Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - Biggest Takeaways From Tuesday’s Primaries + Trump’s Obsession With The Reflecting Pool…Explained

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Chuck’s Commentary - Biggest Takeaways From Tuesday’s Primaries + Trump’s Obsession With The Reflecting Pool…Explained · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: three four three nine eight five. Hello, They're happy Thursday,
2:18
Speaker 1: and welcome to another episode of the Chuck Podcast. Look,
2:23
Speaker 1: we've got a lot to get to. I want to
2:25
Speaker 1: unpack more about Tuesday. It's not just Michigan. I could
2:28
Speaker 1: argue that the most Michigan was the Marquee race. Kansas
2:36
Speaker 1: is the underrated story of the night, and we're going
2:38
Speaker 1: to get to that in a moment. We've got Groundhog
2:42
Speaker 1: Day in Iran, which feels like something I've said before
2:45
Speaker 1: about groundhog Day in Iran and more groundhog Day in Iran,
2:48
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. So we will get to that
2:51
Speaker 1: as well. But look, we've got a lot to get to.
2:54
Speaker 1: And you know, many of you, you know, the thing
2:57
Speaker 1: that I have made a living on for over thirty
3:00
Speaker 1: years is elections and campaigns and what this all means.
3:04
Speaker 1: And you know, I have to tell you the Michigan,
3:07
Speaker 1: this Michigan Democratic primary in the Senate, this is going
3:10
Speaker 1: to be a data set that will keep delivering. What
3:13
Speaker 1: we have learned this week in Michigan is going to
3:16
Speaker 1: inform the presidential primary season in twenty twenty eight. In fact,
3:20
Speaker 1: this may be the best piece of new information we
3:23
Speaker 1: have going into twenty twenty eight at least understanding how
3:26
Speaker 1: big is the electorate, how big is the progressive electorate,
3:29
Speaker 1: how big is the resistance to the progressives. So there's
3:35
Speaker 1: just a lot to unpack, and I want to slow
3:36
Speaker 1: down and spend a few minutes with it with you here,
3:39
Speaker 1: and of course i'll have my top five list after
3:43
Speaker 1: the interview, and of course we will take some of
3:45
Speaker 1: your questions. And boy, there's a part of me that
3:48
Speaker 1: would like to mourn the end of my baseball season.
3:51
Speaker 1: You may not realize this, but apparently the Washington Nationals
3:55
Speaker 1: have decided to stop competing for the rest of the season. Unfortunately,
3:58
Speaker 1: they no longer and score runs. The team that had
4:01
Speaker 1: the best lineup in baseball all year long, the single
4:04
Speaker 1: best lineup in baseball all year long, has been now
4:07
Speaker 1: completely dismantled. And as my friend Tony corn I would
4:13
Speaker 1: like to say, hey, look, I understand we're trying to
4:14
Speaker 1: build for tomorrow, but at some point, well tomorrow ever
4:17
Speaker 1: come and this season was such a tease for all
4:22
Speaker 1: of us Nats fans, and then literally yank the carpet
4:25
Speaker 1: right from under us. I mean, it's this is what
4:28
Speaker 1: I thought they weren't going to do. To us again,
4:30
Speaker 1: and they didn't even give us five months to enjoy
4:33
Speaker 1: the Nats and here they go screwing the fans again.
4:38
Speaker 1: It's a bummer. And come on, guys, I at least
4:45
Speaker 1: would like to hear you explain yourself and explain why
4:49
Speaker 1: you traded Luis Garcia for nothing, for almost nothing. Okay,
4:55
Speaker 1: I hope I'm wrong. I hope you guys prove me wrong.
4:57
Speaker 1: I hope there's a cy young candidate that you've acquired.
5:00
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's a bummer. And I say it because
5:04
Speaker 1: I've told you this. My evenings with the Nats are
5:08
Speaker 1: sacred to me for that six months a year, and
5:11
Speaker 1: it's been such a joy for half this season to
5:15
Speaker 1: have something to look forward to, to realize that we're
5:17
Speaker 1: going to be competitive in every game. And then what
5:20
Speaker 1: did they do? They rip this apart again from the fans,
5:24
Speaker 1: as you are testing the patience of the fans. At
5:27
Speaker 1: some point, build a winner for today and maybe try
5:31
Speaker 1: to win today instead of always searching for a tomorrow
5:34
Speaker 1: that may never come. All right, fan rant aside, Let's
5:41
Speaker 1: get to the topics for why you tune into the
5:43
Speaker 1: Chuck Podcast, which I of course advertise as politics. For
5:47
Speaker 1: the rest of us. So let's get to it. So, look,
5:49
Speaker 1: it's been a week, and I'll mean that in a
5:50
Speaker 1: way where you I looked up, I've looked up later
5:54
Speaker 1: this week. I like, is it Friday yet? And we're
5:56
Speaker 1: not even you know, we're not even. We're just over
5:59
Speaker 1: the hump on the halfway part, and you realize you
6:02
Speaker 1: may have even lost track of what happened on Tuesday. So,
6:05
Speaker 1: like I said, we're going to go deep on the primaries,
6:08
Speaker 1: particularly Michigan, Kansas, and a little bit in Missouri. There's
6:12
Speaker 1: something you know, Yes, Virginia and Washington State had some
6:14
Speaker 1: primaries too, but realistically Michigan, Kansas, and Missouri are where
6:18
Speaker 1: there are stories that are worth knowing about. In fact,
6:21
Speaker 1: I think you know, obviously most of the mainstream press
6:25
Speaker 1: and correctly so, should be focused on the fallout of
6:29
Speaker 1: Michigan and what's happening out of there, because this is
6:31
Speaker 1: certainly a more competitive general election now than it would
6:34
Speaker 1: have been had Hailey Stevens been the nominee. It doesn't
6:37
Speaker 1: mean I think I'll do a LSI I can't win
6:38
Speaker 1: this race. In fact, I still think you have to
6:41
Speaker 1: make him this slight favorite. But we do know that
6:44
Speaker 1: the Republicans are going to go full of Islamophobia on this,
6:47
Speaker 1: and the question is is it going to work. You
6:50
Speaker 1: could look at what happened in the Republican primary where
6:52
Speaker 1: somebody with a perhaps Muslim sounding name I'm here in
6:56
Speaker 1: Nissan in that Republican House primary, who ends up losing.
7:01
Speaker 1: He was the Trump endorsed candidate, and he loses to
7:04
Speaker 1: a candid who dropped out because he didn't get the
7:05
Speaker 1: Trump endorsement, but he didn't have a Muslim sounding name
7:10
Speaker 1: or what could be confused for that. And it's just
7:14
Speaker 1: a it's a real warning for vivik Ramaswami who hopes
7:18
Speaker 1: to do something that no person of color has done
7:21
Speaker 1: in Ohio, particularly for the governorship in Ohio. So it's
7:24
Speaker 1: just a there's, like I said, there's a lot of
7:27
Speaker 1: little lessons out of here, even as everybody focuses on
7:29
Speaker 1: the one big story out of Michigan. And of course
7:33
Speaker 1: we've got a primary in Wisconsin in six days from
7:36
Speaker 1: now that I think is perhaps the next big test
7:39
Speaker 1: to find out about this divide in the Democratic Party,
7:44
Speaker 1: if you will. And of course there's overseas. While you
7:47
Speaker 1: were sleeping, it looks like this administration is going to
7:50
Speaker 1: accept an outcome in the straight of horror moves that
7:52
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna have to be honest about and
7:54
Speaker 1: say we it's a form of surrender. We are surrendering
7:58
Speaker 1: control of the straight of horror moves to Iran, something
8:01
Speaker 1: we did not It did not happen before we started
8:04
Speaker 1: this war. It's quite frustrating, but it's funny. You know,
8:10
Speaker 1: the President of the United States is having to deal
8:13
Speaker 1: with this debacle that self made in the Middle East,
8:16
Speaker 1: and yet it leads to the question, why is the
8:18
Speaker 1: leader of the free world, with a war going sideways
8:21
Speaker 1: and an economy understrained, spending his energy on a reflecting
8:25
Speaker 1: pool in Washington, DC. Well, let's just say I've got
8:29
Speaker 1: a theory, and it's the theory that will tie much
8:31
Speaker 1: of this hour together, and I will get there a
8:34
Speaker 1: little bit. Plus the twenty fifth anniversary of September eleventh,
8:40
Speaker 1: it comes up very soon, and I fear that it's
8:44
Speaker 1: going to be one of the ugliest ones we've ever had.
8:47
Speaker 1: That the weaponization of it, the politicization of it, the
8:50
Speaker 1: attempt to single out to You're going to see it
8:56
Speaker 1: with Mamdani in New York, with abduell Lsied in Michigan.
9:01
Speaker 1: That's going to be I think we're not going to
9:04
Speaker 1: have a unifying nine to eleven anniversary on the twenty
9:07
Speaker 1: fifth anniversary. I think I fear that this is going
9:10
Speaker 1: to be one of the uglier weeks we've had in politics.
9:14
Speaker 1: And to think it's a moment like a nine to
9:16
Speaker 1: eleven anniversary that it comes and you know, I think
9:20
Speaker 1: we know what's coming when we've seen that the we've
9:24
Speaker 1: already seen that the Republican campaign against Abdul Sied decided
9:27
Speaker 1: to add yet another middle name and added Muhammad. They
9:30
Speaker 1: want to do everything they can do make him sound
9:32
Speaker 1: as Muslim as possible. There certainly is a theory of
9:37
Speaker 1: the case of how Republicans think they can win the
9:39
Speaker 1: Michigan center race. We shall see. The best thing that
9:43
Speaker 1: may have happened to Abduel Sied is he almost lost.
9:47
Speaker 1: Why do I say that, Well, he was getting a
9:48
Speaker 1: little cocky in the last week. They were dunking on
9:51
Speaker 1: the establishment, and then he almost lost this primary and
9:55
Speaker 1: he realized, hey, it's going to take a village if
9:58
Speaker 1: they want to actually win the Senate seat. So the
10:00
Speaker 1: fact that you have a little bit of a of
10:03
Speaker 1: an abduels I had with a little bit of humility
10:05
Speaker 1: which we hadn't seen in a while, might actually be
10:08
Speaker 1: the best thing for him. Had he won this race
10:10
Speaker 1: sort of the way all the supposed poles set, he
10:12
Speaker 1: would fifty five to forty five, he might he might
10:18
Speaker 1: have been a little cocky, and he might have not
10:21
Speaker 1: He might end up positioning himself in a way that
10:23
Speaker 1: would make this race even harder. But I promise you
10:26
Speaker 1: this is going to be extraordinarily close race. Republicans don't
10:29
Speaker 1: have many pick up opportunities anymore in Senate races. Basically,
10:34
Speaker 1: you know, on paper they had Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, in
10:37
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, right, three of them are open seats, New Hampshire, Michigan,
10:41
Speaker 1: and Minnesota, and then you had Georgia. Georgia now looks done.
10:45
Speaker 1: You know, they don't have a shot there. Their nominee
10:47
Speaker 1: is imploding. And Mike Collins New Hampshire I'm a skeptic of,
10:54
Speaker 1: but it's still a you know, you got two former
10:56
Speaker 1: senators running against each other, and johnn Eason NU and
10:59
Speaker 1: Scott Brown with Sununu being the endorsed candidate of Donald Trump,
11:05
Speaker 1: and then and of course brother of chrisnu who's still
11:07
Speaker 1: quite popular in New Hampshire. But Chris Poppas has been
11:10
Speaker 1: running a very disciplined campaign, hasn't has has not tried
11:14
Speaker 1: to be as my friend Charlie Cook likes to call it,
11:16
Speaker 1: an exotic candidate, if you will. And then Minnesota, look,
11:22
Speaker 1: the pillow man has totally ruined the Republican Party's chances
11:26
Speaker 1: of any statewide. You know, I think the Republicans actually
11:28
Speaker 1: have potentially a good candidate, Michelle Tafoya, former USPN sportscaster,
11:33
Speaker 1: and in fact, I expect her a in twenty twenty
11:37
Speaker 1: eight to possibly run. There's going to be a special
11:39
Speaker 1: election to fill the remainder of Amy Clovershar's term, because
11:44
Speaker 1: I don't think Aba Clovershar is going to be losing
11:46
Speaker 1: to Mike Lindell or whatever comes out of that Michigan
11:49
Speaker 1: Republican primary. But what could have been an opportunity because
11:54
Speaker 1: there is a same sort of movement versus governing wing
11:58
Speaker 1: of the party split in Minnesota that we've seen in Michigan.
12:03
Speaker 1: In theory, there's an opportunity to exploit that. But I
12:06
Speaker 1: think that Mike Lindell, mister Pelloman is going to make
12:09
Speaker 1: it where the Minnesota Republican Party just can't can't get
12:13
Speaker 1: out of its own way. But I want to start
12:15
Speaker 1: in Michigan, and I want to start, frankly, with the
12:20
Speaker 1: part of the story that most people haven't focused on.
12:25
Speaker 1: It appears that Abdul al Sayad's winning margin is going
12:28
Speaker 1: to be under twenty thousand votes. Last time I checked,
12:33
Speaker 1: it was of right around fifteen thousand votes. What's remarkable
12:37
Speaker 1: about Abduel Sayad's victory in the Democratic primary in Michigan
12:42
Speaker 1: is he didn't carry a single county in the Detroit
12:45
Speaker 1: In that Detroit media right, Oakland, McComb, the two most
12:48
Speaker 1: famous suburban counties in America ann Wayne County, which is
12:51
Speaker 1: home to Detroit. Those three counties, you know, a huge
12:54
Speaker 1: chunk of the Democratic primary vote. Haley Stevens carried all
12:57
Speaker 1: three counties, not by a ton, She didn't win any
12:59
Speaker 1: of them by double digits, but she carried all three counties.
13:03
Speaker 1: And you would think if I told you that, I'm
13:05
Speaker 1: sure most of you would go, well, if you can't
13:07
Speaker 1: win those three counties, how do you win a Democratic primary. Well,
13:10
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you how abdu Elsaied won the Democratic primary.
13:13
Speaker 1: He won it thanks to Grand Rapids. He won it
13:16
Speaker 1: thanks to gerald Ford Republicans. Because the real story of
13:20
Speaker 1: this election is what is not what happened with the
13:24
Speaker 1: uncommitted vote from twenty twenty four, or the Arab American
13:28
Speaker 1: vote in Dearborn, or the African American vote in Detroit
13:31
Speaker 1: and Wayne County, or the suburban vote all over Oakland.
13:38
Speaker 1: Abdul al Saied won Kent County, home of Grand Rapids,
13:42
Speaker 1: by just under thirty thousand votes, two times his winning
13:47
Speaker 1: margin statewide. So when you're looking where did a duel
13:51
Speaker 1: el Sayed win this Senate race, he won it in
13:56
Speaker 1: gerald Ford's home town. Stick with me a minute. It
14:05
Speaker 1: was somewhat surprising to me the turnout in Kent County.
