservative more the Christian conservative wing of the party.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: And now you would throw in the populace maga, the
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: sort of libertarian right. Certainly, the anti war right is
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: no fan of Lindsay Graham and has never been a
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: fan of Lindsay Graham. And in this and that's what
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: I think we're going to find out here is this
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: combination of whether the two things right. So if if
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: if the sort of anti war right and the sort
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: of more culturally conservative animated wing of the party down there,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: if the combo of the two is enough to keep
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Lindsay below fifty because there's other people along the ballot,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: and then of course on a runoff, all bets are off.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: And that's the thing we're are we starting to see
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: a pattern here, right. So in Iowa you had an
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: outsider and you had a sitting member of Congress basically
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: as the two leading candidates, and the outsider got it.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: You had a sitting US Senator in Texas, you had
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: the outsider running sort of the anti establishment campaign in Paxton.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Paxton wins to run off going away. How about South
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Dakota where the runoff is going to be between the
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: sitting governor and the outsider populist and the person left
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: that finished in third place was the sitting member of Congress,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Dusty Jones. I'm not ready to declare that this is
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: definitely going to be across the board, but if you're
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: very more in Alabama, in that runoff, you're the sitting
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: member of Congress, You're facing somebody that is suddenly getting
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: to run as the outsider. Hey, I'm not my hands
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: aren't dirty from how Washington has been working. Right, You
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: have a similar situation perhaps playing out in the Georgia
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Senate runoff, Right, is, can Derek Duley take advantage of
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: this over Mike Collins? Right, Mike Collins, the sitting member
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: of Collerce if indeed we do see Lindsey Graham forced
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: into a runoff. So the point is there's clearly a
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: trend here, right and it you know, and you could
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: argue that that we've seen this go off and on
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: since the rise of the Tea Party, that when Republican
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: primary voters are presented with an option to defeat somebody
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: that's it that is more establishmenty. Maybe they're a sitting
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: member of Congress trying to jump up to statewide office.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Maybe they're the sitting lieutenant governor, maybe they're whatever it is,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: maybe they're the sitting US Senator. When presented with that
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: option and it's viable, they do it now. They will
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: enthusiastically support the nominee, even if it's somebody that may
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: not be their preferred flavor of conservative. And we've seen this, right,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: these folks have certainly won and gotten the votes of
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: some of these people when they've just chosen to turn out.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: But there certainly is plenty of evidence that we're here,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: and the question is are we now? Are we in
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: that tumultuous of a moment here where you do and
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: you know, we're pretty fractured in both parties right now.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: You have a real fracture inside the Republican Party still
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: between sort of the business wing what people in the
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: maga world would say, the real populace, and then sort
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: of the way Donald Trump's behaving right He's basically trying
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: to be all things to all of these wings, and
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: he's done nothing to try to settle him down. If anything,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: he's only made life more miserable for the establishment by
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: pushing this war with Iran, and by the way that
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: you want to talk about sitting with you know him
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: just trying to deny that he ran on no more wars,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: and then he did this like he didn't even attempt
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: like there was a better way to defend it. If
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: he was going to defend I didn't start this war.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: If he really wanted to go down that front, he
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: could say the Iranians started this war forty seven years ago.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to finish it. And I'm trying to
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: end it, but he frankly is not nimble enough to
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: make that argument, and I don't think it would be
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: seen as as an honest argument because he himself didn't
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: say that about Iran when he was campaigning. In fact,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: just the opposite, he said, if you elect Kamala Harris,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: she's going to start a war with Iran. So while
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: he could come up with spin that would be completely
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: dishonest and completely throw himself and make him look like
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: a liar from the campaign trail, he still wants to
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: look like a liar from the campaign trail and not
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: even have an honest way to answer this question on Iran.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: The point is what he's done on Iran has actually
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: put some of his own allies and has made his endorsement.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: The question is is it made his endorsement sort of
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: less definitive? Right? If you're still angry about this war,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Trump endorsing the person you're not happy with isn't going
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: to make you more inclined to support that person. So
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: I don't think it'll be as helpful as one thinks.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: But let's be honest here on Lindsay Graham, isn't this
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: the way the movie should end for Lindsey Graham's political career.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Here's a guy who has just been so blatantly fingering
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: the wind of wherever the Republican Party is going. Oh,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go here. Oh I want to go here,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: or I want to go here. I don't know what
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Lindsey Graham believes in anymore, and I understand if many
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: of you don't either. He seems to be a conservative
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: of convenience and wherever it's convenient to be conservative, he's
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: gung ho about it, and the minute and if he
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: is and as long as it's good for him politically, Look,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: I'll give him this. He understands his state very well.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: When he did the flip on Trump, he actually did
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: it a lot earlier than some of the other establishment
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: critics of Trump. Flipped because he realized he was a
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: fish out of water in his own state, and he
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: quickly realized how much potential political trouble he'd been, so
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: he fought. He flipped fast. So as somebody who understand,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: I will say this, I think the man is very
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: in tune to his own state and very in tune
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: to understanding where his state goes on. Some of this
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: stuff and understands the power of Trump. But you know,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: when you look at the totality of his career, right,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: he's just been to the things that he has been
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: righteous self righteous about. When a Democrat has done it,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: he looks the other way when Donald Trump does it.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Right again, it's all explained away in his desire to
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: do whatever it takes to keep that senen seed. So
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: a guy who's been has done everything he can to
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: keep that Trump endorsement, has kept that Trump endorsement, and
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: eventually it doesn't work. I believe some some would argue
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: that that is that is probably the rightful way that
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: this would end. If it does end this way, that somehow,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: because I'll tell you this, if he gets forced into
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: a runoff, that's usually it is. It is not a
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: good history for incumbents forced into a runoff surviving those runoffs.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: It happens, it does in this political environment. Does this
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: feel like the political environment where an incumbent can survive
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: a runoff anyway? That's just the South Carolina portion of
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: our Election Night livestream on Tuesday, folks. Then you got
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Maine and Graham Plattner, and I'd set that bar earlier.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: I will say this. I think on the on Thursday's podcast,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: I said fifteen to twenty five. We're entering red flag territory.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: I would raise the bar a little bit to twenty
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: plus now, simply because she's a kind OF's on she's
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: on the verge of actively campaigning. Okay, Janet Mills, she's
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: not actively campaigning, but she reminds, she's continuously reminding people
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: she's on the ballot. So I might raise the bar
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: that anything, you know, you need to hit twenty before
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: you to truly if you're in Platiner world, start to panic.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: But it's look, it's interesting that the new defense of
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Platner is, yeah, these wars mess them up, and this
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: is and he should be you know, and this is why.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: And this gets back to do you have the temperament
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: to do this job? Right? Do you have the ability
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: to do this job? Is your life in a position
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: where you have the you have the ability to be
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: a public servant at this moment? And I and I
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: and that's why I've constantly said empathy is required here,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: all right. I don't know if anybody is going to
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: come out with their with one hundred percent their head
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: on straight after multiple tours of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: and I think that we all have to be a
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: bit uh, I have to show empathy on that. At
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: the same time, that doesn't make one more, you know,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: I think that that means somebody that I would like
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: to see testify in Congress and make sure people understand
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: though the impact of this, and people need to understand.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: And he would be a powerful surrogate supporting somebody else
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: running for the Senate against the decision Susan Collins made
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: to send people to war. So this is not dismissing
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: that as concerned. If anything, it's it's reinforcing it. But
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: the damage that that, you know, But to try to
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: say that everything he's done is that number one puts
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: it all onto that. And you're does that mean you're
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: supposed to if you're feel uncomfortable with the way he
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: treated women, you're just supposed to just chalk it up? BETSD.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that just because you can explain somebody's
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: behavior doesn't mean that you that that behavior somehow gets excused.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: It can be explained, you know, but it doesn't get excused.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: So anyway, it's I get look where platterers and save
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: his campaign mode. The way they're going about to save
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: this campaign, I think is I'm dubious, But ultimately it's
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: going to be in the hands of the voters. And
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: let's see where this number is. Well. This episode of
• 41:57
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• 42:48
  Speaker 1: essentially sitting there basically getting a little bit less than
• 42:54
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• 42:56
  Speaker 1: appears to be three and a half points. These days,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: they're favored by two and a half. The money line
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: is minus one thirty two. Look, I think that's you
• 43:05
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• 43:10
  Speaker 1: know the under is hit twice. I think you're going
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: to see a lot of shots. If there's ever an
• 43:17
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• 43:20
  Speaker 1: to be the over game. You won't have it in
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: game four, you know, depending on the level of desperation,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: but I think you will see it here. I you know,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: shots just haven't fallen for these guys, But if they
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: start falling, then you could see a super high score
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: in here. And I suspect that Wimby gets a little
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: extra juice being in Madison Square Garden. It strikes he's
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: so far has risen to the occasion every time they
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: need him to rise of the occasion. So for me,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: it's Spurs or nothing and over or nothing. But I'll
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: be honest, I don't love getting in front of the
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Knicks freight train at the moment here. And if you
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: think the Knicks are going to win, you might as
• 44:03
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• 44:05
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• 44:11
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• 44:39
  Speaker 1: hyphen terms. I did not four weeks ago think South Carolina, Maine, Nevada,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: and North Dakota election night was going to be the
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: best election night of June. But it's going to be
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: the best election night in June. And hey, the good
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: news is we'll also be counting California ballots also on Tuesday,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: so you know, we'll be able to sort of bring
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: you up to date. Hey, what's going on in California?
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: Still counting ballots here. And this is where, by the way,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: our political debate world is terrible about this, right, which
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: is everything is you know, if you're on the right
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: and you're just assuming theft on this election, because California
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: has a very thorough way that they that they approve,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: you know, that they make sure they certify that a
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: voter is the voter, They do the signature match right,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: do everything. They've certainly built in plenty of protocols to
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: for security purposes, and I think they're quite good, but
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: they've got it is on them. Their inability to do
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: this faster is on the administrators. It is on the state,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: all right. At the end of the day, there are
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: always going to be bad actors that try to exploit
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: slow government responses and try to create conspiracy theories around it.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: This is not a new phenomenon. This has been happening
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: for centuries. So it is incumbent and bound government to
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: mitigate that. Get your act together. It is a really
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: bad sign that we are going to probably have all
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: the votes counted in Maine in South Carolina before we
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: have all the votes counted in California, and Maine in
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: South Carolina will have done their primaries a week after
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: California began its counting last Tuesday. That's I know, it's
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: a big stake. I know there's a lot of people
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: to verify. If this is how you want to do it,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: spend because part of an election process is being able
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: to have a process where a large majority of people
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: have faith in it, and the longer this takes, you
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: lose that. So this needs to be addressed with a
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: lot more urgency than the Democratic leaders are addressing it
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: in California. I think it's been They just sort of
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: they was just there, just wave it off. Oh, this
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: is just reporters, you know, upset that they have to
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: wait longer for results. No, it's fricking voters that are upset.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: And if every other state can get it done faster,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: come on, California, get your shit together. It is ridiculous
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: that we're going to have another a primary, a set
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: of primaries a week later that all but Nevada will
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: probably be counted completely. Three entire other states. And yes
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: they're smaller than California combined. But come on, if you're
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: too big to do this, then cut the state up
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: in two or something. But admit, in all seriousness, I
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: you know it is. I'm not blaming the leaders of
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: California for the lying that takes place by people like
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. But you have a duty to do whatever
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: it takes to make your citizens confident in the system.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: And the longer it takes, the easier it is for
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: confidence to be weakened in the system. Do your part
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: and speed things up. It's too late now to have
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: credibility with it for this cycle. But you when you
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: see some crazy rants like Megan Kelly declaring that if
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: somehow Spencer Pratt and Steve Hilton are found to have
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: not qualified for the runoff, that somehow that means things
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: were nefarious. No, it doesn't. It means they didn't get
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: they didn't finish in the top two when all the
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: votes were counted. But it is allowing this gap. We've
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: done our job in the honest press, right and I
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: know what is honest press anymore. I'm gonna get to
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: that in a minute. But we've done our job. We
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: explain the red morale at the beginning. I certainly did.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: I kicked off our coverage with it. We've explained how
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: this works, and we've even explained it in this unique
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: primary that people held their ballots to the very end.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: And yes, ballots sort of get counted as they come
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: in in a lot of these counties, not every county.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Every county kind of does it a little bit differently.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: But you were more likely to see a surge of
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Democratic leaning ballots towards the end, more so than before
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: because of all the tumult that was taking place in
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: that governor's race. And it is playing out exactly how
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: we told you it was going to play out, right,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: Spencer Pratt might even have a lead, Steve Hilton might
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: even have a lead. And Pratt's lead melted pretty quickly.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Hilton's took a few days for it to melt, but
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: it all happened just the same. But come on, California,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: spend more money to get this stuff counted quicker. If
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: you care about the integrity of the democracy and the
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: citizens belief in it, you're going to get this done,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: all right. I've had a lot of questions, and I've
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: not said much about what's happening at sixty minutes, what's
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: happening at CBS and what's happening with Scott Pelly. Given
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: my own experience dealing with network management, who made a decision,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: who let politics sort of get in the way of journalism,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: I certainly understand the situation that the folks at sixty
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: minutes Pelly in particular, find themselves in. I think there's
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: been a lot there's almost too much focus on Scott Pelly,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: and they're not enough focus on the Ellisons because we
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: got to focus the main thing is the main thing.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: The fact is, all of these media companies have proven
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: to be horrific stewards of media, of journalistic of news organizations. Disney, Comcast,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: Paramount and before that, Viacom and Warner Brothers. They do
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: not when when when the chips were down at all
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: of those entities, all of those publicly traded companies, when
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: the chips were down, they folded whatever it did to
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: appease Donald Trump, to appease the administration in some form
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: or another, regardless of whether the facts matched the complaints.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: They all went for appeasement, whether it was paying off
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: these settlements which sort of looked like bribes that didn't work.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: By the way, because one payoff, you know, he keeps
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: coming back for more. Have you noticed that? Or the
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: you know, the well timed spinoff of MSNBC by Comcast
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: right when you know they I give Comcasts he a
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: little more elegance about it than both Disney and Paramount.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: And then of course there's this you know, no man's
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: land that CNN is operating in where they basically have
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: two owners, no owners, and they're just waiting for shoes
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: to fall, and they're probably sitting there watching CBS wondering, Okay,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: so this is how it works. So I think there
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: are two things you could do, and I think Scott
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: Pelly's interview sort of got at a couple of things
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: that I'm always hesiting. I don't want to backseat drive
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: too much in this situation because I've, like I said,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: I've I during the the issue when when the news
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: organization attempted to hire ron A Romney without sort of
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: going through any sort of public vetting or sort of
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: count of Lily interview nothing right before before signing her,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: uh and not and not explaining what it is that
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: they were signing her. Somebody who had literally questioned the
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: integrity of the entire news division multiple times through her
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: stewardship at the RNC. But NEBC wanted a debate, right,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: they wanted an RNC debate. So I don't know what happened,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: but somehow they got one. And look, I understand why
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: these media companies did what they did. I've said this before.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: They have a feudatial responsibility to the shareholders, not to
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: the public. And so if that is going to be
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: your north star, don't own a news organization because you're
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: going to always compromise the integrity of the news organization.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: I I think it is hard a heart's Bob Eiger
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: didn't think he was compromising the integrity of ABC News
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: when he settled the frivolous lawsuit against short Stepnopolis, but
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: that's what he ended up doing. I'd like to think
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: he will one day publicly express regret for that decision.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: He's in the middle of a transition, he's in the middle.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: He may be tired of talking about these things, of
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: which I understand. But it was a big It was
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: a big mistake. But I under the decision was rational,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: even if I disagreed with it, and I think it
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: did enormous damage because it was the first one, and
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: then it just put pressure on everybody else. Now, the
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: question is why is Trump obsessed with sixty minutes? Sixty
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: minutes is a symbol, and if he can make sixty
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: minutes heal, then he's making all of all of sort
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: of mainstream news heal. Right. You know, this is the
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: most popular, most well known news brand in America. And
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: so if he can just you know, sort of somehow
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: claim that he was able to topple sixty minutes, whatever
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: that means to him, that's a that's a that's an accomplishment,
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't matter what happens in any other news organization, Right,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: It's that symbolism that he wants there. Right, you sort
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: of you take out sixty minutes, and in some ways
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: it it decaps the entire and but the point is
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: is it's already over right the second that I have
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the politics of the lessons are.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: I know some of you think you know what the
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: politics of the lessons are. We don't know for sure.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: Here's what we do know. They want to take advantage
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: of a situation. They want to own this big media conglomerate.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: They want to be able to try to put together
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: the biggest media conglomerate they can possibly imagine with this
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: paramount Warner Brothers thing. And they know it is a
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: questionable decision by government to approve the merger. So what's
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: the easiest way to do it, given to the president's
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: shiny metal objects right, and turn it into just remember,
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: sixty minutes is probably not even not five percent of
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: paramounts bottom line, but probably point of five percent of
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: paramount the bottom line. But the Allisons know that Donald
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: Trump is erratic, and if literally one piece shows up
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: in sixty minutes that he doesn't like, he could just
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: blow up the whole thing and the merger's off. And
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: the Ellisons, more importantly, Larry Ellison, the father, is left
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: holding a really really expensive back that he is already
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: personally essentially used his own wealth as collateral to guarantee.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: So it would be a huge blow. So if you're
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: the Allisons, you're gonna do whatever it takes to appease
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: this president and get through this regulatory merger. They don't
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: care about the long term interest of the news division
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: for one simple reason. The second this merger gets approved,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: the combination of CBS and CNN will likely be put
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: up for sale, and the second Trump leaves office, they're
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: going to put it up for sale. They're not interested
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: in the long term. So I do think that that's
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: if I were sitting at sixty minutes, That's how I'd
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: be approaching this. Okay, we know what the motivation is.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: We know there's nothing we can do currently Internally. You
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: blow up Barry Weiss, the Allisons will find another Berry Weiss,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: you know, and this isn't you know. My only question
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: for her is is she come trouble being used this way?
