Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - Chuck’s Experience At The Correspondents’ Dinner Shooting + America Is A Tinderbox & Trump Is Fanning The Flames

Transcript

Chuck’s Commentary - Chuck’s Experience At The Correspondents’ Dinner Shooting + America Is A Tinderbox & Trump Is Fanning The Flames · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: vary and rates may vary well. Happy Monday, and welcome
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  Speaker 1: to another episode of the Chuck Podcast. Needless to say,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: what what I thought I was going to be focusing
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: on with this episode has changed quite a bit, But
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: let me give you a quick rundown. Look. I'm going
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to give you my first hand account of what happened
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: at the White House. Correspondence dinner from my point of view, Yes,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I attended as a guest of National journal I will
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: literally share all the details on that and then take
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: a step back and just sort of talk about this
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: moment that we're living in politically basically through my through
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: my political anthropologist glasses here, because I think, you know,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: there's no doubt that we don't have the political leaders
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: to deal with the moment that we need to be
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: dealing with at the moment. So and I will get
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: into all of that, but we just this is a
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: this is this is the worst set of political leaders
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: that we could have to meet the moment that we need,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: which is why we need clearly, we need new leadership
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: in this country collectively. And this is across the board, left, right, center,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: et cetera. We will get I will get into that. Course.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: This is Monday, which means I have a new time
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Machine segment, and we are we are going back to
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: a story that would eventually help create the name for
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: one of the most popular bands of my generation. So
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: there's your clue. There's your clue to what historical event
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I will be taking a deep dive in with the
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: time machine this week, and of course we will do
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: questions from you, and yes, despite the events of the weekend,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: I do have a few thoughts in my compartmentalized brain
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: on sports, the draft and all things from there. But look,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: let me start with I figure the best thing I
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: can do is just sort of take you through, take
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: you through what I did with the dinner, and it
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: really my evening begins at six pm Eastern time. I'm
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: walking out of the house, and just to give you
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: a full picture, I had planned to go to the
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: after party. My friends at ms NOW had invited My
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: wife and I did the after party there after party,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: and we were planning to attend. I was attending the
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: dinner itself as a guest of National Journal. I've been
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: doing a lot of work with them lately. National Journal,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: for many of you know as my former as a
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: former employer of mine, I've been we've been doing doing
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: some brainstorming together and we're we're in this collective world.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: And so that's that's why I was attending. That's the
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: that's who whose guest I was. My wife was going
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: to meet. She did this was one ticket, so she
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: was gonna we were gonna meet essentially at the at
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: the after party about eleven pm. And as I'm leaving
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: the house in the uber at six pm, I turned
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: to my wife and I said, how ab I'm not
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: making a mistake? And what did I mean by that?
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: All Right? I just said it out loud, and I
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: had a lot of sort of tr nation about going.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I hadn't been to the dinner in probably four or
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: five years. I used to frankly when I had a
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: job on Sunday morning. Some of you might might know,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: so I had stopped doing these Saturday night dinners. Sometimes
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I would go for basically like the first hour and
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: leave early, frankly, just to get a tiny bit of
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: rest before the next morning. Sometimes I didn't go at all.
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  Speaker 1: It just, you know, it just it's just a it
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: can be. It's a It's a I used to joke
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: with when I was in my twenties the dinner was fun,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: when by my forties it became work. But I was going, look,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I'm doing a lot more in the media entrepreneur space,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: and this is a so there's certainly a lot of
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: interesting people that I am working with I'd like to
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: be working with, and I thought this would be as
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: good of a time as any to connect with some people,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: But I knew that there was going to be a
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: lot of protests. I knew there was going to be
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of tension. And so when I said that
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: to my wife, she was like, why did you know?
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: She sort of haunted her as I laughed. And then
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: of course we all thought about it a lot after
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: the incident itself. And I'm not going to sit here
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: and say I thought violence was going to happen. You know,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: I didn't know if it was going to be just
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: you know, was I walking into something that I didn't
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: really want to be a part of. It is probably
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: a better way to describe it, right, I think I
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: told you. I think I expressed earlier. I thought all
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the look, this is one thing people need to understand.
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  Speaker 1: This is not the president's event. This is the This
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: is the White House Press Association's event. He is an
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  Speaker 1: invited guest. It is tradition to invite the president. Hardstop.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: He chose to come for the first time. This is
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: not his event. And this is an important point because
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: this is not an event to be held at the
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: White House. If he doesn't feel comfortable coming, then he
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: doesn't come. Right. This is a trade associatiation event for
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: White House Press, for members of the White House Press Corps.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, so I sort of
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: I've found the sort of hand ringing about, you know,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: whether press should attend or not. This is not the
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: president's dinner. Look, everybody made their individual decisions about who
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: they invite, right and that's a different decision. And you
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: can hold individual organizations accountable for who they choose to
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: invite or not. But at the end of the day,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: we're journalists and I just wanted a story. You have
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: to have good sources in order to report, period, And
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: so I understood the criticism of those that say, oh,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: don't give them a platform, don't do this, don't do that.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, it was his choice
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: to come, and you know, the press can. To me,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: a good journalist should be able to handle handle that
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: situation and should be comfortable going in. You don't, you know,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: nobody's asking you to become a maggot cheerleader or a
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: left wing activist. If you're going there to be an activist,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: don't go right that. You know, if if you're if
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: you're more interested in and being an activist, and then
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't have gone but look, I'm not. I you know,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I thought all of that was overrated on that front.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: So but I you know, I wasn't. I knew the
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: protests were going to be large, and I've certainly been
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: to that hotel so many times. I knew that there
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: were alternative ways to get into the hotel. So I
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: was very careful where I had the Uber drop off.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: In fact, I knew I was going to decided I
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: was going to basically, for those of you familiar with
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: the Hilton, go in the back way, go in the
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: other you know, don't come in on Connecticut Avenue. I
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: basically came in behind sort of between. Essentially, it was
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: dropped off not quite at the corner of Florida Avenue
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: and in Columbia excuse me, in eighteenth but close ish,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: it's basically like nineteenth in Florida. Because I knew I
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: could walk now with those terrible tuck shoes, I even
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: double socked, knowing I was probably going to be walking
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: more than usual in order to Little did I know
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: how much I was going to end up walking after
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: the event, says it was so look, I was pretty
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: you know, I get dropped off by the Uber walk
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: in get in the essentially the back way without without
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: going through any of that protest or stuff that was
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: taking place, which was on the other side of the hotel,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: which is basically it where Florida and Connecticut come together,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: which is essentially where the Hilton Washington Hilton is. And
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: if you're wondering and getting into the Hilton, you know
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: there is no magnetometer to get into the hotel itself.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: This is look, it's there's a reason why this dinner
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: is always held at this hotel. They have a unique
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: situation where you really can take the ballroom sections and
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: essentially secure it away from everything else, which is what
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: they have done. In my experience, I've been going to
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: these dinners. I think the first one I went to
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: was probably in nineteen ninety five, nineteenninety six, something like that,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: and it is you know, this is why there's been
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: chatter about moving it to the convention Center or moving
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: it to some other places. But this really is sort
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: of a unique ballroom. You know, every comedian has come in.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I can't believe this is at a Hilton, like sort
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: of mocking the idea that it's at a Hilton. No
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: offense to my friends at Hilton, but it's always been
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: kind of a bud of jokes at this fancy black
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: tie dinner is at a Hilton. But this ballroom setup
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: is an incredibly unique setup. After the Reagan assassination attempt,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: they even created more secure areas. They basically they they
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: have some of the easiest ways for a highly secure
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: individual to be brought in and out of the hotel,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: more so than really any other hotel in the city,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: especially with a ballroom like that of that size that
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: they can do. So it is why it's there, and
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: they've always the hotel itself has always sort of been
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: divided like that when when this dinner is here, so
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: you can just like walk into the lobby, which is
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: where I went. You just go into the lobby, and
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: I was going to the pre cocktail parties National Journal's
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: cocktail party to go most a lot of times, if
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: you're an invited guests, that's how you pick up your ticket,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: is you go to your sponsoring organizations pre pre dinner event.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: It's sort of been what a lot of news organizations do.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: So so you ignore all that, and it was you know,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: you could tell, I mean, it was pretty heavy. The protesters,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: the rain probably made it. It was did I bring
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: up it was raining at that point in time. So
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: everybody is sort of you know, there with your hairdoes
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that on that front. So we get
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: into the dinner and it's the usual. Everybody is mag
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: that you before you can get to even the ballroom area,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: there is a set of magnetometers that everybody goes through
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: and essentially just about everybody not you'll not only go
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: through a magnetometer, but if they're there's anything that pops
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: up in the magnetometer, you get one, you get the
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: wand and it's pretty If you've ever been to any
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: presidential events, it's very similar to that. It's if you've
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: ever been to even a sporting event where the president
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: was going to be there, you'll notice it. Sometimes there's
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: a little bit more extra security. You go through magnanometers
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: and there's a person wanding. This was the same setup.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: And then the dinner itself, you go down a set
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: of staircases yet another sent it's sort of almost like
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: a sunken You come in at one level and the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: ballroom itself is like further down, and you walk down
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: it's two sets two flights of stairs This is important
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: because I don't the attacker. The gunman did not get
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: even down one flight of those stairs. It's two flights
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: of stairs to get into the ballroom area itself. So
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: we're in the ballroom, they serve. They're serving the salad first,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: and everybody was done with a salad. And the timing
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: I was fascinating because it's so the shots ring out
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: right about one minute after the There was probably two
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: hundredweight staff that all came out at the exact same time.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: This was sort of a bit of an orchestration, and
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: it's almost it's the server ballet, if you will, that
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: we've we've it's always it's very impressive how it's done,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: where essentially every table is cleared and every table is
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: served pretty much simultaneously. Right, it's an incredibly quick turnover.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: So you have this rush of people come out, so
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: my initial thought. And then so this rush of people's
