Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Trump Fires Pam Bondi, What Comes Next Will Be Worse + Will China Invade Taiwan & Would Trump Go To War To Stop Them?

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Full Episode - Trump Fires Pam Bondi, What Comes Next Will Be Worse + Will China Invade Taiwan & Would Trump Go To War To Stop Them? · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: rates may vary. Hello there, welcome to a Yes special
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  Speaker 1: Friday edition. I told you I was delaying and upload
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: for twenty four hours. We had passed over. Of course
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I was doing. I know today is good Friday. We
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  Speaker 1: got Easter on Sunday, so I'm aware this is to
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  Speaker 1: be a big holiday weekend. But the news doesn't stop.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, the President made an unusual decision. I think
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: a strange decision to give a speech to the nation
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  Speaker 1: on April Fool's Day, on the first night of passover
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: about a war in the Middle East. It seemed like
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  Speaker 1: a strange timing decision. It was a speech arguably that
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  Speaker 1: he should have given a month, if not more ago.
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  Speaker 1: But look, we've got a lot going on here. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: I just want to give you a quick rundown of today.
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna get a little bit more in Iran. I
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  Speaker 1: know I did do a special sort of reaction to
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: the speech that's been sitting on YouTube. Some of you
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  Speaker 1: may have heard that already. We'll have a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of update on the Pambandi situation. We've got my guest today.
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  Speaker 1: It's all about China and Taiwan Ike Freeman, who has
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  Speaker 1: written a book about sort of about this challenge that's
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  Speaker 1: coming forward. And so you know, we are we are
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  Speaker 1: in a precarious moment for America's leadership around the world. Essentially,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: we have a president that is giving up on America
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  Speaker 1: being leader of the free world, torching NATO, and it's
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  Speaker 1: putting a situation where the two biggest winners of this
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  Speaker 1: Iran war, so far are Russia and China, So an
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  Speaker 1: American president, it keeps making decisions that only strengthen two
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  Speaker 1: countries that many people in this country believe are our
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  Speaker 1: chief adversaries. But I'm going to get to that minute.
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  Speaker 1: So our conversation will be about Taiwan and whether Taiwan's
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  Speaker 1: going to be taken by force or not, will the
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  Speaker 1: United States militarily defend Taiwan or not a lot of
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  Speaker 1: open questions there. Of course, we'll have questions. And hey,
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  Speaker 1: when you're by the time you're listening to this, we're
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: going to be minutes away from first pitch for the
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: NAT's home opener Nationals Dodgers where I'll be. So if
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: you see me, give me a little toodcast cheesery if
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  Speaker 1: you will. But I digress. But look, let's start quickly.
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  Speaker 1: I want to do the Pambondi situation first, and then
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  Speaker 1: I want to come back on Iran because I want
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  Speaker 1: to give you a little bit of a preview of
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  Speaker 1: my guest on my Newsphere show this week, which hit
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  Speaker 1: drops on Sunday night. It's Daniel Jurgen, who's probably the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: most knowledgeable person in this country, if not the world,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: on the energy markets. He wrote arguably the bible on
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: understanding energy markets. The prize. For me, it's a very
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: just if you care about the energy markets and you
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: care about what all this means, this is probably the
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: bible of that. It won the Pulitzer Prize. As he
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: said to me, he goes, he goes this book, it
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: just doesn't die. It just keeps living. And it's like, yes,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: yes it does. But let's just say, mister Jurgen didn't
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: have a lot of positive things to say about where
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the economy has headed. But I'm going to get to
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  Speaker 1: that in a minute. I want to start with the
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  Speaker 1: Pam Bondi situation. So the president decides to fire pambody.
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  Speaker 1: What's interesting is that there seemed to have been bipartisan
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  Speaker 1: calls for her to be fired. And it's quote unquote
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  Speaker 1: handling of the Epstein files. But I think we all
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  Speaker 1: need to realize why did Donald Trump fire her? Did
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  Speaker 1: he fire her because he thought she didn't handle the
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  Speaker 1: Epstein files?
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  Speaker 2: Well?
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  Speaker 1: Did he fire her because she wasn't more open with
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  Speaker 1: the Epstein files? Did he fire her because she was
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  Speaker 1: doing too many partisan prosecutions or not enough partisan prosecutions?
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  Speaker 1: And to understand, you know, I think Pambondi is Jeff Sessions,
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  Speaker 1: and that's what I think everybody needs to understand here.
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  Speaker 1: Pambondy is Jeff Sessions, somebody who got the job because
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  Speaker 1: the president thought they'd be loyal and got the job
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  Speaker 1: because the person promised to be low. But I think
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  Speaker 1: pam Bondi had the same respect for some parts of
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  Speaker 1: the institution that Jeff Sessions had, and there were certain
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  Speaker 1: things she wouldn't do, or certain things she was uncomfortable doing,
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  Speaker 1: and you could kind of tell, right she'd be handhanded
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  Speaker 1: about it in one hand and then sort of you know,
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  Speaker 1: picked interos let Todd Blanche the President's personal attorney, who's
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  Speaker 1: the deputy Attorney General, sort of deal with the political
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  Speaker 1: side of things. And I think it's clear, you know,
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  Speaker 1: it's funny. It's one of these things where I know
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  Speaker 1: it's going to sound like I'm defending Pambondi. It's not
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  Speaker 1: defending Panbondi here, but it's you know, remember why he
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  Speaker 1: chose to fire her, right, he didn't do it for
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  Speaker 1: the reasons many of you think made her deserving of
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  Speaker 1: being fired. And I think that is extraordinarily important in
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  Speaker 1: this moment. And let's remind let's look at who he
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  Speaker 1: named acting attorney general, his person, his one time personal attorney,
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  Speaker 1: which is, you know, the greatest conflict of interest that
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  Speaker 1: you could put into that position. And now it's all
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  Speaker 1: the way up at attorney general. But the issue is
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  Speaker 1: it is impossible to be Donald Trump's attorney general. He
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  Speaker 1: does not believe in separation, He does not believe in
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  Speaker 1: a fair judiciary system. He wants to weaponize it. He
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  Speaker 1: has said he wants to weaponize it right and how to,
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  Speaker 1: And he he wants to weaponize it because he believes
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  Speaker 1: it was weaponized against him. Right, it's all a revenge
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  Speaker 1: to her, and everything is everything is reactionary with him,
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  Speaker 1: and it's probably not. It shouldn't be lost on anybody
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  Speaker 1: that that you know Donald Trump's entire adult life, basically
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  Speaker 1: his first foray into helping run his father's business was
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: a run in with the Department of Justice. He first
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  Speaker 1: had to hire Roy Comb to beat back the Justice
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  Speaker 1: Department on racial discrimination issues involving him and his father's business.
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  Speaker 1: So is no doubt that he is He'd views it
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  Speaker 1: as an antagonist and he wants to essentially being in
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  Speaker 1: charge of it, use it, and deploy the Justice Department
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  Speaker 1: to serve his needs and to serve his political so
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  Speaker 1: political end. So I really this is such an odd
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  Speaker 1: thing here, but you know, it's it very much to
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  Speaker 1: me mirrors mirrors the Jeff Session situation. But to understand,
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  Speaker 1: you know, Pam Bondy, you know, there's an interesting lesson here.
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  Speaker 1: I teach this class how Washington works. Many of you
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  Speaker 1: have brought it up before. And one of the I
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  Speaker 1: brought one of the guest speakers that I brought in
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  Speaker 1: is somebody who who basically had to got punished because
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  Speaker 1: of who he worked for. And i'ling because this is
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  Speaker 1: this stuff's off the record, and I always want to
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  Speaker 1: promise that to my guest speakers. But the lesson I
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  Speaker 1: want my students to im partans like, be careful when
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  Speaker 1: you know politics is it's a team sport at times,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: but you know, when you work for an individual politician,
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  Speaker 1: you may be asked to do things that you may
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  Speaker 1: feel morally is unacceptable, ethically as unacceptable, or is actually illegal.
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump doesn't care about anything other than the loyalty.
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  Speaker 1: And it's just interesting. And I think that if you
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  Speaker 1: understand Pam Bondi's origin story, I think it will it.
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  Speaker 1: It strikes me is we won't know the specific reason
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  Speaker 1: why what happened that Trump just said he had enough right,
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  Speaker 1: but it was not because she was not more forthcoming
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  Speaker 1: about the Epstein files. Trust me, he's mad that she
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  Speaker 1: hasn't put that away. And I promise you the next
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  Speaker 1: Attorney general is is not going to be given a
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  Speaker 1: mandate to be more forthcoming with the Epstein files to Congress.
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  Speaker 1: And since she got herself subpoena, then got herself by
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  Speaker 1: the Oversight Committee, he just wanted to prevent that from
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  Speaker 1: ever happening. I'll be curious to see if that subpoena
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  Speaker 1: still stands, if she's no longer Attorney general. But to understand,
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  Speaker 1: you know, you know, Pambondi could have easily become an
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  Speaker 1: Attorney general in a democratic administration. And I know some
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  Speaker 1: of you thinking, what are you talking about, Chuck, have
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  Speaker 1: you lost it? She was actually a Democrat until two thousand.
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  Speaker 1: Let me give you a reminder. She she she's the
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  Speaker 1: daughter her father, Joseph Bondi, was a local politician. He
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  Speaker 1: was the mayor. He was the mayor of a small
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  Speaker 1: town in the seventies. So she's sort of grew up
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  Speaker 1: in the world of politics. Now, she grew up. You know,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: she was in democratic politics in the South, which could
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: be very conservative. Right, we know this, all of you
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  Speaker 1: know this. Many Many, a Democrat of the seventies, eighties
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  Speaker 1: and even through the nineties, eventually switched to the Republican Party.
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  Speaker 1: Come come the twenty first century. But what's interesting about
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  Speaker 1: her career. You know, she graduated law school from Stetson.
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  Speaker 1: It's a school the Land, Florida, sort of kind of
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: halfway between Daytona and Orlando, but it's in that general area.
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  Speaker 1: It's not on the water. It's kind of Inland a
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  Speaker 1: little bit. Stetson has a great college baseball team, by
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  Speaker 1: the way, that's like the one it's like their one
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: d one sport I think is baseball. It's always at
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: a role respected law school. It was one of the
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: only law schools in the state for a while. Now,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: I mean there was a time Florida state didn't have
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: a law school. They do now, et cetera. So she
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: goes to sets in law school. She spent more than
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: eighteen years a prosecutor in Hillsboro County, which is you know, Tampa,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: big big Tampa Bay area. Her specialism She specialized in
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: prosecuting child abuse cases. She was more of a true
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: legal beagle, if you would call it now. She switched
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: to the Republican Party around two thousand, but she didn't
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  Speaker 1: really enter politics, if you will, until two thousand and nine.