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: She's being used? Maybe she doesn't think she's being used.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Maybe it aligns with what she wants to do or
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: what she believes, and that's fine. But she's being used here.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: And I assume she knows it because she seems like
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: she's got a lot of common sense to her. But
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know. But she's being used here. But just
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: remember the main thing is the main thing, which is
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: and this is the calculation that I think that I
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: would be thinking about at sixty minutes, which is, can
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: sixty minutes be repaired if it has a new owner.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: I think it is reasonable to conclude that CBS and
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: CNN will have new owners sometime in the next thirty
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: six months. It's not a guarantee, but it's pretty reasonable
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: to conclude that that's going to happen. There's massive debt
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: that this new merger has taken on. They're going to
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: have to start trying to whittle down that debt. Thing
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: that is the biggest headache, least impactful to their bottom
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: line is anything news. So and you know, and then
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: and then if you're CNN's last sixty minutes SA CBS, right,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: and you're there and you're deciding do I put the
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: raincoat on, see if I can get through this storm
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: and see if the next owner isn't crazy, especially if
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: you don't have the financial savings to sort of have
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: the few money, right, Scott Pelly had some few money,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: and he took it was sort of like you know,
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: I I understand the situation he was in, right. He
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: he could take hits that others couldn't. And that was
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: that was I think as much of anything as why
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: he chose to concentrate your er was on me seeing
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: if he can speak and protect those behind him and
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: blow him. But I think that's the calculation I'd be making,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: do I And I think that's what Whitaker Install and
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: those folks decided and why they said, look, we're gonna
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: stick and see if essentially we can if the franchise
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: cannot get so damaged between now and the eventual soon
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: sale of the combination of whatever seeing NCBs looks like.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Is that, you know, is that better than everybody quitting
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: simultaneously and starting something that looks awfully similar to sixty
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: minutes down the road? There is a you know, so
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a fifty one to forty nine call
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned. So I'm not gonna That's
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: why I don't know enough internally for sure, but I
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: do think that's the calculation I'd be making. But ultimately,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot there's been too much focus
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: on sort of how Pelly's gone about this, and not
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: enough focus on the larger issue here, which is what
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: the Ellisons are using Barry Weiss to do. And the
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: goal is to make the President think they have changed
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: the ideology of sixty minutes. Whether they do it or
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: not doesn't mean. It's all about convincing him that they've
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: done this. So high profile firings and you know, bringing
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: in unusual people to run it, and things like that
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: are all designed for an audience of one. No serious
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: journalists would have made these decisions. No serious person about
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: the future, thinking digital first would have made these decisions.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't take something that has such incredible brand equity
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: and positive a positive view from the public and got
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: it like this if there wasn't a larger financial incentive
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: to do it. And you know what, the larger financial
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: incentive is the only way the Ellisons get this monstrosity
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: combination of Paramount and Warner Brothers is if they sacrifice
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: sixty minutes on the altar of Donald Trump, and it
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: is the symbol. It's not you know, it doesn't matter.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: The rest of CBS doesn't matter. Right for Trump, he
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: just sees sixty and that's all this is about, which
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: is why they're thankfully other shows she's not messed with
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: over there, other shows that I think do a terrific job.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: And they've basically been living. You know, they've been just
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: avoiding the war, if you will, God bless them, hopefully
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: the war doesn't come to them. I'm not even gonna
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: mention to you the names of the people I'm talking
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: about or their shows, because I do not want to
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: make sure that those targets are not tarnished by me.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like, do you what's better for you
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: to my friends over there and endorse or criticize. Right,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: But let's not take our eye off the main All,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: my media reporter friends, this is not a Scott Pelly's story.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: This is always about the Ellison's allowing sixty minutes to
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: be used as the chip to get a questionable merger
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: approved by Donald Trump's government. That is and has always
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: been the north star of all of this. Don't confuse
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: anything else from what that is. And it doesn't matter
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: whether you like the direction of sixty minutes or not.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: When that is the motivation, it should upset even those
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: that at the moment consider themselves allies of this administration,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: because government influencing the media is that it is the
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: step one in eroding the democracy. Just ask the no
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: longer free citizens of Turkey. All right? With that, I'll
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: sneak at a break and when we come back, a terrific
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: conversation with my friend David French. Well. Joining me now
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: is my friend David French of the New York Times.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: He's also co host of the Dispatch podcast Advisory Opinions
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: with my with our friend Sarah Isker, who many of
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: my podcast listeners find her. She's a favorite a guest
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: as well. She's yeah, my goodness, always so smart and entertaining.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: She's great. The last time we saw each other in person,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: we were in Chicago, and it was a debate that
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: you and Chris Christy had and I moderated it and
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: I shared a little bit of our of what that
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: was like with my audience at the time, and it
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: was about sports gambling and really the impact on young
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: men in particular. We're not saying there aren't young women
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: out there that are susceptible to this, but it's there's
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: clearly more of a frontal lobe issue here and a
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: with with with young with young men. And you know,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: I want to begin where we ended in that conversation
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: because it feels like as these prediction markets have actually
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: lowered the threshold now from twenty one to eighteen. Right
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: with prediction markets, it's pretty clear. I mean, I use
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: the example of rental of basically insurance companies and the
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: rental car companies decided we're just not going to ensure
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: drivers under the age of twenty five, and magically there's
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: no law that was passed that says you can't rent
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: a car until you're twenty five. It's insurance companies made
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: this decision, and one could argue that they're onto something
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: with twenty five maybe being the proper age to introduce
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: vices where you have to have self control.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's interesting how the insurance companies financial
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: incentives are directly opposite, aligned from the gambling financial incentives.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: So insurance companies they implement the twenty five year old
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: limit because of documented actuarial risk, then young guys just
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: drive more recklessly and that's going to cost the insurance
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: company money. When it's young guys driving the gambling bus recklessly,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: that is exactly what the companies love. I mean, yeah,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: we want to pour marketing dollars towards the people least
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: able to control themselves.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: And you know, when we were.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: Taught, we had a really it was a really interesting
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: debate because on the one hand, you know, Governor Christy
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: was defaulting towards less government regulation. I was defaulting towards
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: in general, I was defaulting towards much more. But we
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: we did at the end degree on a couple of
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: things that I think are really important. And this is
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: sort of an example of how you can reach seventy
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: thirty kinds of solutions that don't address everything, but they
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: at least address something. And as I recall, it was
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: three prongs. One was raise the age to twenty five.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: The other one was regulate prediction markets at least as
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: tightly as regularly securities markets. And then number three was
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: some form of regulation on a certain kind of bet
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: called a prop bet. Right, this is your live in
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: game betting where you're going to say this the next ball,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: is the next pitch going to be a ball or strike?
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: Or is the next foul shot can to be a
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: hit or amiss, And those single individual can essentially totally
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: warp the warp the odds if they check exactly, like
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: they could tell their friends that the third batter of
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: the first.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: Inning, I'm going to walk them right. And by the way,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: we're not manufacturing something out of thin air. That's what apparently
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: what a manual class A did as the closer for
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: the Guardians. He exactly not going to throw up a
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: strike on the first pitch, I promising, in fact, I'm
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: so nervous about making sure it out. I'm going to
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: bounce the ball so bad.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: And it's one of these things, Chuck, where I think
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: what you're actually watching is sort of the laboratories of
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: democracy that's right, working in real time, maybe in the
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: sense that, Okay, we had a bunch of states that
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: liberalize sports gambling, and a lot of Americans now don't
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: like what they see, and there is a building response
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: to it. That is I think it's arising and it's
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: bubbling up, similar to the way sort of like the say,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: the phone free schools movement bubble up.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: Bubbled up.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: First is a notion, as an idea, then as an experiment,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: then is a policy. And I think that we're at
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: the notion or idea stage of gambling regulation where we're saying, wait, whoa,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: this is not good, This is especially not good for
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: young men. What can we do about it that's reasonable
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: and we can get consensus on generally?
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: Do you think that is the best? You know, it's
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: funny because one of the things that I think we're
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: terrible at as human beings is trying to anticipate what
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: could happen based on a law that's passed. Yeah, in
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: fact it sometimes you need to see the unintended consequences
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: that then to properly regulate something that perhaps you wouldn't
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: have thought of if you tried to regulate from the start. Yeah,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: you're You're you're an interesting cat ideologically, right, because on
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: one hand, you're I think you've got a lot of
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: libertarian in you. Yeah, and at the same time you're
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: also a bit of an institutionalist. I think is that fair?
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: You know, you know Chesterton's fence kind of conservative, yes.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: Right where I think a lot of libertarians they're you know,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: the purest horbar libertarian is Hey, you know you do
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: you right? Like? And that's it? Is that? Is it
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: better to I mean, because that's essentially what we're doing
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: with AI. I'm on, you know, the downside of letting
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: something happen first, then figuring out what the unintended consequences are,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: and then figuring out how to regulate. Is it Sometimes
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: it's impossible to quote put toothpaste back in the tube,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: and yet it there. It is true that it is
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: hard to anticipate what the the effects of a policy
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: are going to be.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I also think that a lot depends on
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: sort of how you came up in the world sort
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: of from a legal political perspective. I came up in
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: the world as a lawyer where I'm doing a lot
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: of litigation, and litigation not all the time, but most
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: of the time is backwards looking. This thing happened in
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: the past, and we're going to try to reach a
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: legal resolution to it that involves compensation or punishment or whatever.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: And then it's based in real world events, but it
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: sets a precedent that essentially regulates going forward. But unlike
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: a regulation that is anticipatory purely we think this is
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: going to be bad in this way or that way,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: so we're going to sort of anticipatorily ban it. What
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: the common law typically does is, let's think, it lets
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: things unfold. It takes a sort of a much longer view.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: It lets things unfold and then strikes at the elements
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: where people's rights are violated, our people are harmed, and
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: so it's more of a backwards looking analysis. And I
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: wrote about this about AI recently because we're beginning to
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: see these common law concepts come into AI, where AI,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: whether it likes it or not, is going to be
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: quote unquote regulated away by jury by jury verdicts by
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: judicial decisions such a So for example, there is the
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: the the Attorney General of Florida is undertaking a criminal
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: investigation of open Ai because what they did is they
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: looked at chat logs around a mass shooting at Florida
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: State and they said, wait a minute, well.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: You know it's funny on that one. I let's dig
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: into that because I, first of all, he I I
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: interpreted what the Attorney General of Florida is doing is
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: borrowing a page from what is happening in the social
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: against the social media companies in the in the in
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: the combined lawsuits that we're watching in the southern in
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: Southern California, already at one verdict where it's a fault
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a faulty product attack. Right, Isn't that
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: how that basically that the potential lawsuit is it's a
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: defective product. Yeah, And that's how they're going to try
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: to go at it. Yes, rightly that they are.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: That is accurate description of the way they're going at meta.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: And they're using product liability principles. And I've got some
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: beef with some of that, to be honest, because you know,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: you are starting to intrude on protected speech, for example.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: But when it comes to open AI, it's a subtle difference.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: So the subtle difference with open AI is unlike say, your.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: Your interactions with real.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: Live human beings on a social media app, where a
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: lot of the question is how much should kids be
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: able to interact with real life human beings sort of
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: how is that ordered? This interaction with human beings actually
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: sort of ordered, governed regulated. With chat GBT, you're interacting
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: with an entity that is designed to be at least
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: to some degree autonomous. That's its design is to be
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: to some degree, that's what part of the whole point
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: of AI is that does its own thing.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: But how can that exist legally?
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: Where you cannot There is no such thing as machine liability.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: There always has to be human liability in the chain.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: And so here's the dilemma that I think that the
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: that the AI companies are facing and will continue to face,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: is that they're ultimately going to be held liable for
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: the quote unquote autonomous actions of their AI. Well, if
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: they're going to be held liable for the autonomous actions
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: of the AI, how autonomous can they ultimately end up being?
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: Because do I want to delegate the possibility of criminal
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: sanction to a machine that I'm intentionally or you know,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: software that I'm intentionally not.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: Well, let's let's take let's take this specific Florida case.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: This involves the school shooting at Florida State. Uh huh,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: and correct me if I'm wrong. I've been followed. My
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: wife went to Florida State, so we followed this pretty closely. Yeah,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: just you know, we keep up with it. And I
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: guess because he used chat GPT to essentially help him
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: find the best way to the best places to do
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: the shooting, the best places to escape and all this stuff.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: Why should open AI be held accountable for doing something
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: he could have done. He could have done another way
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: if he chose to. There just happened to be a
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: more efficient way to do it. I mean, you know,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: this is the case of technology is neither good or bad.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: People are good or bad, and they can use technology
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: to do good or bad.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really good question, and the answer lies
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: in a statement that I think that the Pory General
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: of Florida made that I thought was very interesting. He said,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: if you had seen that text exchange between two people,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: we would have already charged the other person.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: On the as like a co conspiratory, essentially aiding in
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: a betting.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: So and if you if you look at some of
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: the interesting prosecutions we've seen over the last couple of.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: Years of parents of school shooters, right there is we've
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: gotten a few of those guilty verdicts and sort of
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: essentially neglect, is that what it is.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: It's also a criminal neglect at some at the edges
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: and aiding in a betting theory.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: But what you found in these cases really is.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: What you would call criminal neglect, like they completely ignored
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: warning signs. And in fact, and most of these parent
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: criminal charges criminal trials, you do not see anything as
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: overt as what you see in the chat open AI
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: chat logs here. So, for example, in the open AI
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: in this case, you have finding questions about, you know,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: media coverage of school shooters, questions about criminal penalties for
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: school shooters. You have questions about when is the student
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: center the busiest, and the thing that's most chilling is
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: about three minutes before the shooting. You have questions with
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: open AI about how to disengage the safety. So imagine
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: if the humans on the other end where you say,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: you know, Hey, mom, how do I disengage the safety
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: on my weapon? And mom knows the kids at school,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: and like that mom is going to get hold that
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: mom is getting prosecuted, and.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: That mom's going to jail.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: Right, So so there's a parallel here that is very troubling.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: Although it is also the case, Chuck, that you could
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: maybe just do normal Google searches for some of this
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: information as well, but it's not and.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: When you have held Google accountable for it, and that's
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: circumstaniving him the right answers, right like as a Google search.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, I take your point, and I've been as
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: you were talking, I was thinking, well, I guess the
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: AI companies could say, you know, could essentially program the
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: model to say, if somebody asks more than one question
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: about a school shooting, you need to at least say,
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: if you're what are you asking these questions for? You
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: know that you know or you know you shouldn't be
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: taking actions, don't do this or something like that? Is it?