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: coming out and you see and you know, the tables
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: are all close together, and it's pretty crowded anyway, because
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: people are it's still early in the dinner, so there's
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: still a little socializing. People are doing a little table
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: hopping to see to catch up with people you know,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: you might get a text. I'd gotten a text from
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: a friend of mine. It was two tables over that
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: I didn't see until after the incident itself. So so
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: we're sitting at the dinner, everybody's finishing the salad, and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: you know, they just they had just finished the head
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: table introductions. President of White House correspond Association basically said, Okay,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: now we're gonna now we're going to serve dinner, so everybody.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: So it was actually gonna be a quick pause in
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the program. I think, as far as timing events is
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: the minute dinner was served that it was going to
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: be pretty soon after that that we were going to
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: hear from the President. So the rush of white staff
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: floods the ballroom and it's about a minute later in
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: my recollection that I hear. You hear the pop, pop pop,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: And that's what I heard, pop pop pop, some of
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: you saw. I did a preliminary Instagram last night that
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: went on a few of my socials just to give
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: you a quick sense of what I saw. So you
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: hear this pop pop pop, And I'll just be honest.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: At first, you know you're not You don't expect to
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: hear gunshots and so you don't automatically assume that's what
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: you heard. And I didn't within you know, it's sort
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: of like within two seconds do you sort of realize Jesus,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: I think that was gunshots. But that like the first
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: thing in my mind was, oh, what just happened? What
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: accident just happened? I mean, as the President himself said,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: did somebody drop our tray? It just just felt like
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: an accident. Because again, this is the case where your
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: visuals in your audio can sometimes be in conflict. What
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: were we all seeing. We were seeing this rush of
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: people of weight staff coming to essentially do this, do
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: the appetizer plates clearing, and the entree survey, and so
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: that's in your head. So any noise you hear, I
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: think automatically you're just associating with what you see, and
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: then you realize pop pop pop, And then somebody heard shots,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: and then you saw a whole bunch of people just
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: drop to the ground, including all the white staff. I
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: will confess I was a little slow getting to the ground.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: I was like continuing to just try, and even even
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: when I knelt on the ground, my table mates were
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: like get down, and then I like poke my head
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: up to try to get a sense because I was
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: trying to I generally heard where I you know, where
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I heard. Where I thought I heard the shots from
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: turned out to be exactly where the shots came from,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: which is it felt like it was coming from behind
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: the entrance to the ballroom. And the question was with
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: these shots had fired in the ballroom. And it's now
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: pretty obvious to me because of the why they weren't
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: loud loud. They were loud enough to hear the pop,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: pop pop, But then you realize it was not in
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the ballroom, right, So everybody's just we're first looking around here,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: do we hear anybody screaming to you? Do you see
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: any paramedics? And then you realize, Okay, nobody was shot
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: in the ballroom. It was clearly coming from the quest
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: At this point in time, I don't know whether it
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: is right outside the doors where they come in down
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: those two flights of stairs I was talking about, or
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: if it was further up the two flights of stairs,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: sort of where the magnetometers are before you go walk
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: down after you've been cleared of security. And again, I'm
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: just trying to put you in my shoes at this time,
• 17:11
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  Speaker 1: And yes, I too, am a customer. Now. One of
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: my witnessing is we're on the floor. There's a few things.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: One is, obviously you see you start to see a
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: parade of security detail. First of all, there was security everywhere,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: and in fact, it probably pretty clear that there were
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: a handful of tables where they were undercover security. Right.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: There was just too many people in that room not
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: to have something like that. You immediately see probably one
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: hundred law enforcement throughout the ball room, essentially just trying
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: to clear everything. Right, everybody had guns drawn. They're trying
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: to clear everything. And then you say, you have these
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: security details, and I think most of these people were
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: associated with a security detail I don't know this yet
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: for a fact, but it seems that way because you'd
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: start to see this parade first. You know, I think
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: I saw hag Seth get escorted out. I saw Scott
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Bessett get escorted out. I saw Mike Johnson get escorted out.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: I saw Steve Scalise get escorted out. And so you
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: started to see those folks getting escorted out. Then there's
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: a lockdown in the room right as you might expect,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: as they're now in hindsight, it's because the main entrance
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: to the ballroom was a crime scene. So you know,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: I think they were trying to make a quick determination
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: to see if this was some sort of conspiracy. I
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: could tell you what I first thought is, oh, did
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: this person come in with the weight staff? And then
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: use that moment, you know, I probably watched too many movies, right,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: you know, you have too many movies in your head
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: and you start thinking about different things. Although there's a
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: there is a weird movie life imitates art aspect to
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: the uh the alleged assassin who apparently got a room
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: in the hotel, which, by the way, is a security loophole,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: which I'm going to get to in a minute. So
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: at this point, everybody and it looks like we're sealed
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: in and then you're then the question is and you know,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: everybody's comfortably you know, starts popping their head up, and
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: we're all trying We're all trying to work, you know,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, everybody you know is just trying to We're
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: all trying to find out what happened. You have a
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: room full of of reporters plus uh self important people
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: plus actually important people, and everybody wants everybody wants to
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: know what the hell is going on, and everybody's trying
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: to figure out what's going on. And you know, at
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: first it's just simply everybody trading. Did you hear gunshots?
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: What did you see? Did you see anything? Did anybody
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: get hit? And that was just sort of the determination,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: was there any in anything, anybody hurt within the ballroom?
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: You know, trying to figure out if anybody had gotten in,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: you know, it was it somebody who took a shot?
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: You know, did the shots come into the ballroom? Right?
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: And that is you know, now it's like I said,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: the sound was not loud enough to have been in
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: the ballroom, which is why it wasn't one hundred percent
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: convinced it was gunshots right away. Now I know exactly
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: what I heard. I heard the gunshots based on behind
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: closed doors two flights up but within earshot of where
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: we were right So now I understand. Now I couldn't
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: process why they were, you know, sort of heard, but
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: not just dominant as far as the audio in that
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the audible nature of the South. So then they about
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: it's pretty fast that they make the determination that they
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: can open the doors. And then the minute they opened
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: the doors, they decide it's let's evacuate, but they don't.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: They just basically encourage everybody to leave. I will be
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: honest with you. When I saw that there was a
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: door open and people were starting to trickle out before
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: they made the announcement, I was like, first of all,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: you know, the table I was at, we sort of
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: just in our own little like well, we all looked
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: at each other, we toasted, and we were like, well,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: we're never going to forget this dinner, and so it
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: was just one of those things we all realized we
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: sat there together and that we will never forget. I
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: was sitting next to a woman named Nicole, who I
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: knew a little bit through an old friend of mine
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: back in the day of sitting next to another gentleman
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: named of Duarto, who had not met before. But we're
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: all we're all connected now. Jeff to four of National Journal,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the editor in chief, was at the table. He did
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: a fine update by the way, on newsphere last night.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: I hope you caught that, so you have that sort
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: of We did have that little bonding moment as a table,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: and I think other of my guesses other tables did
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: the same thing. It's this is such a real thing
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: that you're with. And then it was sort of like,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: all right, good luck everybody. And at that point I'm
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: ready to evacuate, and it looks like everybody's going in
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: one direction, and I'm like, if they really want us
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: out of this building, you know. And finally one of
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: the security folks says, look, go follow exit signs, and
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: it was like, you don't have to tell me twice.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: So I ended up going through the kitchen. At some point,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I was like just following around the hotel staff. Somebody
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: recognized me, was really nice and basically help help me
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: navigate through the kitchen. At that point I think I
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: was there was just all sorts of security personnel back
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: there just sort of huddling, and I was kind of
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: the first one through the doors, and there was clearly
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: going to be a whole slew of people on me.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: And I end up coming out of an exit of
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: course that I've never been out before at the Hilton.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: So the hotel backs up against why I believe it's Wyoming.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: I think it's Wyoming Avenue, sort of where T Street
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: and Wyoming Avenue go behind it. And I end up
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: there and I just decide, all right, I'm going to
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: walk as far away from the hotel as I can
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: and go find an uber. So that's my plan. I
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: walk up about a half a block and all you
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: do is you start running into groups of people in tuxedos.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Right and formal were all trying to debate what to do. Right,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: they're going to reopen the dinner. As far as I
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: was concerned, I was done with the dinner. You know,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: this was not I was not going to be in
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: that closed end event. I've been through enough of this.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: I've had enough death threats. You know. My feeling is
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: I'm not getting very close anymore to to to that
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: world until we sort of get to a better place
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: as a country, but I'll get to that in a
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: few minutes. And so I'm like, well, it may be
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: hard to get a ride out of here if I
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: stay too close to that area. So I'm walking. I
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: end up running into the Fetterments on the corner. I
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: think it was at the time. I think we were
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: on the corner of Columbia and Wyoming. As you know,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: John Fetterman is not hard to miss, and it was
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: just him and his wife. They were on a corner,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: and so I went up. You know, he recognized me,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: and he waved over, and he was they were looking.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: They had they had a driver, which was not surprising.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Many US senators do have somebody that they're you know,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: they get a driver for the night, or maybe it's
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: a driver all the time. But that's so he was looking.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: They were looking for their ride. He, by the way,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: couldn't have been nicer. He was trying to he was
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: trying to convince me, don't know, we can give you
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: a ride. I'm like, I'm good, I'm gonna I'll walk up,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: walk up a couple more blocks, and I'm just going
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: to get home. I had suddenly I had my kids
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: wondering what the hell was going on? And my wife
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: was so at that point, I'm trying to keep them
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: up to date. Everything's okay, I'm fine, you know, this
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: is not about me. We're all good. And then it
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: was in and in fact, where I did I filmed
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: my video as I was waiting for my uber there
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: at the corner of Columbia and Adams Mill is sort
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: of as you're walking towards Woodley Park and that Woodley
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Park area. What's interesting is the uber driver picks me
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: up and he goes, hey, were you at the dinner?