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  Speaker 1: She left her prosecutor job and entered the race for
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  Speaker 1: Florida Attorney General, which by the way, at one point
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  Speaker 1: was going to feature Marco Rubio, and then he decided
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: instead to run for the US Senate and challenge a
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: sitting governor decided not to seek reelection but to seek
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: US Senate seat at the time, a Republican named Charlie Christ. Well,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I think we all know what happened there. The irony
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: is if Chris and Rubio had worked out their deal
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: where Rubio runs for AG and doesn't primary Christ, which
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  Speaker 1: was a deal that was in the making, and there
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: was a twenty four hour period where it looked like
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: that was going to happen. Pan Bondi never enters, perhaps
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  Speaker 1: never even enters Republican politics, but she wins the attorney
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  Speaker 1: general race in twenty ten. And it's in twenty thirteen,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: and this is an important story, the origin of the
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Bondi Trump relationship is very transactional. In twenty thirteen, when
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: she was attorney General, she received at least twenty two
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: fraud complaints about Trump University. Her office was considering joining
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: a lawsuit that was being brought against Trump University by
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: the New York Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman. Four days later, though,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: when that word got out that Florida might join this
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: would be a bipartisan lawsuit against Trump University, a Trump
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: pack donated twenty five thousand dollars to her re election committee,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: and then Pam Bondi declined to join the lawsuit. Well,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: that brought her into Trump's orbit. She becomes part of
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  Speaker 1: the Trump transition in twenty sixteen, she becomes an impeachment
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: defense attorney in twenty twenty, and then, of course was
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the backup plan after the mac Gates implosion to bag
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: the start of the second term. The point is is
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: that she she sort of spent half her adult life
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: and half of her legal career just being a career
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: prosecutor sort of and less a politician. And then when
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: she entered the world of politics, yes through the law
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: an elected attorney general, that's when she started to get actual.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: But I have no doubt and I don't know this
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: for fact yet, but we know these stories are going
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: to come out that there were certain lines she just
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: wasn't going to cross because she kind of respected the system.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: It's exactly what we saw with Bill Barr. Right, Bill
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Barr as Trump's second attorney general were confirmed Attorney General
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Matthew Whitaker was the acting in between Sessions and bar.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Bar's second attorney The bar was there was clearly lines
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: he wouldn't cross. Right. Look, he was chicken shit to
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: tell Trump no. It's why he resigned early before January sixth.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: He knew what was coming, He knew it was going
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: to get asked from him, asked of him, and apparently
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: he didn't want to be there for it, so he
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: left it to his deputies to have to stand up
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: to Trump, which they did and kudos to mister Rosen
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: for doing that. But it was Barr's own way of
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: basically saying there were certain lines he wouldn't cross, and
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: there's no doubt in my mind there were certain lines
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: she wouldn't cross. The irony now is she's basically heard
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: her reputation with the right and heard a reputation with
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: the legal community and heard a reputation with the left right.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: So welcome to what happens when you get sucked into
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Trump's world. You know, this is a question that I
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: remind people all the time whose reputation has been enhanced
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: by working for Donald Trump. I joked with an appearance
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: on the Boston Public Radio earlier or earlier in the week,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: that is, I can only think of two people, Michael
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Cohen oddly and Stormy Daniels. Yes it's a punchline, laugh
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: it up. But again, I know there's all sorts of
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: celebrations about Panbine, but just remember he didn't fire her
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: for the reasons that maybe you think she deserved to
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: be fired for. That's not shouldn't be caused for celebration.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: It actually should be cause for concern. What's coming next
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: to this Justice Department? That should concern everybody, And it's
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: a reminder that we have to radically change. I do
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: not think we should have presidents, and I'll I deal
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: with this in a question later in the show. But
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: it's pretty clear that that having presidential appointed had you know,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: you cannot if you want a trusted legal system, you
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: can't let an extraordinarily partisan president run the Justice Department.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: And that's what we're saying very quickly on updating a
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: little bit. Like I said, I've I've said my piece
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: on the on the president's speech, I think he just looked.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I think this is a political disaster for him. And
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: after speeding with Daniel Daniel Jurgen, this is not this
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: is he called it. This is the worst. He said,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: this is already worse than seventy three, worse than any
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: of the energy crises in the in the seventies. And
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: it's an e c There's only been two beneficiaries, as
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: he said, it's Russia in China, and there's only one
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: country's military that has the ability to keep the straight
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: of hormones open, and it's the United States. So we're stuck.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: He can retreat and say other countries have to do this,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: They're not gonna be able to do this. And the
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: entire it's going to be global contagion. As we learned
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: during the pandemic, the global economy is global, pure and simple,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: and so this is this is there's no insulating ourselves
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: from this, none at all. And he's and he's put
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: us in a situation where leaving now and allowing the
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: remnants of the Iranian regime to act as the toll
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: brids for oil for around the world is a disaster,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: and it is only I mean, it is an energy
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: crisis that arguably created the stagflation crisis of the seventies.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: And that's the situation we're staring at right now. It's
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: all it's lose lose situation at this point. And there's
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: a reason I keep telling you, don't follow what he says,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: follow what we're doing. And we keep sending troops over there.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: It's pretty clear we're going to probably have to use
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: ground troops to secure the strait of hormones because we're
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the only entity that can secure the strait of hormones
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: that has the ability to use. And if we don't
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: do it, we do risk we risk geopolitical problems that
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: maybe we haven't thought about yet. You know, maybe the
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Gulf States decide the deal that they cut with the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: United States it didn't work it anymore, and they'll decide
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: to partner with China instead of the United States. There's
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: so many derivative disastrous scenarios from this. If he just
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: pulled up and leaves, and yet there are so many
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: scenarios and disasters if we send in ground trips. Right,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: This was why so many American presidents listened to their
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: military advisors and realized how hard and difficult this would be,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and you better be willing to do it all. And
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: he and we know he doesn't. So this is the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: worst of all worlds. We have an impatient president who
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: just wants a result and doesn't really understand, apparently how
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: hard this is and maybe didn't take geography when they
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: were teaching geography a pen. Maybe they didn't. Maybe he
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: didn't take a geography class. But geography is not our
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: friend here, and that is a reason why so many
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: American presidents, as much as much as they wanted to
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: get rid of that regime, realized it was a lot
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: harder than your thought. So on that upbeat note, we're
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: gonna sneak in a break here, and when we come back,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about more geopolitical problems around the world,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: but this one China and Taiwan. But this is I mean,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: I really think that unfortunately we are we are in
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: a moment right, NATO is no longer effective as a
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: current organization because if the American president doesn't believe in it.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter that he can't technically withdrawal. It is
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: not a functioning organization at the moment if the American
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: President does not is not interested in it. And ask
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: yourself right now what he would do if Estonia was
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: invaded by Russia a NATO ally So he is blown
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: up NATO. He is risking America's essentially leadership, at risk
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: of handing China all sorts of economic and stable relationships
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: with other countries that we were in a contest with China,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: and Donald Trump made a decision on Iran that puts
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: us on a path to losing that contest with China.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: All Right, we'll sneak in the break. We'll come back
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: China and Taiwan with Ike Fronman. This episode of the
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Chuck Podcast is brought to you by Wild Grain. Wild
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• 24:29
  Speaker 1: So while we are rightfully focused on what is happening
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: in the Middle East with Iran, we've taken our eyes
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: off the ball in two foreign policy stories. When I
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: say we, the collective, I guess political media have a
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: little bit. One is, of course, the war in Ukraine,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: and then the other is all is the pivot to Asia.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: I sort of joke about that. I'm old enough to
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: remember in Obama's second term the pivot to Asia and
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: even the first Trump administration realizing, yeah, you know, the
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: whole point of being energy independent was to then confront
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: China and the pivot to Asia. We have, I think
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: still waiting for that pivot. But my next guest has
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: a book on a topic. As you know, I've been
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: covering it, probably a bit more than your average political
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: podcaster has covered, which is the issue of Taiwan and
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: the fact that twenty twenty seven, which was a marker
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: that the Chinese had sort of set as sort of
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: the is sort of when she wanted the Chinese military
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: to be prepared to take Taiwan by force if necessary,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: is suddenly getting a lot closer. Right, object, the object
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: in this mirror is quite close now, being twenty twenty seven.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: So the question is where's this going, where's this headed?
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: And given what's been, what we're still experiencing, what the
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: war in Ukraine, what frankly the United States has gotten
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: itself into when it comes to Iran, is this mean
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: for Taiwan? Well, my guess is Ike Freiman. He is
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the authors from of a new book called Defending Taiwan,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: A Strategy to Prevent War with China, And he joins me, Now, Ike,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: it is nice to meet.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: You, Crazy meets you, Chuck. It's a pleasure to be
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: on the show.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: So let's start with the premise of your book. When
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: you say defending Taiwan and a strategy. Is this a
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: diplomatic strategy that you that you want to outline, A
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: military strategy, a strategy of deterrence, a strategy to uh
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: to eventually recognize independence for Taiwan? What is it?
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: This is a strategy to prevent a devastating war with China,
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: something that I think should be a goal uniting Democrats, Republicans,
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: everyone in between, and a strategy to preserve an honorable
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: piece in the Taiwan Straight but also in the region
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: as a whole. Something we can get into on this
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: show is that Taiwan's fate is just connected to the
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: fate of the broader region. The United States does not
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: support Taiwan independence. We have a long standing one China policy.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: It's decades old. It served us well, it's helped to
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: deter war in the past.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you saying that we've had a couple of
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: presidents who seem to utter some sentences that put that
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: policy in question. I mean, Joe Biden said some things
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: out loud that no American president had said when it
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: came to promising support for Taiwan.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: That's true, and the one China policy is funny. It's
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: a bit like a magic incantation because we talk a
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: lot about it, but the substance of it is sort
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: of always shifting and evolving. But that's okay, because there
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: really is no such thing as a status quo in
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: the Taiwan Straight There never has been. There's a military balance,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: there's a diplomatic balance. The idea of the One China
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: policy is that on the whole, we support peace and
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: stability in this region. We don't take a position as
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: to how Taiwan's status is ultimately decided. That's something for
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Taiwan and for Beijing to work out by themselves. But
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: we don't want that to be resolved by force or
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: by coercion. And especially since Taiwan has become a democracy,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: we want it to be democratically acceptable to the people
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: of Taiwan. Why because Taiwan's fate, for reasons of geography
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: and a whole lot else, is just tied up to
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: the fate of our treaty allies Japan, South Korea, Australia
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: and beyond. And there's no way to prevent catastrophic, cascading
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: consequences in this region if Taiwan falls by force or coercion.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: You know, whenever great powers shoot themselves in the foot,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: it's usually because they have a leader who's obsessed with
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: an historic wrong in their mind right. It is not
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: usually about the current situation. Take Putin with Ukraine. He
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: just believes, Nope, Ukraine is not a country, it's part
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: of Russia. And I get the same sense from Shi
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: right that he views right. You even say this that
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Thai you label that taiwants. He sees it as a
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: lynchpin to what you call national rejuvenation. Yeah, which means
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: it's an ideological obsession, right of the leaders. But what
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: is it other Why do they take aside pride history?
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: And maybe that is the strongest reasoning that they want
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: what's the practical reason that they want this so bad?