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: Do you think they have a responsibility for that? Would
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: goog Now let me go further, and I'd like to
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: know when you think the First Amendment applies here? How
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: many Google searches on school shootings. Do you have to
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: do before you think Google should report it? Yeah, it's
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: that's that's a really good question.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: And we actually have cases currently pending that are related
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: to some of what you said. So again we're talking
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: about AI and a mass shooting that happened in Canada,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: a school shooting that happened in cant and there the
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: interaction with a school shooter on chat GPT was so
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: overt that open ai considered contacting Canadian authorities and chose
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: not to.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: And then there was the attack on the school.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: And so now the lawsuits are pouring into open ai
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: because this is something.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: That's they're almost admitting liability amount one.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: And so so basically, I think it really does turn
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: on what is the nature of the technology. So, for example,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: we would never say that if I want to know
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: how to disengage the soft the safety on my weapon,
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: that if I go to a library and I look
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: up at a technical manual using the Dewey decimal system,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: the library.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: Is like no.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: And I feel like if you're looking at a Google
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: search that's a typical Google search is very much more
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: like I'm walking in I'm accessing it pre existing database
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: of information that is available on a neutral basis. The
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: whole premise of these chat bots and these llms is
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: something very different that you are communicating with and with
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: a an entity that is different from although the Google
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: Search and AI are now merging a lot more, I
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: mean that look, there is not much to my frustration,
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: But although there is. I just interview to Todd Ricketts
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: who's got a an app that he's promoting called free
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: Spoke that is trying to essentially be bring search back,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: essentially search without the without you know, monetizing the user
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: and all of that business and et cetera. So how
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: much of this is autonomous operation of the actual software
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: And if you're talking about these chat bots, and there is,
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: you know, we've also seen, for example, evidence of chatbots
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: because they're trained to be so sycophan, you know, they're
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: trained to be your sycophant, right that they will kind
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: of encourage you in an effort to commit suicide even
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: you know. And so we are seeing something that is
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: different in kind from a Google Search and if I
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: am an a but what we're seeing from the AI
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: companies on the one hand saying this is completely revolutionary
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: technology that is going to revolutionize the world. It's going
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: to transform the way we do everything. It has a
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: it has ability to sort of learn on its own
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: in a way that we've never seen before, learn it
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: at geometric rate, new, new new, And then I come
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: around and go, okay, we need liability rules around this
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 2: new new new, And then they turn around and go, well, it's.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: Just basically a Google search, right, what is it? Guys?
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: Let me throw another and maybe this is an awkward
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: somebody reads a Sylvia Plath book and or a pome
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: and decides to kill themselves. Do we hold the publisher accountable? Oh? Absolutely,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: absolutely not. You know, you know, but you see where
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: all right, Like it's like, I mean, I think, right,
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: you get to these places you're like, well, definitely not this.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: If you read a book and you feel like that
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: book reinforces, or you read a poem and that reinforces
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: your decision to kill yourself, we're not holding the publisher accountable.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: You do a Google search how to do it, and
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: you find different ways of how to kill yourself. Where
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: I think we've decided we're not holding the search engine responsible.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: If you're asking a sentiment, if you're basically suddenly having
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: a chatbot, which sort of where you're having this conversation
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: is just a good idea or not right, then you're right,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: I guess. So it's like, what is the line between
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: Google search.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: And an actual relationship relationship with the search Because in
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: the real world, if a human being encourages another person
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: to commit suicide, depending on the extent to which they
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: do it, we've even seen criminal prosecutions in that context.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: So in that circumstance, when part of the theory is
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: that if you're in an actual relationship with the human being,
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: there's a degree of coercion, control, persuasion, et cetera that
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: doesn't exist if you're reading a book or if you
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: are making a reference search in a library or a
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: Google search online. That there is this element that the
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: relationship itself contains an element of coercion slash persuasion. And
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: the question is, if you're talking to a chatbot, is
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: it more like the relationship or more like the Twoe
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: decimal system. And the whole emphasis of the chatbot is
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: to be more like the relationship. That's why it is
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: so revolutionary, and so that's why I don't think they're
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: going to be able to have it both ways, they're
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: not going to be able to sort of say, we
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: are revolutionizing your interaction with technology. How but the legal
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: framework has to treat us like a Google search. Do
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: you think this is only civil vulnerability, not criminal? Mostly civil?
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: There are circumstances in which I think criminal liability could attach.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: Now you know if you had so, for example, if
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: you had internal safety protocols at.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: Flag and section two thirty doesn't apply to this. You
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: don't believe.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 2: I don't believe section two thirty applies to this that
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: if you had, because what you're doing is you're actually
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: holding the company responsible for its own speech, not for
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: the speech of others that's being hosted on the platform.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, that's right. You guys manufactured the ability for
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: this speech. This is you.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: When that chatbot is speaking, it is open Ai speaking,
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: and so I can imagine a criminal life ability. Let's
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: say conversation flags the safety protocols, and open AI officials
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: watch the sort of plotting unfolding in real time and
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: then just deliberately.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: Choose as they see that this.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: Person is okay, chat I'm at a stoplight, I'm five
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: minutes away.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: What should I be doing?
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: How should I what should my final prep be and
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 2: they're like, well.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: That's interesting.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: Let's see what Chat says to him versus we got
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: to do something. You know that they're extreme circumstances where
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: I could imagine criminal liability attaching, but what you might
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: end up seeing is civil liability and sometime and civil
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: liability at a large scale. The question, though, is, given
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: the economics of AI right now and how much money
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: is flowing into AI, how affected would civil judgments be
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: even in the millions of dollars if we're dealing with
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: country companies with hundreds of billions of revenue potentially trillions
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: in market capitalization. So could civil liability actually be a
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 2: deterrent as opposed to just something that compensates victims.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to amun what I guess the solution
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: is the let's at the end of the day, these
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: large language model creators need to build in some of
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: these protections, build in alarm essentially alarm systems, right security
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: systems on stuff like this. What's the most effective way
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: to force this basically probably essentially pass a lot saying
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: you have to do this or or if you don't
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: do it, and I guess, or do you do it
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: at Carrot and Stick and it's like, if you pass
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: this law, we'll give you some indemnification on some liability
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: shield up to a certain amount of money. Like you
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: Carrot and Stick this, what would you how would you
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: propose a solution? Yeah, so a couple things.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: One anything I'm saying right now, I say with extreme
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: humility because this is Look, we're.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: Both doing what we do. As I joked with that
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: in a great conversation with them guests and the other day,
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: and they were just I'm not I said, we backseat
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: drive for a living in Go ahead, right, back seat driving.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 2: And especially when we're talking about AI AI, it's such
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: an emerging technology that you know, you almost feel like, well,
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 2: I have reached this definitive conclusion and.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: Then I know it's like.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever, yeah, and so here here's what I would think.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: Do the same one two step step one two process
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: that we saw in a lot of American law, which
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: is this common law. And when I say common law,
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: common law is the precedent based law that exists when
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: I sue somebody over these ancient legal concepts like you know,
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: invasion of privacy or negligence or you know, and so
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: so what's happened in America is a process where court
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: cases have yielded precedent, and then legislators have come in
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: and legislated the precedent. In other words, what I like
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: about that process is that when you have something that's
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: worked through a court system, it's been pressure tested in
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: an adversarial environment, and hopefully by the time the case
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 2: is all done, ratified or upheld in some way by
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: the highest court and the jurisdiction, and so you have
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: an actual legal wrong remedied successfully within the legal system,
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: and then the legislative process can come in and say, Okay,
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: this has established a very important principle. We don't want
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 2: to have people to just file a million lawsuits to
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: deal with it.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: We're going to.
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: Pass a law that codifies this legal precedent and applies
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 2: it in a blanket basis. That I think is a
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: very nice way of pressure testing and legal reform and
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 2: then implementing it. You pressure tested in the adversarial process,
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: you implement it in the legislative process. Now, the disadvantage there, Chuck,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: is very obvious. It's there's a lag time. There's a
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 2: lag time where there are a lot of a lot of
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 2: harm can happen, and a lot of harm can happen
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: in that lag time. Now, over time, I think you
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: end up with a better set of regulations down the line.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: But how much cost are you willing to bear in
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: the interim, And that's where the all these prudential judgments
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 2: come in. But then also you have to realize there's
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 2: costs if you start to preemptively regulate in ways that
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: are ham fisted or uninformed and could have their own,
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: their own cascading secondary effects. So there's either way you go,
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: there's trade offs. You have to you have to think through.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a we're we're we're a long way away,
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: and we're probably going to have more harm before before
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: before we get somewhere. I want to shift slightly to
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: but I want to stay in your your sort of
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: legal lane. Talk about the weaponisation fund, and I don't
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: know how any part of this is legal constitutional, and
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: forget let's let's assume we're going to the money's never happening.
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: But it's clear that there's an attempt to say, well,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: but the but the agreement that essentially provides blanket immunity
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: for tax audits up through twenty twenty five for the
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: entire Trump family and Trump organization. How is it that
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: that's a that is something that is in the hands
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: of the government to be able to do without Congress
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: ratify it.
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's nutchuck. There is nothing about this that is legal.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 2: And there's just nothing about it that's legal. The only
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: quirk here is and the only complicator is who has
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 2: standing to walk into court to challenge it to get
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: it struck down, Like who is the injured party that
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: can go into court? The the natural entity for addressing
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: this is Congress. Congress should jump all over this because
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 2: this is us.
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: John Corny and tweeted the other day that maybe Congress
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: ought to essentially codify the decision to kill this fund.
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: I totally think they should one hundred percent. I don't
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: know that they will, but they absolutely totally should. But
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: this is a really interesting case study and how you
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: just can't rely on the judiciary to do everything to
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 2: save this republic. The judiciary is an entity that.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: Has and Scott they basically got bamboozled on this one,
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: as the judges admitting and now wants to order them back. Well,
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: and I think the judge's right to order them back.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: I don't necessarily love all the retired judges making the
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 2: argument for it, but I think the actual decision to
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: reopen because there was a fraud on the court. And
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 2: let me sort of explain that to people. Our legal
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 2: system rests on an adversary adversarial relationship. So if I
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: am the CEO of a company, for example, and I
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: sue the company that i'm the CEO of, it would
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: not a court would never in a million years permit
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: me to then hire the lawyers for the company that
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: I am suing and direct the lawyers for the company
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: to settle with me in the amount that I want.
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: There would be, you know, there would have to be
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: a separation where, you know, the corporation has a council
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 2: that represents its interests and I, as the CEO, would
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: have counsel that represented my interests, and you'd have a
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: real adversarial proceeding.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: Here. What you had was nothing of the sort.
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 2: You had the president, the chief of the executive branch,
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 2: suing the executive branch for conduct that occurred while he
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 2: was running the executive branch to be defended by an
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 2: agency that he directs and runs.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: And so where was the matter should it also matter
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: that the person that's in charge of that agency that
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: he directs and runs was once his own personal attorney.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's like the cherry on the top. I mean,
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 2: it's not the Sunday, but it is the cherry on
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 2: the top.
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: And so there's no adversarial proceeding.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: And the judge was obviously very very concerned about that,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: and I think the Trump administration was staring a dismissal
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 2: of the case it was, or holding it in abeyance
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 2: until another administration, and they thought, what can we do,
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 2: what can we do to accomplish our goal? And so
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 2: they negotiated with themselves to reach this sweetheart deal. And honestly,
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 2: I would I truly think that Trump cares much more
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 2: about the release of liability than he cares for the
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: slush fund for other people.
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: Hundred thousand percent. Yeah, and that's why they better not
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: let that go. It's exactly one hundred. He has been
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: fighting over these audits for decade, or over a decade.
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: I believe this goes back. I think his tax returns
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: from at least twenty eleven, twenty twelve. Right. Oh, it's
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: a middle of an odd It's it's been a constant.
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: He's been in this fight since before he ran for
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: president at the first Oh.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and the potential liability, you know again, resilience one
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: hundreds of millions, so and another thing that's important for
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: people to realize. And you know, this is sort of
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 2: a deep cut in constitutional law. But the pardon power
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: only extends to federal crimes, so a president could only
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: theoretically parted himself for criminal liability. In other words, you know,
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 2: I'm going to preemptively pardon myself for any investigations regarding
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: to you know, regarding financial enrichment while in office or
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: something like that. That would apply only to crimes. The
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 2: pardon power does not extend to civil offenses. So even
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: if a president has pardoned his staff, pardoned himself, they
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 2: can all still be sued and maybe sued for a
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: giant amount of money if depending on the circumstances. And
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: so what is happening here is he's starting the process
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: of trying to use his power to relieve himself from
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 2: civil risk in addition to the power he already has
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: to relieve himself of criminal risk. And so what you're
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 2: looking at really is a full spectrum assault on the
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: rule of law to try to take one man, the
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: President of the United States, and just remove him from
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: the operation of law every bit as thoroughly as King
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 2: George the Third was removed from the operation of law.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: You know, in seventeen seventy six, the President meused that
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: there are other ways to compensate people he believes were
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: victimized by previous administrations. In the Justice Department, it's super easy.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: Let's just file individual lawsuits and then the government and
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: the Justice Department quickly settles before anybody. What can be
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: done about that? How could Congress mean? Congress? I was
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: reading this Congress basically in order. There was a time
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: where Congress always had to have a say before a
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: settlement payout happened. And then for efficiency purposes, it was like,
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: all right, you've got a essentially a petty cash fund
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: that we will allocate blankly, you know whatever. It is
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: one hundred million, two hundred million every fiscal year for
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: you to settle lawsuits when you have to settle them
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: without having to come to Congress each time, which in
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: theory makes a lot of sense. But as always, Donald
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: Trump has been I've always said the gift of Donald
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: Trump's two terms is that he's provided an MRI for
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: every loophole that exists that we've got a close. He
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: is providing the roadmap for reform for the legal community,
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: for the political community. Probably that should keep us busy
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: for a couple of decades. There's huge need for reform
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: here because what Trump. There is a prior to Trump,
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: and this was there was a practice that became known
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: as sue and settle, where an allied organization or friendly
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: group would sue the administration. The administration would then reach
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: a settlement agreement on terms friendly to the allied group
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: without going through regulatory processes, without going through congressional approval.