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: What happened? And so he goes, I just listen to
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: this eerie thing. He goes, I just dropped off an
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: elderly woman who was going to the dinner who was
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: telling me this whole story about being there when Reagan
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: was shot. And it's just like and so he was
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: just sort of processing his own that own sort of weirdness,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: if you will. So that was my that was my experience.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: I ended up getting home about ten o'clock. Nine ten o'clock.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: We decided that, you know, I didn't care whether the
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: after parties were on or not. It was like, you know,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: I think we're good, right, I'm not interested. The best
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: now was going to be in the Dupat circle underground.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: It's like, don't know if I want to be underground right,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: in sort of a a guarded space like that a
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: little bit, because we are I think we are living
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: in a we're we're living in a tinder box. And
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: that's and that's the thing. So, look, this is what
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: it felt like being in that room, right, That's what
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: it sounded like, and that's how fast it all happened,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: and so you know, that's that's the instinct I had
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: last night, was simply to describe it and then perhaps
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: start to move on, right, you know. Unfortunately we've become
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: used to this. This is weirdly normal now, and if
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: it were just an isolated event, I think it'd be
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: easier to move on. But the truth is this doesn't
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: feel isolated anymore. And the fact of the matter is
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: we know we are living through something different. It's not
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: just more political anger. We've had angry periods before, and
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: it's not just more division. We've had that too. What
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: feels different now is a growing comfort with the idea
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: of violence. We're normalizing it, not just the act itself,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: but the idea that it just sort of, Hey, it's
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: a part of it. It's a part of politics. You
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: just have to accept it. I'm not there, but we do.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: We have the willingness to imagine it now, we have
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: the willingness to justify it, to talk about it as
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: something that exists just one step away. That's what feels new.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: That's why before I walked out of the door, I
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: wondered if I was making a mistake, not because of
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: what the dinner could or should be. But we know
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: we're living in We're not living in normal times. So
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: I can tell you this from experience. I've covered politics
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: for decades now, going back to the nineties, early nineties campaigns, presidencies,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: moments of real national tension. After nine to eleven, I
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: worked in an office right across the street from the
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Saudi Embassy at the Watergate, and yet I've never dealt
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: with anything like this, not in terms of threats, not
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: in terms of the volume, and not in terms of
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the tone. That is, until about ten years ago. Sometime
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen, things started to change the start of
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the Trump era. And once it started, and it didn't
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: stay contained at first, it felt targeted in one direction,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: right when my face was on the back of the
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: pipe bombers van that they found in Miami, when I
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: had FBI agents visiting me to let me know I
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: was a target of this. Nobody in the administration, by
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: the way, cared called any of these reporters at the
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: time that I digressed. So then it felt targeted one direction.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Then it spread, and now, let's be honest, it feels ambient.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: It's everywhere, like it's just a part of the environment,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: violence and politics going hand in hand. Not in America.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: That wasn't the way it was supposed to be in America.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Now many people are asking did Donald Trump caused this?
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: And I understand the instinct. There's no doubt I'm making
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: the case that he's responsible for the era. But it
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: is the wrong question because we can argue it forever.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Supporters will say it's the rhetoric against him. We're already
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: seeing that, right. There's this determination by his most devoted
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: supporters to just say, hey, the assassination's a leftist, this
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: is the left, it's all the Democrats. Fault right critics
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: of Trump will say it's his rhetoric. This is the
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: guy that introduced political violence and mainstreamed it. The point is,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: we're going to spin in this loop all day and
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: we're not going to get anywhere. All we're going to
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: do is foment more violence. It's not going to solve
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the problem. But that doesn't mean we can't identify it.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: How this got normalized. So that's the better question. We
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: need to be asking what has been normalized and how
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: are we going to get out of this? Because presidents
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: don't just govern, they set the tone. They set the
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: tone for the country. They define the boundaries of acceptable behavior.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: It is a choice to pardon violent extremists that attacked
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: the capital. That's a choice, and over the last decade
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: these boundaries have shifted quite a bit. You can hear
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: it in the rhetoric. Let's go back to the beginning.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump at rallies in twenty sixteen talking about wanting
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: to punch protesters, suggesting they should be carried out on stretchers,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: offering to pay the legal fees of anybody prosecuted for
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: violent political violence on his behalf. At the time, it
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: sounded like wwe inspired bullshit performance right crowd work if
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: you will, But the language matters, right, most people may
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: hear it just as idle rhetoric, innocent rhetoric, but not everybody,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: because over time what starts his performance becomes a permission slip.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: And then fast forward to just the last few months,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: after the death of Robert Muller, the President of the
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: United States actually posts the following quote, Robert Muller just
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: died good. I'm glad he's dead. That's not ambiguous. That's
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: the President of the United States celebrating the death of
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: somebody he believed was a political adversary. I say he
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: believed because all Robert Muller wanted to do is to
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: get to the frickin truth of what the Russians did
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: and whether any Americans helped. Or how about earlier this
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: year when he just posted a whole civilization will die tonight,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: never to be brought back again. It's not normal American
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: political rhetoric, not normal political rhetoric period, but certainly not
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: the behavior that we should expect from an American president.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: It's existential language, and even in moments of tragedy, mocking
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: the death of someone like rober Reiner, suggesting his death
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: was somehow tied to his political views. Again, this is
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the president. This is the tone being set by the
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: President of the United States. And there's another shift that's
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: happened at the same time, and it's just as important,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: and it's this idea that politics is responsible for everything.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: If you're struggling, it's not your choices or circumstance, it's
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: someone else's fault. It's a political grievance. Blame a politician,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Blame a party, Blame the press. Because you can't look
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: yourself in the mirror and realize you made bad decisions,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: you need someone else to blame. Donald Trump never does
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: self reflex, always has to blame someone else. And once
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: you start to believe that, once you internalize this idea
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: that your problems are caused by all these other people,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: you're not that far from believing they should pay for it.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: And then you hear something just bizarre, like we heard
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: last night after this incident, when the president that chose
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: to have a press conference and the president was asked
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: whether he was the intended target. And part of the
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: answer is this idea that he basically said, well, only
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: the great presidents, the great ones, as he said it,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: have to deal with this. Lincoln Kennedy, he viewed being
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: targeted as kind of a validation, a badge of honor, huh,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: implying that if you didn't get if you're a president
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: that wasn't targeted for assassination like he's been, then you're
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: not a successful president. You're not trying to do big things.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Think about all this for a second. Is that the
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: escalation that's reframing something dangerous and Unamerican as somehow proof
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: of greatness, turning risk into mythology. This is something we
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: should all be concerned about because if he's basically resigned
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: himself to be martyred, well, then no wonder he took
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: a risk like he has with Iran and essentially is
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: putting all of us in an economically precarious position. And
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: this is but this is where the presidency matters, because,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: whether intentional or not, the president creates the political weather.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Not every storm, but it's the climate. He's very divisive.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: He thrives on divisiveness. His supporters want the divisiveness. They
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: feed off the divisiveness, and he knows it, and he
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: does it, and it's more and it's more, and you
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: know what happens. People think there's only one way to respond.