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: It's a great question. This is how we should start. So,
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: as you say, Taiwan is the unfinished business of the
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Chinese Civil War, and especially since Taiwan has democratized, since
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Taiwan has become this staggering success of one of the
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: most open and prosperous and technologically advanced societies on Earth,
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: having it across the strait is a bit uncomfortable for
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: the Chinese Communist Party, right, because it's a living, breathing
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: example of what another China could have looked like, a
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: China that is both wealthier and more technologically advanced and
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: accepted in the international community and free. So that's understandable,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: and season Ping is deeply invested in this issue, but
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: so were his predecessors. And you know, to study the
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: history of this issue is to see that going back
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: all the way to Mao, Chinese leaders have lusted after
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: this prize and they have turned it into a domestic
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: propaganda object. So the thing to understand, though, is that
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: from the very beginning it has always been entwined with
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: relations with the United States. When the Communists took over
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: the mainland in the fall of nineteen forty nine, Now
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: immediately gave his general's instructions to plan an invasion of Taiwan,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: and they looked into what an amphibious operation would look like,
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: and they decided can't be done because the island's geography
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: is just extremely difficult. And they've been working on that
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: problem for seventy years and I think they're not satisfied yet,
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: but they're getting closer. Why does it matter. The first
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: reason is geography. So Taiwan is a link in the
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: First Island Chain, an archipelago that goes from Japan actually
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: starting in the Russian Curl Islands all the way down
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: into the South China Sea, and you sort of have
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: to look at a topographic map because in between those islands,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: the Sea is often so shallow that you can't navigate through,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: So there's only a few choke points in between these
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: islands that you can actually navigate through. And that means
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: China's navy, which is now the world's largest in fleets,
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: is like a burd in a cage. They're trapped in
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: these little inland seas, the Yellow Sea, the East China See,
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: the South chinnes See, and they want to burst out
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: into the wider waters of the Western Pacific to project
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: power globally, but they can't do it as long as
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: the US has allies and partners all astride that island chain.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: So that's the first reason. A second reason is the
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: semiconductor of fabrication facilities on Taiwan. And then the third
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: reason is the role that Taiwan plays in the regional
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: economic order, and the way that Taiwan might fall would
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: set a precedent for China's ability to use economic coercion
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: against other countries in the region. And you put these
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: all together, and you see, if they can get this,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: all of the dominoes fall and they can achieve national
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: rejuvenation pretty quick.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, I hear the case, but it still
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: feels more ideological and caught up in history books, and
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: it really is kind of mean. Taiwan's no threat to China.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: China's built this massive economy. China is probably going to
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: catch up in the chip space we see. You know,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: you know what is a necessity is the mother of
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: all invention, right, they have to innovate here. So this
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: still feels like a vanity project more than an actual
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: strategic necessity.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: So I think the overall point that it's nice to have,
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: not need to have, is right. And I end the
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: book with vignette of the last time I was in
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Beijing in twenty twenty three, where I went to the
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: National Museum in Tieneman Square, and I went to this
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: exhibit in the museum called Roads Rejuvenation, which tracks the
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: century of Humiliation and then the Party's rise and rule
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: and season. Pain is obsessed with this exhibit. One of
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: the first things he did after taking power in twenty twelve,
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: he took the whole polyp for standing committee there and
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: he said, this exhibit records our history and are present
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: and we're going to write the next chapter together. And
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: then he added in twenty eighteen, this glitzy new annex
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: to celebrate his achievements in the so called New Era.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: And it's kind of interesting because the museum is packed
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: with tourists from all over China and this exhibit the
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: museum is, this exhibit is not It's empty, completely empty.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: I was there alone for two hours, and you can
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: see the scope of his ambition. Military stuff is clearly
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: part of it, but there's also a whole wall devoted
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: to ethnic minorities where he's smiling serenely as the harmonized
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: ethnic minorities sing and dance. And there's another about how
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: China is going green with green mountains and electric vehicles.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: And there's another of him, you know, cheering athletes at
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: the Olympics, and you see that national rejuvenation is about
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: putting China at the forefront of literally every human endeavor,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: literally every human endeavor. It's about getting rich techn logically advanced, green, harmonious,
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: culturally advanced, and so Taiwan is the lynchment of that arch.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: But if he rolls the iron dice, he has a
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: whole lot to lose. And the that's the double edged
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: sword of his ambition, and that is ultimately why he
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: is deterable. But you have to show him that if
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: he messes up over Taiwan, he could put the whole
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: project in jeopardy.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Well, this, let's get to deterrence here. I am. I
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: am a real pessimist when it comes to Taiwan because
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: I think that if I and this is where I'm
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: not going to pretend I'm an expert in how how
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Chinese communist policy decision making comes. But if you're just
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: doing game theory in your China and you look at
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: the current geopolitical situation, you're never going to probably have
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: a more pliant American president than the one you have now.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: The United States is stretched right now financially and militarily,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: particularly we're seeing it in the Middleast where suddenly we're
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: going to end up not being able to sell certain
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: things to Ukraine because we need it for the war
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: with Iran. And if there's ever a time to do it,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: it's probably while Trump's still president in this current situation,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: especially since now the appetite with the American public, you know,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: whatever whatever anti China sentiment one can use to rally
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: the rally Americans around the flag is a lot harder
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: already due to the unpopularity of this war with Iran right,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: And you know, I sort of I have always wondered
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: in my head, boy, is it how do you sell
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: the American public on defending this island halfway around the
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: globe right, that American blood and treasure should be used
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: to defend this on I think it's just very difficult,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: just in the current moment we're in, the lack of
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: credibility American political institutions have with the average voter these days,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: so you're just going to have a lot of skepticism.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: You know, how the Chinese think better than I do.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: You're the expert here, Am I off? Am? I am
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: I overthinking? This? Is this not how the Chinese are thinking.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of truth in what you say,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: but I don't fully agree. I fully agree that the
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: remainder of Trump's term is a uniquely tempting moment because
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: Trump is so transactional, because he doesn't think strategically.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Look, the Chinese think they may may be able to
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: get our defense of Taiwan as part of the trade negotiation.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, so there's there's everything rolled it out. There's every
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: reason for them to try to see what they can
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: get out of Trump. At the negotiating table and then
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: failing that, to squeeze him and see what he gives up.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: And I think when we talk about dates, we need
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: to recognize it's not a question of whether China does
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: it or doesn't. They are already doing it. They are
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: squeezing Taiwan right now.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: It's a coersion right now every direction.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: It's the Boa constrictor strategy, using every tool of their
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: national power, Squeezing Taiwanese airlines to list themselves as Chinese
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: on their websites, you know, pressuring third countries to extradite
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Taiwanese nationals to Taiwan to China for trial. You know,
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: establishing a like a near permanent presence of drones and
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: other stuff all around the airspace and waters around Taiwan.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Getting other countries that had diplomatic relations with Taiwan to
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: drop it. Yeah, and they've coerced a few to do
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: that exactly.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: So the question becomes, I think their plan A is
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: just squeeze Taiwan to death, or squeeze Taiwan to the
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: point where it like Hong Kong realizes no one the
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: cavalry isn't coming. We just have to negotiate and then
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: we signed some piece. They signed some piece of paper
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: that says one country, two systems, Taiwan version. And then
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: she's in pin Declare's victory. And that's that's the Hong
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Kong model. And that's a lot more attractive than rolling
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: the dice on an invasion, which, as Russia showed in Ukraine,
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: could go wrong.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: But here's the thing, China has a political calendar too.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Twenty twenty seven is a Party Congress year. And remember
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: the last Party Congress year. Granted it was COVID, but
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: it was also COVID was over everywhere in the world.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: Season paining locked everyone in their house for a year.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: It took advantage of it for another.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: That's how paranoid he was going into the last Party
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: Congress to get his third term. So now he's going
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: up for a fourth term. He's completely cleared out the
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: top brass in the People's Liberation Army. I mean, do
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: you really think there aren't more purges coming?
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Well? What do we how should we read these purges?
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I thought, I think look as usual, right,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: you know, we Americans, our American political leaders are just
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: terrible at putting ourselves in somebody else's shoes, whether it
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: was Bush looking into the soul of Putin or Biden
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: and his friendship as when she was vice Premier, and
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: frankly the wrong assumptions he made about the related personal
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: relationship he had developed with him. I think there's been
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: a there's just been massive miscalculations on the American side
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: of things when it comes to both Putin and she.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: She's a much she's got a much bigger appetite, I think,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: at least in his head. Then I think a lot
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: of us thought and I don't think we view Chinese
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: leaders in the same way we Viewedrussian leaders, I guess
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: whatever it is, or we just we assumed there'd be
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: pragmatism and transactionalism, because for the most part that's how
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: the Chinese have behaved diplomatically around the world. They're very
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: transaction and so I think that is probably given us
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: false hope. But internally she's behaving like a paranoid dictator.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, he's not a man who's given a
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: whole lot of interviews, So in his in his biography,
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: you can read the tea leaves and come up with
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: your own psychoanalytical profile.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we seem like we don't know much about him,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: but we don't.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: But we do know that when he was I mean,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: Joseph Turisian, my former Hoover colleague, is a wonderful biography
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: of his father.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Yes, I've had I've interviewed him for this page for
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: the same reason because I'm obsessed with trying to learn
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: more about she. And it's interesting that it was easier
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: to write a book about his father.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: It is about him, and those have went to all
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: of these former archives in the post Soviet world. But
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: what you see is a portrait of a young man
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: who was raised as much of a princeling as a
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: princeling can be, and he has everything ripped away from him.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: He is everything ripped away, and he's sent down to
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: the countryside to be re educated by pig farmers, and
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: his education is disrupted, so he has to get essentially
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: fake degrees later on, and his sister kills herself because
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: of the harassment. This is a deeply traumatic moment, and
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: his conclusion is he's going to join the party become
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: redder than red. But it's a deeply traumatic experience in
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: his young life which shows him that no matter how
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: much security and status and fame you have, it can
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: come apart very quickly. And I think what we know
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: about him, Kevin Rudd, the former Australian Prime Minister, speaks
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: beautiful and has spent time with him. Rudercalls in his book,
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: you know, sitting with Season Ping by a bonfire and
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: talking with him about the world and just being taken
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: by how afraid he is of color revolutions and all
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: these things that could tear China apart. So I think
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: if your Season Ping and you look at this Taiwan question,
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: you're deeply skeptical about your forces when your generals say no,
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: we can do this, I think I think you look
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: at this and you say, there's a whole lot of
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: ways that this could go wrong, that the Americans could
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: use this issue against me, And I think you are
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: not in a hurry. I think he does want to
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: be the guy who gets it done, but I think
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: he's very happy to do this through a diplomatic solution
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: that involves signing a piece of paper that allows him
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: to declare victory and then kicking the reintegration or whatever
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: to his successor. This is the thing about national rejuvenation, right,
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: It's a wonderful goal to set because the dead line
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: is twenty forty nine, when he'll be ninety six years old,
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: so he can claim credit for it all. But if
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: there's anything that's not quite many loose ends that aren't
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: quite wrapped up, he can pass in his successor with
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: no loss of face. And I think that's important. He
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: hasn't tied his hands here. If you go into the
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: National Museum, it's not like he's saving a wall or
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: a trophy case in the exhibit for Taiwan. There's just
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: not a mention of Taiwan.
• 44:29
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  Speaker 1: And yes, I too, am a customer. Let's talk about
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: the purge of the military leaders because That's another thing.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: What is that tell us about our own intelligence capabilities
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: inside the Chinese government? We we the frankly the West
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: in general, Western intelligence agencies, And look, I have my
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: own concerns about the quality of intelligence right now because
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: for a variety of reasons, we have an American president
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: who doesn't trust the IC. You probably have rank and
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: file i C members that don't trust the leaders. You
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: also have other countries not wanting to share with the
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: US anymore because of this. I mean, there's a there's
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: sort of a cascade of reasons why we may be
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: we may we may have bigger problems with our own
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: intelligence apparatus than we've had in quite some time. But
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: it feels like we're not alone in not fully realizing
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: how that this purge was possible. I mean, one of
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: his closest allies, right, one of his longest relationships, but
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: I think, both politically and personally, was part of this purge.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: What's spot I mean, is it just all paranoia? Is
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: it disappointment in the military. Is it a concern he
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: didn't have enough control over the PLA?
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: So unfortunately I don't know the answer to you.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Well, we just talked about we have no intelligence.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: We have no intelligence. I'm his open source right, but
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: based on the open source, we have no idea. And
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: I think anyone who has confidence that it's one way
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: or the other on Taiwan is just pitching it op
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: ed because you can spin the story either way. So
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: we don't know why he did it, but we can
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: say something about the situation now that he has done it.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: Now that he has done it, he's in full control
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: of the PLA. How do you know, Well, look at
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: the ORG chart. There's more empty chairs than full chairs.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: So he's now running the show. What he doesn't have
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: yet is a new cast of hand picked characters who
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: will carry out his wishes. Now we don't know why
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: he did it, but we do know that it's a
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: little strange to start a war, or start a crisis
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: that runs a high risk of escalation to war if
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: you don't have military officers at the top that you trust.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: I think going into the next Party Congress, he has
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: some big decisions to make, not just about the PLA,
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: but about succession. So far, he has raised a couple
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: of or allowed rumors to brew about a couple of
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: bright young things.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: Like travel their version of travels, aren't they?