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: And there was already criticism. And one of the things
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: you got to everyone's got to know about the Trump
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: world is an enormous number of their outrages are related to,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: adjacent to reminiscent of previous scandals and previous administrations. And
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: then the Trump administration just kind of comes along and says,
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: hold my beer, you think that was bad, let me
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: show you what we can do next. So there was
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: already a problematic practice of these very sweetheart deals for
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: ideological allies and settlements, and so I think there's an
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: obvious legislative remedy which would inject the legislative branch into
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: approving any settlement with either a financial a direct financial
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: payout above a certain amount of money, or a settlement
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: that has an economic effect in other words, a regulatory
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: effect above a certain amount of money, and then that
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: goes to Congress. I think would be a extremely reasonable
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: legislative reform. And yeah, it would require Congress to do.
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 2: Some work, but you know what, Chuck, they should they
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 2: they've got the opportunity to cancel a few cable news
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: hits and do their real job.
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: They at some point, you know, it's funny. I've proposed
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: a class for incoming freshmen working with USC. I've been
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: teaching a class for them, a d C annex class
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: for visiting students that do a semester in d C.
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: And they've asked me to come up with a class
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: for incoming freshmen that may be housed in DC for
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: the first semester. And I said, how about just an
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: introduct to the Constitution like a citizens you know. And
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: it turns out, because it is amazing, we just don't
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: teach it very well. Number one, I kind of think
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: members of Congress I'd love to you know, to me,
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't be able to take the oath until you've
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: read the Federalist papers improved. To me, you've read the
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: Federalist paper if you're going to be a member of Congress.
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not asking every American citizen, but I want every
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: gosh don member of Congress to read every Federalist paper.
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: I think that's a minimum requirement that doesn't seem too onerous.
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: I love that if you, if you between the time
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 2: of your election and when you're scorn in, you have
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 2: to be able to certify you read the Federalist papers.
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like some sort of certification you have to do. Look,
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: you got certification to be a real estate person. You
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: got to get you pass the bar. You know. Look,
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: you won Congress, great, but in order for you to
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: get your keys to your office and get your voting guard,
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: you just have to get certified in the Constitution. You know.
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: And because it turns out a lot of these guys
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: and gals are.
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: Not you know, here's here's a reform I don't know about.
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: If this is this would have to be voluntary from
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: the political parties, more so than imposed by legislation because
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 2: of constitutional concerns.
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: But as we're.
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 2: Awaiting the next shoe to drop on old Graham Platner,
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 2: which I.
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: Mean feels like it's I mean right, it's one of
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: those you're like, you can't You're better off betting that
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: there will be another shoe than not.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know of anything that's coming, but it
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 2: is like one of the most heavily rumored things happening
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: right now. And who knows if any there will be
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 2: anything more or not. I have no idea. But as
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 2: we're watching all this unfold, you know, here's here is
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 2: one thing that I think would be interesting is what
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 2: are politic where? What role do political parties or should
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 2: they play? The political party as the institution and candidate
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 2: selection or eligibility. And I think a very basic rule
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 2: that a political party could implement is to be on
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 2: the ballot with R D or R by you you
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: have to pass a comprehensive back ground check with the
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 2: results to be published in the public and so so.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: In other words, you can probably do this for federal
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: law right for federal offices. At a minimum, I would think.
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: Well, it would be hard because they were political party
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 2: is a private entity, and so they can do their
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 2: own sort of membership rules and candidate eligibility. But I
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 2: would love to see. Look, you don't get to be
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 2: on the ballot through this private entity called the Democratic
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 2: Party the Republican Party unless you have either a passed
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 2: aboutground check or be at the very minimum, endured a
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 2: background check for which we publish the results. And in
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 2: that circumstance, what is this It's basic due diligence. Can
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 2: you in the private sector get a job of serious meaning,
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 2: with serious meaningful responsibility without going through some form of
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 2: a background check anymore?
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah? All right, triggered something that you you have because
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: I'm curious, would you represent me in a case if
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: I said to you, I think partisan, state funded partisan
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: primaries are a violation of equal protection. That's my theory.
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: Why isn't Why isn't that the case? And here's my argument.
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: You're telling me that in order to participate in a
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: state funded not every state of state funded primaries, all
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: this stuff, But if you are going to if the
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: state is funding a partisan primary, how is it that
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: I have to join a private organization in order to
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: participate in this state funded event? How is that not
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: a violation of equal protection. That's a very good question.
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 2: However, the reality is that so long as state funding
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 2: of private organizational opportunity, private organizational activities is undertaken on
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: a viewpoint neutral basis. In other words, we're going to
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 2: fund a primary system that any political party can join.
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 2: That's generally the way in which we deal with this
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 2: with the concept of state.
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: How many states are funding party primaries, how many states
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: are funding libertarian party primaries. Yeah, that's a great question.
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: That's a great question.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 2: Now the answer might be, well, we would, we would,
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 2: but we're going to ask that it would be undertaken
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: in the same day as the you know, one of
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: the major party primaries, for efficiency reasons or whatever. But
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 2: I think the general way in which we deal with
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 2: state funding of private activity is that we don't if
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: we put too many conditions on the state funding, it
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 2: stops being private activity. And so but at the same time,
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 2: there's a lot.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: Of elections private activity.
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: Though the election, the election election private club's nominee is
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 2: private activity.
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: So the Democratic Party is a private club.
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 2: Look at it this way, and the state is choosing
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 2: essentially to subsidize the election process of this private club
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: and the decision to subsidize that election process doesn't make
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 2: it a public club. It's still a private club. And
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 2: so I would think the better argument is, let's just
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: not fund it. Don't fund it, right, That's the simpler part.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: Let parties figure out either fund their own, you know,
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: do firehouse primaries, which literally were just that, you know,
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: you'd go to the firehouse to vote, and it would
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: be sometimes it would be you know, paid for by
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: the state. Part I mean South Carolina famously in their
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: presidential primaries have actually only recently has the state giving
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: them some money. Basically, the state used to say, you
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: can use our system, but you have to pay for it, right,
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: And that's why the South Carolina presidential I think the
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: Republican presidential filing fee is astronomical because the party has
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: to actually pay to implement implement the primary. But so
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: you think that's not a slam dunk the equal protection
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: argument Hardison on. You know here, I look, I raises
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: a single eyebrow.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 2: It raises a single you think, you think, to paraphrase
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 2: the rock, it raises the people's eyebrow.
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: But you don't you think it is a If the
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: state defended it, they would win.
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, now here would be an interesting thing if
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 2: a state. I mean, here's where I'm going to get
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 2: in too. I mean, which is we get Look, partisan
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 2: primaries are killing us. Okay, they're killing the political system.
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: We know this. It's killing the political system. Yes, you
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: can say, well, the public needs to do a better
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: job participating in primaries. Yeah, well, who wants to be
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: a member of these two clubs right now? Yeah? Okay,
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: Like so I'm not going to lecture the public going.
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be associated with one of those
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: two clubs. God bless you. I get it. That's why
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: the fastest growing party in America is no party. So
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm just looking frankly for a backdoor way
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: to get rid of partisan primaries.
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 2: I would love to get rid of partisan primaries. And
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 2: you know what, here's a potential way. A state says
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 2: we'll fund a primary. We'll fund an open primary. Right
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 2: that is the only primary that we will fund. Maybe
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 2: you know, open primary with top two and the top
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 2: two go to a runoff regardless of their party, et cetera.
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: And which which is a system I don't mind.
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 2: Or you could even have somebody say we're going to
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 2: fund an open primary that's ranked choice right or you know,
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 2: and so you could fund a particular kind of primary,
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 2: and then if the if the parties want to do
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 2: their own little club thing, that'd have to come up
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 2: with their own dollars.
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: And if they want to maybe put a put a denotion,
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: you know, it's up to the parties if they want
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: candidates to have their party label next to them, but
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: that's on that's the party, that's between the parties and
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: the candidate. Yeah, but I'm I'm with you.
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: You know, my our mutual friend Jonah Goldberg, he he
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 2: has written about like bring back the smoke filled room.
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: Well, no, he's not wrong about that. I mean, now,
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: in order to do that, we got to bring money
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: back out of the you know, it's almost you got
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: to ban outside money and let the two political parties
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: be be the financial engines. Right. When the parties were
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: responsible for money to candidates, they had a hell of
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: a lot more say over which candidates got money. Right.
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And people don't realize the way in which campaign
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 2: finance reform by d by disempowering political parties, law of
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 2: unintended consequences and empowering the super packs and all that
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 2: has really.
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: Messed with the Muricane find goal was a was well
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: intentioned and absolutely catastrophic to catastrophic. And then are this romanticization.
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: I get Citizens United is bad, but you don't get
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: the Citizen United situation without the initial McCain fine Gold passage.
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 2: I think you Citizens United was completely rightly decided.
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: But I've heard that argument.
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a rounding error in importance in my mind
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 2: compared to McCain, Fein Goeld, the parties I agree with that.
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: I want to I want to I want to close
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: with two topics. One is about the founders. You are
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: not just a man of faith, but you you made
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: an early living essentially defending religious freedom for whether it
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: was on campuses in private organizations. And but it goes
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: back and I want to to me you you're more
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: scholarly on this than anybody when it comes to religious
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: freedom and the founding of this country. There's a lot
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: of very religious people who say, no, no, no, no, Our
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: founders meant for us to be a religious nation, meant
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: for us to be a Christian nation, meant for us
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: to be and they say, you know, just look at
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: the background of all these founders, they were very reallyious people.
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: And I turn it and I say, well, I actually
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: have the reverse logic, which is they were incredibly religious
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: people who decided not to allow for the country to
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: essentially choose a religion. And that to me is proof that, hey,
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: you know, this is why we're supposed to essentially be
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: neutral on this, and that the government is neutral on this.
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: Where do you come down on this? Yeah, that's you're
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: understand what your forget? Come down what's your understanding of
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: what you think the founder's intent was. Here's here were
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: very religious people at the time who again chose not
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: to insert it. You know, it's it's in the First
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: Amendment for a reason. So let's let's take this into parts.
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: Who were they?
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 2: What did they want to do? So the who were
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 2: they part? You said very religious, And for some of
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 2: them that's true. I would say that most of them
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 2: would be very religion curious or very religiously informed. But
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 2: they were also not the kind of people you would
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 2: see right beside you in the pew and first Baptist
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 2: church every Sunday. They were. Many of them were more
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 2: say High Church Anglican. Some were often functionally Deist, but
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 2: they were very biblically and religiously literate, and some of
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 2: them were.
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: More literate on the Bible then than collectively we are today.
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 2: Then many pastors, but many of them were not particularly
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 2: devout as we would categorize devout. So this was not
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 2: a religious revival. You know that when you're talking about
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 2: the American founding. It was a moment of extraordinary philosophical tumult,
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 2: a lot of religious argumentation, but this was absolutely not
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 2: the founding of a Christian nation, and intentionally so. And
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 2: one of the things you can do is don't you
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 2: don't have to trust me on this. You can go
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 2: and read the key founders like Madison and Jefferson, and
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 2: I very much appreciate Madison in this very famous memori
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: real and Remonstrance against religious assessments. This is a seventeen
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: eighty five document, so this is two years before the Constitution,
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 2: you know, the seventeen eighty seven Constitution. It's a few
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 2: years before the Bill of Rights. But it really does
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 2: show what does Madison think this country is about?
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: And what was that issue? Was going to be.
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 2: A money tax, money being used to pay clergy, for example,
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 2: and he calls this as an establishment of religion, and
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 2: this is this is the language, and I'm going to
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 2: read it because the proposed establishment is a departure from
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 2: that generous policy which offering an asylum to the persecuted
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 2: and oppressed of every nation and religion promised a luster
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 2: to our country and an accession to the number of
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 2: its citizens. So marinate with that for a minute and
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 2: think about its import on two huge debates in American life,
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 2: immigration and religion.
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: And here that's wrapped up in the right in one sentence.
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 2: And he says, and he says that this offering an
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 2: asylum to the persecute and oppressed of every nation and
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 2: religion promised a luster to the country. In other words,
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: it will increase our national greatness. And it says an
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 2: accession to the number of its citizens, it will increase
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 2: our numbers. And in that way, Madison is rebuking Christian
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 2: nationalism and sort of this hardcore immigration restrictionism at the
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 2: same moment at the same time. And I've become very
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 2: fond of that short passage because it's just perfect Twitter length.
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 2: There's not many like founding statements that are perfect Twitter length,
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 2: but you can just pop that up there and the
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 2: reaction to it is really curious. Often a lot of
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 2: the more nationalists will just the kind of act as
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 2: if it never existed. It just it didn't exist. And
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 2: Jefferson has quotes that are even you know, more explicit
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 2: naming you know, Muslims and Hindus for example, as people
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 2: welcome in this country.
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: And so, yeah, anybody ever single out atheists or no.
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 2: That was that was a much more minority category back then,
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 2: much much more minority.
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: But the.
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, these are not hard questions to answer,
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 2: it's just that people don't like the answer when they
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 2: find it.
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: Out right, I want to close with and I've I've
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: sort of challenged Sarah Esk around this too, and so,
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: and which is I think that it's pretty clear that
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: the Department of Justice should not be in the executive
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: branch and or we have you know that it has
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: to be something more akin to the Federal Reserve in
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: some forms. So maybe it does technically stay in the
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: branch or something. But look, you know, we were able
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: to we were able to pass a law about nepotism
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: them after the Kennedy Kennedy right attorney general. As I
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: said earlier, Donald Trump has given US provided US an
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: MRI for all the different loopholes. We had no idea
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: like a personal attorney can end up attorney general. Now, look,
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: I do think we're going to see a Republican Senate
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: summarily reject Todd Blanche. I just I you know, I
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: don't see there's not forty five votes for him, let
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: alone fifty. But we'll see, right, we'll see if at
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: one point, is this the President trying to shove both
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: Bill Poulti and Todd Blanche and say, you know, like
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: with Matt Gate when he did Matt Gates and Pete
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: hagg Seth and said, okay, we'll sacrifice Gates as long
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: as you give us heg Seth type of business. But
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: it seems to me, no matter what that we have
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: unfortunately politicized the rule of law. And that isn't something
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: that's just going to somehow go back. Everybody's going to say, oh,
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: it's no longer politicized now that Trump and Blanche are gone, right,
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: just like plenty of people on the right that think
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: that Biden and Garland were somehow weaponizing. But the point
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: is the Department of Justice is lost credibily with a
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: large chunk of the country, and I think we're going
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: to have to figure out a way to it cannot
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: be this closely tied to a president. What do we do?
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'd like a federal reserve type of system,
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: where it's different entities, different term links. Maybe the attorney
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: general is always appointed by the opposite party, you know,
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: or something. You know. It seems to me we have
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: to change this because this will turn into a massive
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: crisis if we just don't believe the Justice Department anymore.
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to be a little radical, chuck.
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 2: So I think that the actual issue here is that
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 2: the dependence and the sort of the the the ineffectiveness,
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 2: the corruption of the Department Justice is downstream from a
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 2: bigger issue, which is unitary executive theory. Now, unitary executive
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 2: theory is rooted in a problem that the anti federalists
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 2: identified with the seventeen eighty seven Constitution. And it's a
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 2: problem that see I now see what their argument was,
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 2: and I now see what the problem is, and it
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 2: is this George Clinton, who was the governor of New York,
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 2: was writing under the pen named Cato, and he was
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 2: an anti federalist, and he wrote a paper where he said,
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 2: the first sentence of Article two of the Constitution is
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 2: vague and inexplicit. And because it is vague and inexplicit,
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 2: those were his words, A corrupt, a partisan, a corrupt
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 2: president can pour his power and ambition into that ambiguity.
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: What is vague inexplicit?
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 2: Here's what the sentence is, that the executive power shall
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 2: be vested in a president of the United States. Now
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 2: that raises the next question, what is the executive power? Okay,
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 2: I think the best answer to that question is that
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 2: the founders and envision the.