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• 38:12
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  Speaker 1: com slash podcast, or simply use the promo code podcast
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: at checkout. This is a sponsor I absolutely embrace, so
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: use that code. And the climate is shift. Behaviorshifts with it.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: The barrier moves. What once felt unthinkable becomes thinkable, then sayable,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: and eventually, for a very small number of people, doable.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't stay on one side. Escalation invites escalation.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: That's how being a divisive leader works. One side raises
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: the temperature, the other response, and before long you're not
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: looking at two sides anymore. You're looking at reflections sort
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: of out of a funhouse mirror. Same intensity, same language,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: same sense, of urgency, existential threats just pointed in different directions.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: And this is where the language matters again and again
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: and again, because everything now is framed as some existential
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: challenge that we're all dealing with. Every election, every issue,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: a battle for civilization itself. Have you seen that? It's
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: the battle for the West? Violence being know sometimes you're
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: going to have if you want to save Western civilization.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: How many people have you seen use ridiculous rhetoric like that.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: They're part of the problem too, because if everything is existential,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: then anything becomes justifiable, any rhetoric, any tactic, any escalation.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: The reality is we are a country of three hundred
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: and fifty million people who agree on some things and
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: disagree on a lot. And for a long time we
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: manage that because we had leaders who didn't lean into
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: being divisive, who backed off when they realized the temperature
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: had been too hot. This president never knows how to
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: turn the temperature down, never even last night in his
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: attempt to do it. He glorifies the violence as some
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: sort of reflection of his greatness. This is that, like
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: I said, he needs that's a separate issue, and maybe
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: this is Look, he's a human being, and he's been
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: targeted multiple times for death, so it might be a
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: coping mechanism, and we should have empathy for that. I
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: have empathy for that. But he chose to be the
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: leader of all Americans and he's pitting Americans against each
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: other on purpose. He has to turn it down. We
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: have one president at a time. No other political leaders
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: have the power that he has to do this. He
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: can't do it. He is incapable of doing this. That's
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: the unfortunate part. But people around him need to restrain
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: him better. Because here's the part that should worry everybody.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: It only takes one person, one unstable, angry, perhaps isolated
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: person who has absorbed all of this over the last decade,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: and they decide, boy, they have no choice but to act.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: And that's it. So when the broader culture is reinforcing grievance,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: reinforcing blame, reinforcing confrontation, that person doesn't feel like an outlier.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: They feel, in some distorted way, like they're acting within
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: the logic of this moment. If we were a healthy
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: political culture, those impulses would be rare, they'd be contained marginal.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: Right now, they're not not, because most people believe in violence.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: I think it's pretty clear most of us don't. But
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: because the environment is no longer clearly rejecting it. And
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: this is where leadership matters the most, because in moments
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: like this, someone has to step in and lower the temperature.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: It isn't going to come from the Speaker of the House.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: It isn't going to come from the Senate Democratic leader,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: the House Minority leader, the Senate Majority leader, the governor
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: of Colorado or Pennsylvania or California and New York or Florida,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: whatever it has to be. The president. Someone has to
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: say this is not who we are. But he's building
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: an entire brand claiming this is who we actually are.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Someone's got to step in here and say this stops now.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: We got to turn the temperature down. We got to
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: not govern in the most divisive ways possible. We don't
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: have enough of that. We don't have. Like I said,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know if we have the leaders to meet
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: the moment we need. We're going to see. It's what
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: presidential primary is about. I don't know if the two
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: political parties are capable of producing a leader that can
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: meet the moment. I think the leaders exist. I fear
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: the party bases won't allow those leaders to emerge. That
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: is why you've seen me so lean so hard into
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: an independent or third or fourth parties here, because we
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: kind of we need to force a reconciliation in these
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: two parties to just change their ways, starting with the
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: President and the Republican Party. But instead we keep moving
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: forward in this cycle. It's a little more escalation, it's
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: a little more normalization. It's a slightly lower barrier each time.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: And the question is and whether this will happen again,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: It's whether we're doing anything to make it less likely,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: and right now it doesn't feel like we are. And
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: that's the comfortable truth about all of this. Our political
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: culture was certainly had heated rhetoric, but it wasn't this
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: actively violent. Now it's actively violent. It's a regular basis, reporters,
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: members of Congress, and I see that literally, we have
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Congress right now is half filled with people that have
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: been produced by this culture, so they don't even know
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: how to engage in rhetoric to turn the temperature down. Instead,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: it's escalation, escalation, escalation, And I can hear the what aboutism.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: I've seen it on the right and I'm seeing it
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: pop up on the left now. But the fact is,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: looking at this through the lens of being a political anthropologist,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: this is what happens. You stoke violence, you celebrate violence,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: You pardon violent actors and violent criminals. You consistently pardon
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: white collar criminals all the time just because they're your friends.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: And you create a You create a world where people
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: don't respect the rule of law, people don't respect the
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: normal barriers of America, of civilization. So I saw one thing.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: We need some bipartisan commission on political violence. Give me
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: a frickin' break. We don't need a committee or a
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: commission to figure out how this happened. We know how
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: it happened. This era that we live in is being
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: led by somebody who celebrates political violent rhetoric, and it
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: has increased and increased and increased, and you're going to
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: get reactionary politics in response. I set it before. My
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: greatest fear was that the election of Trump a second
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: time was going to have people decide that the normal
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: rules don't apply, and it's time to quote fight fire
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: with fire, as you've heard, And there is no worse
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: outcome for our near term politics than a response to
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: this as fight fire with fire, and yet that's the
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: situation that feels like we're in. I would suggest to
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: some of my legacy media colleagues, let's not sanitize this.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: I'm already sniffing a lot of sanitization here. This is
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: not an isolated incident. This it continues to be a
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: culmination of a normalization of violent rhetoric and violent events,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: pure and simple. A few things about the future of
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: this dinner. Security wise, there were two loopholes this attacker exploited.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: If we are to believe everything we're hearing from government,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: and unfortunately, because of the track record of this Justice Department,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: needless to say, I kind of it is hard to
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: It is hard to find second and third sources when
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: you're dealing when the government's in charge of all the information.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: So let's just say, I, you know, eighty percent confident
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: in what we're getting, not one hundred, certainly not ninety.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: But if you if we take to understand that this
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: attacker took trains to get to DC, well, what's the
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: loophole by taking trains? There's you don't put your bags
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: through any X ray machines on on Amtrak. Right, if
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: you went from LA to Chicago sid you just sort of,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: you know, so he could bring everything he wanted to bring.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: No one was inspecting anything, right that, we don't have
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: any of that via on the train system. There's never
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: been a magnetometer that I've ever gone through getting on Amtrak.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: You can bring anything you want on that Amtrak train.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: No one's looking at your backs. Yes there is, Yes,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: there is dogs that you know, sort of sniff around
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: and perhaps they're bomb sniffing dogs and things like that,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: but they're not there to sniff whatever weapons you might
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: be deciding to pack with you. So there's loophole one,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: and then loophole two was booking a room at the HILP. Now,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: when I've traveled overseas and stayed in the same hotel
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: as a president, and I would say about half the
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: time that I traveled with the president when I was
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: a White House correspondent, not even less than half time
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: did I actually stay at the same hotel as the president.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: Most of the press court stays at a separate hotel,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: frankly because of security issues. But the press pool, if
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: you're going to be traveling in the presidential motorcade and
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: on Air Force one in and out, the press pool.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Will does stay at the same hotel, And when you
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: stay at the same hotel as a president overseas, everybody
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: goes through security magnets right at the lobby of the hotel.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: That has happened to me every time I've traveled overseas,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: or if I've stayed domestically in the same hotel that
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: the president is overnighting. But we don't do that for
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: hotels where the president's just going to be there for
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: an hour delivering a speech. But this is you know,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: so those are the two security loopholes. But I do
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: want to say from the get go, because there's a
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: lot of people trying this was a security failure. Actually
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: it wasn't. Security worked. Security, the security preters worked as intended.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: He didn't get through the he got nabbed in the
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: first line. Now you may argue that the first perimeter
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: should be further and there's you know, okay, well that