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And then he has smacked him down with a hammer.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: So the lesson has become the last thing you want
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: to be in. The CCP is like rumored to be
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: the next in line.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: That's like, that's like today's Republican Party in America.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: But yes, something like that, something like that. I wonder
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: where we got that from. So so, but seriously, he's
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: not getting any younger. You know, there's all these rumors
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: about his health. Who knows what's true, right, but he's
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: either going to go in with a successor in mind,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: or he's going to go in without a successor in mind.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: He's probably going to have more purges he wants to do.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: And if he wants to move against Taiwan, why initiate
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: something that could become an open ended cluster, you know,
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: his equivalent of the Russia's invasion of Ukraine or are
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Iron War. When he's got this, you know, he has
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: to deliver his work report and he wants everyone to clap,
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: and he wants everything to be controlled. Much more likely,
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: he gets a statement, gets everyone to sign the statement
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: that gives him permission to take a harder line on Taiwan,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: and then he comes out of in twenty twenty eight
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: with basically a new mandate. Then Taiwan has elections that spring,
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: and he's like, Okay, guess what the DPP, the current
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: ruling party isn't allowed to win or else? Oh interesting,
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: I think that's a much more plausible timetable. Trump will
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: be a lame duck. We will be in the midst
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: of our twenty twenty eight cycle. Who wants a war
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: with Taiwan over you?
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: Twenty Do you see twenty twenty eight actually as the
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: moment to move a week er Trump? But Trump's still there,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: and in America that is going to be more focused
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: on its domestic situation than wanting to.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because because if their strategy is the Boa constrictor strategy,
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: then they're just going to keep doing it and at
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: some point Taiwan's going to choke unless we intervene. So
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: this is the problem with thinking about deterrence as like
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: we're trying to stop him from doing X. No, He's
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: already doing it. So his his threat is you Americans,
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: It's on you to draw the line right. And when
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: you draw the line, the markets, the Nasdak collapses and
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: everyone panics, and then you are accepting the consequences of
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: holding us to account, but it's really on us.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean, look, this is why Oroan's probably
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: playing out as about as well for she's interests as
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: you could possibly put out. Let me go to the
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: It seems as if we know how to do deterrence
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: for kinetic deterrence, right, we will sell arms to Taiwan,
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: and we will create new military alliances or call them
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: diplomatic alliances that are pretty that are quasi military alliance.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: As the Quad I think is on its way to becoming,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: you could see how it could become at least as
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: far as Chinese deterrence a military alliance Japan, Australia, the
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: United States, India maybe right, and that's possible. And some
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: of this has to do with something that I did
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago at Meet the Press, and
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: what I know many a think tank has done is
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: when you do the military wargaming of what would happen
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: if China invaded Taiwan and we decided to defend Taiwan,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: help aside with Taiwan and help do it that China
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: wins that standoff seven times out of ten. When you
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: go through these war these wargame exercises, so we seem
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: to know what needs to be done. If we got
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: into an actual kinetic back and forth with China and
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: we're trying to fix that, it seems as if we
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: do not have an effective deterrence strategy to this Boa
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Constrictor strategy, right that this is it's and I don't
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: know what deterrence would work. You've got a Taiwanese population
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: that is the more they flex independence, the more that
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: it seems that that's worse for them. You know, there,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: what does deterrence of the Boa Constrictor strategy look?
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to agree wholeheartedly with half of your
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: question and challenge the premise of the other. Okay, So
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: for the last fifty years, really for the last seventy years,
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: we have maintained deterrence. Since Mao first gave his generals
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: the instruction to consider the invasion of Taiwan in nineteen fifty,
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: we have deterred aggression. We have kept the peace in
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: the region through what we call the strategy of denial,
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: which is just showing we're militarily stronger. We don't even
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: have to use nukes to do it. If China moves
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: against Taiwan, we can defeat their ability to put men
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: on the beaches and to take the island.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: Well, that was obvious through two thousand.
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So with the wargames that you cite, I wouldn't
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: put any stock at all in those. Basically, wargames are
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: not crystal balls. They're not simulations of what's going to happen.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: They're games to explore what one side or the other
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: might do in specific situations and like expand youragination. So
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: I recently took part in a war game where I
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: was playing China and nukes were involved, and like, yeah,
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: nukes to make them realistic. But you know, there's a
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: whole lot of assumptions. You say we want to do
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: and you know, shoot the shoot at the following ships
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: and you either sink them or you don't. But that's
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: just a computer model in the best case. Uh. As
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: far as I understand, my last book was called The
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: Arsenal of Democracy, was about the specific military and military
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: industrial parts of this. My best understanding is that if
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: we fought China today a high intensity war in the
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: Western Pacific, it would be nasty, thousands of Americans would die,
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: but within a matter of days to a couple of weeks.
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: Pretty much all of the PLA Navy would be at
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: the bottom of the Taiwan Straight, most of their air
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: force would be obliterated. We would essentially maritime wars, aaron
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: naval wars, the kind we haven't fought for eighty years.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: They work fundamentally differently from land wars. It's not about
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: attrition and holding back reserves. It's just about who can
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: deliver the hardest, most effective opening punch. And a lot
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: of that has to do with cyber and electronic warfare
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: and other classified stuff that allows you to fry the
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: other guy's eyes and ears, and we have various advantages
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: in those capabilities, which are super classified. The balance is tilting.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: It's not as much of a sure bet as it
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: was before, but I think it's safe to say if
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: China thought they could defeat us in a high end
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: conventional war, our problems would go way beyond Taiwan. It
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: would be about the defense of Japan and the Philippines
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: and South Korea and Australia and Guam and Hawaii, and
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: China would be acting in a much less cautious and
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: restrained way. However, as you say, China doesn't necessarily have
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: to think they could win that war if they're confident
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: that they can keep the contest in a crisis short
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: of war. And this is your question about how to
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: deter the gray zone strategy. I think the basic idea
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: should be we need to show we're going to push
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: back proportionally to maintain an overall stable situation. And that's
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: tricky because let's say they have thousands of fishing vessels,
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: civilian fishing vessels which are paramilitary trained by the PLA,
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: that are hanging out around Taiwan harassing shipping. We're not
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: going to do the same thing to China. So we
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: need we need to stabilize the situation in another domain.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: And it's tricky to establish, like what is proportional, But basically,
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: according to these age old traditions, we don't have like
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: an explicit military to military relationship with Taiwan, Like certain
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: levels of senior US officials aren't supposed to go to Taiwan.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: And as China has proceeded with this boa constrictive strategy
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: we have, it has been disclosed sent more trainers to
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Taiwan to help them develop their forces and that kind
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: of thing pushing back in another domain to help tie one,
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: defend itself, improve the confidence of the people of Taiwan.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: That's kind of the best we can do. And there's
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: a whole bunch of stuff we can do. Energy partnerships,
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: technology partnerships, giving visas to Taiwanese, more direct flights. There's
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: a whole lot of stuff that we can do that
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: can stabilize an overall balance. But we have to threaten China.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: If you push harder in the gray zone, we will
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: push harder.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: To the Let's talk about Taiwan's domestic politics here, because
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: there's not Look just like Russia did with Ukraine starting
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: fifteen years ago, you know, Russia was trying to win
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: it at the ballot box, right, They were basically trying
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: to trying to win find compliant leaders that would want
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: to stay in the sphere of Russia's influence. And then
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: when they gave, when they frankly, you know, took a
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: couple of losses there for them to decide, all right,
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: we can't do this this way. We're going to now
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: try it the other way. I think China still thinks
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: they can win this. When a PR campaign in Taiwan.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: Is that what you think, absolutely, and I think that's
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: another reason not to invade.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: Right, So if you look at the surveys invade, you
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: harden the opposition. I mean, Ukraine's never going to be
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: in Russia's sphere of influence in our lifetimes, exactly right,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: exactly too many Ukrainians. Do you think they're angry now?
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: And do you think they were angry at the start
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: of this war?
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: And this raises a really important point about public opinion
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: that is missed in surveys. That gets back to the
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: point you asked earlier about why would the American people
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: go for this? Why would an American president go for this?
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: And the answer I'm a historian, so I think about
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: these things is sort of path dependencies. That's why I'm trained.
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: But when you look at the history as of great
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: power of wars or even great power crises like the
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: Cuban missile crisis, these things do not fall out of
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: the clear blue sky. They emerge over the course of years,
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: then months, then weeks, through a path dependent arc where
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: someone does this, and then we do that, and then
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: they do this, and then we do that, and we
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: put reputational capital on the line saying hey, publicly don't
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: do this or else, and then by the time it's
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: time for choosing, we have skin in the game and
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: backing down means something totally different than it did at
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: the beginning, and maybe we choose to back down, but
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: we have chips on the table now. And that is
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: why I can't think of an example in American history
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: where a president has decided, for reasons of strategy, we
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: need to go to war or we need to go
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: to the brink of war, and the American public hasn't
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: come along. This Iran war may actually be the first time.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: This is the first time where an American president's initial
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: military success was not greeted with a decisive approval from
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: the American public. But this was also unusual in the
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: first three days, but he speed.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: He never gave an Oval Office address to the American
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: people saying hey, listen, like I know this is people
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: don't want this. Here's my reasoning. He still hasn't even
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: articulated what we're fighting for, what the warriams are. I
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: think at Taiwan situation would be different. A Taiwan situation,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: China would China would push, and it might be the
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: case that either Taiwan's morale implodes or our morale implodes,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: or both, and then Taiwan just gets China gets the
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: prize of that fighting. That's possible, but I think equally possible,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: in fact, probably base case, if China starts squeezing Taiwan,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: we do posturing to try to make them stop, and
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: then they do a little more, and we do a
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: little more, and we do a little more, and they
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: maybe mobilize their forces on their side of the strait
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: or start doing economic coercion, and we start surging ships
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: to the region, and you know, the market starts getting nervous,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: and then by the time we actually get to the
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: to the precipice, it's a completely different situation.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: HM. The other thing that I fear is about to
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: happen with for those that want Taiwan independence is that
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: they flee the country. And given what's happening with uh
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: the big chip maker there a t t SMC thank you,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: I was going to say t CMS and the fact
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: that they're basically stuck having to build their business in
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: the United States now right something that it's been fascinating
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: to watch where it's so clear that company wishes they
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: weren't doing this. They're doing this because they feel like
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: they have to, not because they want to. Could the
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: unintended consequence be that those that want to fight just leave,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: and then those that stay just want to have peace
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: and then become more compliant.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: Possibly, Uh, But I think it would take a lot
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: to get to the point where all those people leave.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: You know, there's elites. And when I go to Taipei
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: and I have, you know, friends who are in business,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: and you know, they're going out to Omakase every night,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: and like some of them have Canadian citizenship for their kids,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: and they've got the ski chalet and Switzerland or whatever.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: And some of these people do exist in Taiwan, but
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: for the most part, ordinary people, they don't have a
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: place to go. They don't have a visa status that
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: allows them to just pick up and go to Japan
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: or Australia or somebod else. And it takes a lot
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: to walk away in abandon your home. And what could
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: happen and what I warnt about in the book, So
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: you mentioned wargames, right, The war games usually start with
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: the wargame I played a couple of weeks ago. It
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: started with you know, in the pre turn US Team
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: China had blown up a US aircraft carrier. So that's
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: like T equals zero, that's like the first turn. But
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: that's not in the real world. How a crisis happens.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: The crisis starts happening before those first shots. And usually
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: what would happen historically is people would say, well, this
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: is basically a non issue. It's a non issue. It's
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: a non issue until everyone panics at the same time,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: and then how do you get everyone out of the country,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: Like we thought that the evacuations from Saigon and Cobble
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: were hard. Try type ay right, right? Taiwan is a
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: is a wealthy, sophisticated democracy with tens of millions of people.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: There's eight hundred thousand foreigners there right now, including tens
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: of thousands of Americans. We got thousands of Brits, of Japanese,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: of Germans, of Australians and so on. How do you
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: get all those people out? If I'm China, I want
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: to put the squeeze on to see if the Americans
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: yank their people, because once the foreigners try to pull
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: out their citizens, what is that message say to the
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: people of Taiwan, You're on your own. You're on your own.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: But doesn't this war not start with a I mean
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: you sort of seem to outline this not with a
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: shot fire, but with essentially a blockade of the island, right,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: I mean that's the I think the wargame I participated,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: and that was the beginning, right, And then it got
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: the United States to send military you know that that's
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: what triggered the US military response of then sending a
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: presence to try to break the blockade.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: I think the blockade is not plan A. I think
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: blockade is planned B for a couple of reasons. First
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: of all, according to the Taiwan Relations Act, if the
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: president wants to ben in Taiwan, the President's going to
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: band in Taiwan. But according to the Taiwan Relations Act
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: and probably eighty percent of Congress, a blockade of Taiwan
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: is tantamount to an invasion for the reason that China
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: is trying now to get the TSMC chip making facilities,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: and they're declaring war again. It's the people of Taiwan,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: the civilians of Taiwan. Blockade means no food, no fuel,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: nothing in or out, and that I think creates such
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: a humanitarian emergency that it's just such an appalling thing.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: We're in the middle of doing this right now in
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: our hemisphere.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: It's true, it's true, but Taiwan, among other things, is
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: the epicenter of the ai Revolution. Ninety nine percent of
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: the in video GPUs that are that are training the
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: next Claude and GPT are coming from Taiwan. You don't
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: want China to just seize those let alone sees those
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: factories completely intact with all the engineers. So I think
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: if they blockade, they create a panic, they get the
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: whole world against them, in the same way the whole
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: world is against Iran right now.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: Interesting what they could just think a blockade is so
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: aggressive that those that might be neutral about this issue thinking, hey,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: this ain't our fight.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, much much, much, much much more like they do it.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: That's what happened with Ukraine, right the invasion. Russia's invasion
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: United you know, brought Europe together in a way that
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: I think Putin failed to imagine.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, Yes, and I think much more likely they do
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: what I call it quarantine, or some have called it
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: an indirect control scenario.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: What is quarantine? What makes quarantine different from a black eight?