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: Executive power is the is It is this and only this.
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 1: It is the.
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 2: Power to execute laws passed by Congress. That's the executive power.
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 2: But nobody says that explicitly, and it's not said explicitly,
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 2: So then this becomes a question, Well, wait a minute.
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 2: The executive power because it is not so limited to
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 2: only executing the laws passed by Congress.
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: It's its own thing.
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 2: And what unitary executive says is that the executive power
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 2: is the power to control the executive branch. That core
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 2: to it is the power to control the executive branch.
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 2: That is, if the executive power means anything that's what
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 2: it means, and I suggest that we should actually engage
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 2: once we get out of this miserable period of American life.
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 2: The things that we've seen is historically when we get
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 2: out of very dark periods, there's a period of reform
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 2: where we try to make sure.
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: That's sort of how I try to be optimistic. I'm like, look,
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: it's going to be we probably have We're probably going
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: to need one more bad partisan president period before we
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: get to the enough is enough, the Samuel L. Jackson
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: snakes on a plane moment where we're just like, you
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: get them off the goddamn plane, right exactly. Yeah, we're
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: probably so, I'm hoping for mid thirties for this reform movement.
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 2: I would love to And here is one of my ideas,
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 2: change that sentence in the Constitution to be something much
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 2: more limiting of the president and much more magnifying of
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 2: the power of Congress, to say that the power to
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 2: execute the laws shall reside in a president of the
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 2: United States. So then all of a sudden, if Congress says,
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 2: let's let me make it concrete. The difference if Congress
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 2: right now said the the Attorney General shall answer also
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 2: to or prosecution decisions by political of political entities shall
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 2: be approved by and overseen by a House committee or
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 2: what you name it.
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just making stuff up.
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 2: Or sure may regulated by bipartisan Congressional board or something
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: That would be struck down.
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 2: Instantly, because if that sentence means anything, it means the
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 2: president controls the executive branch, not Congress. Congress doesn't have
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 2: the power to control the executive branch. But if the
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 2: power of the president is to execute the laws passed
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 2: by Congress, then that flips the dynamic on its head,
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 2: and it says that Congress can in fact regulate the
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 2: executive branch, and it's the president's obligation to comply and
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 2: ensure and guarantee the execution of that regulation. And so
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 2: what you do is you see that that sentence essentially
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 2: puts Congress back in the driver's seat.
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: And one thing that.
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 2: I think not enough Americans appreciate is this was not
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 2: supposed to be actually coequal branches of government, much less
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 2: the executive supreme as it is now.
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: Really, you've made a list of one, two, three, By
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: the way, yeah, have you ever made the most important thing.
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 2: To exactly no that's a great way of saying it.
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 2: But you think about it for half a second. Congress,
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 2: right now, you under the Article one, you can't spend
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 2: a dime, and let's been appropriate by Congress, and Congress
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 2: has the power to fire the president and to fire
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court. I don't know about you, Chuck, but
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 2: I call the person who has the power to fire
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 2: me boss.
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: Right. Actually I used to say, who signs my expense report? Yeah? Exactly.
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 2: So we need the boss to be the boss again.
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 2: And how do you make the boss be the boss? Well,
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 2: one of the ways you do it is you remove
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 2: from the under boss the president the capacity, the power,
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 2: the ability to claw to claw.
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: To the top. Short of that, though, I mean, would
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: you change the would you move the Department of Justice
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: further away from from the presidency in some form? Just
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: when I say further away like the Federal Reserve? Like
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: in theory, what the you know, the an fbid doesn't count,
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: but federal reserve is probably the best example.
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would be open to interesting two interesting ideas
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 2: on that front. Although it would be very hard to
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 2: make it like the Federal Reserve without actual constitutional reform,
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 2: because the Federal Reserve is sort of a legacy institution
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 2: that you know, dates back to god gosh, was it
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 2: second banking.
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: The United States?
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 2: First banking United States and has a very very unique
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 2: history that you cannot replicate just by a legislative reform.
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 2: If you're going to do if you're going to pull
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 2: the DOJ essentially out of the executive branch to some degree,
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 2: I think that would probably require some constitutional reform, although
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 2: I'd be super interested in your smart legal listeners. Yeah,
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 2: who you know had an alternative idea. You know, it's interesting.
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: You know, Japan has something interesting in their parliament where
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: they where the opposition just has a lot more potential
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: oversight authority and it's sort of accepted it just you know,
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: there's little things I'd like to see and some things
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: you don't need a constitutional amendment. I mean, you know,
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: to me, the Oversight Committee in Congress. You know, I
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: could argue, shouldn't the Oversight Committee always be the opposite
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: party of whoever's got power like in some ways in
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: order to give it credibility? And if we always operated
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: that way, or you do it, or it's a that,
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: or it's always equally bipartisan, like the Ethics Committee it
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: seems like there's certain things we could do that would
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: sort of at least attempt to restore the old you know,
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: essentially use is your north star trust but verify.
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know other things that would be clearly constitutional,
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 2: such as funding only aspects of the DOJ's work and
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 2: defunding those aspects that you find corrupt until there's reform.
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: So using that power of the purse.
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 2: But the problem that we have right now, you know, Chuck,
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, gosh, you know this is better than anybody.
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 2: Congress is a font of like messaging legislation where you know,
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 2: a Congressman will file a bill and like this is
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 2: my stand and everybody knows it has no chance.
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, Congress, you know, we talk about looking for
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: a president that can sort of rise above partisans. We
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: really need a Speaker of the House that cares more
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: about reforming the institution than than exact, you know, than
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: essentially executing whatever partisan promises the party made in order
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: to grab power.
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine tip O freaking Neil ever agreeing to
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 2: be so subordinate to anybody as.
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: I feel that way about Jim Wright. I don't think
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 1: he felt like he would have done that and I don't.
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: You know, we never had Newt with a Republican president,
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: so we don't know. But I don't I mean the
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: new you and I both know. I don't think would
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 1: have just felt like he had to always count cow
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: to the to the president of his own So we
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: don't know. But i'd like to think you're right about Newt.
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 2: I think he would have It would have required punishing
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 2: him to get him to cow Tew.
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: I think he would write.
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 2: He would have had to have suffered the consequences because
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 2: he wouldn't voluntary voluntarily as seed power, you know.
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: And I think Pelosi, you know, she's probably a little
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 1: more pliant than Tip of her was, but she was
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: you know, she wasn't easily pushed around by Obama or Biden.
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 1: But still it does feel as if at the end
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: of the day, she still chose to be a speaker
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: for the Democratic Party, not a speaker to say, hey,
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: how do we for that House of Representatives? And we really,
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: we really haven't had one of those, probably arguably since Tim.
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say Tip would be the last one.
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 2: And the interesting thing about Tip is he was overseeing
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 2: a house which he always had a majority with the
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 2: d by his name, but not always a working majority
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 2: and not iralogically right, Yeah, Reagan could command a majority
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 2: all the time.
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: And in fact, it gets to actually burst one of
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: those myths that I always like to say. I said,
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 1: you know, Reagan and Tip weren't you know, it didn't
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: work together because they loved hanging out with each other
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: and telling bs stories. They both it was necessary the congression.
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: Conservative Congressional Democrats were part of Reagan's base, and the
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 1: Conservative Congressional Democrats kept Tip in the speakership, and so
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 1: Tip had to make sure to keep those guys happy.
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: Reagan had to work with you know, Tip, because Tip
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 1: was keeping those guys happy. Right. It was sort of
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: you know it is it goes to the you know,
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: Milton Friedman example. It's a it's an incentive system that
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: forced them to do good things together because they because
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: that's what the incentive system created, not because they wanted to.
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's very interesting because in some ways
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 2: in the Reagan era and around sort of also at
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 2: the beginning of the Clinton era and other eras in
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 2: American history, we had a two party system that was
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 2: also simultaneously almost like a four party system because you
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 2: had a Democratic coalition that included Southern Democrats who were
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 2: quite culturally conservative and sort of Midwestern populist Democrats. You
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 2: had north the Eastern Liberal Republicans and sort of the
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 2: Western libertarian Republicans. These were very different factions, and you
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 2: could play one off against the other. You could do
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 2: cross partisan coalitions. And then you know, now we do
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 2: not have coalition parties nearly to the extent that we
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 2: did before.
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: And we got rid of regionalism though in beer and
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: in flavors. Right, we've nationalized everything. I mean, I missed
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: regionalism on that. We need more of it. Let me
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: get you out of here on this. The the m
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: are You are a huge NBA fan. Are you as
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: equally into college basketball? I was?
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 2: I was, in fact, I used to be principally into
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 2: college basketball.
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: I grew up in Kentucky, of course.
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 2: But the NIL era, one and done's is just it's
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 2: just too much for.
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: But okay, but so I'm a I'm an nil optimist
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 1: in disrespect for college college basketball in particular. But I
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: see this now in football, which is the one and
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: done era sucked. Yeah, you know what's solving the one
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: and done era? And idea that these guys can make
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: a decent living for four years in college before like
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 1: especially you know, take Ty Simpson who was drafted in
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: the first round, first round for the Rams. He could
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 1: have made more money next year being the starter for
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: the University of Miami yep than he is first round
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: draft pick. You know, it used to be these guys
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: left early because of the money. And yeah, I would argue,
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 1: we're seeing the quality of college basketball has improved dramatically
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: in the last four years, and I credit and I
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 1: l no.
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm going to I'm going to agree with you.
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 2: But with this, we still have one and done in
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 2: a different form the transfer portal. True, this is something
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 2: that's frustrating me, Like your team's overturn, like you turn over.
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: You're a good libertarian, how would you handle this? Right,
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: You've got a legal I mean, freedom of movement is
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 1: something that labor law believes it well. At the same time,
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: so our contracts.
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 2: So in other words, you're going to get in an
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 2: il deal, but you got to enter into a three
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 2: year contract. Well, I think that's fairy and I so
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 2: what I would like to see is I'm all in
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 2: favor of an il in the sense that I like
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 2: to see players compensated when they're the drivers of the revenue.
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: Absolutely compensate them. I also want to see.
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 2: If you're going to compensate them, you're going to have
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 2: to professionalize the sport, and that means longer term contracts.
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 2: That means limits on player movement, which is part of
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 2: what every professional league does. And so if you have
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 2: it where it's both a combination of you get paid
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 2: and you're a free agent every single year, what you've
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 2: created is just permittent instability. And I think you're going
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 2: to see you know, you've seen legislation, you know, the
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 2: Cruise Bill, which is you're going to get one transfer
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 2: and then after that you'd have to sit out a year.
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: I hate the idea that we would.
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 2: Need federal legislation to implement what would be should be
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 2: a common sense.
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 1: We're not going to get federal legislation. I think we're
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: going to get collective bargaining before we ever get federal legislation,
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: and we might do Honestly, maybe this is better to
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 1: do let collective bargaining because and then see what happens.
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that might be where this ends up, because I
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 2: do think we're unsustainable with the new version of one
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 2: and done.
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: All right, let me get you out of here. On
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: the court thing. Can we solve the regular season best
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: NBA sucks versus the playoff NBA's fantastic problem not at
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: eighty two games. So that's what you would do, is
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: reduce You can make it better, like I do.
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 2: Think the new anti tanking rule is going to help.
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 2: You can make it better. But I think I don't
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 2: hate the NBA Cup like I hate.
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: I liked it. I've enjoyed it. I'm and they've done.
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: They've gotten me to watch the NBA earlier than I
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: normally have as a sports fan. I'm a football guy first,
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 1: and November and December I sort of, you know, gloss
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: over the NBA. It's early, you know, I'll tune in
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 1: starting in January and February. But NBA Cup has brought me.
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, it has succeeded in what you know, Adam
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 1: Silber wanted to have happened. So that's an improvement. What
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 1: else would you do?
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think the younger NBA fan is not
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 2: a pre shape that the intensity of the regular season
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 2: is ramped up considerably, and with that injuries, which, by the.
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: Way, I read an old Rick Berry memoir that was
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 1: written in seventy two. He was complaining about the eighty
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 1: two game season then and he was twenty seven years old. Okay, Like,
• 2:10:16
  Speaker 1: these guys have been complaining about it for years and
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: talking about the play and talking about how much the
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: extra games making the postseason really wore them down and
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 1: all of this stuff. So ironically, this isn't a new thing. Yeah,
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 1: you know, it really is something that they've NBA players
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: have been complaining about going back to the sixties and
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 1: seventies totally.
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 2: But if you watch the if you could find tape
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 2: of an eighties or early nineties regular season game, yeah,
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 2: you would be shocked at how little effort there is
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 2: compared to a current regular season game. And it was
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 2: three quarters of pickup basketball followed by a pretty intense
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 2: fourth quarter.
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 1: And only the Lakers Celtics matchups in the regular season
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: had intensity to them, right, those are the only two
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: ones that ever had intensity because they met twice a
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: year in the regular season and it always felt like
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 1: a oh magic at Bird Finals preview, let's go up.
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it was like a gentleman's agreement between
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 2: the teams. We're going to play pick up hoops. It's
• 2:11:10
  Speaker 2: going to be like an exhibition, and then we're gonna
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 2: we'll bear down in the fourth quarter and then playoff.
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 1: Basketball is fantastic.
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 2: I just that I tell you that the current game
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 2: is so fast. There's a lot of interesting science now
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 2: that the way in which the game is played with
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 2: the Euros step the step back three, it places stress
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 2: on the joints in a way that the old form
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 2: of older forms of basketball didn't. So I I think
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 2: they should really think about a shorter season.
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 1: Well, look, it's either shorter season or larger rosters, you know.
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 1: I look what NHL does you know no player ever
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: plays more than eighteen minutes of a sixty minute game. True, okay,
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 1: I mean it's constant, you know. And I wonder if
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 1: you know, I've thought about this with the NFL. You
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 1: want to do twenty game season, fine, nobody can play
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 1: more than sixteen games. And then part of the strategy
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: is deciding when do you sit you know, you know
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: you have to sit a starter four games, which four
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 1: games do you pick? Like? It actually adds some strategy
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: to things. I love that idea that you know, It's interesting, right,
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: Imagine you have you know, Caleb Williams. You're a Chicago
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 1: guy now, right, so you're going to be watching these
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: Bears a lot. You have your twenty game season that
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 1: they're going to implement. But Caleb Williams can only play
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: sixteen you know? Do you gamble and assume you're going
• 2:12:28
  Speaker 1: to be in the playoffs and you just sort of
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: lack it, you know? Or do you know, do you
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 1: decide you're going to take the Tennessee Titans game that
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 1: week and buy week it and use the backup, right?
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, Chuck, that idea is so brilliant. It is also
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 2: quite self interested because it's a full employment act for
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 2: podcasters because think about the arguments, yes, four odd quarterbacks
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 2: running backs, the four game sample versus the sixteen game,
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 2: oh man, endless content.
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: And more jobs. You know, you increase the foster size,
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: you know, to go to you know, instead of expanding
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: the league like in the NBA, instead of instead of
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: you know, adding more teams, go to twenty five rosters
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: and have the up and down, have the flexibility, and
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: nobody can play more than sixty games, you know in
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 1: a season, and you just and you make that the
• 2:13:18
  Speaker 1: standard across the board, and then it's strategy a little
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: bit intriguing. Intriguing. Yeah, favorite French. Always fun to talk
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: with you. That's great to chat Chuck, it's a all right,
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 1: it is toodcast time machine time. So where are we going? Well,
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: we're going to go back to the mid nineteen fifties.
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: We're actually going to go to June ninth, nineteen fifty four.