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: probably you know. But how this was secured, it worked.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Nobody got hurt, nobody was killed. Yes, we have one
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: secret serviceation that got that got hurt. Thankfully he's he's
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: survived the because he was wearing a bulletproof vest. But
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: the security perimeter worked. There was not a failure on
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: that front. And I think that's an important fact that
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: we have to just you know, because there's this is everything,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: there's almost a knee jerk overreaction, right, well, we got
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: to do this, you gotta do this. Got to be
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: somebody to blame here, you know this. They're not getting
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: paid and all this stuff, and people want to spend it.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: We've got to have the presidential ballroom. What are you
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: talking about? That has nothing to do with building the
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: presidential ballroom. And the presidential ballroom is not about security.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: The white House is a secure space. The building of
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: the presidential ballroom is because he just wants to have
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: giant events. He wants to have much bigger events. He
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: wants to put his stamp in the White House. There's
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: the Truman balcony. He wants the Trump Ballroom. All right,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: it's a vanity project. We all know it's a vanity project.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: It is kind of gross that there's this attempt to
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: use this incident as a rationale to somehow have the
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: government speed up the building of this vanity renovation project.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: How about going and solving the war of choice you
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: made in Iran? First of all number one, but number two,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: this is not and again this is not a White
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: House dinner. White House state dinners that's on the White
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: House grounds. You know, are we going to never have
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: presidents leave the bunker of the White House anymore? Look,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: we're a democracy. We have chosen this freedom, which means,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: and the President himself noted this, you cannot have security
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: if there is no such thing as one hundred percent
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: security from somebody that is determined to do something like this.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: There's just attempts to minimize the damage that can be
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: done by a lone wolf who snaps. And that's what
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: our that's what the Secret Service does quite well. But
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: it's kind of I just please, this is as dumb
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: and silly of a of a a spin attempt to
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: try to use this as a way to rationalize the
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: building of the ballroom for for this for a mythical
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: for this mythical security issue. And it please, the White
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: House is a very secure space. The size of the
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: ballroom is not about security. Just really that As for look,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: the White House press dinner, you know this, I wish
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: there were no cameras at it. If there were no
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: cameras out, you wouldn't draw the attention. If it doesn't
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: draw the attention, it's less likely to be a magnet
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: for violence and for protest and for all of these things.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: We don't the Grit Iron dinner wasn't put on camera.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: I wish the grid iindeer and stayed off the record,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: but it's not been put on camera. I guess they
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: invited cameras finally one year, which is just a terrible idea.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: But you know, it's just a trade association dinner. The
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: US Chamber of Commerce throws them Center for American Progress,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congrescionalspanic Caucus, everybody throws their
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: sort of organizational annual dinner. You know, it is not
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: a crime. It is not some sort of violation of
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: journalistic principles for journalists to get together and have dinner
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: and celebrate their their their industry. The lebrification of the
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: event was the miss was the gariant, disgusting mistake. And
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: by the way, that's on us as a press cort
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: right we allowed it to become this because it became, frankly,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: a great way to appease advertisers that news organizations were
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: desperate to appease so that we could keep our newsrooms
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: afloat this week in history avoided. We have a lot
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: to choose from. I mean, you know, we've the White
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: House Correspondence weekend, and there was another infamous White House
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Corspondent dinner that I also attended, that Donald Trump also attended,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: that had a huge news event, but we didn't know
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: it was happening at the time it was happening. And
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: of course it was the famous bin laden raid. That
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: is actually something that happened this week, but it's not
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: the moment I am choosing to focus on and do
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: as our history lesson of the week. Instead, we're going
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: to go back to the Cold War, to nineteen sixty.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: Did you figure out the clue by the way that
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: the incident was the inspiration for one of the most
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: for the names for one of the most famous rock
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: bands of my generation. Have you figured it out? You
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: still haven't found what you're looking for. But let me
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: begin just months before this week, in nineteen sixty, the
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: Cold War looked like something that could be managed. In Moscow,
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev stood
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: in a model American kitchen arguing about appliances, about prosperity,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: and about which system worked better. It was a tense confrontation,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: but it was contained. It made the rivalry between the
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: two superpowers look like something you could stage frankly, But
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: within a year version of the Cold War would start
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: to fall apart, not because of one crisis, but because
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: peace by piece the story stopped holding. So it's May one,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty. President Dwight Eisenhower's preparing for a summit with Khrushchev.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: There's costless optimism, but beneath that diplomacy, the real Cold
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: War is still being fought in secret. U two spy
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: planes flying deep over Soviet territory, high enough to be
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: considered untouchable. One of those planes is being flown by
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: a pilot named Francis Gary. Powers fly across the Soviet Union,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: photograph military sites. Return. That was the mission. The assumption
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: is simple, Even if detected, they can't stop you. You're
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: just too high in the sky. That was until May
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: first turns out a Soviet missile reaches that altitude, the
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: plane is hit, Powers ejects, He survives, descending by parachute
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: to Soviet territory, and like many pilots on missions like this,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: He's actually carrying something else, a coin with a concealed
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: poison needle inside a last resort. He doesn't use it.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: Back in the United States, officials lose contact with the plane.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: They assumed the pilot did not survive. So the United States,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: through the CIA, decides to tell a story. It wasn't
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: a spy mission. It was a weather plane that drifted
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: off course. Plausible, deniable, the kind of story governments tell
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: themselves and tell the public all the time. But this
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: time the other side knows exactly what happened. Khrushchev has
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: the wreckage, and he has the pilot alive, but he waits.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: He lets the United States tell the world its story,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: repeat it, stand by it, and then he reveals the truth.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: The pilot is alive. He confesses it was not a
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: weather plane, it was espionage. Well, the Eisenhower kruse Chef
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: summit collapses, But the real damage isn't diplomatic. It's credibility.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: Because the issue wasn't the spine. Everyone assumed that each
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: side was spying on the other. The issue was the story,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: more so for the public. The United States told one,
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: and it didn't hold We're supposed to be the good guys,
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: the truth. Well, once that happens, a different question starts
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: to creep in. That wasn't true. What else is it?
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: And here's what's striking. Remember this doesn't stop there. Within
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: a year, the United States backs an invasion of Cuba.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: A force of Cuban exiles lands at the Bay of Pigs,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: expecting support, expecting momentum, and instead it falls apart in
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: less than four days, captured, defeated, exposed, and for the
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: world watching, including Americans watching at home, there's no ambiguity
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: about what it was. Was not a spontaneous uprising, was
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: an American backed operation that failed quickly and publicly. President
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: John Kennedy goes on television and takes responsibility, but by
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: then the image is already set. At the same time,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: the United States is deepening its involvement in Vietnam, not
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: all at once, but step by step. Advisors become deployments,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: support becomes commitment. Always described as limited, temporary. Tell it isn't.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: And let's not forget this false story lands in a
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: country that had just come out of the era of
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: Joseph McCarthy, where Americans had already seen claims made with certainty,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: and trust stretched too thin to hold. So one incident
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: can be dismissed two starts to raise doubts. By the third,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: people aren't just questioning the event, they're questioning the explanation.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: Sound familiar. The early Cold War wasn't just a contest
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: of power. It was also a test of credibility. And
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: in just a few years a spyplane shot down, a
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: failed invasion for a coup, perhaps a war explained one way,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: but experienced another. The United States didn't just face pressure
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: from abroad. It began to lose something at home. Trust.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: By the way, this was all before Watergate. Sometimes a
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: turning point in history isn't something that happens. Isn't something
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: isn't when something happens. It's when people stop beliezing the
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: version of it that they're being told. The trust deficit
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: that we're all experiencing right now with government, with institutions
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: in general. Sometimes we forget this began even further than
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: we realize. So there you go. Now, do you know
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: what you're looking for? Now? Do you get the clue
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: I was given you out there? Ask Chuck? All right,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: let's take some questions first. One I love this. Steve Frank,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: Newport Beach, calif a fellow member of the two First
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: Names Club. Yes you are, but I bet you don't
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: get called Frank Steve right because Steve's not the last night.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: It's like with me, it's like I understand getting my
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: last name confused for a first name, just like with you, Steve.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: But where I struggle is like, oh, wait a minute,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: do you really think my last name is Chuck. It's
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: just like you really think your last name is Steve? Right?