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: What's different is it's not saying nothing can come or go.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: It's just saying we control what comes and goes.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: Gotcha.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: So it's saying, you want to fly from San Francisco
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: to Taipei, cool connect in the port of Shanghai or Fujo.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: In the airport in Fujo and clear customs.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: And decide whether you clear customs or not.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: Will decide whether or not. Oh you want to you
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: want to export these chips terribly, Sorry, you have to
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: go through this port in China. And that means essentially
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: Timewan's on it. If we give into that principle, we're
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: checkmated because we're not going to be able to send
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: more diplomats, more military advice. Taiwan will never be able
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: to build the weapons it needs to defend itself, and
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: China will seize control over the chip supply chain with
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: those factories intact, and that's a much. But then they
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: can say we're not waging war against the civilians. We're
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: not saying you can't send oil and food, right and
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: then blockade, you know, the really medieval stuff. That's a
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: plan B, and everyone knows it's there. And if we
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: don't play ball, it's always something that.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: They can blockade is what you're saying is blockade might
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: as well be a declaration of war. Correct. Let's let's
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: let's end this conversation with something that I think we're
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: I'm constantly you know, we all know this. Dictatorships they
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: and slowly then quickly, Yeah, right, when things go south
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: with the people, they suddenly you know, it's incremental, and
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: then it's it's suddenly gone. There's a massive youth unemployment
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: in China. There's all of the you know, I've I
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: can to you my my optimism about US China relationships
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: are simply that China's you know, they've grown a middle
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: class that is going to demand some services. Now we
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: see it in our more mature economy, and and you
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: know that that can be the lynchpin between domestic strife
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: and domestic equility. You know this is China's economy has
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: not been great as far as they've at least when
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: you and everything is by comparison. Yes, they're still growing
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: in a large faster clip than than we are. Well,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: we're two different economies or something.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: I don't think they are. By the way, the data.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: Interesting, you think the numbers are they're fudging their numbers
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: a little bit, But the point is it's pretty clear.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: This is they've got an issue. They've got cranky middle class,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: they've got youth unemployment, they have their own population issues.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: How stable are things domestically in your view? You know, again,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: it's like with Russia that economy is horrendous, and yet
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: you know they're just for now sticking with them because
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: there isn't an obvious alternative at the moment.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think you said it best. In
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: an authoritarian regime, things are stable until they're not, because
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: no one wants to go against the guy with the guns.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: China has some massive structural headwinds, and I think the
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: way to think about their economy is the only way
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: they have left to grow is through exports, which is
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: another way to say this is the only way they have.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: Well, that's deterrence.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: That is stealing growth from other countries.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: Sure, but in some ways, if they don't have stable
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: relations around the world, they can't grow.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, So that's this is the economic piece of my
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: deterrence concept in the book. I think, you know, the
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: first question with economic deterrence is if we go to
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: the brink, do we have a contingency plan for the crisis,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: and we do not just barrel into the crisis or
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: that thinking that markets are going to go crazy, you know,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: prices will go up. How do we deal with this?
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: So you need a plan for that, But then you
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: also need a plan how do you use a Taiwan
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: crisis as an opportunity to reset the world economy on
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: terms that are more favorable to the rest of the
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: world and less favorable to China and the you know, India,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: Brazil in these countries may not take our position exactly
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: on Taiwan, but none of them want to be hollowed
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: out the way the American rust belt was by just
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: the tsunami of Chinese experts. And that's the world that
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: China wants, a world where China makes everything and you
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: they're the factory and you're the farm. Like they want
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: to turn turn us into Argentina. That's the goal. And
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: no one wants that. And so how do you build
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: a coalition of not just your allies, but the whole
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: rest of the world and say, if God forbid, deterrence
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: fails over Taiwan, whatever happens over the fate of Taiwan,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: we have an idea for how we're going to re
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: use this to reset the global trading system in the
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: way we're China can't pull this stuff anymore, and then
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: you're taking the juice out of their economic machine. One
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: hundred million people in China are employed making stuff for export.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: You take those jobs away, that is what implodes their regime.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: But you can't do that overnight. It's a ten year,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: fifteen year project.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: Well, and it's now a twenty year project, right because
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: this president has set back economic relations with every single
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: country on this gloat on this earth with his tariff
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: policies that have completely shaken up relationships. I mean, look
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: at this deal that China cuts with Canada. We work
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: for the last decade to keep Canada from doing these
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: deals with China. And now understandably, so what choice. If
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: you're in Canada's shoes, you look at it like, we
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: can't we can't trust the Americans at this moment for
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: our for our economic prospect, We're going to have to
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: We're going to have to play ball with everybody. I mean,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: how much has this tariff strategy of Trump's made it
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: harder to rally what you just described here, which would
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: be very rational economic deterrence of China. How much, how much?
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: How much of a setback this has been.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: It's been one step forward but two steps back. And
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: the reason is China is so big of a challenge.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: China is a third of global manufacturing. You cannot just
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: stop buying stuff from them overnight. Won't work. They're in
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: every supply chain and you can't tell other people to
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: do that either. So we learned this on Liberation Day.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: We're like, we're going to go call Turkey on trade
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: with China. Oops, that that's not going to work. And
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: countries that are even more dependent on trade with China
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: are never going to do that. But what we have
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: discovered is, you know, no credit to the Trump administration
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: on this, just credit to China's predatory trade policies. China
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: is hollowing out the industrial base of the European Union,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: like Europeans are raising the populist parties because Volkswagen is dying, right,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: The economic heart of the European Union is dying. And
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: it's if you go to India, if you go to
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: South Korea, it's it's the same thing. They're being swamped
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: by Chinese products. So the solution is in principle, as
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: many countries as possible should put up tariffs on China,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: and they should take them down on one another. Because
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: what broke the global trading system is not that trade
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: itself is bad. It's that we allowed a communist country
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: that doesn't play by the rules into the system.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Boy, it'd be nice if if America created this coalition.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: Maybe we could call it the Trans Pacific Partnership and
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: it was a alliance of of of Asian Pacific countries
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: not named China and the United States. Oh wait, we
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: tried that.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: TPP isn't coming back, but some version could really use it.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: Version of it, some version of it is And you
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: already see the beginnings of this with the US deal
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: with Japan. Just announce on the Takaichi visit. There's going
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: to be co op collaboration on economic security, supplier chains,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: critical minerals. We're working with the Europeans on this stuff.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: Why because China is so big of a challenge that
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: actually this time we don't have a choice but resetting
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: the terms of this international trading system, if we're doing
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: it in peacetime, it's going to be step by step.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: It's going to be political and messy. What we should
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: be thinking about is if God forbid, deterrence fails with China,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: there's the question of what you do economically on day
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: one to prevent the financial crisis, and then there's the
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: question of what you want the world to look like
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: on day one hundred, day one thousand, day two thousand,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: after the immediate hostilities are over. This is like a
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: break the glass scenario. So if this happens with China,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: our trading, our economic relationship with them won't be the same.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: Maybe we'll have some probably we will not break it entirely,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: but it won't be the same. So what what is
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: our vision for what it should look like? And that
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: is the contingency plan that we should be doing. Now.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: You're not going to have like a perfect plan, you know,
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: in a in a desk and you take it out
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: of the envelope, but you can agree on principles, the
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: basic ideas of like how that system should be organized.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: Those are the conversations we should be having now to
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: imagine that the world after wouldn't necessarily just be economic
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: mutually sure destruction, there's another way through.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: You know, you're actually outlining and this look I kind
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: of think that we ought to be thinking like that,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: that we're basically about to have another.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: Cold War in the best case, right.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: And in some ways, isn't that what you're articulating, like
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: let's let's let's put together a plan to effectively win
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: a Cold war against.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: China kind of. But this, this situation is different from
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: the Cold War and some fundamental ways, and the biggest
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: one is that we're all economically interconnected.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: No, Right, the Soviets had no economic skin in the game, right,
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: It made it easy to isolate them, and it made
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: it easy for them to then, you know, make a
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: common cause with those isolated with them exactly.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: And what's different about the world now is that not
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: only are we and the US and China deeply economically interconnected,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: but even if you imagine a world where we get
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: divorced or we just like pretend to get divorced, we're
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: still going to be trading with each other via Mexico
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: and Europe and India and everyone else. So there's no
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: there's no universe in which you bifurcate the world and
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: it's just like China on the one side and US
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: and everyone on the other. It's going to be a
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: trifurcated world where like, if deterrence collapses and we have
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: to reset the economic relationship, we're going to be trading
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: some with them. Maybe we'll still buy their nikes, but
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: we won't buy their iPhones or something. And then there's
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: a whole lot of countries in between the trade with
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: both sides, and we don't want those countries to sell
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: our Nvidio chips to China, and you don't want those
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: countries to sell components that China can sabotage remotely access
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: or something into us. And so that means you need
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: to reimagine how the whole economic system is wired because
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: you actually have to have control over the entire supply
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: chain nowhere goods are coming from, know where all the
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: components come from. That's a completely different architecture. You need
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: institutions that don't exist to do that. But that may
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: be the world that we're moving towards.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: Well, like, this was pretty thought provoking, and you know,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: you dealt with so much nuance it's hard to turn
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: this into a fifty fifteen second social media bite.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: Come on now, Well, it's podcasts like yours that help
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: us dig into the details.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: No, I mean it's it sounds like you don't think
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: this is inevitable, and you're actually assume at this point
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: that we're probably not going to have a kinetic hot
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: Connecticut kinetic military exchange with China this decade you see
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: war cot. Just the way you're speaking, you seem pretty
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: confident that I know you said hope, but that.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: If we if we do, I think we'll.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: Win, but are not ready. That is what you're saying.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of uncertainty, but I like
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: our odds more than theirs.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: And you think she is reality based enough to know this.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: It's so basically, it's just really really hard to get
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: tens of thousands of guys across the time went straight.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is like, this is one of the
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: nastiest wateries in the world. You've got like fifty mile
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: an hour winds, fifty foot waves in the islands in
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: the middle of the strait, the trees go aside, Well.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: Just wait till we have you know, sharks with lasers
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: on them oh as well.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: Right, and and undersea drones and all the and the Yeah,
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 2: lots of lasers involved. But like what you really don't
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: want to do if your season paying is put fifteen
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: thousand troops on the beaches and then be unable to
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: supply them and watch them get massacred. So a lot
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: has to go right for him. There's many pathways that
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: are just passive least resistance.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: This I should have asked as sooner, But it's a
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: question I'm meant to asked. Is the you know, there's
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: always been this question. Boy, the Chinese military hasn't been tested.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: How would they test themselves? Is there another action they
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: might take that has little that we don't care about,
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: that they may do that they may, you know, in
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: some ways the way the Russians you know, went into
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: Georgia and things like that, or is there some is
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: there some way that they that that they would want
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: to test their military might on a soft target.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: So you ask you ask you is there a way
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: that they can test? I think the thing to understand
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: is that they have a direct pipeline of knowledge from
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: the Russia Ukraine War, and they have a direct pipeline
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: of knowledge from our run.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: And that's their that's their test. They're using this.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: They are supplying the entire Russian military industrial ecosystem, but
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: particularly Russia's drone base and then just as importantly, they're