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 1: I just it's actually a phrase I repeated as I
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 1: told you earlier in this broadcast on the podcast on Thursday,
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 1: have you no sense of decency? I think I just
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 1: said have you no decency? Sir? When it came across
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: to the president's treatment of women reporters in particular, but
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 1: Caitlin Collins specifically. But it's that phrase, have you no
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 1: sense of decency? When Americans think about Joseph McCarthy, they
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 1: usually remember that one sentence. That's the sentence, right, have
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: you no sense of decency? Sir? At long last? Have
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 1: you left no sense of decency? It's one of the
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: most famous lines in American political history, and it's certainly
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 1: the most famous line ever uttered in congressional testimony, probably
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 1: right up there along with you have a cancer. There's
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 1: a cancer on the presidency. The no sense of decency, Sir,
• 2:14:53
  Speaker 1: came during the Army McCarthy hearings on June ninth, nineteen
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 1: fifty four, when Army Attorney Joseph walch I finally confronted
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 1: the Wisconsin Senator after one accusation too many. Now, the
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 1: way we remember this story today is a bit simple.
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: McCarthy was a bully, well stood up to him. America
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: watched McCarthy fell the end. It's a good story. The
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 1: problem is it's not quite how it all happened. In fact,
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: I think we remember the Army McCarthy hearings backward. The
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 1: famous line didn't end McCarthyism. Joseph McCarthy wasn't brought down
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 1: because Americans suddenly stopped fearing communism. And the real story
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 1: isn't primarily about ideology. It's about media. I think it's
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 1: an undertold part of the McCarthy story. It's about attention,
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 1: and it's about how one politician tell me where you've
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 1: heard this one before. It's about how one politician learned
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: to manipulate the fastest news cycle America had ever seen,
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: and how eventually millions of Americans got a long, long
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 1: enough look at McCarthy to then make up their own minds.
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 1: And that's the part of the story worth revisiting seventy
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: years later, because to understand McCarthy, you have to start
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 1: with the myth itself. The myth is that McCarthy created
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: the Red scare. He did not. By the time McCarthy
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: emerged as a national figure in nineteen fifty, Americans had
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 1: already plenty of reasons to be worried about the Reds.
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 1: The Soviet Union had exploded its own atomic bomb right
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 1: the nuclear arms race was on. China had fallen to
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 1: Maus communists. It's one big giant country going communists. The
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 1: alger His case dominated the headlines. The Rosenberg investigation was underway.
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 1: The Korean War was about to erupt. The Cold War
• 2:16:51
  Speaker 1: was not some distant geopolitical abstraction. Millions of Americans in
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine and nineteen fifty genuinely believed this country
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 1: faced a growing threat. And we had just had two
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: wars in thirty years, so the likelihood of war seemed high,
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 1: not low. And that's all very important because it helps
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: explain why McCarthy was so effective, As in his sphere mongery.
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: The soil was fertile. He wasn't inventing the fear, he
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 1: was writing it. He wasn't creating a wave, he was
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 1: surfing it, and he did it with a skill that
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: was surprisingly modern and very innovative at the time. Today
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 1: we talked constantly about social media and cable news, podcasts,
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 1: the attention economy. But every era has its own version
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 1: of a fast moving information environment. And in nineteen fifty,
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 1: especially after the war, think about this. If you have
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 1: any memory of nine to eleven, in the post nine
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: to eleven, remember it. It basically created the always on
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 1: news channel, right the newstickers Suddenly we didn't have newstickers
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 1: until then, and we have these newstickers constantly going all
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 1: the time. And I know we used to have newstickers
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 1: like in the Times Square in like the forties and fifties.
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 1: But the point was being right after World War Two,
• 2:18:15
  Speaker 1: we became news junkies, and so yes, there was a
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: faster news cycle than ever. Now us looking back on
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 1: it, it looks like a slow news cycle, but to Americans
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 1: living then, this was speeding up. This was speed. So
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: that's why it's important to understand that every era has
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 1: its own version of what is a fast moving information environment,
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 1: and in nineteen fifties. In nineteen fifty this was speeding
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 1: up dramatically for that era. There were morning papers, after
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 1: noon papers, national wire services, hourly updates on radio, a
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: growing television audience. Okay, all of this was new, and
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 1: it was speeding up the information wars. Politicians themselves for
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 1: the first time, multiple chances every day to shape the conversation.
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: And most of McCarthy's colleagues were still operating in a
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 1: much older political news cycle. But McCarthy wasn't. He understood
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 1: headlines and he rode these afternoon to morning to afternoon
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 1: to morning cycles so cynically and well. He understood the
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: deadlines that those wire reporters were on, and most importantly,
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 1: he understood creating anticipation. You won't believe the names. You
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: won't believe it right. A favorite tactic was a hint
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: that a major revelation was coming tomorrow or next week
• 2:19:40
  Speaker 1: or soon. Reporters would rush to father stories. Wire services
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 1: would move the news nationally. Hey we're just covering Editors
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: would splash it across front pages. It was urgent. People
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: would buy papers. Then the promised, bombshell would arrive and
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: often failed to match. The build up would change, the
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 1: numbers would change, the evidence would be a lot thinner
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: than advertised. It's und familiar, but McCarthy always had an explanation.
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: His investigation had frightened people, the guilty parties went underground,
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: the bureaucracy was hiding the information via those bureaucrats, and
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 1: now there was another day's worth of headlines. And he
• 2:20:25
  Speaker 1: understood something that remains true in politics today. The accusation
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 1: usually gets more attention than the repbubbal. The promise of
• 2:20:34
  Speaker 1: a revelation often gets more attention than the revelation itself.
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go find the real killers. Joseph McCarthy
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 1: didn't invent the politics of attention, but he may have
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: been one of the first modern politicians to truly master it.
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 1: And yes, it's amazing that Joseph McCarthy had Roy Cone
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 1: working for him, and Roy Cone ended up the most
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: important mentor to Donald John Trump. But I digress. So
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: what you also need to understand is the nineteen to
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: fifty election cycle ended up becoming a very important one,
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 1: probably the one of the five most important midterms in
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 1: American political history, because today we tend to remember McCarthy
• 2:21:20
  Speaker 1: as the loan figure of the Red Scare Senators, but
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 1: he was part of something much larger. The nineteen fifty
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 1: cycle became, in many ways a national referendum on anti communism.
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 1: Richard Nixon sentate race against Helen Kagen Douglass in California,
• 2:21:34
  Speaker 1: Claude Pepper's defeat, and the Democratic primary in Florida to
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 1: George Smathers. So it didn't matter if it was general
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 1: elections like the one in California or primaries like the
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: one in Florida. The Communism was the wedge, and it
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: wasn't are you a communist? Are you going to be
• 2:21:48
  Speaker 1: tough enough on the communists? Right races across the country
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 1: where candidates discovered that accusing an opponent of being soft
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 1: on communism could be devastating, And that is it was
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 1: important that the charge was always they were soft on communism,
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: not that they were a communist, because more often it
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: was that they didn't they couldn't be trusted to confront
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 1: the Communism, that they were naive, that they were weak,
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 1: insufficiently vigilant. McCarthy didn't create that atmosphere. He just became
• 2:22:17
  Speaker 1: its most recognizable spokesperson, right, and that's why it became
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 1: his era. It's the celebrity, he's the headline machine, he's
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 1: the pied piper. But it brings me to the second myth,
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: and it's the myth that McCarthyism somehow ended in June
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty four at those hearings where mister McCarthy
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 1: was asked to be at any decency because it didn't.
• 2:22:38
  Speaker 1: Anti Communism, in fact, remained one of the most dominant
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 1: forces in American politics for decades after McCarthy. The Soviet
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 1: Union didn't disappear. The Cold War didn't end. Containment remained
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 1: American policy. Defense spending remained high and went higher. Both
• 2:22:52
  Speaker 1: parties remained fiercely anti Communists would purge itself of any
• 2:22:55
  Speaker 1: time anybody at all dabbled closely to it. Change wasn't
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 1: the fear. What changed was McCarthy's credibility. The public gradually
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 1: stopped believing that Joseph McCarthy was the best interpreter of
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 1: this fear. So if you ask Americans what brought down mcarthy,
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 1: ELO's usually hear one of two answers, Edward R. Murrow
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 1: or Joseph Welch. Now Murrow's famous see It Now broadcast
• 2:23:19
  Speaker 1: in March nineteen fifty four and Welch's famous con confrontation
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 1: in June. They both mattered, but neither was sufficient. The
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 1: country's verdict wasn't delivered in a single evening or a
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: single sentence. It accumulated, and the Army McCarthy hearings became
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 1: the place where that accumulation became visible. And what's fascinating,
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 1: isn't that television wasn't really responsible for McCarthy's rise. McCarthy
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 1: was primarily a creature of these post World War two
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 1: expansion and seriousness of newspapers, wire services, and radio. Television
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 1: served a different purpose. Then television exposed him. For years,
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 1: Americans mostly encountered McCarthy through excerpts, headlines, quote summaries the
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 1: army hearings for something that we had never seen before.
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 1: Now people could watch the entire performance, hear the detail,
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 1: and here's a detail that often gets forgotten. The major
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: networks weren't exactly eager to carry these hearings. CBS and
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 1: NBC largely protected their daytime schedules, but there was one
• 2:24:25
  Speaker 1: network that embraced the hearings more aggressively. It was ABC
• 2:24:30
  Speaker 1: then they were the struggling third place network. The upstart
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: network carried extensive coverage called there was a Dumont network
• 2:24:37
  Speaker 1: that also carried coverage. But one of the most consequential
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: political broadcasts in American history wasn't the result of some
• 2:24:44
  Speaker 1: grand civic decision by television executives. It was. It sort
• 2:24:48
  Speaker 1: of happened, partly as an accident of economics. The smaller
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 1: networks had less to lose, so they aired more of it.
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 1: And what americans saw it did matter because the public
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 1: wasn't just hearing acquations anymore. They watched the whole process.
• 2:25:02
  Speaker 1: They'd see McCarthy's interruptions, they'd see his insinuations, they'd see
• 2:25:06
  Speaker 1: his bullying, the constant search for advantage. McCarthy may have
• 2:25:11
  Speaker 1: mastered the headline in a press scrum that most Americans
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 1: didn't see. The raw footage of the army hearings forced
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 1: Americans to actually watch the whole movie and the process
• 2:25:22
  Speaker 1: take place. So why was McCarthy, by the way, fighting
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 1: the army in the first place. This is a fun
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 1: little side story. The dispute centered on guess who Roy
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 1: Cone McCarthy's then Chief Council and David Shine, a wealthy
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 1: friend and aid. When Shine was drafted into the army,
• 2:25:36
  Speaker 1: McCarthy's team allegedly sought special treatment on his behalf. The
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 1: army pushed back. Accusations followed. The army accused McCarthy, McCarthy
• 2:25:44
  Speaker 1: accused the Army. So it started as a personnel dispute
• 2:25:48
  Speaker 1: over somebody. Roy Cone cared a lot about and mister
• 2:25:51
  Speaker 1: Shine exploded into a national confrontation. And politically, McCarthy had
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 1: made a huge mistake because for years he had targeted
• 2:25:59
  Speaker 1: institutions and individuals that struggled to defend themselves. He was
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 1: really good at picking his targets career bureaucrats who didn't
• 2:26:06
  Speaker 1: quite know how to defend themselves, state department officials, academics, diplomats.
• 2:26:12
  Speaker 1: Now he was fighting the United States Army, an institution
• 2:26:15
  Speaker 1: that was trusted by millions of Americans. We had just
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: successfully won a World war. It was a prestigious institution
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: of many Americans resources, credibility, and so McCarthy, for the
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 1: first time, picked a fight with somebody who could fight back.
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: Even President Eisenhower played a role. Privately, Eisenhower despised McCarthy,
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 1: but he rarely attacked him directly, and it frustrated actually
• 2:26:39
  Speaker 1: many critics at the time that Eisenhower wasn't more vocal.
• 2:26:43
  Speaker 1: Eisenhower believed confronting McCarthy haad On would have strength, only
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: strengthened him. This sort of was This was Obama's view
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: of Trump back in the day, and why he didn't
• 2:26:52
  Speaker 1: go after Trump very often. Instead, Eisenhower worked quietly, allowing
• 2:26:56
  Speaker 1: institutions to isolate McCarthy, supporting the army, letting the Senate
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 1: gradually move against him. It's one reason the story doesn't
• 2:27:03
  Speaker 1: fit neatly into the popular version. There wasn't one hero,
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: there wasn't one decisive moment. There were multiple institutions moving
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 1: at different speeds, gradually reaching the same conclusion. So that
• 2:27:16
  Speaker 1: brings us to June ninth, nineteen fifty four, the moment
• 2:27:23
  Speaker 1: everyone remembers they're in the hearings. McCarthy turned his attention
• 2:27:27
  Speaker 1: to a young lawyer named Fred Fisher. Fisher had briefly
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 1: belonged to the National Lawyer's Guild while in law school.
• 2:27:34
  Speaker 1: McCarthy raised it as another point of suspicion, another insinuation,
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 1: another attempt to create guilt by association. Joseph Welch had
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 1: finally had enough. He looked at McCarthy and he defended Fisher,
• 2:27:47
  Speaker 1: and then he delivered the line that entered American history.
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 1: Have you no decency? Sir? Excuse me? Have you no
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 1: sense of decency? Sir? A long last, have you left
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 1: no sense of decency? The room fell silent, the audience applauded,
• 2:28:05
  Speaker 1: and the moment became legendary. But the line's power wasn't
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: that it revealed something new. It didn't expose a hidden fact.
• 2:28:15
  Speaker 1: It didn't suddenly change public opinion. Its power came from
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 1: perhaps something else. It gave words to a conclusion millions
• 2:28:24
  Speaker 1: of Americans were already reaching on their own. Welch wasn't
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 1: creating the verdict. He was simply articulating it. History is
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 1: a way of compressing these stories one sentence, one hearing,
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 1: one hero, and one turning point. Right. It's easy to
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 1: understand it that way, and these Joseph Welch was incredibly important,
• 2:28:44
  Speaker 1: and it was a huge moment, right, But you need
• 2:28:48
  Speaker 1: moments to create momentum that get institutions to do what
• 2:28:52
  Speaker 1: they should have done in the first place. The verdict
• 2:28:56
  Speaker 1: on Joseph McCarthy is one of those that accumulated. Millions
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 1: of Themmericans watched. Eventually, parts of the press that had
• 2:29:03
  Speaker 1: helped amplify McCarthy began challenging him. So the Army pushed back,
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 1: Then the Senate pushed back. Then even members of McCarthy's
• 2:29:09
  Speaker 1: own party began to push back. The line became a symbol.
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 1: And that might be the real lesson of these hearings,
• 2:29:20
  Speaker 1: not that one person defeated McCarthy, but that eventually an
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 1: entire system decided to stop accommodating him. What defeated McCarthy
• 2:29:29
  Speaker 1: wasn't simply exposure, It was shared exposure. It was millions
• 2:29:33
  Speaker 1: of Americans watching the same man, the same hearings, the
• 2:29:37
  Speaker 1: same behavior, day after day after day. I wonder if
• 2:29:42
  Speaker 1: we'd just had cameras up twenty four to seven in
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 1: the Oval Office and let all Americans observe the behavior
• 2:29:50
  Speaker 1: on their own, without a filter, for the conclusion that
• 2:29:54
  Speaker 1: people would take it. That said, back then, there was
• 2:29:58
  Speaker 1: still a common audience. We had a common experience, and
• 2:30:02
  Speaker 1: there was a common narrator essentially narrator. That didn't mean
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 1: everyone agreed, but they were watching the same thing. And
• 2:30:09
  Speaker 1: that made a national verdict possible. The harder question is
• 2:30:13
  Speaker 1: whether the conditions that made that possible still exist today.