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Like that's the It's always funny to me why when
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: people say, well, I'm not sure which name it is, Well,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: which one's least likely to be a last name. But anyway,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: I'm guessing you have the same frustrations at times that
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: I do. But hey, I turned my head for Chuck
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: Ortodd at this point. I'm guessing you turned your head
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: at Steve or Frank at this point. All Right, here's
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: a question. A huge fan going back to the hotline days,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: and now I'm hearing there are Chuck Todd trading cards.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: I remember you mentioning losing your quote new music pipeline
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: after your kids left for college, and I'm in a
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: similar spot. My daughter and I are even thinking about
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: starting a podcast to bridge the gap across generations. I
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: love that idea. What advice would you give amateur podcasters
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: trying to turn an idea into something real, even if
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: it's just for a small audience, Steve Frank, The number
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: one thing is consistency. You know, the biggest you know,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: the reason why most podcasts fail is people get tired
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: of doing it after two episodes, four episodes, eight episodes,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: stick to a schedule, stick to it. It is one
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: of those if you've ever heard of hockey, you know
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: the whole quote unquote hockey stick moment. Right. Well, the
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: reason it's called a hockey stick moment because, like in
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: any sort of anything you're building, sometimes it's a business,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: sometimes it's an audience, whatever it is, it's like, you
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: you know, a little, a little, a little, and then boom, right,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: it feels like it all happens at once. Look, I'll
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: be honest. As I've been building this audience, it was
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: sort of like we were grinding. We were grinding, and
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: we were grinding, and then suddenly we about six months in,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: we had our first bike, right, and you know, the
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: key is consistency it is posting. Look, you've got to
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: be platform agnostic. You got to go everywhere. You've got
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: to you know, when it comes to music, you've got
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: to be in You've got to sort of be on
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: top of the big moments in the that are happening
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: so that you can because unfortunately, the way the algorithms work, right,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: you don't get you you don't get you could have
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: a great podcast, but if you if you don't make
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: it into the algorithm, people aren't going to see it, right,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: It isn't going to get shared. So you've got to
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: sort of ride trends when they exist and try to
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: be relevant around them. Right, Like a simple thing might be,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: you know everybody's talking about us. You know, maybe there's
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: a certain new Tailor Swift album, so you know, ride
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: the Taylor Swift wave without doing Taylor Swift, and you know,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: you know, just do like you know, it's like something
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: adjacent so that you can sort of make it into
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: the algorithm and get some attention for what you're doing.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: But that's really and there's almost there's different Frankly, it's
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: just different ways each one of them work. I Mean,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: my guess is your your daughter might be better at
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: it at figuring out which algorithms work best for which audiences,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: et cetera. Look, the other challenge you're going to have
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: is music rights, right, so be sure to know you
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: know the limitations. You know, YouTube will just not include
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: you know, you may post something, but if the music,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: if they don't think you have the rights to the music,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: you know, all of a sudden you could get so
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: it could cost you traffic. So you do have a
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: little bit of an extra challenge on the licensing issue.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: So know your fair use rules very well. You know,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: you could do what my friend Tony Krnheiser does, which
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: is he only plays music people send in and get
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: permission from the owner of the license to air it.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: And they're very you know they're they're very They make
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: sure they have permission in writing, you know, they're still
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: waiting for Paul McCartney to give them permission, right, is
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: the joke. So you're you, you are going to need
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: to know some of those rules. I mean, it is
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: what makes music podcasts I think quite difficult because of
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: the of the licensing issues, right, Because in order to
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: showcase music and to share music, you want to play
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: a clip, right, So you know, be learning what your
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: clips are or you know, things like that. But the
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: but again, I go back to the single most important
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: thing is consistency of production. You know, if you're going
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: to be twice a week, always be twice a week,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: Always be at the same time, and be consistent. Right
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: the minute you start being in an inconsistent updater of
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: your podcast, you will not build an audience. People will forget,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: you'll stop being in their feeds, et cetera. So it
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: is the number one. It doesn't matter what topic you're doing.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: Consistency in a schedule, and frankly, once a week is
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: probably not enough if you want to grow audience long
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: long term. But if you're going to do it once
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: a week, realize it may take upwards of a year
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: for you to feel you know, so be sure you
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: enjoy doing it for yourself regardless, and just be consistent.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: That's the consistent about updating that matters more than anything.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: Good luck, let me know when you get it up
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: and running, we'll promote it all right. Next question comes
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: from Patrick in La and he says, hey, Chuck, let's
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: say quote asking for a friend on this one, How
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: does a nation apologize to the world. Well, what you
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: do is you don't go about just I would. I
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: think this is going to be a really tougher for
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: the next president. Then you realize what I think you
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: have to do is just other countries are not going
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: to just take our word. It doesn't matter how much
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: they like the next president. So it isn't going to
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: be a matter of apologizing. It is making agreements and
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: making America's word verified, not just trusted, but verified. Right
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: means putting pen to paper. It means getting congressional authority
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: when you need congressional authority. It means sort of following
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: the rule of law as you're going about. I don't
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: if we just go around saying sorry for the behavior
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: of our last president. Frankly, I think that all that
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: does is divide us more right, we need our next
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: president to not divide us. And you know you may disagree. Look,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: there were some tactics that I disagreed with my predecessor
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: and how he went about it, but he had the
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: best he had the best interests of the United States
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: in mind. I just disagree with how he went about
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: doing it, and I think he inadvertently alienated allies. Right,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: that is how I would sort of dispassionately say it,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: and I know you're going to have a hard time
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: trusting us. So here's what I pledged to you when
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: we sign this agreement on tariffs. It's putting here, I'm
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: taking it to Congress. Essentially, I'm it's like I'm getting
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: it notarized. I'm getting it. It's a version of that, right,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: we don't know notarize. But you get my point, right,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: is it is not just I don't think it's just
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. It's behavioral changes, and it is verifying the
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: trust that we're asking for. Right, We've you know the
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: famous phrase trust, but verify. We're gonna we're going to
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: We're not just taking the word of the Soviets. We're
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: going to create a system where we can verify that
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: they're keeping their word. And I think, unfore fortunately, America's
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: next president is going to have to create a verification
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: process for our allies to know that we're going to
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: keep our word, because that's the thing that we've got
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: to fix. Yes, apologizing might might be politically feel good
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: for your political base, but I actually think going about
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: it as as a straight up apology tours probably Nick
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: from Michigan Rights. Hey, I've been reading that Republicans are
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: openly hoping that Alito will retire from the Superian Court
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: and hopes it will just turn out from Republican voters
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: in the midterms. What do you think go a Supreme
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: Court vacancy meaningfully increase positive outcomes for the GOP the cycle. Well,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: the answer to that is it could. But this is
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: why you have some Republicans wanting this now. Because twenty eighteen,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: which was overall a pretty big Democratic year, particularly in
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: the House, Democrats actually lost two Senate seas and it
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: was Missouri and Indiana. Now they were two tough senence
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: heats to hold two incumbents who were sort of kind
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: of accidental winners the previous time, right Claire McCaskill won
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: thanks to Todd aiken legitimate rape comments, and Joe don
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: Lay won because Dick Lueger lost the primary to a
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: guy named Murdoch and was just considered too offside of
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: the mainstream. For Indiana, the next reelection was always going
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: to be hard, right, they sort of were accidental winners
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: in twenty twelve a little bit, and it was no
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: doubt they were uphill battles and then the Kavanaugh confirmation
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: turned raw personal, partisan polarizing in Indiana and Missouri are
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: redder states, and it fired up a base, Claire mccaskell believes,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: but for the Kavanaugh hearings, if there's no Supreme Court vacancy,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: there's just no debate about a Supreme Court, the Republican
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: base stays demoralized, and she might have been able to
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: eke it out. That's what she believes. It certainly made
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: it harder for Democrats in red leaning areas where the
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: base was fired up about Kavanaugh. So that's what this
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: is about. And so it means you know, now I
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: might argue, if you know, is it this is where
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: what's good might not be good politics? Right? So take
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: you know, the left is going to want to oppose
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: whatever nominee Trump makes to the Court on ideological grounds,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: and there may be a good case to make it
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: if you're on the left, the question is are you
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: getting anywhere with it? This is a conservative every place
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: conservative right. Alito has not exactly been a mainstream justice.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: He's sort of been on the he is I think
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: in the majority. He's not in the majority. Is often
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: as your Barratts Roberts as your Kavanaughs is your Kegans,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: as you'll learn from a terrific conversation and book from
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: Sarah Esker, And so I probably so I understand. So
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: what you're seeing is Republican hoping to replicate what happened
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: and thinking that all they they just want to save
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: this Senate. And when you look at what would be
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: seat three or four or five for the Democrats and
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: their pickups, you're looking at red leaning Ohi, red leaning, Iowa,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: red leaning Alaska. Right. This worked in the red leaning states.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: It didn't work in swing areas or blue leaning areas
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: the Kavanaugh outrage, but it did work in the red
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: leaning battlegrounds. And when you look at the battle for
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: the Senate in particular for Democrats, they have to basically
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: win in red leaning areas Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, Nebraska, right,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: those four, Montana, those five all red leaning. And so
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: what the average Republican strategies is, Hey, if we can
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: have recreate the political environment in October of eighteen, in
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: October of twenty six where the right fields marginalized and
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: outraged by whoever the Supreme Court nominee, is that that
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: could save the Senate. So I'm skeptical this can work
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: a second time, but I understand. But I'm trying to
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: explain why they think this, and that's what they're pointing to.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: And it did work for it did work for Republicans
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: in eighteen. Next question comes from Jeremy. He goes, Hey,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: love the podcast and appreciate the space you create for
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: political deep dies. I'm currently living in Japan, but spends
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: much of my adult life in Florida and grew up
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: in Missouri. I'm curious that Democrats can regain a foothold
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: in Missouri, which has shifted from a swing state to
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: reliably read even as voter support progressive politics like marijuana legalization,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: higher wages, and abortion rights. Where's the disconnect? Is it branding,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: messaging or something deeper? And is the Missouri Democratic Party
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: even trying to make the state competitive again? Thanks Jeremy,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: So I would answer the last question first. I don't
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: think the Missouri Democratic Party is even trying anymore. And