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: learning the counter drone tech, right, the electronic warfare mainly
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: that you use to kill drones. And then I am
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: sure they've got a whole lot of spooks in Ukraine yep,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: trying to buy up Ukrainian know how. So they're seeing
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: both sides of that war in a way that we're not.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: That's the first thing. And then the second thing is
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: in the Middle East, they're watching all they're seeing how
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: we do a high intensity bombing campaign, and if we
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: go in with special forces and Marines, they're going to
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: see that too, and they're going to learn from that.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 2: And I wouldn't be surprised if they will have some
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: advisors on the ground in Iran, very very quietly. But
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: still it's like studying in a textbook. It's not the
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: same thing as.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: Actually fighting for the thing.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: And as we said it early you're in this conversation,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: it's one thing to learn how to fight a land
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: war over years and years and years. It's another thing
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: when you're fighting a war in the air and at sea,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: where basically everything's decided in the first forty eight hours,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: because if you lose your key assets in the first
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: forty eight hours. There's no way you can come back
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: and win, and that it puts more of an impetus
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: on us to win quick and go big. I don't
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: think they want to fight a war with us. It's
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: too right.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: This is terrific. I really appreciate it. Good luck with
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: the book again. The book is called Defending Taiwan. Make
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: sure I get it right everyday. Defending Taiwan a strategy
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: to prevent war with China. Like I said, very nuanced,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: very rational, and a very important conversation. Really appreciate it.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Chuck.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: Appreciate it.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: Ask Chuck.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: With that. Let's dig into some Friday questions here for
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: the weekend, and I'm going to begin with David B.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: Salt Lake City, Utah. And he writes, Hey, it's my
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: first time writing in welcome glad to have you keep
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: him coming. But your video comparing today's political brinksmanship to
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties really got me thinking when area I
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: don't think it's enough. Intention is whether the core problem
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: today is unequal representation, the growing gap between large and
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: small states, the Senate and the electoral college, disparities, gerrymandering,
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: the capped outsize no statehood for DC or Puerto Rico,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: all of which make many voters feel underrepresented. If the
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: eighteen fifties crisis ultimately required constitutional amendments to resolve, do
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: you think today's political problems maybe ultimately require structural constitution
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: reforms like expanding the House, adding states, or reforming the
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: electoral college. Love to all that you do, man, David Boyd,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: did you did you just ask questions? I hit all
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: of my hobby horses. As you know, I did a
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: actual ted talk on uncapping the House. There's no silver bullet. However,
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: I would argue uncapping the House this idea, that this
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: does not require a constitutional amendment, just an act of Congress.
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: Congress stopped expanding the House as the population increased, which
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: was what the intent of the founding fathers were. And
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: I believe if we could stick and I actually have
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: done the math. I've done the math on this, and
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: I've shared it before. Point oh three percent of the population. No,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: no congressional district should be bigger or smaller than that, right,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: point oh three. And I do think if you set
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: it in the constitution, it helps deal whether whether we
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: grow or shrink. Right, it's very possible. We're seeing a
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: flatlining of births in this country. It's very possible our
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: population size could stagnate even shrink as we get older.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: But point oh three percent at the moment would basically
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: double the current size of the House of Representatives, which
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: would put it back to what the ratio was when
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: they locked in the current four hundred and thirty five
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: number for the House of Representatives back in nineteen thirty.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: Back then it was about one. Back then it was
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: one per three hundred and fifty thousand, and frankly, jerrymandering
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: while it existed, obviously the technologies, it was just harder
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: to do. And in some ways the districts were more
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: drawn as communities of interest as they've gotten bigger. Right,
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: they're eight hundred one right now, we're over eight hundred
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: thousand for each congressional district. Well, to put that in context,
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: a population of eight hundred thousand would make you the
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: one of the fifteen largest cities in America. So are
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: you telling me we have four hundred and thirty five
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: major cities, right? You know? And the fact of the
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: matter is, a major city is not a single community
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: of interest, right. A major city has all sorts of neighborhoods,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: all sorts of communities of interest. So it is obviously
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: too big. If you go down to point zero three,
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: you get one per three hundred and fifty thousand. And
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: I'm lingering on this one answer. For this reason, you
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: don't have to pass the constitutional medment to get rid
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: of the electoral college if you simply double the size
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: of the House. Why, because you've actually increased the numerator
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: on the electoral college, right, instead of right now it's
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: five hundred and thirty eight. Well, if you double the size,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: you're literally going to be adding approximately four hundred and
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: thirty electoral votes to the total. Right, So suddenly, instead
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: of five thirty eight, we're going to say, let's put
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: it at eight sixty six. And the point being is
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: that that doesn't mean it's impossible for the popular vote
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: and the electoral college to diverge, but it makes it
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: much more rare. Right, only the closest of elections have
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: the possibility of going in that direction, So you don't
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: even have to deal with the quote unquote electoral college issue.
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: You know, if I do think you need a constitutional
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: amendment to do this, I am skeptical of the Compact,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: the ideas out there were states bound together. I think
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: it's technically legal, but I think I'm not sure that
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: I think it does violate the spirit of the electoral College,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: and I think it I think you probably would have
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: a Supreme Court rule it unconstitutional the compact, if you will,
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: And I think that only introduces so what you're saying
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: is one state votes for one but ends up going
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: with another. I think you want to talk about feeling
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: underrepresented in our democracy. I think people would feel underrepresented
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: in our democracy on that front. But your larger question
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: is I do think there's some constitutional amendments, So that's one.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: I definitely think we look, the money thing is a
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: big deal, right, whether it's disclosure, you know, I ultimately
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: think disclose to disclosure is probably the cleanest first constitutional
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: amendment that is necessary. If we're going to equate money
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: with speech, You're going to need a constitutional amendment if
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: you want to regulate money in politics. Right, we could
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: disagree with this current with this current direction of the
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: court that equates money with speech, it will take you
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: a generation to essentially repopulate the judicial system in order
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: to see a precedent like that overturned. Frankly, the faster
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: way to deal with this, and probably the more concrete
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: way to deal with this, is with a constitutional amendment.
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: So some form of money. I think disclosure is probably
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: the strongest this. I mean, we all should know who
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: is spending money to persuade us, period. Hard. Stop this
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: idea of hiding donations dark money you want to talk about.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's just you know, this is the bag
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: of cash world that we were trying to get rid
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: of after the Watergate scandal. So I think mandatory disclosure,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: instant disclosure, and I'd like to see a NASCAR type
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: of situation for all political candidates or all political organizations
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: that when you spend money in an election year, you've
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: got to always disclose who the who your ten biggest
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: donors are, who you're twenty something like that. You know,
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: any donor over one hundred thousand dollars has to be
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: disclosed in the ad itself. Right, That's what I call
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: it the NASCAR approach. Oh, your sponsor's stp oh STP's
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: on the hood, right, you know your sponsor is open
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: AI open aies on the hood. Your sponsor's anthropic andthropics
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: on the hood, not people for the American way of
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: doing business, right, that's a ridiculous way to do things.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: So I think you would need that. You know, then
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: you get to the other issues I think you know
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: with with statehood. You know, I actually think DC import
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: Rico together make a lot of sense. I think Puerto
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: ric yes, DC probably Leans going to be likely democratic.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: I think Puerto Rico not so much. And I think
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: you could argue that maybe do you create a Caribbean state,
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, all of the American
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: territories down there into one state. I could make an
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: argument for that as well, so that they're not essentially
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: second class US citizens in the Virgin Islands. So you
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: could do that. It's interesting on the size disparities about
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: that are the disparities in the House and the Senate. Look,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: there's no doubt That's why I think increasing the size
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: of the House, at least on the electoral college, by
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: the way, just to give you that ratio if you
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: do that, and right now, Wyoming has six times the
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: voting power for president than the state of than an
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: average voter in California. A voter in Wyoming has more
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: impact on who's our next president than a voter in California. Now,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: founders always didn't want the big states to dominate, but
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they wanted the small states to
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: have six times the advantage of the big states. Under
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: my system here with the with an uncap in the
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: House going to point oh three, the current electoral college
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: would put Wyoming at about it a point oh about
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: two and a half times the power of a voter
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: in California, which actually feels about about what if you
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: if you read what the Founders were going for in
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: this fear of the big states small states and creating
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: this balance that feels like a more proper ratio that
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: would fall into that. But I do think money, I
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: think I definitely think we need to figure out how
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: to eliminate an individual's pardon power on this front, right,
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: that is that is corruptible. We've learned what's corruptible. I
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: mean the I've always wanted to say this. I think
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: the the upside of the Trump era is that it's
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: served as an MRI I, an MRI I on people.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: We've learned, and you know, we've learned who you know,
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: who has principles? Who doesn't you know who cares about power,
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: you know, ends justify the means, all that business. But
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: it's also been an MRI for frankly, vulnerabilities in our system.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: And I think we've we've seen that. I'll give you
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: another one that you didn't require her, but it feeds
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: off of the pam Bondi news. I think we have
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: to figure out how to how to constitutionally make our
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: Justice Department independent. And that doesn't mean the president doesn't
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: have a say in the appointment. That doesn't mean Congress
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: doesn't have a say in the appointment. But I think
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: we need something here that at least creates some political
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: distance between the president and the Attorney general, because it's
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: pretty clear that we know. Just remember, you may notock Pambondi,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: but President Trump didn't likely didn't fire her for the
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: reasons that most of you think she should be fired.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: Fired her because she wasn't being protector and doing his
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: doing his bidding well enough. And that is something I
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: think we all have to keep in mind. You cannot
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: you cannot have that kind of that kind of close
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: connection there. So that would be one other I would
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: add to your list here. But boy, I really I
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: am as you will note in my answer, I'm obsessed
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: with uncapping the House. I think before we try any
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: other reform on small D democratic representation, I want to
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: see that, implement it first, and then let's see how
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: the system sorts itself out. I think it opens the
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: door for more political parties. I think it opens the
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: door for more coalition governments. I think it opens the
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: door for more of the country to feel they have
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: some representation in Congress. Right in the same way media
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: became too nationalized if we gutted local, our politics has
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: become due nationalized because we've essentially gutted local and uncapping
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: the House, I think would rebalance that all right. Like
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: I said, you touched one of my You touched one
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: of my nerves. Next question comes from Austin. From Austin,
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: I think you're I think Austin, you're getting awfully close
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: to being a member of the toodcast five timers club.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine a major party federal candidate with the
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: discipline to run on one structural reform like expanding the
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: House and focus only on that, arguing it unlocks everything
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: else downstream? Or does political gravity always pull candidates into
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: other issues and positions before they can fix the foundation.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: Can that kind of candidate even exist or are we
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: just not ready for that as a country. By the way,
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: I loved your point about Democrats needing more moderates independence
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: than the GOP because of the numbers. I've learned a
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: lot from your show. Thanks. You know, here's the problem
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: with running on reform, especially in a in a bad
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: economic environment, which I think right now we're in a
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: bad economic environment that's about to get worse. Is that
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: a majority of voters, ultimately, right, we are we are,
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: we are, We are all selfish as voters. And I
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: don't mean that as a criticism, I just mean that
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: as a reality. Right, our lives need to be better
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: at the moment, and you know, making ends meet and
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: worrying about the future of the democracy. Right, Just if
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: you're more worried about making ends meet, it doesn't mean
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: you're you're you don't care about the democracy, but you
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: sort of you have a priority list. I personally think
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: that a one issue candidate is more effective in Senate
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: and House races than a one issue candidate for president.