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 1: The shared audience, the common set of facts, the institutions
• 2:30:20
  Speaker 1: willing to absorb the political cost of pushing back. I
• 2:30:24
  Speaker 1: just told you about media companies that refused to do that.
• 2:30:27
  Speaker 1: None of those things are guaranteed, as we in the
• 2:30:31
  Speaker 1: that either had worked in the legacy media space or
• 2:30:34
  Speaker 1: do work in the legacy media space are finding out
• 2:30:37
  Speaker 1: in real time. It wasn't the end of anti communism,
• 2:30:42
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't the end of fear. It was the
• 2:30:44
  Speaker 1: end of one man's ability to monopolize both. History remembers
• 2:30:48
  Speaker 1: the moment, but the moment only mattered because of everything
• 2:30:51
  Speaker 1: that came before it and the collective reaction we all
• 2:30:55
  Speaker 1: had after it. So there's a history lesson for the week.
• 2:31:05
  Speaker 1: Ask Chuck. All right, let's do a little ask Chuck.
• 2:31:11
  Speaker 1: I know this thing's getting long, so I'll just do
• 2:31:13
  Speaker 1: four questions today. You know, four questions. That's something that
• 2:31:21
  Speaker 1: we have a dinner once a year where four questions
• 2:31:23
  Speaker 1: matter in my household. But I digress. First question comes
• 2:31:26
  Speaker 1: with Kevin b in Nashville, and you're right, Hey, Thanks
• 2:31:27
  Speaker 1: for the podcast. Always appreciate your perspective. Two part question here,
• 2:31:30
  Speaker 1: when do you think Congress will more actively hold cabinet
• 2:31:33
  Speaker 1: officials accountable and what mechanism actually exists to enforce that?
• 2:31:36
  Speaker 1: Looking ahead, is there any realistic way to establish clearer
• 2:31:38
  Speaker 1: qualification standards for cabinet and other political appointees. Kevin B.
• 2:31:42
  Speaker 1: Nashal Tennessee. Look, I mean, this is why I brought
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 1: up the Bill Poulty attempt to point him acting, and
• 2:31:51
  Speaker 1: that's actually a very important This is why you just
• 2:31:54
  Speaker 1: gave me another reason why we need to get the
• 2:31:56
  Speaker 1: courts to litigate this. Because Congress did write in a
• 2:31:59
  Speaker 1: very very specific set of qualifications for d and I.
• 2:32:05
  Speaker 1: Normally there is not the same set, but it was
• 2:32:07
  Speaker 1: a very specific set of qualifications. If the courts say
• 2:32:12
  Speaker 1: that that supersedes the president's authority to just appoint anybody,
• 2:32:17
  Speaker 1: you know, as far as acting, then I would say, well, actually,
• 2:32:22
  Speaker 1: Congress then can if they write it into the job
• 2:32:25
  Speaker 1: description of how they will And I do think Congress
• 2:32:29
  Speaker 1: because they have the power of the purse, and they
• 2:32:30
  Speaker 1: can connect the job essentially the job itself, to their
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 1: decision to fund it. Right, they can say funding is
• 2:32:39
  Speaker 1: only you know, funding automatically ceases to go to this
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: agency if the person does not meet you know, these
• 2:32:47
  Speaker 1: minimum standards. So I think the answer is yes. Now,
• 2:32:52
  Speaker 1: I'd like to see clarification with this Pulty and this
• 2:32:55
  Speaker 1: Pulty moment actually provides an opportunity to test the But
• 2:33:00
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty confident that as long as you tied it
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 1: to funding and the funding was only triggered based on
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 1: qualifications and there's and again clear power of the purse
• 2:33:12
  Speaker 1: does belong to Congress, I think that yes, you could
• 2:33:14
  Speaker 1: do that. Now. As for as for holding that you know,
• 2:33:21
  Speaker 1: it's for holding the cabinet officials. I mean, I think
• 2:33:23
  Speaker 1: that you're going to see, you know, these are the
• 2:33:26
  Speaker 1: subpoenas that I would do. Look, I think that I
• 2:33:33
  Speaker 1: think it's important to put everything Trump did on the record,
• 2:33:38
  Speaker 1: and I think it's important for future administrations. It's important
• 2:33:42
  Speaker 1: because I think there's two ways to look at the
• 2:33:45
  Speaker 1: Trump presidency, right, and I think that this is where
• 2:33:48
  Speaker 1: there is a divide inside the Democrats, and certainly a
• 2:33:50
  Speaker 1: divide in amongst the group of people that are trying
• 2:33:53
  Speaker 1: to resist Trump, those that believe there's an emergency at
• 2:33:57
  Speaker 1: the moment that has to be dealt with at the moment,
• 2:34:00
  Speaker 1: and you kind of have to throw away some guardrails
• 2:34:03
  Speaker 1: if you're going to deal with the emergency at the moment, right,
• 2:34:05
  Speaker 1: And that's how people rationalize their way to support people
• 2:34:08
  Speaker 1: that probably are unqualified for office, and why you end
• 2:34:11
  Speaker 1: up supporting gerrymandering even though you spent ten years being
• 2:34:15
  Speaker 1: against gerrymandering. But if you believe the threat is so
• 2:34:19
  Speaker 1: existential and so urgent that the republic, you know, it's
• 2:34:24
  Speaker 1: sort of it's literally a Sophie's choice type of situation.
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 1: I at least understand that behavior. It doesn't mean I
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 1: agree with it, and doesn't mean I believe the situation
• 2:34:34
  Speaker 1: wherein is quite the same. I look at the situation
• 2:34:37
  Speaker 1: where Donald Trump has provided he has been an MRI
• 2:34:42
  Speaker 1: to every loophole that could destroy this republic via the
• 2:34:45
  Speaker 1: executive branch. And we've got a lot of work to
• 2:34:47
  Speaker 1: fix it. And in order to understand what you need
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 1: to do to fix it, you need to chronicle everything,
• 2:34:52
  Speaker 1: and you need to do it sort of and so
• 2:34:56
  Speaker 1: particularly the pay to play and the transactional nature of
• 2:34:58
  Speaker 1: how so many of these apartments basically wherein they pay
• 2:35:02
  Speaker 1: to play functionary position that to me would be what
• 2:35:06
  Speaker 1: I would be from center on. I mean, what's happening here,
• 2:35:09
  Speaker 1: I think is the is the grift and plain sight.
• 2:35:11
  Speaker 1: This is the straight up stuff that needs to be
• 2:35:14
  Speaker 1: dealt with asap. And look, cabinet secretaries may may somehow
• 2:35:23
  Speaker 1: hide behind executive privilege, and the White House may do
• 2:35:26
  Speaker 1: their best to sort of prevent the testimony of its
• 2:35:28
  Speaker 1: own aids. Obviously, the cabinet secretaries are going to have
• 2:35:31
  Speaker 1: to show up for budget hearings and things like this.
• 2:35:35
  Speaker 1: But I think anybody, any private entity that benefited from
• 2:35:39
  Speaker 1: participating in these transactions are probably going to get subpoened
• 2:35:43
  Speaker 1: by Congress. It's certainly what I think is the you know,
• 2:35:48
  Speaker 1: it's sort of like gather your evidence before you try
• 2:35:53
  Speaker 1: to get an indictment. I think that the mistake Democrats
• 2:35:58
  Speaker 1: could make here get control of the House and the
• 2:36:01
  Speaker 1: Senate is to basically write the indictment and then search
• 2:36:04
  Speaker 1: for the evidence to support it. And you may think
• 2:36:08
  Speaker 1: you've got everything that you know has happened. I think,
• 2:36:11
  Speaker 1: go go gather. I think the evidence is wor is
• 2:36:14
  Speaker 1: more is more powerful than you would imagine. I mean,
• 2:36:18
  Speaker 1: just focusing on these pardons, I mean we just got
• 2:36:21
  Speaker 1: another one over the weekend, Steve Buyer, Right, I mean,
• 2:36:24
  Speaker 1: my goodness, you know, talk about a White House that
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 1: doesn't care about the Republican Party. Right. There's this huge
• 2:36:29
  Speaker 1: debate about whether that whether Congress should be banned from
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 1: buying and selling stock, right, And what does Donald Trump
• 2:36:37
  Speaker 1: do in the middle of this debate pardon somebody who
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 1: was a member a former member of Congress who was
• 2:36:42
  Speaker 1: convicted of insider trading. I just have to present you
• 2:36:47
  Speaker 1: the headline. Forget the details of the story. He tells
• 2:36:49
  Speaker 1: slightly different than it, but it doesn't matter. Right, Optics
• 2:36:53
  Speaker 1: are everything here, I think just focusing on how he
• 2:36:58
  Speaker 1: has perverted the pardon process, always undermined the rule of law.
• 2:37:02
  Speaker 1: You know, all of these, but you've got to gather
• 2:37:05
  Speaker 1: your evidence, and you got to go in there and
• 2:37:08
  Speaker 1: put it all on the record, not just relying on
• 2:37:11
  Speaker 1: other media accounts of this stuff. You got to get it,
• 2:37:14
  Speaker 1: put it on the record, pressure test it. And you
• 2:37:18
  Speaker 1: know That's what I'd be doing because I think ultimately, again,
• 2:37:23
  Speaker 1: you can treat the Trump era like a catastrophe, or
• 2:37:25
  Speaker 1: you can also say what are we going to learn
• 2:37:27
  Speaker 1: from it? And he's providing an MRI for every loophole
• 2:37:30
  Speaker 1: that exists, Norms that need to be codified and made
• 2:37:34
  Speaker 1: into laws, right, guardrails that need to be erected in
• 2:37:37
  Speaker 1: places we didn't normally know we needed guardrails, all of
• 2:37:40
  Speaker 1: those things. His presidency has been an incredible help and
• 2:37:45
  Speaker 1: exposing right. It's like a black light and suddenly showing you,
• 2:37:49
  Speaker 1: oh my god, look at that loophole. Look at that loophole.
• 2:37:51
  Speaker 1: Look at that loophole. My goodness. You know that's what
• 2:37:56
  Speaker 1: to me, irresponsible party would would take as their mandate
• 2:38:03
  Speaker 1: if they did. Indeed, win control the cigner all right.
• 2:38:08
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from Katie and Winston's Salem should write, Hey,
• 2:38:10
  Speaker 1: love the podcast or appreciate your straightforward balance takes. Curious
• 2:38:13
  Speaker 1: about reports that DHS may pull CPB from certain Blue
• 2:38:17
  Speaker 1: state city airports. Does that seem feasible or would it
• 2:38:19
  Speaker 1: create major logistical and economic issues? If it's not a
• 2:38:22
  Speaker 1: serious proposal, what do you think the goal is? Thanks
• 2:38:24
  Speaker 1: a lot, Katie and Winston Salem ps fully support your
• 2:38:27
  Speaker 1: and Sarah Esker's idea for a top five political songs list,
• 2:38:30
  Speaker 1: perfect overlap of music and political nerds. I love it,
• 2:38:33
  Speaker 1: you know, I have a whole. I have an election
• 2:38:35
  Speaker 1: day playlist. The two songs that anchor it are the
• 2:38:42
  Speaker 1: Ramones I want to be Sedated, you know, twenty twenty
• 2:38:46
  Speaker 1: twenty four hours to go, So that to me is
• 2:38:49
  Speaker 1: my election day song because usually we're twenty four hours
• 2:38:52
  Speaker 1: ago and we're going to finally get the answer and
• 2:38:54
  Speaker 1: then one day more from La miss right if so?
• 2:38:57
  Speaker 1: And that. If I could sum up my music taste
• 2:39:01
  Speaker 1: with the Ramones, Meat Lames, that musical that I'd be
• 2:39:07
  Speaker 1: okay with that. If you said that, try to try
• 2:39:09
  Speaker 1: to draw conclusions of him based on that, I'd be
• 2:39:12
  Speaker 1: okay because I think it paints incalctic picture. So on
• 2:39:18
  Speaker 1: election Day, November, I will post my playlist again. I
• 2:39:23
  Speaker 1: may have even boasted it on Spotify a few years
• 2:39:25
  Speaker 1: ago if you wanted to go seek it out and
• 2:39:29
  Speaker 1: search for it. But it's a pretty lengthy playlist. It's
• 2:39:35
  Speaker 1: just some of my favorite songs that I that I
• 2:39:37
  Speaker 1: can that I think at least have some campaign or
• 2:39:42
  Speaker 1: election type homageries too. Ask for your specific question, I
• 2:39:49
  Speaker 1: just I don't think that. I just don't think that's legal.
• 2:39:52
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's constitutional. You know, this is this
• 2:39:56
  Speaker 1: is you know there is such thing as a tenth
• 2:39:59
  Speaker 1: amend in states rights. So I just don't think this
• 2:40:02
  Speaker 1: is even constitutional what they're threatening. If you're wondering why
• 2:40:06
  Speaker 1: he says it, I think it's just it's just base rhetoric.
• 2:40:09
  Speaker 1: It's not serious. There's no serious way to do it.
• 2:40:12
  Speaker 1: And if you did it, I mean you would just
• 2:40:21
  Speaker 1: all right, I know this is going to sound hyperbolic,
• 2:40:24
  Speaker 1: but it's it's almost like an act of war. Right,
• 2:40:27
  Speaker 1: if you essentially say we're going to cut off Blue
• 2:40:30
  Speaker 1: States from air travel, I mean it's kind of an
• 2:40:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't again, I don't want to come
• 2:40:41
  Speaker 1: across hyperbolic, but what else would you call it? It's
• 2:40:44
  Speaker 1: a trade embargo, right, it's a it's a you know,
• 2:40:50
  Speaker 1: it's it's an embargo on air travel. So anyway, I
• 2:40:55
  Speaker 1: don't it's beyond illegal, beyond unconstitutional. I believe with with
• 2:40:59
  Speaker 1: with states in here. I don't think there's this superseding
• 2:41:02
  Speaker 1: law in this, and I think they would have to
• 2:41:04
  Speaker 1: specifically right into the law in order to make this
• 2:41:08
  Speaker 1: even legal for them to do it, and they don't
• 2:41:10
  Speaker 1: have that kind of statutory authority number one, So it
• 2:41:17
  Speaker 1: just I'll be honest, I don't take it seriously. I
• 2:41:20
  Speaker 1: chalk it up to just red meat that's being fed
• 2:41:23
  Speaker 1: to the to the to the to the part of
• 2:41:26
  Speaker 1: the base that just obsesses over a problem that is
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 1: a bit overheated in this country. And I think now
• 2:41:34
  Speaker 1: most people, if you work in an agricultural economy, if
• 2:41:39
  Speaker 1: you work in the service industry, you realize how self
• 2:41:42
  Speaker 1: defeating and how terrible for the economy this entire process
• 2:41:47
  Speaker 1: has been, and you will understand how defeat us this
• 2:41:51
  Speaker 1: all is. But forget that. I just that's why I
• 2:41:53
  Speaker 1: don't take it very seriously, because some of the president's
• 2:41:55
  Speaker 1: biggest supporters would be put out of business by a decision.