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: I say that I'm being a little probably snarky about it,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: but it does feel like a bit of a give
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: up now. Part of it is the suburban swing voter
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: in Kansas City now lives in the camp across the
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: state lines in Kansas, and I have a feeling that
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: if you're blue leaning, suburban knighted in Saint Louis, you
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: might be on the Illinois side of it things now
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: rather than in the Missouri side of things. Right. So,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: whether it's on abortion rights, right, if that's something you
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: know you're going to live across the river, whether it's
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: whether you're in Kansas, whether you're right both of both
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: states that have codified. So there's a small part of
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: me that wonders if it's become self selecting over time. Right.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: I take you know, I've been saying that Missouri and
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: Kansas are essentially switching places. Right. Missouri was a swing
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: state that kind of had some some rural conservative vote. Right.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: Kansas was the you know, hom a Bob Dole, right,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: mister Republican. And what you've seen in the twenty first
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: century is that Missouri has become more like a southern
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: you know, it has. It is arguably it looks more
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: like a Arkansas or in Alabama in its rural areas
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: than it does like a Kansas in Iowa or in Illinois.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: And I just think that what you've seen is sort
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: of Missouri was a Midwestern state in the twentieth with
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: culturally Midwestern in the twentieth century. It is now culturally Southern,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: I think, in the twenty first century. And then you've seen,
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: like I said, the biggest thing is the shrinkage of
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: Saint Louis in general. Right, And this is what I
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: think if you're really wanting to understand how you know,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: essentially Saint Louis being gutted as a major city. When
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: I say gutted, right, They've had a lot of industries
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: that just sort of disappeared. You go to downtown Saint
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: Louis and it just feels like a shell of its
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: former self. You know, this was a place that was
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: a hub. It was a headquarters for a major airline
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: twa aneaer Bush is really only symbolically headquartered in Saint
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: Louis anymore, right as IMBEV this huge international poration, I
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: think the CEO is actually in New York these days,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: not in Saint Louis. Again, they have the symbolic headquarters
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: of Anheuser Bush and Saint Louis. But it is, it is,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: it is, it is. It is literally a shell of
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: its former self. So you know, it was a time
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: Saint Louis as a city was you know, closer to
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: being Chicago and Dallas than it was being Wichita or
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: in Omaha. And I don't say that as Knox. It
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: just it's just shrunk. It shrunk in relevance. And then
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: of course you know it's it's it had some international
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: it had magnets that attracted new people into it. It
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: attracted so as that disappeared, you almost had almost like
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: a contraction certainly of Saint Louis and the Saint Louis
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: metro area. So that that's kind of what I chalk
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: it up to, like a long term that this has
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: just been a long term, that the the sort of
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: d major fying of Saint Louis as a major city.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: And I kind of think Saint Louis needs a revival
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: plan the way Detroit got one right. And you know,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: I remember, when I think I've said this before, I remember
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: when the Amazon ad was was doing a country wide
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: search for a new place for headquarters. I was really
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: pulling for Saint Louis. I have family there, I'm very
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: familiar with it from a previous previous iteration in my life,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: and it's a it's it. I actually think it's a
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: it's a terrific place to put a headquarters in the
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: central part of the country that has an easy to
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: get to airport, Like you know, it should be easier
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: to get around than a Chicago or even a Dallas.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: But both Chicago and Dallas have just sort of they're
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: they're the central they're the central tent poles, uh in
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: the middle of the country now for regional stuff or
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: gatherings and things like this, and Saint Louis is just
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: sort of given up that. And I just think that that,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: you know, there's sort of the downsizing of Saint Louis
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: in general for a variety of reasons why it has
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: has been probably as big of a contributor to moving
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: Missouri out of the battle as anything else. So if
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: I were in charge of the national Party for the Democrats,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: I'd actually be you know you certainly I think you
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: know it would be go solve your Saint Lewis problem first,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: then start worrying about the rest of the state. And instead,
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: I think Kansas is ready to be a swing state.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: That's where I be invested. Next question comes from Adam B.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: And Charlestown, West Virginia. He says, hey, big fan here.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: Seeing a recent interview with former presidents made me reflect
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: on how, despite political differences, many still feel a level
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: of respect for past leaders. Do you think Donald Trump
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: will continue to provoke strong, polarized reactions long after his
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: presidency or will time soften those divisions? And if not,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: is that more about his leadership style or the modern
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: media environment. Thanks for everything you do, Adam b. Look,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: I'm inclined to believe it's his leaderships, you know, like
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: anything you get out of something that you put into it. Right,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: If you if you lead with division, you're going to
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: get division as a response. If you try to lead
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: with a sense of unity, you mean, if people don't
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: agree with your definition of what unity looks like, you're
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: going to be received, at least not positively as someone
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: who wanted to bring people together. Right. You know, I
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: was thinking about this when I was putting together that
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: opening monologue about sort of how Donald Trump has handled
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: divisive times versus say, how George W. Bush did. George W.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: Bush made sure right after nine to eleven to make
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: it clear to the Muslim world we were not at
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: war with them. And that people shouldn't be taking out
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: their anger on members of that faith. Went out of
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: his way to do that after nine to eleven? Do
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: you think this president would have done that? So my
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: point is is that I think that what you're experiencing
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: is you know, and I think you could feel it
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: in the genuine affection that many Americans have for George W. Bush,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: who probably didn't vote for him the second time perhaps
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: or don't want to, or didn't vote for him the
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: first time, or maybe didn't vote for him at all,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: because he cared you know, you know, you cannot say
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: he didn't care about the country and he didn't care
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: about people. You may have disagreed with his tactics, you
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: may have disagreed with his policies, but you you got
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: a sense that he genuinely cared about the country and
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: he genuinely cared about everybody, even people that he disagreed with.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: You know, Donald Trump wants to deport people that disagree
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: with him. He's openly talked about it. So you know,
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: if you you get back what you put into it.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: And to answer your question, will Donald Trump continue to
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: provoke strong polarized reactions long after his presidency or will
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: time soften those divisions. It's up to him to soften
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: the divis. It's not up to the rest of us.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: It's up to him. Steven, Orange County, long time, first
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: time as a recovering Polly seinerd. Your commentaries bring back
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: fond memories of lectures from my favorite political science professors
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: in college decades ago. That can I just stop right there, Steve,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: that is the single best compliment you can's that's I
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: am tinily hoping. I just want to be I want
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: to make it fun and interesting. So thank you. During
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: one of your recent podcasts, you said the writing is
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: on the wall that Trump is in lame Duk territory.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: Since Trump almost certainly will not go quietly into the
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: night like most of his predecessors, how likely is it
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: that there will be a bigger faction of Republicans willing
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: to push back against him without going the way of
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: Jeff Flake, Bensas or Tom Tillis Someone's besides from Paul
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: at least. Thanks well. I think you know as you see,
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: it's sort of it starts incrementally. If Thomas Massey survives
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: as primary. I think that's another step and you'll see
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: more one of these things is nobody wants to be first.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: But as as more Republicans survive the wrath of Trump,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: then you know, so Tom Tillis's protests worked. It got
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: Trump and the Justice Department to back down on their
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: trump up charges against Powell. Right, as more Republicans see
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: certain things work and the pushback works, then more will
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: get comfortable doing it. So I think it's one of
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: those things. This is why, just politically, if you're Donald Trump,
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: you care so much about this Thomas Massey primary more really,
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: more than anything else, because he has put this guy
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: on blast for almost a year now, and if he
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: can't take him out in as Republican of an area
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: as you can find in Kentucky, in theory a mega area,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: that will stiffen the spine of a lot of Republicans
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: who maybe you're quiet right now, but would like to
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: push back. So it's one of those things that every
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: every little incremental pushback of the president, every stumble, every
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: special election loss, only increases the courage of those who
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: realize they're the ones left holding the bag and the bill,
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: and then they'll start to get a little and little
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: a little more each time. I don't ever expect this
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: to look like a rush and a flip and a
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: sea change. It will be one of those things, more
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: like the hockey stick where all of a sudden, you're like,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: holy cow, third of the party is now voting against
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: him regularly. Now, that might not happen until the summer
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: of twenty eight, but you're starting. I do believe that
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: it's sort of we're in the stages, and it's one
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: of those things that it's like, you know, we never
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: we always know when recessions begin, but not until left
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: the fact, it's kind of with lame duck status, you know,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: is it right now? Has it already begun? Did it?
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: You know, did it begin with the you know, you
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: know with the twenty five elections. You know, we'll we'll
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: we'll post date this at some point. But we're in
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: the uh, we're definitely in the in the landing zone
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: of lame duck, of lame duckness. Take one more question,
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: so number seven here, uh, Lisa, Then we will save
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: eight and nine for the next episode. Andy, why from
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: a Milliewauk rights You mentioned recently that Trump maybe setting
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: vance up to fail, and it made me wonder if
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: vancies that too. Could he be positioning himself to benefit
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: it from it? Long term? Is there a scenario where
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: he distanced himself at the right moment to capture voters
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: who are aligned with Trump's agenda but fatigued by him personally?
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: Are the risks of staying tied to Trump too high
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: for that to be a viable strategy? Best Andy, Why Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Well,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: we actually the question would be have has Trump had
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: a vice president who tried to do this? The answer
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: is yes, right, I was thinking about Pence the whole
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: time that you were asking this question. And I know
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: what Pence thought to himself starting in January of twenty
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: twenty one, and frankly thought all the way through when
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: he started running for president in January of twenty twenty three,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: that there was a scenario where he would distance himself
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: at the right moment January six, that he could capture
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: voters who were aligned with Trump's agenda, that you know
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: that he agreed with what Trump was trying to do,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: He just didn't like what he was doing and they
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: were tired of him personally. That was Pence's theory of
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: the case. It is still Pence's theory of the case.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: I think long term, Like, I think he really is
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: playing a long game. He's trying to start an alternative
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: heritage that he wants to be the guy if there,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: if this version of the concert servative movement collapses, and
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of evidence that Trump's movement will collapse
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: at some point, Pence wants to be the guy organizing
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: the next conservative movement or sort of a revitalized version
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: of it. So, but I ask you, I'll flip it
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: to you, is that, you know, if that's a long game?