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: Now you can get to the point, you know, and
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: a one is you candidate for governor even is a
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: possibility you can get to a point and our system
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: can get so broken that we may you know, in
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: some ways that is that was the promise of Ross Perrot.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: If you go back, there was this idea that he
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: was just gonna he was really you know, he's like,
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: we got two giant problems, giant sucking sound of jobs
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: going south. At the time, it was the outsourcing south.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: Eventually it was obviously outsourced Southeast Asia from there and
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: the debt. Right, So you know, he tried, but it
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: was when he had to respond to other issues that
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: he would start to get in trouble, whether it was
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: issues of diversity, issues of foreign policy. Right, we just
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: know a president, unfortunately a president, and we've just all
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: learned this the hard way, right, And I mean, look
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: at the two thousand election, and go look at all
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: the questions that were asked about Osama bin Laden during
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: the debates. Right, we didn't really we didn't really prepare
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: either Al Gore or George W. Bush with questions that
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: were going to be a part of their next president
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: of the next presidency. And it's just inevitable that you're
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: just going to have all sorts of other things. So
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: I think it's much more difficult for a president to
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: do that. That doesn't mean they can't run on a movement.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean they can't run like, look, we've got
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: to fix the infant you know, you know, instead of
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: running on building roads and bridges, we've got to run
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: on fixing the infrastructure of the democracy. But I think
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: you have to connect it to people everyday lives that
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: this is going to improve their lives economically right away.
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: If you don't have that paired with the reform, you're
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: not going to get there to do the reform. And
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: I think that's the current and that's due to the
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: current climate we're in now. Look if your economy goes
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: really into the toilet, look at what happened in Argentina,
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: where a guy like Malay was able to that. You know,
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: what he was advocating would have been extraordinarily unpopular, you know,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: until there's a feeling of desperation. And I don't think
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: we're not there yet on that front. So I'm not
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: quite there on a single issue candidate succeeding on the
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: presidential level, but I could I could see it. I
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: could see a US senator, US senate candidate or even
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: a House candidate pulling that off. I do. So let's
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: just see, you know, at some point, right I you
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: know this is the the downside, right, you know, this
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: presidency's going terribly. He's cratering the world economy and it'll
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: inevitably make the economy front and center. And so while
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: we want to have the intellectual arguments and debates that hey,
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: we need all these structural reforms, if you don't want
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: this to happen again, I think the voter's attention is
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: going to be on the on what's in front of them, right, So,
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: I think figuring out how to pair reform with economic
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: stability is I think the key if you want to
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: elect a reform agenda. Next question comes from Akash. I
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: hope I got that right, and if I did, in
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: my apologies, and please let us know how to pronounce
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: it correctly. Akash rights Hi Chuck with talk of potential
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: blue wave in midterms twenty twenty six, is at risk
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: of the same kind of miscalculation we saw in the
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: midterms twenty twenty two, when a widely expected red wave
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: didn't materialize, especially since affordability is a central issue in
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: both cycles. Regards oh I thought you were going to
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: go in another direction with this question, which is what
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: the Democrats learned the wrong lessons like they did in
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: the twenty twenty two midterms. Right, they overperformed, and Joe
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: Biden incorrectly thought this was a reaffirmation of his policies
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: and presidency. It was not. It was just literally a
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: repudiation of the meganominees in key states and key races. Anyway,
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: the point as for look, I do think blue wave,
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: right wave is in the eye of the beholder. Fifteen
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: to twenty seat gained by House Democrats is a wave
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: in this kind of structure that we're in with the gerrymandering. Ultimately,
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: I have you know, if you're gonna ask me how
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: to measure the wave. I always I've been saying, go
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: to the state of Iowa. If Democrats sweep Gov. Senate
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: and two House seats out of that state, or even
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: GOV and two House seats and come really close in
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: the Senate, but they got to win something statewide in Iowa,
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: probably two. But if they do that, that to me
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: is the definition of that means we there was a wave,
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: right because you've taken a light red state like Iowa
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: and flipped blue. How many light red states essentially elect
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: blue like blue is governor, blue is senator, but really
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: a senator. So if both Iowa and Ohio flip and
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: the Senate, then I think that that's a wave, even
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: if it's even if it feels narrow and it's fifteen, right,
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: you know, gone of the days of the sixty house
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: swing or the forty house swing, et cetera. So that's why.
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: But the question is is it the misinterpretation?
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: I So it's possible, there's a also there, and there's
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: you know, it's possible that Republicans hold on to the
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: Senate just because this is such a tough map for Democrats,
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: and yet you know, they could misread what it is.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: So it's look, I think I do think there's probably
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: too much enthusiasm at the moment for Democrats sweeping, meaning
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: winning both the House and the Senate. I know the
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: prediction markets are are now have Democrats with over a
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: fifty percent chance of doing it. I'm pretty close. In
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: this environment, we're a war, you got a global recession
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: and stagflation and inflation all doing right. That's that's a
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: recipe for just a for the incumbent party to get smoked,
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: and so I could, you know, but that doesn't mean
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: every race isn't narrow in that situation. So but as
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: far as miscalculation, I think that I could see if
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: Republicans hang on to the Senate them not realizing how
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: much of a problem that they still really have. And
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: I could see Democrats over reading, you know that, winning there,
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: but then keeping their same leadership in place and kind
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: of nominating the same type of Democrat and having the
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: same you know, just deciding that hey, just running against
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: Trump works and let's just keep running against Trump. Right,
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: So those are the to me, those are the risks
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: that both parties have facing this this midterm. Next question
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: comes from Adam David Florida be in West Virginia. Question
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: is this, should Ukraine attempt to strike Iran through southern
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: Russia into the Caspian Sea and hit the north side
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: of Iran. Iran is no friend of Ukraine and has
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: limited retaliatory options. Trump is complaining that nobody will come
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: help him, But if Ukraine joined in, would Trump be
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: a little nicer to them? Actually doubt it, as he
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: only begrudgingly helps Ukraine because he hates Zelenski for not
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: helping him with the Biden request that got him impeached
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: the first time, and his eyes. Ukraine therefore can do
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: no right. On a sports note, grown up in Miami,
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: why aren't you a Dolphins fan? I've been a diehard
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: for the Finns since twenty twenty three and we need
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: all the help we can get best Adam and David Florida,
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: where I believe the Dolphins then at the home of
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: their training camp. I think it's not my apologies for
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: messing that up, Oh Adam. I've gotten letters from my
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: friends that work at the Dolphins hopeful that I will
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: get fired up. I got invited when Obama hosted the
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: seventy two Dolphins the living members of the seventy two
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: undefeated team, because I was a Dolphins fan, and I said, look,
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you thinking of me as a Miami person,
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: but I wasn't my You know, we all are the
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: father and son relationship, right. My father was a huge
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: Packer fan, and he basically indoctrinated me into the Packer fandom.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: The first It's Possible, my first chapter book as a
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: as a kid, was Instant Replay by Jerry Kramer Okay,
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: which is a story about a season under Lombardi in
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: the early sixties, and the second book might have been
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: Run to Daylight, which was Lombardi's sort of one of
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: those you know, how do you do it? Books? You
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: know that come very popular with coaches, or did for
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: a period of time in the eighties and nineties. We
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: don't have those, right, We don't have those coach books anymore.
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: Though they would usually come out while they were coaches.
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: There's been less of that lately. And my father and Grant,
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: my father believed the Dolphins and Joe Robbie, who was
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: the owner, the original owner of the Dolphins, were ripping
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: off the Hurricanes of concessions money back when they were
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: shared the Orange Bowl, which was a fact they were
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: doing it. The Dolphins made more money off of the
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: Miami Hurricanes success in the eighties than the Hurricanes did,
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: and that used to irk my father. But if you really,
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: you know, I've always he's never he never said this.
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: He passed away in the late eighties. But let's just say,
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: as I've grown up, learned more and realized that Joe
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: Robbie was a failed Democratic candidate for Congress in the
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: late fifties in Minnesota. There's a part of me that
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: always thought my father just wasn't a Dolphins fed because
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: of Robbi's posolitics. But I'm going to I'm good to
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: set that aside. I love being a Packer fan. I
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: I don't have I don't have negative feelings about the Dolphins.
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: I I just don't have that. You know, when you
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: and the thing is is a kid the good news,
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: you know, being a Packer fan was terrible. I was
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: the only Packer fan in my maid. Was sort of
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: a badge of honor, so you start to carry it.
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: And that was something I passed on to my son.
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: I wasn't going to let him become a Commander's fan
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: in the heart of his childhood. I mean, who's going
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: to torture their kid to make him be a Washington
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: command football team fan. Back in the last thirty years,
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: it's been a disaster. My son's eighteen. It's literally it
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: took him until he was seventeen before the Commanders even
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: put on a competitive football team. So so I've successfully
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: indoctrinated him into the Packers. Of course, Packers have been
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: good during his childhood. They were fun during my childhood.
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: With lind Dickey, but they weren't the best, so there
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: it is. But hey, I think this owner of the
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: Dolphins is better than the last couple of owners of
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: the Dolphins. So mister Ross, he wants to win, and
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: that's step one of having the right owner. I am
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: impressed with what he's done with the stadium. He treats
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: the University of Miami very well in their shared stadium experience.
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean I think it's a great idea for
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: the Hurricanes to be forty five minutes right, you know,
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: four thousand miles away from campus to play their home
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: football games. But I digress. Now, as for your question
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: about Zelenski, First of all, kudos to you for realizing
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: why his issue with Zelenski. It's all about what you said, right.
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: He blames Zelenski for his political problems, and he figures
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: in Zelenski didn't do his bidding right. It's the same
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: reason why he fired Pambond. He didn't fire fire her
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: for all the reasons that nine thousand other people thought
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: she should have been fired. He fired her because she
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: didn't do his bidding very well. And that obviously is
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: look Zelensky has been and Ukraine has already actually been
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: quite helpful in figuring out how to deal with drone
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: attacks and and undermine this. And so you know, the
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: amount that everybody's learned on drone warfare is thanks to
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: the thanks to Zelenski. And I've long wondered why somebody
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: hasn't gotten to didn't get to President Trump and say,
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: you know, it's Iran that's helping Russia with these drones.