14:08
Speaker 1: By the way I went through this, You see, I
14:11
Speaker 1: know some people use AI. I am a database nerd,
14:15
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting here doing all my little notes here
14:17
Speaker 1: and all this stuff. Only two times in primaries going
14:22
Speaker 1: back freely for most of the twenty first century, because
14:25
Speaker 1: the data on the Kent County website goes back to
14:27
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, the Democrats have only outpolled the
14:32
Speaker 1: Republicans in competing primaries. Whether it's for the US Senate,
14:36
Speaker 1: governor or president where more total vote was Democratic primary
14:41
Speaker 1: vote versus Republican. It has only happened twice this century,
14:45
Speaker 1: and it happened in twenty twenty in the primary between
14:48
Speaker 1: Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. By the way, Joe Biden
14:51
Speaker 1: carried the Grand Rapids County here I'm talking about by
14:54
Speaker 1: two points. And this last time, whereas I had defeated
15:01
Speaker 1: Ailey Stevens by nearly thirty points, he got sixty one
15:05
Speaker 1: percent of the vote. He got a net He netted
15:08
Speaker 1: twenty eight thousand votes out of this county, again basically
15:12
Speaker 1: double his overall statewide margin of victory. Now, look, let
15:18
Speaker 1: me give you a little history about Kent County. Kent
15:21
Speaker 1: County was solid Republican for decades. Nixon beat McGovern there
15:27
Speaker 1: almost sixty forty. Ford, the hometown guy, doubled up Jimmy
15:31
Speaker 1: Carter in seventy six with sixty seven percent. Republicans held
15:35
Speaker 1: it through the eighties, the nineties, the two thousands, George W.
15:39
Speaker 1: Bush won fifty nine percent of the vote in Grand Rapids.
15:42
Speaker 1: By the way, which if you go to downtown Grand Rapids,
15:45
Speaker 1: half of it is funded by the Devas family, one
15:47
Speaker 1: of the famous Republican donor families there is the family
15:51
Speaker 1: behind Amway, and then Barack Obama in two thousand and
15:56
Speaker 1: eight cracked it right. In two thousand and eight, he
15:59
Speaker 1: carried Kent count first time a Democrat had done it
16:01
Speaker 1: in a generation, by just two thousand votes, right the
16:05
Speaker 1: last time a Democrat carried Ken County, which, of course
16:07
Speaker 1: back in the used to be Oh, it must be
16:10
Speaker 1: if it wasn't Jimmy Carter, and it was not, it
16:13
Speaker 1: must be LBJA and sixty four. Yes it's lbj AD
16:15
Speaker 1: sixty four. Now what's interesting is Obama didn't. Obama may
16:21
Speaker 1: have cracked it and showed that there was a certainly
16:24
Speaker 1: a moderate voter in Michigan that was opened to Obama's
16:28
Speaker 1: style of politics, But four years later, Obama didn't carry
16:33
Speaker 1: Grand Rapids thattt Romney did. He won it by eight points.
16:37
Speaker 1: Even while Obama carried the state of Michigan. Trump carried
16:41
Speaker 1: Kent County in twenty sixteen by three points, and then
16:47
Speaker 1: Biden wins it in twenty twenty by six and Kamala
16:51
Speaker 1: Harris carried it basically by about the same margin, slightly
16:56
Speaker 1: less than six percentage points. By the way, Gretchen Wimmer,
17:00
Speaker 1: I carried it by over ten in twenty twenty two,
17:02
Speaker 1: and that was twice her margin than what she got
17:06
Speaker 1: there in twenty eighteen. And of course Democrats picked up
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Speaker 1: Application times may vary and rates may vary. So what's
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Speaker 1: interesting is it's a county you've been seeing, it's been
19:03
Speaker 1: shifting over and there's definitely been this. You know, we
19:06
Speaker 1: we've been tracking this all over the country, right, these
19:08
Speaker 1: these sort of Chamber of Commerce Republicans, the Bush, the
19:11
Speaker 1: moderate Bush Republicans. Not every Bush Republican has become a Democrat,
19:14
Speaker 1: but that moderate Bush Republican wing of the party is
19:18
Speaker 1: not voting Republican anymore. Right, I've sort of made that
19:21
Speaker 1: case here, right, the gerald Ford Republican is not doing that.
19:28
Speaker 1: But here's the thing that I think may surprise some
19:33
Speaker 1: of you. Is it the moderate Republican of two thousand
19:36
Speaker 1: and four that voted for George W. Bush here two
19:39
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, that voted for Obama, but twenty twelve
19:43
Speaker 1: voted for Romney and even sort of sucked it up
19:44
Speaker 1: and did and voted Trump once in sixteen. Because they've
19:48
Speaker 1: been Republicans their whole life. They haven't become moderate Democrats.
19:54
Speaker 1: Because you would think, oh, this must mean, you know,
19:57
Speaker 1: if Joe Biden beat Bernie Sanders here by two points,
20:00
Speaker 1: if I told you that's what happened in twenty twenty,
20:02
Speaker 1: you think, okay, this is going to be Hailey Stephens territory.
20:05
Speaker 1: Maybe abdu Lsied will be very competitive here. This was
20:08
Speaker 1: a close you know, forty eight forty two Biden v. Sanders.
20:11
Speaker 1: That that tells you something. But we've seen this, right,
20:15
Speaker 1: we know that there's this growing white progressive vote. Now
20:20
Speaker 1: does it mean these white voters are progressive? Are these
20:22
Speaker 1: white voters voting for progressives for protest reasons, et cetera.
20:28
Speaker 1: That's something we're still learning, right, That's you know, at
20:30
Speaker 1: the end of the day, how they vote is all
20:32
Speaker 1: we know. And these folks are now they're not looking
20:36
Speaker 1: for the going from center right to center left. This
20:40
Speaker 1: electorate has moved from center right to progressive left. It's
20:45
Speaker 1: an important development that I think none of us national folks.
20:50
Speaker 1: I know some Michigan folks informed us of this during
20:53
Speaker 1: the live stream on Tuesday night, but I fully, fully
20:55
Speaker 1: confessed that I did not realize it. I knew Kent County. Look,
20:59
Speaker 1: It's was one of the key counties that I helped
21:04
Speaker 1: lead coverage to and we had our county to county
21:07
Speaker 1: coverage at NBC News the first time we did it.
21:09
Speaker 1: Kent County was one of our five most important counties
21:13
Speaker 1: in the country because we knew it was it was
21:15
Speaker 1: this home of sort of this traditional moderate Republican What
21:18
Speaker 1: were they doing? What was happening there. But I think
21:22
Speaker 1: that is the shock here. It's not just you know,
21:26
Speaker 1: this wasn't a low turnout situation where somehow are progressive
21:30
Speaker 1: you know, did surprisingly well in this in this neighborhood.
21:33
Speaker 1: This was over one hundred and two thousand total vote
21:37
Speaker 1: in Kent County. It was you know, so like I said,
21:40
Speaker 1: this is only the second time ever when there were
21:43
Speaker 1: competitive primaries in both parties that more people from Kent
21:49
Speaker 1: County chose to participate in the Democratic primary than the
21:52
Speaker 1: Republican primary. Just so you know, Michigan is one of
21:54
Speaker 1: these states where you can you know, it's it's this
21:57
Speaker 1: is why it's such a difficult state to poll. It's
22:00
Speaker 1: all party registrate. You know, you don't have to it's
22:02
Speaker 1: not registered by party, so you just it can be
22:06
Speaker 1: very fluid. And if you for those political junkies in
22:09
Speaker 1: the audience, if you remember the Michigan primary between Rick
22:12
Speaker 1: sand Torment met Romney that got surprisingly close, or if
22:15
Speaker 1: you want to go the way back machine, Jesse Jackson
22:18
Speaker 1: winning the shocking the world and I think it was
22:21
Speaker 1: eighty eight winning the Michigan presidential primary, and at the
22:25
Speaker 1: time it was the first time he'd won I think
22:26
Speaker 1: any state in the North, in any primary state back then.
22:32
Speaker 1: So it is we have seen and even that Sanders
22:36
Speaker 1: Clinton primary in sixteen where Sanders carried all these rural counties.
22:40
Speaker 1: Now it turned out to be an anti Clinton protest
22:42
Speaker 1: vote by basically a bunch of future Trump voters who
22:46
Speaker 1: just voted Bernie to be anti Clinton. I think frankly,
22:50
Speaker 1: some progressives over read that, thinking Bernie had actually traction
22:54
Speaker 1: with those rural voters. What Bernie was was a protest
22:56
Speaker 1: vehicle against Clinton, which of course we would learn later
23:00
Speaker 1: when Donald Trump ended up defeating her. But the fact
23:03
Speaker 1: that this was a blowout, and I think that's just
23:05
Speaker 1: it is. So I want to say as plenty as
23:07
Speaker 1: I can't. He won Kent County by twice the number
23:11
Speaker 1: of votes he won the entire state by. And I
23:14
Speaker 1: think the fact that this became a progressive stronghold is
23:17
Speaker 1: going to be fascinating to watch come presidential primary season,
23:23
Speaker 1: because again, I think the conventional wisdom was, well, how
23:25
Speaker 1: do you appeal to Kent County? Well, you've got to
23:27
Speaker 1: be moderate, right, It's because Chamber of Commerce Republican. You know,
23:31
Speaker 1: one of the things you've discovered whether it's in northern
23:33
Speaker 1: Virginia where we've seen the former moderate Republicans become resistance Democrats.
23:39
Speaker 1: Kent County moderate Republicans resistance Democrats. Shoot, we've seen it
23:42
Speaker 1: in Johnson County outside of Kansas City on Missouri, which
23:46
Speaker 1: Johnson County is in the Kansas is in the Kansas
23:48
Speaker 1: part of the Kansas City area. Again, voters who traditionally
23:51
Speaker 1: were very soft ours who are anti Trump, left the
23:55
Speaker 1: party over Trump. And in some ways, you know what
23:58
Speaker 1: I call the reform smoke right, who are the most
24:01
Speaker 1: anti smoking zealots in your life? During the day and
24:05
Speaker 1: age when people started to quit smoking, it was the
24:07
Speaker 1: former smokers, right, they were the most anti smoking. It's
24:11
Speaker 1: intriguing to me that we're seeing that develop here and
24:15
Speaker 1: you know, in the in the in the in the
24:18
Speaker 1: influencer space. In some ways, this is the Bulwark voter, right.
24:22
Speaker 1: These are the folks that you know, It's like my
24:24
Speaker 1: friends at the Bulwark who are all recovering Republicans who
24:28
Speaker 1: have become strong resistance Democrats. I don't know if they
24:33
Speaker 1: would call themselves democrats. I don't know if they're ready
24:35
Speaker 1: to call themselves democrats, but they're certainly anti Trump, and
24:38
Speaker 1: I don't think they call themselves Republicans anymore. But now
24:42
Speaker 1: in Kent County they are progressive Democrats. That's that's a
24:49
Speaker 1: big deal, and it's a it's a it's a development
24:54
Speaker 1: that I think will even be more important come the
25:00
Speaker 1: presidential prim racing. So where are we with? By the way,
25:05
Speaker 1: I one of the one of the struggles I've had
25:10
Speaker 1: is over the years is is and it goes back
25:13
Speaker 1: to my hotline days, is I'm somebody who wants to
25:17
Speaker 1: identify factions inside a political party, or factions inside political
25:23
Speaker 1: movements by how they want to be described. So, for instance,
25:26
Speaker 1: at the Hotline we on the abortion issue, the those
25:32
Speaker 1: that were anti abortion rights, they want to be called
25:34
Speaker 1: the pro lifers, we call them pro lifers. At the
25:36
Speaker 1: time those that were pro abortion rights want to be
25:38
Speaker 1: called pro choices, so we use the phrase pro choice
25:40
Speaker 1: and pro life at the Hotline. Are my friends at
25:43
Speaker 1: the Associated Press, New York Times, Washington Post, you know,
25:45
Speaker 1: their style guide always was pro abortion rights, anti abortion rights.
25:51
Speaker 1: So I've always been you know, And and it's in
25:54
Speaker 1: this vein when we political analysts have struggled to talk
25:58
Speaker 1: about the actional fights that are taking place in both parties. Right,
26:02
Speaker 1: This this sort of center right versus the base, and
26:06
Speaker 1: this sort of center left versus the base. And you've
26:09
Speaker 1: heard me say, is it now? You know what do
26:11
Speaker 1: you call it? The pragmatic wing versus the progressive wing,
26:13
Speaker 1: the socialist adjacent, populist adjacent, nativists, nationalists. Right, Well, I
26:20
Speaker 1: want to introduce a couple of very neutral terms, and
26:23
Speaker 1: I'd love your feedback on it. But I what I'm
26:26
Speaker 1: going to do for the rest of this episode at
26:28
Speaker 1: least is refer to this divide inside both parties as
26:31
Speaker 1: sort of the movement Democrats versus the governing Democrats. And
26:36
Speaker 1: I have helped Dulsiet as part of the movement Democrats.
26:39
Speaker 1: Haley Stevens is part of the governing Democrats. And the
26:43
Speaker 1: same thing. Really, it's, you know, John Thune is part
26:46
Speaker 1: of the governing Republicans versus a Donald Trump, who is
26:49
Speaker 1: part of the movement Republicans. Right, those that believe this
26:53
Speaker 1: is an existential fight to the death right. That's your
26:56
Speaker 1: movement Democrats versus movement Republicans. And then there's the get
27:00
Speaker 1: shitped done folks, the ones that believe they're elected because
27:03
Speaker 1: people want them to to just sort of make sure
27:06
Speaker 1: the trains don't go off the rails. Not necessarily ready
27:10
Speaker 1: they want to make sure the trains run on time,
27:12
Speaker 1: although that would be nice, but make sure things don't
27:15
Speaker 1: go off the rails. So I am I'd love to
27:18
Speaker 1: hear your thoughts on that, on this idea of using
27:21
Speaker 1: movement versus governing, because again I'm not here. I'm not
27:25
Speaker 1: here to insult either faction. I certainly have my opinion
27:28
Speaker 1: of which ones I think are more electable to general elections,
27:32
Speaker 1: but that also depends on the state, and it can
27:34
Speaker 1: depend on the situation. But it feels like the most
27:39
Speaker 1: neutral way on that, So I throw that out there.
27:42
Speaker 1: A couple more a couple more things I want to
27:47
Speaker 1: take away from Michigan. One is the power of money. Look,
27:53
Speaker 1: money makes races more competitive, but money doesn't always guarantee victory.