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: You know, is can both these guys be playing the
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: long game like this, right? Or I am more inclined
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: to believe that the stain of Trump is too hard
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: to get rid of and then it is too difficult
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: to try to be to try to be a half
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: measure version of it. We're going to find out, right,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: I think you're going to have a variety of candidates
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: who say that they're you know, they're they're the real
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: Maga movement, and you know, I think I think that's
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: how Ran Paul might position himself. And I think Pennce
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: is going to position himself as more of a traditional
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: conservative who's who's also moral upstanding, you know, I think
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: it's Vance that is. You know, Vance has never really
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: been a part of any of any any politic you know,
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: He's never really had success being his own, having his
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: own political identity, right, His entire political identity was rescued
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: by Donald Trump with that endorsement in the Senate primary
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two. So Pence had a political identity
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: before Donald Trump, right. In fact, Donald Trump needed a
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: Mike Pence. Donald Trump didn't need a Jadvance, just the opposite, right,
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: Vance needed Trump. So that's why I'm skeptical that there's
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: any any sort of you know, Rubio is more likely
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: to have the ability, because again, he had a political
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: identity pre Trump Vance and didn't really have a sustainable
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: put right, you know, once he started running for office,
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: he tried, he tried to do it with his own
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: political identity and couldn't and instead just sort of my
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: most cynical version of it, Peter Teal bought the Trump
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: endorsement for Bants hard stop right in some form or another,
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: and here we are. And that's why I'm I'm pretty
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: skeptical on that front. All Right, a few draft reactions.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: Number One, I'm really happy for Carson Beck pretty cool
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: that he's QB three. Look, he understood he has been
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: in two different offenses, and I think that that just
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: helps you transition better. So I do think he'll transition well.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: He does well in the scripted portion. You know, he
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: struggles a little bit when when offensive line protection falls behind,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: and we'll see I mean, he was behind arguably one
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: of the best offensive lines in the history of the
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: University of Miami. He's not going to have that right
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: away at Arizona, but he's going to get a chance.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm guessing he'll be the starter by somewhere
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: in the you know, barring injury or something like that,
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: or just a total inability to get the playbook, which
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: I just find unlikely. You know, he's going to get
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: a real chance, and you just you don't know if
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: you're going to get a situation where you get it.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: So I'm just happy he's going to get a chance.
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: It's Arizona, we know it's Uphill. You know, that's a
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: franchise that just never seems to get out of its
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: own way, right, But now get to have Trey McBride
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: to throw four that three. That's pretty good. He's got
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: Marvin Harrison there, he's got Jeremiah Love. I mean, there's
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: some interesting tools there. I mean, he's so I'm happy
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: for him. That's exciting. I'm trying to remember the last
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: time in the nursery of Mimmy had two starting quarterbacks
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: simultaneously in the NFL. I think we have to go
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: back to the Vidie Bernie era for that. So that's
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: that would be That would be fun. Look, the you
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: got to say, got to got to give the Packers credit.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: What they told the press before the draft is what
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: they did. They said they need to work on cornerback.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: First pick was a quarterback with a C by the
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: way corner and that quarter a little bit of a
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: project out of South Carolina, but huge athletic upside. But frankly,
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: this is what the Packers do, right. They loved draft
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: guys like that are just you know, I have all
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: this athletic ability, but you know, need a refinement here,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: a refinement there. Their believers in their system, and frankly,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: it usually works out pretty well. I mean, you know,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: I would put the Packers up against anybody in their
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: record of particularly I just feel like they kill it
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: frequently kill it in the second round. First round, they
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: can be all over the map. So needless to say,
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: I liked our first round pick this year because it
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: was Michael Parsons. We traded it away as part of
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: that trade. So I like that. One other note that
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: I think is interesting about the draft that you know,
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: so there's been all this stuff about nil and how
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: the last three rounds of the draft there was just,
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: you know, the talent fell off a cliff because those
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: tweener players, those players that had some upside now stay
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: in college an extra year, they get refined, and then
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: they end up being drafted in one of the first
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: three rounds. Right, So you have this what you have
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: right now, is you have is you have the first
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: you know, I think the first seventy players off the
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: board all now, if you know, they've all played quite
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: a few snaps. There's a few exceptions. Ty Simpson's an exception,
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: but they've all played a lot of college ball, right
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: where there's fewer that are coming out early for the
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: money because you're actually better off staying getting the money, right.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, David Bailey is as good of an example
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: as anybody, right, He's a guy that contemplated going to Harvard,
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: decides to go to Stanford, gets his degree early, then
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: ends up playing one year in Texas Tech, and Nne
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: becomes the number two overall pick. Right. Cam Ward is
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: another one right from last year for Nanna. Mendoz is
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: another one he could have after graduating Cal left early
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: and then would have been a third or fourth round pick.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: So you've done all this. Here's something else that I
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: noticed right the top ten picks. First pick was in
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: the playoff, Second pick was in the playoff, Third pick
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: was Notre Dame should have been in the playoff. Fourth
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: pick was in the playoff. Fifth pick was in the playoff.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: Sixth pifth with LSU not in the playoff. Seventh pick
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: was in the playoff. Eighth pick was not in the playoff,
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: neither was the ninth pick, but the tenth pick was. Right.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: You start to go through here, and the first round
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: is just essentially the entire top ten Indiana, Texas Tech,
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: Notre Dame, Ohio State, Miami, Alabama, Oregon, Georgia, Texas, A
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: and M. And then you look at the schools that
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: weren't in the top ten, that had players LSU projected
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: to be there. Arizona State a playoff team the year before,
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: Utah projected to be a contender for there. Penn State
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: was supposed to be there, Clemson was supposed to be there,
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: Florida was supposed to be better than they were, usc
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: was supposed to be there, you know, So it is
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: I think what you're seeing is just what NIL is doing,
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: which is it You're going to have more prepared for
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: More first rounders are going to be starters in the
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: NFL than ever before, more second rounders, and more third rounders.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: Then you're going to have this just sort of a
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: lot more experimental picks. So this is where I think
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: over the next couple of years, you'll start to see
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: more of the foreign academies get into the fourth, fifth,
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: and sixth round where instead of drafting somebody who didn't
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: get noticed by the POWERFO conferences and paid NIL money
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: to come join them, you know, taking a flyer and
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: somebody at North Dakota State, they you'd rather take a
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: flyer and somebody that went through the Australia Academy or
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: went through the Canada Academy, went through Canadian high school.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: I just think you're going to see more of more
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: that more diverse, because ultimately you know they want they
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: want these picks to matter, and you may see also
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: more teams trade away these fifth, sixth, and seventh round
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: picks and they start to seem less valuable, more experimental.
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: But look, everything is, We're still only two or three
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: years into Like this feels like the first draft of
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: the more mature in IL era. And it's why I
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: think the last part of the draft really is filled
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: with guys that are probably not going to make the team.
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: Where before you still thought you were drafting special teams
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: guys in the sixth and seventh round, and I think
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: it's just less likely, less likely you're going to have that.
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: All Right, the next time I see you, how many
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: NBA First round matchups will be over? Will it be done?
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: Will it be done in Houston? That's the big question
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: I have. Right you will next hear from me, We
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: will tape. I will tape on Tuesday. You will next
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: hear from the air. How many series will be officially
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: over by the time I drop on Wednesday morning? One,
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: two or three? I'm gonna guess just I'm gonna guess two.
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with two, But we shall see. All
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: right with that, I've gone quite a bit. Obviously, I
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: had a lot to say about the weekends incidents. I
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: heard from a lot of you appreciate it. Don't worry
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: about me. We know I do know. I'd like to
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: think I know how to keep my head on a
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: swivel and I sort of look at all of these
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: events with eyes wide open. But we all need to
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: be vigilant out there a little bit. Number one and
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: number two, we all need to do our part to
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: de escalate, depolarize. Our institutions are geared towards polarizations, the
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: algorithms are geared towards polarizations. We as voters have to
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: find less polarizing people and be putting them in leadership positions.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: You know, we need to fix some of the systems, right.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: We got to get rid of parson primaries, no doubt
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: about it. That's a massive contributor to this. But the
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: partisan leadership, right, partisanal primaries give us more partisan leadership.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: And of course we have a president who is intentionally
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: divisive and all of that trickles down. So we all
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: have some work to do, but it starts with demanding better,
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: more moderate and temperament. Moderate does not mean some sort
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: of uncomfortable compromise between the left and right. Moderate means
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: for me, temperament matters more. Temperament and character matter more
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: in making a president than ideology or policy position. And
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: with that a sail for eight hours.