• 2:42:00
  Speaker 1: This next question comes from Ken. He says, Ken from
• 2:42:05
  Speaker 1: Maine again, then political analyst here. I was struck by
• 2:42:08
  Speaker 1: your point on Mills's support in the second district. But
• 2:42:10
  Speaker 1: wouldn't her share and the more progressive first victor would
• 2:42:12
  Speaker 1: be just as telling, if not more? Yeah, you know,
• 2:42:14
  Speaker 1: you're right. Also, how do you think about the tension
• 2:42:16
  Speaker 1: between voting four can versus voting against one? Thanks? Ken, Look,
• 2:42:21
  Speaker 1: you know what you're in some ways if the more
• 2:42:24
  Speaker 1: support she gets from the first you know, even you know,
• 2:42:27
  Speaker 1: I think, but look, there's no good explanation for her
• 2:42:30
  Speaker 1: getting twenty percent or more anywhere. Right, Like, it's all
• 2:42:33
  Speaker 1: bad for Blatner at this point. Right. So, but it's
• 2:42:38
  Speaker 1: a it's a fair point that it's one would actually show, Hey,
• 2:42:43
  Speaker 1: this is rank and file Democrats, people that will vote
• 2:42:46
  Speaker 1: Blue the entire time and are uncomfortable with this. But
• 2:42:49
  Speaker 1: I guess the point I was making there is that
• 2:42:51
  Speaker 1: you're probably gonna have an easier time convincing Mills voters
• 2:42:55
  Speaker 1: in the that are first district voters who are probably
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 1: more regular Democrats to hold their nose, take one for
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 1: the team and vote for Team Blue over you know,
• 2:43:03
  Speaker 1: if despite your character questions, then you will. In the
• 2:43:06
  Speaker 1: second district, it's a little more independent voter, might have
• 2:43:09
  Speaker 1: a little more you know, sort of independent streak to it.
• 2:43:13
  Speaker 1: I think so that. But anyway, it's a it's a
• 2:43:15
  Speaker 1: fair point. Look, I think Senate races are often votes
• 2:43:22
  Speaker 1: for Jersey. You know, do you do you want to
• 2:43:26
  Speaker 1: Republican Senate or a Democratic Senate. I think I've shared
• 2:43:29
  Speaker 1: with you a story that is just I just will
• 2:43:34
  Speaker 1: share you my father's final vote before he died, and
• 2:43:37
  Speaker 1: any of you that have been listening to me a
• 2:43:40
  Speaker 1: long time in public forums. I've used this before. I
• 2:43:43
  Speaker 1: remember vividly my father couldn't speak at that time. He
• 2:43:47
  Speaker 1: had a he had he was on a breathing tube,
• 2:43:50
  Speaker 1: but he could write. And he died on November fourteenth,
• 2:43:56
  Speaker 1: about a week after election day. But he wanted to
• 2:43:58
  Speaker 1: vote absentee, and the time that getting an absentee ballot
• 2:44:02
  Speaker 1: was a big was much harder in nineteen eighty eight
• 2:44:04
  Speaker 1: than it is today. And I remember helping him vote.
• 2:44:09
  Speaker 1: He couldn't quite, you know, do all the bubbles and
• 2:44:11
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. So I was reading him and he
• 2:44:14
  Speaker 1: would read it, and I'll never forget the back and
• 2:44:19
  Speaker 1: forth he had with himself. We got to the Senate race.
• 2:44:26
  Speaker 1: It was a very competitive center race, open seat. Lawton
• 2:44:29
  Speaker 1: Childs was retiring at the time. He'd retired because he'd
• 2:44:33
  Speaker 1: become the first, sort of the most public, one of
• 2:44:36
  Speaker 1: the early people to go on prozac, and at the
• 2:44:38
  Speaker 1: time that was considered a stigma. Oh my god, he's
• 2:44:40
  Speaker 1: on an antidepressant. He can't seek reelection, Believe it or not.
• 2:44:43
  Speaker 1: That's how stigmatized depression was back in just as the
• 2:44:46
  Speaker 1: late eighties, right, it was considered politically impossible to run
• 2:44:50
  Speaker 1: for reelection. With that going on, obviously, it turns out
• 2:44:55
  Speaker 1: talk about underestimating the voter. Laton Chile's two years later
• 2:44:58
  Speaker 1: would be elected governor of Florida for two terms. But
• 2:45:02
  Speaker 1: I digress. The two candidates were Connie Mack and Buddy McKay.
• 2:45:07
  Speaker 1: And my father was a political junkie, I think many
• 2:45:09
  Speaker 1: of you know in many ways. But you know, my
• 2:45:12
  Speaker 1: father's love of politics got passed down to me. You know,
• 2:45:16
  Speaker 1: my politics was a bit less formed when I was sixteen,
• 2:45:19
  Speaker 1: and when he died then his politics were very, very
• 2:45:22
  Speaker 1: much a he would have he would have called himself
• 2:45:26
  Speaker 1: a one time Reagan Democrat who was now a conservative
• 2:45:28
  Speaker 1: for politics. That's how he would have described himself in
• 2:45:30
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight. But he really liked Buddy McKay, he
• 2:45:34
  Speaker 1: he and he didn't know much about Connie Mack and
• 2:45:36
  Speaker 1: wasn't that impressed with him at the time and is
• 2:45:39
  Speaker 1: in Congress and whether that you know, and thought Buddy
• 2:45:43
  Speaker 1: McKay was the type of Democrat he could support, a
• 2:45:46
  Speaker 1: more conservative Democrat, and and he was going back and forth,
• 2:45:51
  Speaker 1: and he decided to vote for Mac. And I remember
• 2:45:54
  Speaker 1: asking him, so, why'd you vote for Mac? I thought
• 2:45:56
  Speaker 1: you liked McKay better, and he goes control the Senate
• 2:46:02
  Speaker 1: matters more right that he said, and in fact he said,
• 2:46:05
  Speaker 1: if I'm going to die, I want to die knowing
• 2:46:06
  Speaker 1: I voted for a Republican Senate and that that was
• 2:46:11
  Speaker 1: what he believed in. So my point is is that
• 2:46:15
  Speaker 1: now he was a pretty he was a voter. He's
• 2:46:19
  Speaker 1: strategic voted all the time. He was a registered Democrat
• 2:46:21
  Speaker 1: his whole life because at the time in the South,
• 2:46:23
  Speaker 1: it's the only way you can participate in primaries. He absolutely,
• 2:46:27
  Speaker 1: in his mind would be you'd say, as a strategic voter. Look,
• 2:46:32
  Speaker 1: I don't want to let one person's experience color what
• 2:46:34
  Speaker 1: I think is everything. But you asked about this idea
• 2:46:37
  Speaker 1: of voting for or against a candidate. I just think
• 2:46:41
  Speaker 1: that Senate races generally, it is a lot easier to
• 2:46:45
  Speaker 1: get people to think party, you know who should control, right.
• 2:46:50
  Speaker 1: It's why you're more likely to get unusual why a
• 2:46:56
  Speaker 1: minority party can get get their candidate elect and governor
• 2:46:59
  Speaker 1: more often than they can get their candidate elected Senate.
• 2:47:02
  Speaker 1: Because most people, I think it's not about voting for
• 2:47:05
  Speaker 1: or against. I think a lot of people, certainly we
• 2:47:08
  Speaker 1: know with the double negatives of Clinton and Trump that
• 2:47:11
  Speaker 1: people voted, you know, they were voting on negative they
• 2:47:14
  Speaker 1: were negative voting. And we know that negative partisanship in
• 2:47:17
  Speaker 1: some ways drives our politics. But I think in Senate
• 2:47:20
  Speaker 1: races in particular, and I think that this is going
• 2:47:22
  Speaker 1: to be And at this point, if Platner survives all
• 2:47:25
  Speaker 1: this and gets through it, I think if he wins,
• 2:47:28
  Speaker 1: it'll be because he made the case that Democrats need
• 2:47:30
  Speaker 1: to control the Senate heartstop, and that is you may
• 2:47:34
  Speaker 1: like Susan, you may think Susan Collins is better than
• 2:47:36
  Speaker 1: most Republicans, but ultimately she's a vote for a Republican
• 2:47:39
  Speaker 1: Senate which supports Trump's agenda. YadA, YadA, YadA. That's my guess.
• 2:47:45
  Speaker 1: The of the best possible messaging that Democrats can come
• 2:47:48
  Speaker 1: up with that can at least nod to the character
• 2:47:52
  Speaker 1: discomfort that voters have and at least have the conversation
• 2:47:56
  Speaker 1: with those voters who are who are not sure whether
• 2:47:59
  Speaker 1: they should let the character issues impact them or not.
• 2:48:03
  Speaker 1: But I do think Jersey Color, I think control the
• 2:48:06
  Speaker 1: Senate does have more of an impact on voters today
• 2:48:09
  Speaker 1: than ever before. All right, last question, this one comes
• 2:48:13
  Speaker 1: from Donatello who writes another registritating question here, do you
• 2:48:16
  Speaker 1: think it would be effective for Democrats to adopt a
• 2:48:18
  Speaker 1: pledge to ban jerry mandering nationally, similar to how Republicans
• 2:48:21
  Speaker 1: once used pledges on taxes. Curious if that kind of
• 2:48:24
  Speaker 1: approach actually could actually work. Well, what could argue they've
• 2:48:29
  Speaker 1: kind of been the party that was against jerry mandering
• 2:48:32
  Speaker 1: until they decided to go. I mean, you could be pledge.
• 2:48:36
  Speaker 1: You could pledge it all you want, but if you
• 2:48:39
  Speaker 1: don't act upon it when you have an opportunity to
• 2:48:42
  Speaker 1: do it, does the pledge mean anything? Right? And I
• 2:48:45
  Speaker 1: think Republicans have a bunch of pledges where they've not
• 2:48:48
  Speaker 1: when push came to shove. They didn't support the pledge
• 2:48:51
  Speaker 1: when it was necessary, so then there's a sense that
• 2:48:54
  Speaker 1: they didn't care about the pledge in the first place.
• 2:48:56
  Speaker 1: So I, you know, I alter think that the better
• 2:49:01
  Speaker 1: answer on this, and I know I'm going to go back,
• 2:49:03
  Speaker 1: but I feel like I've said I want to do
• 2:49:06
  Speaker 1: two things with this podcast. One is cover politics as
• 2:49:09
  Speaker 1: it is, but the other is to cover politics as
• 2:49:11
  Speaker 1: it could be or should be. And I just think
• 2:49:13
  Speaker 1: that the right answer on this is to advocate for
• 2:49:17
  Speaker 1: a larger Congress. If you want more representation, more people
• 2:49:21
  Speaker 1: represented and feeling like they're represented in Congress, then you
• 2:49:24
  Speaker 1: need to expand the size of Congress. That needs to
• 2:49:27
  Speaker 1: be it. It improves everything else below it. It makes
• 2:49:30
  Speaker 1: gerrymandering less necessary. It does give people more a more
• 2:49:38
  Speaker 1: direct feeling like they have a little more direct link. Ultimately,
• 2:49:42
  Speaker 1: you should be pro democracy, and the pro democracy stance
• 2:49:46
  Speaker 1: here is not about gerrymandering. The pro democracy stance is
• 2:49:50
  Speaker 1: I think two things, more voters involved in the selection
• 2:49:55
  Speaker 1: of members of Congress and more members of Congress so
• 2:49:58
  Speaker 1: that the country can be accurately and correctly represented the
• 2:50:03
  Speaker 1: way the founders intended for Congress to represent the people.
• 2:50:09
  Speaker 1: And with that, that's gonna do it. For my quick ask,
• 2:50:13
  Speaker 1: Chuck of the day, I've gone on. This is a big,
• 2:50:17
  Speaker 1: long episode. I gave you a little sports with the
• 2:50:19
  Speaker 1: French interview. I will admit that there are two rants
• 2:50:25
  Speaker 1: that I haven't gone on in the sports world that
• 2:50:28
  Speaker 1: I'd like to go on. Rant one is where's the
• 2:50:31
  Speaker 1: love for James Wood? You know It's funny is somehow
• 2:50:37
  Speaker 1: the Nationals become the team that gets guys Compared to
• 2:50:40
  Speaker 1: Ted Williams. I remember Soda in his first couple of
• 2:50:43
  Speaker 1: years was doing things that Ted Williams was the only
• 2:50:45
  Speaker 1: other hitter that had ever done. And now Wood is
• 2:50:48
  Speaker 1: doing things that only Ted Williams and one Soda or
• 2:50:51
  Speaker 1: the only two other hitters are ever done number one
• 2:50:54
  Speaker 1: and number two. You know, the hard part is what
• 2:51:01
  Speaker 1: do you do with show hey? Because the easy way
• 2:51:03
  Speaker 1: to say, you know, there's no doubt what is in
• 2:51:07
  Speaker 1: a conventional year would be the be the at least
• 2:51:10
  Speaker 1: a co favorite or a co front runner for MVP.
• 2:51:14
  Speaker 1: The numbers are just I mean, he is easily the
• 2:51:16
  Speaker 1: best hitter in baseball right now, and that could change
• 2:51:19
  Speaker 1: and we know that, but I mean you just look
• 2:51:20
  Speaker 1: across the board, right he just dominates in so many
• 2:51:23
  Speaker 1: of these factors. But you know what James Wood hasn't done,
• 2:51:28
  Speaker 1: isn't he doesn't have an ERA below one? Right? Like
• 2:51:31
  Speaker 1: that's the that's the killer aspect of show hey here.
• 2:51:35
  Speaker 1: But I want to recommend what my son did was
• 2:51:39
  Speaker 1: he voted for Schwarber for DH, not Otani because he
• 2:51:42
  Speaker 1: says Otani should be the starting pitcher for the National League.
• 2:51:46
  Speaker 1: So and who's been the better DH this year? Then
• 2:51:49
  Speaker 1: I guess you would give it to Schwarber right on
• 2:51:51
  Speaker 1: that front. But anyway, there's a long rant there. And
• 2:51:55
  Speaker 1: the other is, of course, how the SEC and the
• 2:51:57
  Speaker 1: Big ten twenty four playoff teams is ridiculous idea, and
• 2:52:01
  Speaker 1: the SEC and the Big Ten tired of them not
• 2:52:04
  Speaker 1: wanting to grow college football. All they want to do
• 2:52:07
  Speaker 1: is freeze college football so that only the SEC and
• 2:52:10
  Speaker 1: the Big Ten. They want to essentially lock any other
• 2:52:14
  Speaker 1: entities out from participating in the spoils of college football.
• 2:52:17
  Speaker 1: I say, screw you, guys, enough of this. It's obvious
• 2:52:20
  Speaker 1: what you're doing, and all you're doing is creating a
• 2:52:22
  Speaker 1: situation that baseball finds itself in. Right. It was greedy
• 2:52:25
  Speaker 1: ass owners for one hundred years that refuse to share
• 2:52:28
  Speaker 1: their local revenue that put them in the situation that
• 2:52:31
  Speaker 1: they're in today. And it's the greedy SEC and the
• 2:52:34
  Speaker 1: big Big Ten that are trying to so desperately lock
• 2:52:37
  Speaker 1: out any other schools or conferences from ever expanding and
• 2:52:40
  Speaker 1: touching college football that they're going to destroy the sport.
• 2:52:43
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, how about this sport is more popular,
• 2:52:47
  Speaker 1: expand it more access, my god, better scheduling. You're just
• 2:52:52
  Speaker 1: trying to essentially hoard an advantage and create more velvet
• 2:52:58
  Speaker 1: ropes and make it impossible for the sport to grow.
• 2:53:03
  Speaker 1: That's what irritates me the most about Sankie and the
• 2:53:05
  Speaker 1: Big Ten is that their interests are just self serving.
• 2:53:09
  Speaker 1: They just want to make their two conferences stronger and
• 2:53:12
  Speaker 1: more influential. Neither one of them gives two shits about
• 2:53:15
  Speaker 1: the future of college football. So those are the two
• 2:53:17
  Speaker 1: rants that I've been saving. So I will postpone them
• 2:53:21
  Speaker 1: and save them for another time. And with that, I'll
• 2:53:25
  Speaker 1: see the election night stream on Tuesday and Wednesday in
• 2:53:28
  Speaker 1: this same pod channel. Talk to you then,