27:57
Speaker 1: Haley Stevens had more money a close but she didn't win. Fender,
28:04
Speaker 1: the U now soon to be former Member of Congress
28:08
Speaker 1: representing Detroit, lost his race. And you know, some will
28:11
Speaker 1: say this was a progressive, you know, sort of a
28:14
Speaker 1: movement versus governing wing. Shre Dander wasn't part of the
28:17
Speaker 1: governing wing in the Democratic party. He was just sort
28:19
Speaker 1: of he was one of those, as Charlie Cook would
28:22
Speaker 1: call him, exotic candidates. But he was a self funder
28:24
Speaker 1: and he spent outspent his opponent and he lost. And
28:29
Speaker 1: even in the Republican primary for governor, where you had
28:32
Speaker 1: John James, the the sort of the governing wing's choice,
28:37
Speaker 1: and Perry Johnson, the more odd self funding businessman who
28:42
Speaker 1: you know, self funded his own presidential campaign back in
28:46
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, ran in the Iowa caucuses and a
28:48
Speaker 1: few other states. Frankly, every time I see it, I
28:52
Speaker 1: can't tell is it is it that he's had too
28:54
Speaker 1: much plastic surgery or there's something odd with the hair.
28:58
Speaker 1: I can't quite figure it out. I'll let others decide there,
29:01
Speaker 1: but I don't know if that money has served him well.
29:05
Speaker 1: But the point being is he spent the most money
29:07
Speaker 1: and he lost by double digits. So what we saw
29:10
Speaker 1: in Michigan is I'm not going to sit here and
29:13
Speaker 1: say money is overrated. Money is never overrated. But money
29:19
Speaker 1: only takes you so far. Candidates still matter at the end.
29:22
Speaker 1: Perry Johnson wasn't a good candidate. Shrethander wasn't a good candidate,
29:26
Speaker 1: and Haley Stevens was not the best candidate, and in fact,
29:29
Speaker 1: the fact that she came within fifteen or twenty thousand votes,
29:33
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say that there's going to
29:35
Speaker 1: be plenty. And you're seeing sort of the Mallory McMorrow
29:40
Speaker 1: crowd is quietly wondering, hey, did did the governing wing
29:46
Speaker 1: and the Democratic Party picked the wrong candidate that they
29:49
Speaker 1: forced the wrong Democrat out of the race. But we
29:53
Speaker 1: do know this consolidation does matter, right, if the governing
29:56
Speaker 1: wing wants to defeat the progressive wing in a p primary,
30:01
Speaker 1: you can't have a splintered field, right, And if you're
30:05
Speaker 1: on the progressive side of things and you want to
30:07
Speaker 1: you want to see the progressives control and win the
30:11
Speaker 1: Democratic nomination in twenty eight, you better hope for a
30:14
Speaker 1: crowded primary because forty forty five, forty six, forty seven percent,
30:19
Speaker 1: that's probably looks like it's the ceiling in primaries. The
30:24
Speaker 1: fact that abdu el Siad couldn't get the fifty and
30:27
Speaker 1: we've seen this, there is a hard ceiling here, right.
30:30
Speaker 1: African American voters are just not comfortable yet pulling. They're
30:35
Speaker 1: very skeptical of these socialists and socialists adjacent candidates. We
30:39
Speaker 1: have seen this and it's real right. That seems to
30:43
Speaker 1: be the wall that Abdulsi had ran into. It's the
30:45
Speaker 1: same wall we've seen time and time again. But where progressives,
30:49
Speaker 1: when they have succeeded, they have succeeded in splintered primaries.
30:52
Speaker 1: In fact, the seventh, the Michigan seventh Congressional district had
30:56
Speaker 1: a three way primary where they had the founder of
30:58
Speaker 1: the Sunrise Movement, of very progressive organization focused on climate change.
31:03
Speaker 1: He wins with forty four percent of the vote. Two
31:06
Speaker 1: more sort of traditional governing wing Democrats cannibalized each other.
31:12
Speaker 1: Combined their vote added up to fifty six percent, but
31:17
Speaker 1: they both ran and they both each got about twenty
31:19
Speaker 1: eight percent. So that is an interesting potential foreshadow for
31:25
Speaker 1: the Wisconsin gubernatorial Democratic primary next week. Why do I
31:29
Speaker 1: say that, because the governing side of the Democratic Party
31:33
Speaker 1: decided to consolidate. Right the lieutenant the sitting lieutenant governor
31:39
Speaker 1: quit the race. The former Lieutenant governor, Mandellen Barms, got
31:42
Speaker 1: out of the race. David Crawley, who was the Milwaukee
31:45
Speaker 1: County executive, was in it, got out. Now he's back
31:50
Speaker 1: in with the outgoing governor Tony Evers essentially being his
31:54
Speaker 1: chief surrogate, and it is now Tony Evers versus Francesca
31:57
Speaker 1: Hang in that primary. And based on what we saw
32:00
Speaker 1: last night, I wouldn't assume that Hong is going to
32:04
Speaker 1: run away with this because we saw there was a
32:07
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of misleading polls. And the question
32:10
Speaker 1: is were these intentionally misleading in Michigan or is Michigan
32:13
Speaker 1: uniquely hard to poll? The answer is Michigan's uniquely hard
32:17
Speaker 1: to poll because of that electorate I told you about,
32:19
Speaker 1: there hasn't been a lot of model Democratic electorates to
32:24
Speaker 1: use to at least, and I think people mistakenly. It's
32:28
Speaker 1: possible that too many pollsters mistakenly modeled the twenty sixteen
32:33
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders map and overestimated I'll do Lsied's ability to
32:38
Speaker 1: win in some parts of the state that he turned
32:40
Speaker 1: out he can't win in those parts of the state.
32:45
Speaker 1: But the good news is the fact that we've had
32:49
Speaker 1: this very competitive Democratic primary for Senate in Michigan. It
32:53
Speaker 1: means at least Michigan Democratic primary voting going into the
32:56
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight primary season should be more accurate because
33:00
Speaker 1: you can start with this model, this baseline, you can
33:03
Speaker 1: go to the voter file. I promise you at least
33:06
Speaker 1: eighty to eighty five percent of Democrats have participated in
33:09
Speaker 1: this Senate primary, are going to be likely voters, are
33:15
Speaker 1: going to be likely voters in the White House primary.
33:19
Speaker 1: So if that is the questions, like one of the
33:24
Speaker 1: things before I leave Michigan and get to Kansas, here
33:27
Speaker 1: a second. One of the things about Michigan that in
33:34
Speaker 1: some ways we the big piece of news that I
33:37
Speaker 1: learned is what's happened in Grand Rapids. This is a
33:39
Speaker 1: much more progressive community than I think anybody imagine, and
33:42
Speaker 1: it has certainly changed the nature of how you should
33:45
Speaker 1: look at at Democratic primory voters going forward, because this
33:48
Speaker 1: is now two competitive Democratic primaries in a row where
33:51
Speaker 1: the Democrats are now the dominant party in Kent County,
33:56
Speaker 1: not the Republicans. And more importantly, it's the progressive that
34:00
Speaker 1: are now the dominant faction of the Democrats in Kent County,
34:04
Speaker 1: which is a huge, gigantic development there. But to quickly
34:13
Speaker 1: sort of put it a bow, here what this means
34:16
Speaker 1: for Wisconsin, right, you know the hand right we're going
34:18
Speaker 1: from Let's see if I get this right, right, we
34:20
Speaker 1: had the Michigan primary, now we're going to have the
34:21
Speaker 1: Wisconsin primary. Or is it the Michigan primary and now
34:24
Speaker 1: we're gonna have the Wisconsin primary. I'll let you guys
34:26
Speaker 1: decide which side of the hand is it. But either way,
34:29
Speaker 1: you got to talk to the hand on this one.
34:31
Speaker 1: Pun intended. But here's a question that's worth trying to
34:36
Speaker 1: figure out going into next Tuesday. You know, can Francesco
34:41
Speaker 1: Hong win this primary on Dane County, which is the
34:43
Speaker 1: county that encompasses Madison. Can you do it on Dane
34:45
Speaker 1: County alone? And white progressives in Milwaukee, the African American
34:50
Speaker 1: vote in Milwaukee, will it consolidate against Francesco Hong? And
34:53
Speaker 1: then what about the rest of the state. You know,
34:56
Speaker 1: is there a grand Rapids that we're going to underestimate
35:00
Speaker 1: where there's another part of Wisconsin where progressives have more
35:03
Speaker 1: of a stronghold than maybe people realize and maybe even
35:06
Speaker 1: frankly Wisconsin Democrats aren't fully aware of. I think that's
35:11
Speaker 1: the open question for what it's worth. It was interesting
35:14
Speaker 1: to watch the prediction markets on all things Francesco Hans
35:18
Speaker 1: as Stevens was closing in and it was obvious that
35:22
Speaker 1: she was winning the African American vote about seventy to thirty.
35:25
Speaker 1: And it's yet another confirmation that progressives are going to
35:31
Speaker 1: have problems winning over a significant portion of the African
35:36
Speaker 1: American electorate. Well, that's a Milwaukee county's a big chunk
35:40
Speaker 1: of that. The Milwaukee City votes a big chunk of
35:42
Speaker 1: African Americans there. So it's going to be interesting to
35:45
Speaker 1: see if you tell me that next Tuesday, Wisconsin takes
35:50
Speaker 1: a little bit longer to call than we thought. Let's
35:53
Speaker 1: just say I'm not going to be surprised one bit,
35:57
Speaker 1: but that's next Tuesday. This episode of the Chuck Podcast
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Speaker 1: am a customer now from a state where nothing is
37:42
Speaker 1: settled to a state where everything supposedly is, let's go
37:44
Speaker 1: to Kansas. Kansas had a couple of results that I
37:48
Speaker 1: think are with pointing out. First, there's the the referendum
37:53
Speaker 1: that the Republican legislature put on the ballot to essentially
37:56
Speaker 1: try to change the procedure of how Supreme State Supreme
38:00
Speaker 1: Court justices are selected in Kansas. Republicans in the legislature
38:05
Speaker 1: are frustrated that a majority of the justices on the
38:09
Speaker 1: Kansas Supreme Court have been appointed by Democratic governors, right,
38:13
Speaker 1: because six essentially we're at sixteen of the last twenty
38:17
Speaker 1: four years in Kansas have been governed by Democrats, And
38:23
Speaker 1: so that of course, just like we've seen what happens
38:27
Speaker 1: in the US Supreme Court, right, you know, when you've
38:29
Speaker 1: had that kind of you know, over time you're going
38:31
Speaker 1: to have more dominance. And this is what this referendum
38:34
Speaker 1: is about, is yet another referendum that is about the
38:38
Speaker 1: issue of abortion, right. And what apparently what Republicans were
38:44
Speaker 1: hopeful is that if they could change the Supreme Court
38:48
Speaker 1: selection process to direct elections like they have in Wisconsin,
38:52
Speaker 1: like they have in quite a few states, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Alabama.
38:54
Speaker 1: There's it is. You know how I feel about this.
38:57
Speaker 1: I've said it before Alexander Hamilton in Federalist seventy two.
39:01
Speaker 1: I believe it is came out stridently against the idea
39:05
Speaker 1: of electing judges. That that is, you're asking a judge
39:08
Speaker 1: to interpret a dispute at times between the legislative brandt
39:11
Speaker 1: and the executive branch, both of which are are put
39:14
Speaker 1: there by the voters. Your umpires can't be subject to
39:17
Speaker 1: the voters too. If you want your judges to be umpires,
39:21
Speaker 1: you don't want them subject to political campaigns, taking donations,
39:26
Speaker 1: creating quid pro quos that just make adjudicating in any
39:29
Speaker 1: sort of fair way possible. So it was interesting when
39:35
Speaker 1: given that choice, what was this wasn't even a close vote.
39:39
Speaker 1: This is still a Republican leaning state, and the last
39:42
Speaker 1: thing they wanted was to hand the Republican legislature power
39:45
Speaker 1: like this to do this. Now, the other big race
39:55
Speaker 1: in Kansas is now a center race, and with look,
40:00
Speaker 1: let's be realistic, the Michigan Senate race is going to
40:03
Speaker 1: be very very close. The amount of money that is
40:06
Speaker 1: going to make its way into Michigan and on behalf
40:09
Speaker 1: of Mike Rodgers is huge. Now, I think in a
40:12
Speaker 1: in a national environment where Democrats are are sort of
40:15
Speaker 1: overperforming by five to seven points, you know, I still
40:20
Speaker 1: think I'll do al say it wins that. Now. Is
40:23
Speaker 1: it a one point race? Two point race? Yeah, it's
40:25
Speaker 1: going to be super close. And given if it's going
40:27
Speaker 1: to be that close, it means we're going to be
40:28
Speaker 1: waiting for Wayne County at the very end, and it's
40:30
Speaker 1: probably going to be, you know, either that or the
40:33
Speaker 1: Alaska Senate race that are the final races that we
40:36
Speaker 1: may call. That's how close I expect this to be.
40:39
Speaker 1: But I do think you will see more money spent
40:41
Speaker 1: on Rogers than he would have gotten had Hailey Stevens
40:44
Speaker 1: been the nominating And it's going to be vicious. It's
40:46
Speaker 1: going to be ugly, and it's going to be uncomfortable.
40:49
Speaker 1: And I have a feeling that, you know, we just
40:51
Speaker 1: look at Day one. Right day one, Republicans decided to
40:56
Speaker 1: go lean lean in on trying to turn him into
41:02
Speaker 1: a Muslim. That scares people. It's a full on Islamophobia campaign.
41:12
Speaker 1: I am I think that the I don't think there
41:20
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think if you were doing it subtly,
41:25
Speaker 1: I could, I could see it possibly work, and I
41:29
Speaker 1: you know, and there may be a point here, a
41:32
Speaker 1: point there where it matters. But the more aggressive this is,
41:36
Speaker 1: and already they've signaled that this isn't this is going
41:38
Speaker 1: to be very aggressive, I think the likelihood of this
41:42
Speaker 1: boomeranging is greater than Republicans realize. And that's why, you know,
41:47
Speaker 1: i'm i'm, I have so much trepidation now about the
41:52
Speaker 1: nine to eleven anniversary and about about how this is
41:54
Speaker 1: going to get weaponized politically, and it's going to be uncomfortable.
41:58
Speaker 1: But look, if Democrats have to you know, they expected
42:02
Speaker 1: to be defending at least one of their open seats
42:04
Speaker 1: in a tough race. They thought it was going to
42:05
Speaker 1: be Georgia. I mean a lot of us thought it
42:07
Speaker 1: was going to be Georgia. And John Osoff has once
42:10
Speaker 1: again proven to be a much better at this than
42:12
Speaker 1: I think many people give them credit for. But if
42:16
Speaker 1: you're the good news for Democrats as they keep putting
42:18
Speaker 1: more Senate seats in plant and the big addition is Kansas,
42:23
Speaker 1: and let me tell you about the new Democratic nominee
42:25
Speaker 1: in Kansas, because I think I think this is a
42:28
Speaker 1: race that if you're screwing around with prediction markets, go
42:31
Speaker 1: buy some ab and Adam Hamilton stock. Right now. I'm
42:34
Speaker 1: not saying he's going to win. I'm saying I think
42:37
Speaker 1: this is going to be closer as close as Iowa
42:44
Speaker 1: or Kansas. Let me tell you about it. Adam Hamilton's
42:46
Speaker 1: the founding senior pastor of the United Methodist Church of
42:50
Speaker 1: the Resurrection in Leewood, Kansas. This is the large United
42:55
Speaker 1: Methodist congregation in the country. It is something like twenty
42:58
Speaker 1: five thousand people the week. He's also if you're in
43:02
Speaker 1: this community, I am not I'm learning about his influence
43:07
Speaker 1: in this community. He has written a shelf full of books.
43:11
Speaker 1: You know, I have a friend of mine says that
43:12
Speaker 1: you know if you know his who's a Methodist, and
43:15
Speaker 1: he's like his pastors like, oh, I've got this guy's books.
43:18
Speaker 1: I use his books to develop some of my sermons.
43:23
Speaker 1: He preached the sermon at Barack Obama's inaugural second inaugural
43:27
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen. He's a fifth generation Canca, been married
43:31
Speaker 1: forty four years, and for two decades he has been
43:34
Speaker 1: one of the most recognizable moderate voices in mainline American Protestism.
43:42
Speaker 1: He's not a political figure. He's been a religious one,
43:45
Speaker 1: somebody who spent years, arguably is a bridge builder inside
43:47
Speaker 1: a denomination that had been tearing itself apart. Now he'd
43:52
Speaker 1: beat ten other Democrats on Tuesday eleven candidate field, which
43:55
Speaker 1: by itself tells you that Kansas Democrats spelled something. Roger
43:59
Speaker 1: Marshall does not scare people in Kansas, And in the
44:04
Speaker 1: first two months as a candidate, raced three point six
44:07
Speaker 1: million dollars. He outraised Roger Marshall in the quarter. It's
44:12
Speaker 1: the biggest launch in the history of Kansas Senate campaigns.
44:16
Speaker 1: So why do I think it's a real race? A
44:17
Speaker 1: couple arguments, and I'll make them carefully. One is he's
44:21
Speaker 1: going to be very hard to create a caricature out
44:23
Speaker 1: of They're gonna have a heart. They can't turn him
44:25
Speaker 1: into some woke socialist lefty right right the standard playbook.
44:31
Speaker 1: Why why Kansas Democrats have not been able to break
44:34
Speaker 1: through in Senate races in the recent history is they've
44:37
Speaker 1: been able to you know, maybe tack them on as
44:41
Speaker 1: some some sort of carpet bag or you know, they've
44:45
Speaker 1: been financed by the coastal elites. They're not a real Democrat.
44:50
Speaker 1: They're not you know, they can't even use the godless
44:54
Speaker 1: playbook on this guy, right, trying to call him coastal
44:58
Speaker 1: radical or godless. That's not going to survive contact with
45:02
Speaker 1: a Methodist pastor from Leewood, Kansas. And he's going to
45:07
Speaker 1: arrive with a constituency that's never been assembled for political
45:11
Speaker 1: purposes on the Democratic side like this in recent history.
45:15
Speaker 1: So whenever you have a nominee who's got a constituency
45:19
Speaker 1: that doesn't normally show up in that side of the aisle,
45:25
Speaker 1: well that's additive, right. And if you look at the
45:27
Speaker 1: numbers in Kansas, right, a Democrat can't win with a
45:31
Speaker 1: conventional coalition, right, the Democratic the left side coalition isn't
45:38
Speaker 1: big enough yet to win center rate. They're going to
45:40
Speaker 1: have to win over some center right, perhaps some religious
45:44
Speaker 1: moderates who maybe don't like the character of Donald Trump.
45:48
Speaker 1: And maybe you are frustrated that a guy like Roger
45:50
Speaker 1: Marshall just looks the other way all the time. Then
45:54
Speaker 1: there's Roger Marshall himself. He's never really been stress test
45:59
Speaker 1: in a competitive general election. Now, look, he's had some
46:03
Speaker 1: contested primaries, one in sixteen one in twenty and Democrats
46:09
Speaker 1: tried when they recruited Barbara Bullier, they tried to who
46:13
Speaker 1: did raise a decent amount of money for a senate
46:15
Speaker 1: candidate back in twenty twenty, but he won by double digits.
46:20
Speaker 1: It just you know, they didn't really go all in there.
46:25
Speaker 1: But you know, Kansas is still it still has a
46:29
Speaker 1: Republican lean to it. And he's never really had a
46:34
Speaker 1: tough race in a general election in November, so and
46:37
Speaker 1: he's never really had to defend a record against an
46:39
Speaker 1: opponent that he couldn't define conventionally. So we'll see. But
46:47
Speaker 1: you know, if you're going to defeat a sitting senator
46:49
Speaker 1: one that hasn't you know, he's not a professional politician, right,
46:53
Speaker 1: he had a career in the medical field, So you know,
46:59
Speaker 1: I'm I'm going to be curious, sort of like what
47:01
Speaker 1: we saw with deb Fisher, who never really had gone
47:03
Speaker 1: through a trial by fire in a tough general election.
47:06
Speaker 1: Dan Osbourne came awfully close in Nebraska, and it's like
47:10
Speaker 1: she hadn't faced major league pitching before, and you know,
47:14
Speaker 1: to beat up a baseball metaphor here, I think this
47:17
Speaker 1: is the first time Roger Marshall's going to face major
47:19
Speaker 1: league pitching. And you know, then you throw in the
47:22
Speaker 1: larger environment, right, which is the AG community has been
47:26
Speaker 1: hammered by these Trump tariffs coupled with the aggressive deportation
47:31
Speaker 1: on immigration, which is hammered the labor force in these
47:35
Speaker 1: AG communities. And this is Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota. Now, look,
47:41
Speaker 1: South Dakota is the longest shot of these four states
47:43
Speaker 1: that are all you know, connected here, all sort of
47:45
Speaker 1: hit hard by these tariffs. But there's the independent cand
47:50
Speaker 1: at Brian Banks, who they finally got the Democratic nominee
47:56
Speaker 1: to get out. Now he got out, but he said
47:58
Speaker 1: he got out because he's tired of this family getting
48:01
Speaker 1: threatened for not getting out. So it wasn't the best
48:03
Speaker 1: exit that Brian Banks could have hoped for when the
48:06
Speaker 1: Democratic nominee decided to take a knee. But just like
48:09
Speaker 1: we saw in Idaho, just like we've seen in Nebraska,
48:12
Speaker 1: we now have three races where there are essentially the
48:14
Speaker 1: Democratic candidate is running as an independent or the not
48:17
Speaker 1: Republican candidate is running as an independent. Osborne feels a
48:21
Speaker 1: little bit more of a conventional, you know, sort of
48:25
Speaker 1: labor union Democrat than either Todd Achilles in Idaho or
48:29
Speaker 1: Brian bangs Is in South Dakota. But they're all hoping
48:33
Speaker 1: to benefit from sort of frustration that these Republican senators
48:37
Speaker 1: have just looked the other way on these terrible Trump
48:40
Speaker 1: tariff policies and things like that. I will just give
48:43
Speaker 1: you my two cents about those four races in this respect,
48:47
Speaker 1: if you were to ask me which of these four.
48:48
Speaker 1: First of all, if Democrats win get the majority in
48:51
Speaker 1: the Senate, I'm assuming that they win two of these four.
48:54
Speaker 1: I think the math has to work out that way,
48:58
Speaker 1: and I think the two most realistic are Iowa and Kansas.
49:02
Speaker 1: I think that I know polling shows the Nebraska race
49:07
Speaker 1: has been a one point race. One point race. Obviously.
49:10
Speaker 1: First of all, everybody's going to be more skeptical of
49:12
Speaker 1: any polls released by any candidates these days, but particularly
49:15
Speaker 1: ones using these progressive pollsters, who I think have all
49:18
Speaker 1: had very shall we say, optimistic electorates that they create,
49:23
Speaker 1: hoping that this is what the electorate looks like, versus
49:26
Speaker 1: maybe creating a poll that has the electorate what it
49:29
Speaker 1: actually is going to look like. But there's another reason
49:32
Speaker 1: why I'm ske I think both the incumbents Pete Ricketts
49:35
Speaker 1: and Nebraska Mike Rounds in South Dakota are going to
49:37
Speaker 1: be tougher to beat than the Republican nominee in Iowa,
49:42
Speaker 1: Ashley Hinson or the Republican incumbent Roger Marshall, because both
49:46
Speaker 1: Rickets and Rounds were governors before they were senators, and
49:50
Speaker 1: governor's former governors are less likely to have lost touch
49:53
Speaker 1: with the rank and file, particularly in the oral parts
49:55
Speaker 1: of their state than senators have. So if I were
49:58
Speaker 1: to bet on those four, and that's why I'm like, Hey,
50:01
Speaker 1: if you really are into investing in these prediction markets,
50:05
Speaker 1: the best buy on the board right now, I think
50:10
Speaker 1: is Adam Hamilton. Is there a few more things doing
50:14
Speaker 1: my little primary dance? Missouri? There's two things happening in
50:19
Speaker 1: Missouri that I want to point out. One happened on
50:21
Speaker 1: the ballot, and that was their decision to reject this
50:24
Speaker 1: idea of essentially scrapping a state income tax in exchange
50:28
Speaker 1: for a high sales tax, and it got killed. It
50:30
Speaker 1: wasn't even close. And the reason I wanted to single
50:33
Speaker 1: this out is because I think I've hinted at this before, right,
50:39
Speaker 1: Donald Trump sort of hinted what his obsession with tariffs is.
50:43
Speaker 1: He likes this idea of creating I think he joked,
50:45
Speaker 1: he wants to call it the external revenue service, and
50:48
Speaker 1: he wants to get rid of essentially get rid of
50:51
Speaker 1: income taxes and go to some form of a consumption tax.
50:56
Speaker 1: Tariffs essentially how we funded our government pre passing the
51:01
Speaker 1: constitutional amendment to legalize the income tax. And the reason
51:05
Speaker 1: we passed that constitutional amendment is because trying to fund
51:07
Speaker 1: a government via tariffs, you couldn't guarantee consistent revenue. It
51:13
Speaker 1: was no way to fund a government, and it was
51:15
Speaker 1: no way to try to have any medium or long
51:17
Speaker 1: term planning, which is why many folks decided that an
51:22
Speaker 1: income tax would be a much fairer way to try
51:26
Speaker 1: to fund government. But what was interesting is that Missouri voters,
51:30
Speaker 1: when given this choice of you know, and we've seen this,
51:32
Speaker 1: Rohndes Santis in his own way, isted at getting rid
51:35
Speaker 1: of essentially trying to get rid of some parts of
51:37
Speaker 1: the property taxes, and he sort of admits that in
51:42
Speaker 1: lieu of it, counties would likely raise sales taxes. So
51:45
Speaker 1: again trying to transition away from a income tax revenue
51:52
Speaker 1: system that to funds government to some sort of consumption
51:55
Speaker 1: tax that does and voters don't like it. And there's
52:01
Speaker 1: always there's been this obsession. There's a faction of the
52:04
Speaker 1: conservative movement that continues to try to push this. A
52:08
Speaker 1: lot of them get elected to state legislatures. Sometimes it's
52:11
Speaker 1: called the fair tax, right. There's all sorts of different
52:13
Speaker 1: ways they do it. It is. I don't know why
52:16
Speaker 1: this hasn't gone away, because every time it gets put
52:19
Speaker 1: in front of voters, voters don't reject it by a little.
52:22
Speaker 1: They reject it by a lot. They reject candidates that
52:25
Speaker 1: come out for it. They reject these referendum ideas that
52:28
Speaker 1: come out for it. They just don't like it. By
52:32
Speaker 1: the way, one other thing before I left Kansas, I
52:34
Speaker 1: forgot to talk quickly about the Democratic primary for governor
52:37
Speaker 1: there because what was interesting is that the governor, outgoing
52:40
Speaker 1: governor or Kelly Democrat. Her big legacy project this year
52:44
Speaker 1: was luring the Kansas City Chiefs out of Kansas City,
52:48
Speaker 1: Missouri and getting them to build their stadium in Kansas City, Kansas,
52:52
Speaker 1: basically the suburbs of Kansas and she threw a bunch
52:56
Speaker 1: of tax credit. It's a huge subsidy that the state
52:59
Speaker 1: of Kansas is giving to the Kansas City Chiefs. Well,
53:03
Speaker 1: the woman who won the Democratic nomination for governor essentially
53:07
Speaker 1: ran against data centers and giving money to the billionaire
53:12
Speaker 1: owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, and she defeated the
53:18
Speaker 1: Democrat that the city governor had endorsed and arguably was
53:22
Speaker 1: over this. So I don't know how many times many
53:26
Speaker 1: people have to be reminded, guess what voters don't like.
53:29
Speaker 1: Voters don't like subsidizing rich people. They don't like they
53:33
Speaker 1: don't like this idea that these data centers are subsidizing
53:36
Speaker 1: the big tech companies, and they certainly don't like it
53:39
Speaker 1: when their tax dollars are subsidizing rich sports owners to
53:43
Speaker 1: build sports stadiums. So if you if you needed another
53:46
Speaker 1: reminder there that we had it all right. A few
53:59
Speaker 1: other times I wanted to hit on, let's talk about
54:01
Speaker 1: men behaving badly here. We've obviously had a run of
54:05
Speaker 1: stories about these three House Republicans and their personal conduct.
54:09
Speaker 1: What's been interesting has been the reaction inside the party.
54:16
Speaker 1: You know, you've got it's clear that Republicans want to
54:18
Speaker 1: get rid of Max Miller, right, whether it's Bernie Marino,
54:23
Speaker 1: his now former father in law, and his decision to
54:26
Speaker 1: come out publicly saying he thinks Max Miller should resign
54:29
Speaker 1: a seat. After he came out, a whole bunch of
54:32
Speaker 1: Republicans followed his lead. It's no doubt a whole bunch
54:35
Speaker 1: of House Republicans would like to see him leave. I
54:37
Speaker 1: think the speaker of our ouse was about to do
54:39
Speaker 1: it until Donald Trump stepped in. And one of the
54:41
Speaker 1: things we know about Donald Trump is how much he
54:43
Speaker 1: ends up defending any Republican that is accused of some
54:49
Speaker 1: sort of misconduct with women, whether it's sexual assault, whatever,
54:54
Speaker 1: some form of misconduct with women. Donald Trump always believes
54:58
Speaker 1: the accused is you could say he's being very consistent, right.
55:02
Speaker 1: He doesn't believe the attacks on him were true or fair. Right.
55:06
Speaker 1: He is full denial on all this stuff. So he
55:09
Speaker 1: accepts the premise when one of these men behaving badly
55:13
Speaker 1: says the same thing, and it has put the Republican
55:16
Speaker 1: Party in a terrible spot because Max Miller, who clearly
55:21
Speaker 1: is somebody who's got some serious issues, who the last
55:25
Speaker 1: thing he needs to be as a public servant. But
55:29
Speaker 1: you know, I'll be honest, he strikes me as somebody
55:32
Speaker 1: who who has tried to use his personal relationships to
55:36
Speaker 1: climb up the political adder. When you look at the
55:40
Speaker 1: and you can't help. But wonder did he court Bernie
55:45
Speaker 1: Marino's daughter simply because he was hoping Bernie Marino would
55:49
Speaker 1: finance his political career, Because that's exactly what Bernie Marino
55:51
Speaker 1: did for the first turn. I know a lot of
55:56
Speaker 1: people think some nefarious conspira, but why didn't Bernie Marino
56:01
Speaker 1: speak out sooner? I think we don't sometimes give enough
56:05
Speaker 1: grace anymore. I think it's not only perfectly reasonable, but
56:09
Speaker 1: most likely the real reason is. Remember when you've got
56:13
Speaker 1: a situation like this, where your daughter is his to
56:21
Speaker 1: co parent with with somebody who you think can harm you,
56:30
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's not easy to just cut
56:33
Speaker 1: them loose, right. You've got to worry about the child
56:39
Speaker 1: that you have together. You've got to worry about your
56:41
Speaker 1: personal safety. So I think that I think we, I know,
56:45
Speaker 1: we look at everything through a political prism sometimes and
56:49
Speaker 1: we we forget way too often that these everybody in
56:53
Speaker 1: politics is a human being too, And I think this
56:56
Speaker 1: is one of those that has probably got a lot
56:58
Speaker 1: more personal deeps tells to it that none of us
57:02
Speaker 1: are privy to but if anybody has got a all
57:07
Speaker 1: of us have large enough families where I'm sure there's
57:10
Speaker 1: an example that's similar here. And so I hope, I
57:18
Speaker 1: hope some folks. I hope and folks and do that.
57:22
Speaker 1: Let me get to the by the way, the thing.
57:25
Speaker 1: The other shock in the morning, while we were waiting
57:27
Speaker 1: for the confirmation about the Michigan Center primary is House
57:30
Speaker 1: Republicans did successfully push Chuck Edwards, who is the North
57:35
Speaker 1: Carolina congressman who remember he was the guy that they
57:38
Speaker 1: found to get rid of Madison Cawthorne if you remember him,
57:42
Speaker 1: the one term sort of extreme Maga Republican who sort
57:48
Speaker 1: of won an accidental primary. I think he replaced Mark
57:51
Speaker 1: Meadows if I'm not mistaken in the in the House,
57:53
Speaker 1: if you remember him, Madison Cawthorne, by the way, on
57:56
Speaker 1: the ballot in a couple of weeks in a trying
57:58
Speaker 1: to replace Byron Donald in Congress down in southwest Florida.
58:02
Speaker 1: He's not even the only disgraced former member of Congress
58:06
Speaker 1: in that primary. Chris Collins of Western New York is
58:08
Speaker 1: also in that is in that primary. It's one of
58:10
Speaker 1: the Looney Tunes primaries of the season that's coming up.
58:16
Speaker 1: But Chuck Edwards, remember was the Republican that was supposed
58:20
Speaker 1: to be more normal to replace the disgraced Madison Cawthorne. Well,
58:25
Speaker 1: he turned out to be this kind of creepy older
58:28
Speaker 1: guy and how he dealt with his female staffers. Complaints
58:32
Speaker 1: went to the Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee came out
58:34
Speaker 1: with a pretty scathing report, and I guess to Edwards's credit,
58:39
Speaker 1: he accepted the premise that he was no longer a
58:42
Speaker 1: Republican that could actually win reelection, and he quit in
58:45
Speaker 1: time for them to find a replacement candidate. But it
58:47
Speaker 1: may not work. I mean, one of the things we've
58:49
Speaker 1: learned is the scandal tax is real. And you know
58:55
Speaker 1: whether even if Max, even if they somehow find a
58:57
Speaker 1: way to replace Maxim Miller in the ballot. Although he
58:59
Speaker 1: seems pretty about this, there's always this three to five
59:05
Speaker 1: point sort of penalty that the party that has that
59:10
Speaker 1: got rid of its scandal tard nominee and replaced him
59:13
Speaker 1: with somebody new. It can have a hangover, especially if
59:17
Speaker 1: the replacement is with an incumbent politician like I think
59:19
Speaker 1: it's more likely that this is more of a hangover
59:21
Speaker 1: in that race with Chuck Edwards then, for instance, like
59:25
Speaker 1: I don't think Troy Jackson is acquiring any grand Platner baggage, right,
59:28
Speaker 1: because grand Platner was never in office. And I think
59:32
Speaker 1: in some ways, I'm sure this is me saying Graham
59:35
Speaker 1: Plattner's first time you've heard his name in a couple weeks, right,
59:38
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think it has that. I think,
59:40
Speaker 1: but if you actually held office and then you were
59:43
Speaker 1: sort of the disgrace candidate pushed out a lot of
59:45
Speaker 1: Chuck Edwards, that that sticks a little bit. And that
59:54
Speaker 1: brings me to the reflecting pool in the strait of hormones.
59:57
Speaker 1: And I'm going to go back to the question I
59:59
Speaker 1: asked at thought, why would the leader of the free world,
1:00:02
Speaker 1: with a war going sideways and an economy understrain spend
1:00:06
Speaker 1: his energy on the reflecting pool? And I think, in
1:00:11
Speaker 1: one form or another, it's the question we've all been
1:00:13
Speaker 1: asking ourselves. What's with his obsessions over this small stuff
1:00:18
Speaker 1: when he can't get the big stuff right. So let's
1:00:21
Speaker 1: start with Jennine Piro. As I said earlier, there's always
1:00:26
Speaker 1: a line that some people get to when it comes
1:00:30
Speaker 1: to Donald Trump. All these folks we've seen it, right,
1:00:33
Speaker 1: I've watched this over over a decade now. Everybody I've
1:00:38
Speaker 1: always said, there's everybody has a line they won't cross
1:00:41
Speaker 1: when it comes to Donald Trump. Just everybody's line is
1:00:44
Speaker 1: in a different place, right. And I think that's what
1:00:47
Speaker 1: we saw with Pierro here. We never know when it
1:00:48
Speaker 1: is until it actually hints. I think Pierro believed she
1:00:54
Speaker 1: could say whatever she wanted outside of courtoral and still
1:00:58
Speaker 1: follow the rule of law inside of courts. She had
1:01:02
Speaker 1: two separate compartments. Well, Donald Trump didn't want that, and
1:01:06
Speaker 1: so she couldn't do it right. She had to risk
1:01:10
Speaker 1: potentially losing her law license, maybe getting disbarred, maybe getting
1:01:13
Speaker 1: you know, sanctioned by the court for lying to the court,
1:01:18
Speaker 1: for lying to a grand jury. Right, and she wouldn't
1:01:21
Speaker 1: do it right. She's she's an experienced government prosecutor, so
1:01:26
Speaker 1: she knows the rules, and she didn't want to risk it.
1:01:29
Speaker 1: It's exactly why Pam Bondi is not Attorney General anymore.
1:01:33
Speaker 1: There were things she wouldn't do that Todd blanch said, Okay,
1:01:36
Speaker 1: I'll do it, you know, Donald Trump said, she choked. Sure,
1:01:43
Speaker 1: Piro choked. She choked on reality. Now you got to
1:01:47
Speaker 1: look at it from Trump's perspective. Trump has no respect
1:01:50
Speaker 1: for any for the law at all. Right, this is
1:01:52
Speaker 1: a guy who regularly files frivolous lawsuits and who believes
1:01:56
Speaker 1: any charges against him are frivolous, So of course he
1:01:59
Speaker 1: would He sort of conflates a civil suit that you
1:02:03
Speaker 1: just throw out there just to keep lawyers busy, and
1:02:08
Speaker 1: a you know, maybe a criminal indictment or a potential
1:02:12
Speaker 1: criminal indictment. He doesn't care that there were the facts
1:02:17
Speaker 1: didn't meet, that didn't match the indictment that they were
1:02:20
Speaker 1: trying to seek against this former olympian. He just wanted
1:02:24
Speaker 1: the headline. He doesn't care if the indictment doesn't stick.
1:02:29
Speaker 1: He doesn't care if the charges eventually get dismissed. He
1:02:33
Speaker 1: just wants the indictment so he can say he got
1:02:35
Speaker 1: an indictment. And I do wonder if his obsession over
1:02:40
Speaker 1: this and why he's so angry at Puro is because
1:02:44
Speaker 1: he's lost control of everything else in his presidency. Right,
1:02:49
Speaker 1: because it looks like the United States is going to
1:02:51
Speaker 1: accept an outcome in the straight up horror move, then
1:02:53
Speaker 1: let's be plain and simple about it. Means Ran won
1:02:56
Speaker 1: this war strategically the Strait, which is where this whole
1:03:00
Speaker 1: thing started. We didn't have a problem with the Straight.
1:03:03
Speaker 1: The Straight was fully navigatable before this war of choice
1:03:09
Speaker 1: by Donald Trump. And if you suddenly now are essentially
1:03:15
Speaker 1: surrendering control of the Straight to the Iranians, then you
1:03:20
Speaker 1: have lost ground. Does it mean we've lost the war?
1:03:29
Speaker 1: We certainly didn't win anything, did we. Who won? Who's surrendering?
1:03:36
Speaker 1: How desperate is Donald Trump to get out of this war? Fine?
1:03:39
Speaker 1: Let the Iranians control the Straight? Think about that. By
1:03:45
Speaker 1: the way, his words in Iran right completely meaningless. And
1:03:48
Speaker 1: if you've noticed right, nobody takes any of his words
1:03:51
Speaker 1: seriously except Wall Street, who wants to make positive bets
1:03:55
Speaker 1: on it. So who knows? I know, is a deal
1:03:59
Speaker 1: coming in the next hour? Are you going to get
1:04:00
Speaker 1: this breaking news alert from my friends at Axios who
1:04:03
Speaker 1: have sources that are telling them something is coming, which,
1:04:06
Speaker 1: by the way, I don't think they're making stuff up.
1:04:09
Speaker 1: This is what their sources are out there telling. And
1:04:11
Speaker 1: I don't criticize other news organizations for reporting what they've
1:04:16
Speaker 1: learned from the administration, but I think at times what
1:04:21
Speaker 1: the administration puts out there is hopefulness, not reality, and
1:04:28
Speaker 1: that may be why the deal is coming any second now,
1:04:32
Speaker 1: and I think that's why nobody listens anymore. But here's
1:04:35
Speaker 1: what we do know. Donald Trump has no interest in
1:04:38
Speaker 1: trying to escalate this war. And I have to tell
1:04:40
Speaker 1: you it's something I've said before. We should be thankful
1:04:43
Speaker 1: for that, because he doesn't know how to manage a war.
1:04:47
Speaker 1: And if he did decide to escalate, at the possibility
1:04:53
Speaker 1: that this spirals into something a lot more global than
1:04:57
Speaker 1: it should be is much higher risk than I think
1:05:01
Speaker 1: we all appreciate. And if you listen back a couple
1:05:04
Speaker 1: of podcasts ago, already we have thirty countries sort of
1:05:08
Speaker 1: already kind of that has been touched by this war.
1:05:11
Speaker 1: As it is. The ability for this to get out
1:05:14
Speaker 1: of control if we somehow escalated with ground troops and
1:05:17
Speaker 1: all this now I've brought up, you know it sort
1:05:20
Speaker 1: of if Trump wants to win anything in this, he
1:05:22
Speaker 1: is only choice as ground troops, and that's a losing strategy.
1:05:27
Speaker 1: So at this point, the question is do you want
1:05:31
Speaker 1: to be completely humiliated or just somewhat humiliated and handing
1:05:36
Speaker 1: temporary control of the strait. I think Trump has decided
1:05:39
Speaker 1: to at least only somewhat humiliating. But what do you do?
1:05:45
Speaker 1: This is why he's so angry and focused on the
1:05:48
Speaker 1: reflecting pool, because he's lost control. Right, when a man
1:05:53
Speaker 1: loses grip on things that matter, you tighten the grip
1:05:59
Speaker 1: on the things that don't matter but that you think
1:06:01
Speaker 1: you can control. It's not just a Trump observation. That's
1:06:05
Speaker 1: a human observation. You've probably seen it in your own family.
1:06:08
Speaker 1: When things get out of control for somebody in crisis,
1:06:12
Speaker 1: they cling to something they think they have control over.
1:06:15
Speaker 1: So you may think it's ridiculous that the President of
1:06:17
Speaker 1: the United States is more focused on pool Liner than
1:06:21
Speaker 1: on Iran. But it's not ridiculous, it's diagnostic. This is
1:06:27
Speaker 1: his form of bizarre therapy. And here's the other tel
1:06:31
Speaker 1: from this week. He also had an endorsed candidate who lost,
1:06:36
Speaker 1: So he's now realizing and he's facing this idea that
1:06:41
Speaker 1: Republican voters, you know, are not His grip on them
1:06:47
Speaker 1: is not as tight as it once was. His poll
1:06:49
Speaker 1: ratings continue to go downward. And you know, we had
1:06:54
Speaker 1: a terrible economic report, right the economy, the growth has
1:06:58
Speaker 1: slowed down to a trickle we We just got a
1:07:03
Speaker 1: new report from the Cato Institute about just how much
1:07:10
Speaker 1: the tariffs have cost America in foreign tourism. At least
1:07:15
Speaker 1: a billion dollars a week. They asked to me. Think
1:07:17
Speaker 1: about that Trump's Liberation Day last April costs the American
1:07:22
Speaker 1: economy a billion dollars a week, just in the tourist industry.
1:07:26
Speaker 1: Just ask our friends in Vegas they missed the Canadian visitors.
1:07:31
Speaker 1: Ask our friends in Orlando, they missed the Canadian visitors.
1:07:35
Speaker 1: And as I said recently, when I happened to spend
1:07:37
Speaker 1: a little bit of time in the Bahamas over the
1:07:38
Speaker 1: last winter holidays, I ran into a ton of Canadians
1:07:44
Speaker 1: who loudly and said, we're here because we don't want
1:07:48
Speaker 1: to spend our money in America. Well we are back
1:08:04
Speaker 1: my top five list, of course, brought to you by
1:08:07
Speaker 1: my friends at fandles. So this is what I've decided
1:08:09
Speaker 1: to do this week. With Michigan Senate now fully in
1:08:11
Speaker 1: play as a Senate race, and it's as I said before,
1:08:14
Speaker 1: it is the only Democratic Health Senate seat that I
1:08:18
Speaker 1: think is now truly vulnerable. Look, weird stuff could still
1:08:22
Speaker 1: happen in Minnesota. New Hampshire, Georgia. I'm not going to
1:08:24
Speaker 1: sit here and rule it out right, And maybe there's
1:08:26
Speaker 1: something we've not heard of that some comment that we
1:08:28
Speaker 1: haven't even been talking about, like has some scandal we've
1:08:31
Speaker 1: never even thought of. Right, But in reality Land, which
1:08:36
Speaker 1: is where I live, only Michigan Senate is vulnerable now.
1:08:41
Speaker 1: So you know, as I said before, I think it's
1:08:44
Speaker 1: important that Democrats have more than you know that their
1:08:46
Speaker 1: path are trying to win four seats, you know, puts
1:08:49
Speaker 1: them in six or seven or eight different states, which
1:08:52
Speaker 1: they have done. But in that spirit, because Michigan clearly
1:08:58
Speaker 1: now is a real vulnerabilit for Democrats for a state
1:09:01
Speaker 1: wide held office, the seat that they could lose, I
1:09:04
Speaker 1: thought i'd come up this week's top top five list.
1:09:07
Speaker 1: It's the top five most vulnerable either Senate or GOV
1:09:13
Speaker 1: seats that currently are in the Democratic column. You know,
1:09:17
Speaker 1: we're in a year that is a that appears, frankly
1:09:20
Speaker 1: every week it looks like there's a chance that republic
1:09:25
Speaker 1: Democrats could truly catch the so called wave and win
1:09:29
Speaker 1: control of both the House and the Senate. Yes, you know,
1:09:32
Speaker 1: everything that has gone against the Democrats has been technical,
1:09:36
Speaker 1: but not atmospheric What do I mean by that? Right?
1:09:40
Speaker 1: The redistricting rulings have gone against them, Right, the Voting
1:09:42
Speaker 1: Rights Act stuff has gone against them. That stuff is
1:09:45
Speaker 1: not worked for them. This Senate map isn't the easiest map,
1:09:49
Speaker 1: but the environment only gets better for them, Right, The
1:09:52
Speaker 1: corruption issues only become easier for them. Donald Trump has
1:09:56
Speaker 1: only become more unpopular. People's frustrations about the tech and
1:10:00
Speaker 1: the economy, things that sort of helped the party out
1:10:03
Speaker 1: of power. In theory, I've been going against them. So
1:10:07
Speaker 1: the atmospherics are getting it's like the weather's getting worse,
1:10:12
Speaker 1: but the Republican House is really good. Hurricane shutters, right,
1:10:16
Speaker 1: so we shall see. So it's in that spirit that
1:10:19
Speaker 1: I wanted to go through because we actually had primaries
1:10:22
Speaker 1: on Tuesday that featured two Democratic held seats that are
1:10:27
Speaker 1: on this vulnerable top five list. So number one on
1:10:30
Speaker 1: the list of a Democratic held statewide office, either governor Senate.
1:10:34
Speaker 1: I'm just doing those two them, not going down down
1:10:36
Speaker 1: into the down ballot state wide races that are the
1:10:40
Speaker 1: most vulnerable to Republicans flipping. So number one on the list,
1:10:43
Speaker 1: Kansas Governor Tim Masterson is a Republican nominee. Now, look,
1:10:46
Speaker 1: he is from the more conservative faction inside the Kansas
1:10:51
Speaker 1: Republican Party. The recipe for Democrats has been when the
1:10:56
Speaker 1: Republican nominee for governor is seen as two outside the
1:10:59
Speaker 1: main and the Democratic candidate for governor is seen as
1:11:03
Speaker 1: closer to the middle. Well, the Republican nominee and Masterson,
1:11:08
Speaker 1: he's the Senate president, definitely a bit further to the
1:11:11
Speaker 1: right than maybe where the media and voter in Kansas is.
1:11:16
Speaker 1: But as I told you about the Democratic primary the governors,
1:11:22
Speaker 1: the governors preferred candidate, Ethan Corson lost to a state
1:11:29
Speaker 1: legislature named Sidney Holtscher. They're both from the Johnson County area,
1:11:32
Speaker 1: which is the Kansas City, Kansas part sort of the
1:11:35
Speaker 1: Kansas side of the Kansas City media market. And she
1:11:38
Speaker 1: won essentially running against the governor's plan to bring the
1:11:41
Speaker 1: Kansas City chiefs from Missouri to Kansas. So it means
1:11:45
Speaker 1: you have potentially a divided Democratic Party. And while she didn't,
1:11:50
Speaker 1: this wasn't a traditional left versus governing you know, sort
1:11:53
Speaker 1: of progressive versus the governing wing of the party. Certainly
1:11:57
Speaker 1: coming in from the outside, I'm not convinced that the
1:11:59
Speaker 1: National Democrats are going to put a lot of money
1:12:01
Speaker 1: in this. I think they're whether it's fair or not
1:12:05
Speaker 1: to Sydney Holtschert. We'll see, maybe she can raise a
1:12:07
Speaker 1: ton of money on her own, but I think it's
1:12:09
Speaker 1: pretty clear this is probably the single most vulnerable Democratic
1:12:14
Speaker 1: held statewide seat in a major office that is likely
1:12:17
Speaker 1: to flip. So that's number one, Kansas Cup. Number two
1:12:21
Speaker 1: on this list is now Michigan Senate. I think that
1:12:25
Speaker 1: you will see an enormous amount of money. When I
1:12:28
Speaker 1: said before, I think the the identity politics that the
1:12:32
Speaker 1: right is going to play here, They're going to play
1:12:35
Speaker 1: the Muslim card, the nine to eleven card, the Islamophobia card,
1:12:40
Speaker 1: the anti Semitism card. You're going to see a lot
1:12:43
Speaker 1: of this. A lot of this has already been thrown
1:12:47
Speaker 1: at him in some ways, he's comfortable handling that campaign.
1:12:51
Speaker 1: I kind of think this is going to be a
1:12:53
Speaker 1: strategic mistake that they do, because they may I think
1:12:57
Speaker 1: I think there's a I think you the likely hood
1:13:00
Speaker 1: of this boomer ranging because they overdo it is there.
1:13:04
Speaker 1: But I think you have to respect the enormous amount
1:13:06
Speaker 1: of money that's going to come in. And we saw
1:13:08
Speaker 1: an enormous amount of money is going to make this
1:13:10
Speaker 1: race very very close. You know, a couple of questions,
1:13:15
Speaker 1: how will will Democrats consolidate and unite around I'll do
1:13:20
Speaker 1: all si Ed. I think the fact that he had
1:13:23
Speaker 1: a little humble pie right, he didn't win by the
1:13:26
Speaker 1: double digits that is super pack would flaunt and claim
1:13:29
Speaker 1: might be the best thing that happened to his candidacy
1:13:31
Speaker 1: and the best thing that happened to Senate Democrats because
1:13:35
Speaker 1: he's not trashing Hanley Stevens anymore. He didn't trash her
1:13:38
Speaker 1: even before the before the post closed last night, somebody
1:13:42
Speaker 1: told him, Hey, you need these voters. You're going to
1:13:44
Speaker 1: need African American voters, and you're going to have to
1:13:46
Speaker 1: You're going to have to h You're going to have
1:13:50
Speaker 1: to have a bigger tent. But it's definitely number two
1:13:52
Speaker 1: in the list. Number three on a list is a
1:13:55
Speaker 1: race I've brought up before, and it is Oregon governor.
1:14:01
Speaker 1: The incumbent Tina Kotec is essentially in a rematch with
1:14:06
Speaker 1: the Republican Christine Drazen. Look she she was vulnerable the
1:14:10
Speaker 1: last time. There's been some frustration at how essentially capital
1:14:17
Speaker 1: d Democratic governance. Right, there's been unhappiness with the governance
1:14:21
Speaker 1: in Portland, the city of Portland, there's been unhappiness with
1:14:23
Speaker 1: the governance of the state. And you know, Oregon is
1:14:28
Speaker 1: one of the longest streaks in the in the nation
1:14:31
Speaker 1: for for how long a Democrat has held that gubernatorial seat.
1:14:36
Speaker 1: It is the only thing working against Republicans is the
1:14:40
Speaker 1: national environment. But in governor's races, you can overcome a
1:14:45
Speaker 1: national environment if people because in governor's races are more
1:14:48
Speaker 1: likely to personalize things. And you know, it's interesting in
1:14:51
Speaker 1: these in rematches, in governor's races, you sometimes do see
1:14:56
Speaker 1: this where the second time, if especially if the if,
1:14:59
Speaker 1: the if the governor, if the sitting governor's is popularity
1:15:03
Speaker 1: is waning a little bit, in Tina Kotex's popularity is
1:15:06
Speaker 1: waning a bit, you can see them have success. So
1:15:09
Speaker 1: I think number three on my list is Oregon govern
1:15:12
Speaker 1: and then number four and we'll see this could go
1:15:14
Speaker 1: up is Wisconsin governor. I want to see what happened.
1:15:17
Speaker 1: But if I think if Francesca Hang is the Democratic nominee,
1:15:21
Speaker 1: I don't think she can win. I'm skeptical. It's not
1:15:26
Speaker 1: that I don't think a progressive can win in Wisconsin.
1:15:28
Speaker 1: That's not it. I don't think she can win. I
1:15:31
Speaker 1: think she's just going to be seen as to Madison
1:15:33
Speaker 1: if you can make a Democrat scene too much of
1:15:36
Speaker 1: a Madison Democrat, which is code for, you know, basically
1:15:40
Speaker 1: socialist and socialist adjacent. And she's of course a member
1:15:43
Speaker 1: of the DSA. Just to let you know how how
1:15:48
Speaker 1: far to the left there are some voters are in Madison.
1:15:52
Speaker 1: In two thousand in Madison, Ralph Nader carried a couple
1:15:59
Speaker 1: of precincts in Madison in Dan County. That's how far
1:16:05
Speaker 1: to the left there are some voters in Madison. So
1:16:08
Speaker 1: she's going to do quite well there. But to voters
1:16:12
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin know what that means. And I'm very skeptical
1:16:16
Speaker 1: that a very you know that a that a that
1:16:19
Speaker 1: somebody that far to the left can win statewide. Look,
1:16:22
Speaker 1: Tom Tiffany is probably is definitely further to the right
1:16:25
Speaker 1: than the median voter. The question is is he further
1:16:28
Speaker 1: to the right than she is to the left. And
1:16:34
Speaker 1: the question we dealt with a lot during our live
1:16:36
Speaker 1: stream was is Tom Tiffany further to the right than
1:16:39
Speaker 1: Ron Johnson? Because Ron Johnson's been able to win mid
1:16:42
Speaker 1: terms and presidential years even in the Trump Borough. So
1:16:48
Speaker 1: that's why i've number four and number five. I don't
1:16:52
Speaker 1: have one, and that might be the most important piece
1:16:59
Speaker 1: of analysis in my top five list. Yes, could I
1:17:02
Speaker 1: find a you know what would be next on the list?
1:17:06
Speaker 1: These four seats are seats that I could see Republicans
1:17:09
Speaker 1: winning even as Democrats win control of the House and Senate,
1:17:14
Speaker 1: even as the national environment is D plus seven. That's
1:17:18
Speaker 1: how vulnerable I think Democrats are losing. These four seats
1:17:20
Speaker 1: that I highlighted Kansas Gov, Michigan Senate, Oregon Gov, Wisconsin Gov.
1:17:26
Speaker 1: But if that's what the environment is, I can't find
1:17:28
Speaker 1: a fifth race that would fall into that category. It
1:17:30
Speaker 1: isn't Georgia Senate, it isnt New Hampshire Senate. I've given
1:17:34
Speaker 1: you all the reasons why it's not Minnesota Senate or
1:17:36
Speaker 1: Minnesota Governor, which maybe in theory it could have been
1:17:39
Speaker 1: had Tim Walls tried to run for a third term,
1:17:42
Speaker 1: or had Amy Klobish are not said yes to rescuing
1:17:46
Speaker 1: the Minnesota Democratic Party in their time and need. But
1:17:51
Speaker 1: when you look around, it is hard to find. I mean,
1:17:55
Speaker 1: I'm you know there aren't any light blue Democratic held
1:18:01
Speaker 1: seats that look that look very vulnerable the cycle. And
1:18:06
Speaker 1: I think that alone tells you the atmospherics, the national
1:18:11
Speaker 1: environment only gets better for Democrats. It's only gotten better
1:18:14
Speaker 1: even as the party is in fighting. There's no doubt
1:18:17
Speaker 1: these divides could very well. They've nominated it could very well.
1:18:20
Speaker 1: We may say they nominated the wrong They nominate cans
1:18:23
Speaker 1: that couldn't win statewide in Michigan or couldn't win statewide
1:18:26
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin. That's very possible. And if they come up
1:18:30
Speaker 1: short and not able to win the Senate and it's
1:18:32
Speaker 1: one seat short and it's Michigan, you know that will
1:18:35
Speaker 1: be a huge black mark on the progressive scorecard as
1:18:41
Speaker 1: they want to as they make their case to basically
1:18:43
Speaker 1: be the leading faction inside the Democratic Party. But the point,
1:18:49
Speaker 1: but the larger point I want to drive home here
1:18:51
Speaker 1: is atmospherically, this is how much the landscape has shifted
1:18:58
Speaker 1: towards the Democrats that realistically you can really only find
1:19:04
Speaker 1: four Democratic helb combined Senate or gubernatorial seats that you
1:19:10
Speaker 1: could truly say are at risk at this point in time,
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1:21:06
Speaker 1: My first question today comes from Matt J. In South Windsor,
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Speaker 1: Connecticut aka Solizza Land. So, Matt, did you go to
1:21:15
Speaker 1: the Loomis Chafey School for Ordinary Men? Whatever the heck
1:21:19
Speaker 1: get's called. Anyway, here's your question. You've said you don't
1:21:23
Speaker 1: think the administration is being completely for worthcoming about Trump's health,
1:21:26
Speaker 1: but it got me wondering. Washington leaks almost everything, yet
1:21:29
Speaker 1: the full picture of the of a president's health, whether
1:21:31
Speaker 1: Biden's or now Trump's, really seems to come out. Does
1:21:34
Speaker 1: that mean the concerns are often overblown or is presidential
1:21:37
Speaker 1: health one of the few things an administration can actually
1:21:39
Speaker 1: keep under wraps. If so, why, I think it's the latter.
1:21:45
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you go back to Reagan. You know,
1:21:48
Speaker 1: even after he died, you didn't see some like, well,
1:21:53
Speaker 1: here's what people were really saying about what was happening
1:21:56
Speaker 1: in that last year and a half. And you know,
1:21:58
Speaker 1: there was certainly your level of Washington gossip of you know,
1:22:03
Speaker 1: different you know, Ken Duberstein was the last chief of staff.
1:22:06
Speaker 1: He was the deputy under under Howard Baker there at
1:22:11
Speaker 1: the tail end of Reagan, and there's certainly you know,
1:22:14
Speaker 1: anybody who knew Ken, you know, you knew there were issues,
1:22:18
Speaker 1: but it wasn't It didn't sound like they were hiding
1:22:20
Speaker 1: health issues. But I think what you have in the
1:22:24
Speaker 1: case of both Biden and Reagan were spouses that were
1:22:31
Speaker 1: incredibly protective of that. And so I think in both
1:22:35
Speaker 1: the case of Biden and Reagan, the circle of people
1:22:38
Speaker 1: who actually knew the health situation was very very tight
1:22:41
Speaker 1: and very very small. You bring up a fair point
1:22:43
Speaker 1: on Trump, right, The one thing about Trump is eventually
1:22:47
Speaker 1: everything leaks, So it is, but it's one of these
1:22:56
Speaker 1: things where it's obvious what Trump's health issues are. They're
1:23:01
Speaker 1: not what he has are the health issues that are
1:23:04
Speaker 1: frankly common for somebody who's kind of out of shape,
1:23:09
Speaker 1: doesn't eat well and never has eaten well, and has
1:23:12
Speaker 1: never stayed in shape. Right, He's got you know, he's
1:23:15
Speaker 1: got the fluid in his ankles. You know, he's got
1:23:18
Speaker 1: the sort of the you know, so he's got those
1:23:21
Speaker 1: kind of ailments. But he's so vain he doesn't want
1:23:26
Speaker 1: any of it out there. And that's what you have
1:23:29
Speaker 1: in this case. It's Trump's vanity that I think, the
1:23:34
Speaker 1: fear of God of leaking that stuff. They know that
1:23:38
Speaker 1: you know, he'll he'll be in a tie rate about
1:23:42
Speaker 1: it because creating the image of virality, of vitality with
1:23:47
Speaker 1: him and virility both is so important, right, His image
1:23:52
Speaker 1: is so important, right that you know how we all
1:23:54
Speaker 1: know how long he spends with his hair. Usually doesn't
1:23:57
Speaker 1: get going about ten thirty or eleven in the morning
1:23:58
Speaker 1: in public, because he's always you know, he wants to
1:24:01
Speaker 1: make sure and he's so worried about he always wants
1:24:04
Speaker 1: to almost always look the same no matter where he's at. Right,
1:24:08
Speaker 1: it's the same sort of suit with the red tie
1:24:12
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. So I think it's the vanity.
1:24:15
Speaker 1: But in the case of Biden and Reagan, who are
1:24:17
Speaker 1: two of the presidents in my lifetime who clearly had
1:24:20
Speaker 1: health issues that weren't being shared, I think you had
1:24:22
Speaker 1: spouses that were just incredibly protective on that one. Next
1:24:27
Speaker 1: question comes from Bob Prairie Village, Kansas, and you're right, Hey, Chuck,
1:24:30
Speaker 1: Greetings from Kansas's third District. I have two questions. First,
1:24:34
Speaker 1: what have you made of the sportsmanship, camaraderie, and postmatch
1:24:38
Speaker 1: rituals we've seen during the FIFA tournament? Second? Did anything
1:24:40
Speaker 1: meaningful come out of the Fauci hearing or hearings like it?
1:24:43
Speaker 1: More generally? I found myself feeling sympathetic towards Fauci despite
1:24:46
Speaker 1: the harsh questioning, which made me wonder why I reacted
1:24:48
Speaker 1: differently to beat Heigsa's recent hearing. Thanks appreciate you, Bob
1:24:52
Speaker 1: and Prairie Village, Kansas. Well. First, on the sportsmanship, I
1:24:57
Speaker 1: think one of the reasons you saw so much of
1:24:58
Speaker 1: it is remember a lot of these guys play together
1:25:01
Speaker 1: on professional teams in Europe, So even though you know
1:25:07
Speaker 1: you know with the exception of what we saw with
1:25:08
Speaker 1: the sort of clearly a bit of unsportsmanlike conduct, if
1:25:15
Speaker 1: you will, when it came to sort of Argentina versus
1:25:17
Speaker 1: Spain there. But you're right, right, but I think that's
1:25:20
Speaker 1: almost almost all have to do with how many of
1:25:24
Speaker 1: those players our teammates on other teams, and whether it's
1:25:30
Speaker 1: in the Premier League, you know, the Bundesliga wherever, you
1:25:35
Speaker 1: know what I mean. I just I think that is
1:25:37
Speaker 1: what explains the sportsmanship wasn't anything else. It's just how
1:25:40
Speaker 1: familiar they all, particularly those the final eight teams, right,
1:25:45
Speaker 1: the final even sixteen, right, those final sixteen teams. Look,
1:25:48
Speaker 1: I'm no expert on soccer, but I think even a
1:25:52
Speaker 1: caveman like me knows that if you made it to
1:25:54
Speaker 1: the round of sixteen in the World Cup, you probably
1:25:57
Speaker 1: have at least two or three players that are playing
1:26:00
Speaker 1: in the professional side of things in Europe. And I
1:26:03
Speaker 1: think that that probably is what explains explain to that.
1:26:07
Speaker 1: As for these hearings, look, I will let me go
1:26:10
Speaker 1: to my first sort of the first villain here, which
1:26:15
Speaker 1: is the television camera. Right, you take away a television
1:26:20
Speaker 1: camera and suddenly a hearing produces real information right, the
1:26:27
Speaker 1: Intel Committee, when it goes into quote unquote close session,
1:26:29
Speaker 1: which is code for the public, doesn't get to hear it,
1:26:34
Speaker 1: and there are no cameras and there is no transcript
1:26:38
Speaker 1: that's even released. You never hear about exploit. You know,
1:26:43
Speaker 1: it's rare that you hear about partisan bickering back and forth. Right,
1:26:46
Speaker 1: It only happens when the cameras are rolling, because there's
1:26:51
Speaker 1: always somebody who thinks they have to score points with
1:26:54
Speaker 1: their political base by dunking on whoever it is that's there, right, Frankly,
1:27:00
Speaker 1: the risk of not doing it, it can it can
1:27:03
Speaker 1: you know, if it looks like you're being due too
1:27:05
Speaker 1: chummy with some member of the other administration that you know,
1:27:10
Speaker 1: gets held against you. Darling Graham is having to almost
1:27:13
Speaker 1: have to apologize for the fact that her brother would
1:27:16
Speaker 1: vote to confirm Democratic appointed Supreme Court justices. That was
1:27:19
Speaker 1: seen as a sin to some voters, Republican voters in
1:27:22
Speaker 1: South Carolina. So the point being is that I think
1:27:25
Speaker 1: that that the cameras forced the performative. As for the
1:27:29
Speaker 1: Fauci hearing specifically, I think I said this before, and
1:27:34
Speaker 1: I want to I want to share with you. You know,
1:27:39
Speaker 1: my son got tuned into the Fauci hearing because as
1:27:43
Speaker 1: Packer fans, he still seems to care what Aaron Rodgers
1:27:46
Speaker 1: has to say. And so he caught what Aaron Rodgers
1:27:48
Speaker 1: said on McAfee show, and he goes, why did Fauci
1:27:54
Speaker 1: plead the fifth right? He's not And I said, well,
1:27:58
Speaker 1: I said, because he got risk He got overly cautious
1:28:02
Speaker 1: advice from his lawyer. Fauchi has that preemptive pardon from Biden,
1:28:09
Speaker 1: but he chose not to use it. With his decision
1:28:11
Speaker 1: to do that, I think his lawyer told him that, Look,
1:28:15
Speaker 1: they're going to trying to They're going to do anything
1:28:18
Speaker 1: they can to find any reason at all to find
1:28:21
Speaker 1: a way to indict you. Regardless of that part, they
1:28:26
Speaker 1: just want they want the headline. They don't really care
1:28:29
Speaker 1: if it actually sticks. So they decided they didn't want
1:28:34
Speaker 1: to risk that and they didn't want to the headline.
1:28:36
Speaker 1: I think it was a mistake. I'm sorry it did
1:28:40
Speaker 1: it because I think it created the impression that Fauchi
1:28:42
Speaker 1: has something high. I understand that, yes, this administration is
1:28:48
Speaker 1: filled with retribution, but I guess I wanted it. Look,
1:28:55
Speaker 1: I called it, you remember what I called I called
1:28:57
Speaker 1: it elder abuse. Right, He's an eighty five year old man.
1:28:59
Speaker 1: It seems ridiculous. And what really sort of is a
1:29:02
Speaker 1: head scratcher to me, is this faux anger that Josh
1:29:07
Speaker 1: Holly and Bernie Marino and Ran Paul performatively showed in flex.
1:29:13
Speaker 1: You know, Anthony Fauci had none of this power. You know,
1:29:17
Speaker 1: you know who had the power to make all these
1:29:19
Speaker 1: decisions was Donald Trump. It's fascinating to me that none
1:29:23
Speaker 1: of these individuals are angry that Donald Trump fell under
1:29:27
Speaker 1: the spell of Tony Fauci. Again, let's accept every put yourself.
1:29:34
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and accept the premise that all the
1:29:37
Speaker 1: criticism that Rand Paul has set is valid. Then a
1:29:43
Speaker 1: question I would have for him is what do you
1:29:45
Speaker 1: make of the fact that Donald Trump was duped by
1:29:49
Speaker 1: Tony Fauci. Again, I'm not saying he was, but let's
1:29:53
Speaker 1: accept this premise. Right. So I I'm i'm, I'm, I'm
1:30:03
Speaker 1: sorry that he pled the fifth I get it. I
1:30:08
Speaker 1: understand the advice. And you know what, he's tired and
1:30:11
Speaker 1: he doesn't want more legal headaches and he just wants
1:30:14
Speaker 1: to be left alone. He's done with her. I get it,
1:30:19
Speaker 1: But it does the whole thing. I'm with you. It
1:30:26
Speaker 1: left a bad taste in my mouth too. I don't
1:30:27
Speaker 1: like anything about it. I'm and you know I've said
1:30:34
Speaker 1: this before. I'm somebody who thinks that, you know, in
1:30:36
Speaker 1: the gang of one hundred of one hundred senators. I
1:30:39
Speaker 1: think the ideology, the belief system of ram Paul's is
1:30:45
Speaker 1: something that should be representative of one of the one hundred,
1:30:48
Speaker 1: should should come from that faction of the parties. He
1:30:51
Speaker 1: is a bit sort of a unique form of libertarianism,
1:30:57
Speaker 1: and a lot of times his counter is sort of
1:31:00
Speaker 1: counterintuitive ways I think can sometimes help tackle some issues
1:31:08
Speaker 1: from a different angle that deserve to be tackled. But
1:31:14
Speaker 1: this came across like a vendetta, came across as vindictive,
1:31:19
Speaker 1: was oddly personal for reasons that make no sense. And
1:31:22
Speaker 1: again is this frustration by Republicans that they that they
1:31:26
Speaker 1: can't attack Donald Trump, so they're going to go after
1:31:30
Speaker 1: the eighty five year old former government official. I mean,
1:31:36
Speaker 1: that was the part of this hearing that bothered me
1:31:37
Speaker 1: the most, which is Tony Fauci had no constitutional authority whatsoever.
1:31:44
Speaker 1: It was Donald Trump that did. It was the governors
1:31:47
Speaker 1: that did. By the way, Ron DeSantis during the during
1:31:51
Speaker 1: his brief challenge to Donald Trump in the primary in
1:31:54
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, tried that line of attack and it
1:31:57
Speaker 1: just didn't hit, right. He tried to hit. He goes, well,
1:32:01
Speaker 1: Trump was dumb enough to follow Fauci and all this stuff.
1:32:04
Speaker 1: He went out and it never landed, It never hit.
1:32:06
Speaker 1: It was amazing how Republican voters decided to get angry
1:32:12
Speaker 1: at Fauci but never punished Trump for his horrendous, erratic leadership,
1:32:21
Speaker 1: if you want to call it that, during COVID, so
1:32:25
Speaker 1: they decided to take out their frustration on Fauci. So, anyway,
1:32:29
Speaker 1: that bugged me a lot. And the hag Seth hearings. Look,
1:32:33
Speaker 1: Hank Set's not a serious person, so it's hard to
1:32:36
Speaker 1: get a serious hearing. You know. I hope he's better
1:32:39
Speaker 1: behind the scenes when they go into closed door session,
1:32:41
Speaker 1: which a lot of times with the Defense Secretary they will.
1:32:45
Speaker 1: But yeah, the performative aspect, you know, his behavior only
1:32:51
Speaker 1: encourages the performative on the left, and it's just it deteriorates.
1:32:55
Speaker 1: And this is why everybody finds Congress to be a
1:32:58
Speaker 1: laughing stock right now, because it is, let's be honest,
1:33:05
Speaker 1: it is. Next question comes from Kevin B. Pennsylvania, Wan
1:33:08
Speaker 1: and he goes, hey, my Congressman PAB Brian Fitzpatrick, the
1:33:12
Speaker 1: Republican who survives in the Trump era by trying not
1:33:14
Speaker 1: to vote with Trump. He goes he regularly highlights bipartisan
1:33:18
Speaker 1: letters he and other members of Congress and to the
1:33:19
Speaker 1: president or Cabinet secretary's urging action. Man Brian Fitzpatrick is
1:33:23
Speaker 1: always mindful of who of the makeup of his district.
1:33:29
Speaker 1: From your experience covering Washington, do you do these letters
1:33:32
Speaker 1: actually influence policy or are they mostly symbolic to show constituents
1:33:35
Speaker 1: that members are engaged. Is there any process for tracking
1:33:38
Speaker 1: whether they receive responses or lead to action. There is
1:33:42
Speaker 1: not a good that's a good idea of coming, you know,
1:33:45
Speaker 1: finding an organization to keep track of those. I'm sure
1:33:51
Speaker 1: that you know the Congressional Research Service. There's probably a
1:33:54
Speaker 1: way to track these things. But I will say this,
1:33:57
Speaker 1: bipartisan letters are more likely to get a response from
1:34:00
Speaker 1: these agencies than partisan letters. Right. If you're particularly if
1:34:04
Speaker 1: you're a Democrat trying to get some action and out
1:34:07
Speaker 1: of a Republican department, you're going to have a better
1:34:10
Speaker 1: shot if there's a Republican co signer to your letter
1:34:13
Speaker 1: if you're trying to get something out of one of
1:34:14
Speaker 1: the cabinet departments. So in that sense, it I do
1:34:19
Speaker 1: think it has some it has some impact. And then
1:34:25
Speaker 1: obviously if you're a member of the same party that
1:34:28
Speaker 1: the cabinet's secretary is, they're going to be more responsive
1:34:32
Speaker 1: because if they're not, they know you're likely to immediately
1:34:36
Speaker 1: to go to, you know, one of the leaders of
1:34:40
Speaker 1: the same party and complain. Might be the President, might
1:34:42
Speaker 1: be the Speaker, might be the Senate leader, whatever it is.
1:34:44
Speaker 1: So but no, those bipartisan letters, it staffers are sensitive
1:34:52
Speaker 1: to it. And if when there is a when it
1:34:55
Speaker 1: really looks bipartisan, they're more likely to give a less
1:35:02
Speaker 1: political response that they're more likely to give him more
1:35:05
Speaker 1: professional response. So, in fairness to Congressman Fitzpatrick, yes, look,
1:35:09
Speaker 1: is it some of it? You could say is it performative? Sure,
1:35:14
Speaker 1: but we live in a performative era of politics. So
1:35:18
Speaker 1: he's got to show his middle of the road constituents, right,
1:35:21
Speaker 1: He clearly has voters who vote Fitzpatrick Harris, who voted
1:35:25
Speaker 1: Fitzpatrick Biden. He's got to show them that he hasn't
1:35:31
Speaker 1: changed his stripes, so I do think he probably there's
1:35:35
Speaker 1: no doubt he goes out of his way to do
1:35:36
Speaker 1: more of them. But they land better than you think.
1:35:39
Speaker 1: I get your cynicism, but they land better than you think.
1:35:42
Speaker 1: Next question, Jed D. He goes, Hey, I'm listening to
1:35:44
Speaker 1: your discussion about why we know so little about the shooter,
1:35:47
Speaker 1: and I wonder if there's a simpler explanation. I think
1:35:49
Speaker 1: you're having to do with the Butler assassination attempt. Earlier
1:35:52
Speaker 1: reports suggested he had looked up the travel schedules of
1:35:54
Speaker 1: both Biden and Trump, which made me think he may
1:35:56
Speaker 1: have been seeking notoriety more than targeting one specific person.
1:36:00
Speaker 1: I think you're right about that. Do you think politics
1:36:01
Speaker 1: has discouraged a fuller investigation or public discussion because that
1:36:05
Speaker 1: conclusion doesn't fit either site's preferred narrative. Well that there's
1:36:08
Speaker 1: no doubt if the right thought they could paint the
1:36:13
Speaker 1: narrative of crazed left wing lunatic take shot at Trump,
1:36:18
Speaker 1: or the left could say hey crazy, you know, anti
1:36:24
Speaker 1: semi lunatic or anti Emmarck whatever. Sure, I think you're right.
1:36:28
Speaker 1: I mean, if either party thought there was a clean
1:36:30
Speaker 1: narrative here and there's Certainly I think you're right that
1:36:33
Speaker 1: the initial background of There's it doesn't he doesn't appear
1:36:37
Speaker 1: to be a ideologically driven or sume he's dead. He
1:36:43
Speaker 1: didn't appear to be an ideologically driven shooter. That he
1:36:50
Speaker 1: was more of the crazy person aspect of things. But
1:37:00
Speaker 1: so was John Inkley. And John Inkley is a name
1:37:05
Speaker 1: that a lot of people, right, you don't have to
1:37:07
Speaker 1: explain who John Inkley is, certainly to people of a
1:37:10
Speaker 1: certain age. So and he became notorious, I guess, is
1:37:14
Speaker 1: one way of putting it on that. But yeah, I
1:37:21
Speaker 1: think that's as good of a theory as any on
1:37:23
Speaker 1: that that that there is some that there was no
1:37:27
Speaker 1: clean political narrative, and because there was no clean political narrative,
1:37:35
Speaker 1: it sort of went away. And you could also argue
1:37:38
Speaker 1: the timing of it, right, so this took place two
1:37:41
Speaker 1: days before the start of the Republican Convention. Certainly the
1:37:43
Speaker 1: Republican Convention was about that. I think the fact that
1:37:47
Speaker 1: he survived contributes to it. I think the fact that
1:37:51
Speaker 1: Republican voters themselves sort of, instead of reacting angrily, reacted
1:37:55
Speaker 1: more of like, oh, he's been chosen, right, that was
1:38:00
Speaker 1: the that was God's hand, right, So it became in
1:38:03
Speaker 1: some ways. I think it definitely had a There's some
1:38:11
Speaker 1: people who believe that Trump won the election right there,
1:38:15
Speaker 1: that that moment won him the election. I think you could.
1:38:25
Speaker 1: I think you could make a persuasive case that that
1:38:28
Speaker 1: was true because it's certainly rarely has Trump been humanized,
1:38:36
Speaker 1: and that was that was the most humanized version of
1:38:40
Speaker 1: Trump that we've had in the in this political era
1:38:44
Speaker 1: that Trump has dominated that week, so I I you know, Plus,
1:38:52
Speaker 1: that was the week that Elon Musk decided he was
1:38:54
Speaker 1: all in and he seemed to whether he was looking
1:38:58
Speaker 1: for a moment or it did inspire him. Whatever it was.
1:39:02
Speaker 1: That had obviously had a huge financial asset to the
1:39:06
Speaker 1: campaign as well, So I think all of that contributed
1:39:10
Speaker 1: some to the limited beating for let me put it
1:39:14
Speaker 1: in another way, had this assassination attent happened in an
1:39:17
Speaker 1: odd numbered year where we weren't in the middle of
1:39:19
Speaker 1: a campaign and there wasn't essentially wasn't something else driving
1:39:25
Speaker 1: coverage i e. The presidential campaign? Maybe more maybe maybe
1:39:30
Speaker 1: there's more time where media sort of sits on this
1:39:34
Speaker 1: story and just sort of, you know, sits on it
1:39:37
Speaker 1: and sits on it and sits on it and it
1:39:40
Speaker 1: and it gets some tracks in that way. So all right,
1:39:46
Speaker 1: and the last question for the week return questioner here
1:39:50
Speaker 1: Chase C. Little Rock, Arkansas. Hey Chase, you see what
1:39:53
Speaker 1: I'm wearing? Brother got the hog got some hogswagon this week.
1:40:00
Speaker 1: First off, thanks for the great podcast recommendations. I finally
1:40:02
Speaker 1: made it back to DC for the first time since
1:40:04
Speaker 1: college and love checking out the Einstein memorial. Sitting at
1:40:07
Speaker 1: off the record behind the heavily barricaded White House perimeter
1:40:10
Speaker 1: got me wondering does the growing physical separation between our
1:40:13
Speaker 1: leaders and the public reinforce the Washington bubble? Or is
1:40:15
Speaker 1: heightened security unintentionally undermining the accessibility it's meant to protect.
1:40:20
Speaker 1: So I hate our security minded culture, right And I've
1:40:24
Speaker 1: watched this grow. And I first moved to Washington, you
1:40:27
Speaker 1: could parallel park, probably illegally. You'd probably get ticketed eventually,
1:40:31
Speaker 1: but you could parallel park on Pennsylvania Avenue in front
1:40:34
Speaker 1: of the White House. Now it's a pedestrian walkway if
1:40:40
Speaker 1: you're lucky, and usually they guide you to Lafayette Park.
1:40:43
Speaker 1: And if Donald Trump has his way, they want to
1:40:45
Speaker 1: make this perimeter. Now go on the other side of
1:40:48
Speaker 1: Lafayette Park, which, for those of you that know DC's geography,
1:40:52
Speaker 1: would mean the closest sort of the average non credential
1:40:55
Speaker 1: person might be able to get to the White House
1:40:57
Speaker 1: might be H Street or on the other side E
1:41:01
Speaker 1: on the other side, which is I and then you
1:41:03
Speaker 1: have all this. You know, you can maybe get some
1:41:07
Speaker 1: pedestrian walkway, but I think the secure Look, the heightened
1:41:14
Speaker 1: amount of political threats is heightened security in general, and
1:41:17
Speaker 1: we've seen it first the bubble around the presidency. My
1:41:20
Speaker 1: concern is that we're going to start to see a
1:41:22
Speaker 1: growing separation between the public and members of Congress. Right,
1:41:25
Speaker 1: Congress is not supposed to have that kind of separation.
1:41:28
Speaker 1: They're they're elected, they're of the people. But the amount
1:41:34
Speaker 1: of of threats that come into Congress now has gone
1:41:39
Speaker 1: up big time. We've seen the amount of attacks on
1:41:45
Speaker 1: politicians go up. We've seen state legislatures killed in their
1:41:48
Speaker 1: home in Minnesota. So, you know, and always when you
1:41:54
Speaker 1: have when you have moments like that, the immediate priority
1:41:59
Speaker 1: becomes secure and you know, look we've seen it. Look
1:42:03
Speaker 1: look at our sporting events right when I you know,
1:42:07
Speaker 1: it used to be if you had Mags show up
1:42:09
Speaker 1: at a game of men, Oh, the President's coming, you'd
1:42:11
Speaker 1: only get like Magn. You only went through a magnetometer
1:42:14
Speaker 1: if somebody that big was going to visit the ballpark.
1:42:19
Speaker 1: Now it's just sort of we all go through you know,
1:42:23
Speaker 1: everybody goes through a magnetometer. So we've been creating security
1:42:31
Speaker 1: bubbles around our celebrities, around our athletes, around our politicians.
1:42:36
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think it's only going to make politicians
1:42:39
Speaker 1: look more out of touch, feel more out of touch.
1:42:43
Speaker 1: And I will say this, if you're an elected official
1:42:46
Speaker 1: who is afraid of the public, please leave the profession,
1:42:50
Speaker 1: get out of politics. If you are afraid of the public,
1:42:55
Speaker 1: then you shouldn't be in politics. If pure and simple,
1:43:00
Speaker 1: and I understand, I get the threats. I understand it.
1:43:03
Speaker 1: And you know I've made it very clear right I'm
1:43:06
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get near certain officials who seem
1:43:09
Speaker 1: to almost invite chaos close to them. I'm not putting
1:43:13
Speaker 1: myself unnecessarily in harm's way. But I also don't have
1:43:18
Speaker 1: I also have not gone out there and asked for
1:43:21
Speaker 1: the taxpayers to give me a job, pay me, and
1:43:25
Speaker 1: then suddenly not be around, not be able to talk
1:43:28
Speaker 1: to them, not be able to be seen by them. So,
1:43:32
Speaker 1: you know, I do think if you're a politician and
1:43:34
Speaker 1: you're afraid of if you want to be in public office,
1:43:38
Speaker 1: yeah there's going to be risk. There's risk for everything
1:43:41
Speaker 1: in life. But if you want to be an elected
1:43:44
Speaker 1: official and you're afraid of the public, and if you're
1:43:49
Speaker 1: if you fear the public, it's likely that you have
1:43:54
Speaker 1: said words or behaved in a way that it has
1:43:56
Speaker 1: incited the public in a way. I'm not sitting here.
1:43:59
Speaker 1: I'm going to sit here and say I'm gonna blame
1:44:01
Speaker 1: the victim. But in politics, you know, if if the
1:44:06
Speaker 1: people that usually are fearful of the people and are
1:44:09
Speaker 1: afraid of interacting with folks because of quote unquote security
1:44:13
Speaker 1: threats are the ones that have gone out of their
1:44:16
Speaker 1: way to taunt political opponents, and almost it's almost like
1:44:19
Speaker 1: they're inviting this. I think what we all know is
1:44:28
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent of Americans embrace the Golden rule. They
1:44:34
Speaker 1: will do unto others as you do unto them. You
1:44:38
Speaker 1: go out of your way to meet people, you go
1:44:40
Speaker 1: out of your way to be accessible to people. People
1:44:43
Speaker 1: aren't going to punch in the face and people aren't
1:44:45
Speaker 1: going to take shots at you. You go out of
1:44:48
Speaker 1: your way to dehumanize people. You go out of your
1:44:50
Speaker 1: way to attack other people simply for who they are.
1:44:58
Speaker 1: I'm not again, I don't think gets justified to punch back,
1:45:06
Speaker 1: but you you did seem to be inviting the retribution
1:45:09
Speaker 1: since you went out and decided to deliver it first.
1:45:16
Speaker 1: As the expression goes, it takes two to tango. But
1:45:20
Speaker 1: I do worry about this. I worry about this quite
1:45:24
Speaker 1: a bit, all right. I'm not going to go deeper
1:45:29
Speaker 1: into my NAT's anxiety. You heard it at the top
1:45:31
Speaker 1: of this podcast, but it's a bummer and a message
1:45:38
Speaker 1: to the new front office of the Nats and to
1:45:40
Speaker 1: the Learner family again you have this has been a
1:45:44
Speaker 1: This has been a very damaging week to the fan base,
1:45:47
Speaker 1: more so than you realize. It's a very damage because
1:45:52
Speaker 1: we took too It was an amazing start, and you
1:45:56
Speaker 1: gave us a lot of hope and then literally you
1:46:01
Speaker 1: got rid of the hope for nothing that anybody can say.
1:46:06
Speaker 1: And I think one of my frustrations with teams, with
1:46:13
Speaker 1: these Major league teams is the arrogance they have and
1:46:16
Speaker 1: how they treat their fans. They would have zero value
1:46:20
Speaker 1: if the fans didn't care about the team, and when
1:46:24
Speaker 1: you don't appear to care about the team as much
1:46:27
Speaker 1: as the fans do, and just trading away the third, fourth,
1:46:30
Speaker 1: and fifth best players for a return that nobody, nobody
1:46:35
Speaker 1: of note thinks is a great return, with the exception
1:46:38
Speaker 1: of what you got back for Curtis me. That's how
1:46:45
Speaker 1: you you know, and I would just say, is is
1:46:48
Speaker 1: think about the thirteen year old, the fourteen year old,
1:46:50
Speaker 1: the fifteen year old fan who was getting excited about
1:46:54
Speaker 1: this lineup, the best lineup in baseball by the numbers
1:47:00
Speaker 1: for four months, and you took it all away from them.
1:47:07
Speaker 1: And there's no explanation, there's no plan, there's no super
1:47:12
Speaker 1: return where you can say, yeah, but we have the
1:47:13
Speaker 1: number one draft pick, or we've got this guy, or
1:47:16
Speaker 1: we've got that guy, none of that. And all fans
1:47:20
Speaker 1: are hearing is that the second best player in the
1:47:22
Speaker 1: team is going to get traded in a couple of months,
1:47:27
Speaker 1: an MVP candidate at the moment in c. J. Abrams,
1:47:32
Speaker 1: you know, you tested our patients quite a bit over
1:47:35
Speaker 1: the last three years, and the learners have just look.
1:47:40
Speaker 1: Most Nats fans don't hate this ownership, but we're frustrated
1:47:43
Speaker 1: with you, guys, and to do this again, you yank
1:47:47
Speaker 1: the rug out from under us again. All Right, I
1:47:50
Speaker 1: said I wasn't going to repeat the rant from the
1:47:52
Speaker 1: top of the episode, but right, priorities listen. We're at
1:47:59
Speaker 1: the beginning of what's going to be a crazy, monumental
1:48:02
Speaker 1: August set of Primary So I will finally put a
1:48:05
Speaker 1: pin in this one and I will see you in
1:48:07
Speaker 1: seventy two hours. As always, thanks for listening, and until
1:48:10
Speaker 1: we upload again,