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: But it doesn't matter, right, Everything is a transaction to him.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not going down the Putin road. It's just a
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: transaction to him, although it does you know, all roads
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: always seem to lead back to helping Putin. Even this war.
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: The two biggest, two biggest beneficiaries of this war, of
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: this miscalculation, uh here with Iran or Russia in China, right,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: and nobody is happier right now, as my guest this
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: this last week on Newsphere said Daniel Jurgen's self satisfied
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: smile that mister Putin has right now because he suddenly
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: has a financial lifeline to fund his war against Ukraine.
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: But I could tell you the way you're thinking is
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: the way Zelensky was thinking. He's been very leaning forward
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: and trying to help. He did that tour of the
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: Golf States, met with the heads of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: basically saying, you know, whatever you need, whatever expertise you
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: need in dealing with these drone strikes. You know you've
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: got all the intelligence from US is that you want
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: to have, so you know, I do think it's helped
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: Ukraine's relationship with the Golf States, which could be important
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: for nation building going forward. But there's no there's no
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: convincing Donald Trump to help Zelensky. He absolutely sees it
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: in personal terms. All right, Next question comes from Judd.
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: Jed writes, love your podcast, and I would love your
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: opinion on a crazy idea that I had. I love
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: the crazy ideas. It's sort of what is Bill Simmons
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: as one of my favorite little segments they'll do every
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: once in a while, about once a year, is half
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: baked ideas. So I'm all for them. How successful would
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: a presidential canidate be if they promised to veto almost
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: every piece of legislation reaching their desk, essentially forcing both
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: parties to pass legislation to overcome with supermajorities, which could
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: overcome presidential Vetos, I would say, almost to avoid Bush's
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: no new taxes promise and allow legislation that just overcomes
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: the Senate's filibuster. Could that be a successful way for
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: a single executive leader to force Article one Congress to
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: do their jobs and pass compromise legislation, especially if one
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: party controls the presidency, the House, and the Senate. Maybe
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: showing that it can be done will be enough to
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: make it the norm instead of the exception. Cheers jud Jed.
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: I love this idea. It feels like, okay, Congress, I
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: mean it gets to It's what my solution was to
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: the Senate judiciary gridlock, right, the buster of judges. Oh,
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: sixty votes doesn't work, well, let's make it seventy five, right,
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: Like make it harder, not easier. Oh no, we're going
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: to make you. You know, if you're a teenager missus curfew.
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: Do you make the curfew later or do you make
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: the curfew earlier? Right? Do you make it easier to
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: pass something if you can't get it done, or do
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: you make it harder? You actually should make it harder.
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: Everybody works harder. It's a terrific idea. I I the
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: here's the real problem with your suggestion. The public hates Congress.
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: They don't care that Congress doesn't work, and so it
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: would take an education of the country to explain why
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: Congress needs to be at the forefront and needs to
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: be forced to learn how to work together. You know,
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: there is one potential presidential candidate who I think might
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: have might have agreed to run on with with something
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: like this. That it's Mitch Daniels, former governor of Indiana.
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: He's been the guy that's been going up against Trump
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: to defend the Indiana State Senate Republicans who refused to
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: do the redistricting. He is, he has got that that
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: in him. In fact that there's a there's a part
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: of me that almost wants to ring him up, friendly
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: ish with him, ring him up and present this idea,
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: here's your you've been you know, here's your presidential campaign
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: platform to run on. But you know it it is
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: it is. Uh. I don't know if it would work. Look,
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: I think I think the better solution to force sort
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: of Congress to work differently is to start electing more
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: independence and force a reckoning where the independents create a
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: folk room and are essentially their own veto over either party,
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: whichever party has got the most extremists trying to run
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: the place, be the you know, you'd be the sort
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: of check and balance on that. But it takes winning, right,
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: You can't just come close as an independent Canadate. You
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: got to win some elections, you know, a Dan Osborne
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: and a Seth Bodner and Lisa Murkowski, and you know,
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: you start to get multiple independence winning who are comfortable
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: essentially saying no to both major parties for a period
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: of time and essentially making them court the court the middle.
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: Because what you're getting at here is that the plurality
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: of America is not represented in Congress. Right, forty five
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: percent of of the country essentially call our self described
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: or registered to voter as independen. It's not all of them, mean,
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: they're not all centrist, but what they are is they're
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: they're they're not partisans, right, They're not they're not they're
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: not group thinkers. And I think that there's a feeling that,
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: you know, only the special interests are getting represented. So
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: I think that that's that's where their opportunity is, right,
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: you know, you get your you know, Marie Glusen Camp
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: Perez MGP you know, you're Lisa Murkowski's two to work
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: with a group of other sort of like minded individuals,
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: not necessarily like minded ideologically, but like minded structurally, you know,
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: and how to make the place work better, but a fun,
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: half baked idea. Jed all right, last question, Stafford, Downtown LA.
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: I lock that you made the distinction. Downtown LA. Not
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: not Malibu, not Santa Monica, not the Valley, not Pasadena,
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: Downtown LA, not West Hollywood, not East Hollywood. Right, Downtown
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: LA under rated neighborhood. You know, there used to be.
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: I remember when we remember during the two thousand election
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: and I was staying in downtown and everybody, all my
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: Angelino friends, said, oh, that's the worst place to stay.
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: You should be staying here. He's been staying there, And
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: you realize that Downtown is not you know, Downtown's got little.
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's gotten better over the years. Maybe
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: you know, the arena, the Staple Centers being there has helped.
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: But anyway, but I digress. Here's your question. I'm wondering
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: what you think about how the Warren Iran will affect
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: our ability to protect our interests in other parts of
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: the world. Given that money munitions and personnel are finite.
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: And the fact that Shijingping has said he wants to
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: be able to invade Taiwan by twenty twenty seven, how
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: much does our continued expenditure of each of these make
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: us incapable of being prepared Elsewhere? I have read that
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: our defense industry is nowhere near what it used to be,
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: particularly in the manufacturing of munitions and in shipbuilding. All
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: of these seem very troubling. If we were to lose
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: our supply of the most advanced chips that are produced
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: in Taiwan, it would be catastrophic to the United States economy. Also,
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: thank you for your thoughts on March Madness. Thanks again
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: for all the great work Stafford Downtown, LA. Thank you, sir,
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: appreciate that. Look I of all all episodes for you
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: to write in on this issue, right, Ike Frimen in
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: his book about Taiwan and China being it, Yes, you have. Look,
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: this is the great geopolitical risk that Donald Trump has
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: I mean no, this is the first American president in
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: my lifetime that seems to be comfortable handing over America's
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: leader leadership role in the world, and he's put it
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: at risk. In ways that I don't think. You know,
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: it's interesting. There's certainly plenty of people worried about it,
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: given the rhetoric he was using in twenty fifteen and
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, and some of his behavior in twenty seventeen
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: and twenty eighteen. But I think we all never thought
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: that he would he would just do something this risky,
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: and he has done something this risky, and he's a
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: you know, he's essentially newtered NATO at the moment. NATO's
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: not dead, is you know, when when the current American
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: president has no is an interest in NATO, then NATO
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: is not an effective organization at the moment. I'm certainly
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: worried that Shijingping is going to look is going to
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: see this moment if he does, if he wants to
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: take Taiwan, now's the time, right while Trump's in office,
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: while Trump's distracted. It's certainly my concern. It's why I
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: booked like now. It's why I've been focused on this
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: issue a little bit more because I think I I
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: if you were just to play this out strategically, you know,
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: or pretend you're pretend you are advising the Chinese leader
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: and you're saying when when should you do this, Well,
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: you don't want to do it when there's a new
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: president and a new attitude. You might want to do
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: it while you have somebody who might negotiate Taiwan away.
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: So I think it's it's a concern. But what I
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: what I learned from Mike, and I hope you learned.
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: It's like China's got a China might not be ready
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: for this either. And China sees what Russia's been doing
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: with Ukraine, sees frankly, what we're doing with Iran, and
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: realizes An ain't gonna happen. It doesn't Countries don't roll over.
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: And I don't know how many times world powers have
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: to learn this, whether it's Vietnam, whether it's Afghanistan, whether
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: it's Iran, right, whether it's Taiwan, this stuff is not
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: you know, you may think you can roll over somebody,
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: but somebody has to say, all right, by the time
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: you by the time this is uploaded, I will be
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: on my way to the NAT's home opener. I'm very
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: excited about this. You know what that means. It's NATS
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: Dodgers right by the way. If you're the learners, you're
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: really ticked off that the Dodgers are the home opener
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: because you know, let's be honest, the Dodgers are going
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: to sell out whenever you bring them. Show. Hey, Otani
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: sells out wherever you go, so that's not you know,
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: So you're actually, if you're the Nats, realizing that you
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: don't have the best product on the field to lure
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: casual fans into the stadium, you kind of want the
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: Dodgers later in the year. Usually they come around June,
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: but they've rejiggered the schedule over the last couple of
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: years because of the mandatory decision that everybody plays everybody
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: now at least one series, which I think is a
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: great change, by the way, but it is scrambled sort of.
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: You know when you're when you're a season ticket holder,
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: you sort of follow the rhythm. You kind of know, oh,
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: the Cardinals come here, and the Dodgers usually come in
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: this month, and the Cubs usually come in this month
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: and d D d Well, all that's gotten scrambled lately.
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 1: So the Dodgers are the home opener. So, like I said,
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: big blow to the learners, basically taking away three sellout
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: dates that they would have gotten before I mean because
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: home opener weekend, you're going to get great. Hopefully we're
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: testing the weather here. But I have a few thoughts. Right,
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: the Nats are three and three. Here's here's my big takeaway. Right,
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: and the hiring of all these raised guys, and you know,
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: the the the the snarky fan in me. That's fan
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: in me who's you know, middle aged, and maybe you
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: guys want to call me a little over the hill
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: says hey, this hiring of all the interns from the
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: Tampa Bay Rays organization. We'll see how this works. We
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: have a thirty one year old manager, etcetera, etcetera. I
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: say all this, and I can already see a huge difference.
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: It does look like. What's interesting is like, to me,
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: the secret of the race success. Right, They have overperformed
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: the amount of money they spend right there, seem to
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: be always contending in the als. They strategically try to
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: win every game and they will change whatever it is. Right, Oh,
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: is this the game? We'll try and open er this
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: game because this is you know, we're going to get
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: their best three hitters out right away. They have a plan.
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: You know, if you're going to try to win eighty
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: five to ninety games, which gets you in the playoffs.
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: You got to have a plan, a different plan to
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: win every game. And you know, I think about the
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: plan against the Phillies the other night where all the
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: you know, even you know, they all the lefty hitters
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: seem to have a plan to hit it opposite field,
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: and it really suddenly that's how we got ten runs
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: and nobody hit a homer. Right, it was just getting
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: men on base and putting pressure on the Phillies to
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: make plays. I feel like the at bats look smarter.
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: I'm a little nervous about James Wood right than the
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: Nats are three and three and Wood's been not a
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: huge factor in all this. But I it's just been
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: a week. But you know, I've been MOPy and doom
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: and gloom and still don't like the way the learners
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: are not investing in this team. But man, I think
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: they've hired some pretty good people because these and this
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 1: team seems to respond so far. They just seem to be,
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: you know again, where it's a lot more analytics driven.
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: You can tell it's more analytics driven. And for a
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: team that doesn't have the isn't going to use the
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: resources to compete with the Dodgers. Doesn't have the big,
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: you know, marquee talent to compete with the Dodgers on
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: a day to day basis or a week to week basis,
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: or even the Phillies or even the Cubs, etc. You
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: could see that they're trying to find edges where they can,
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: and you know what, that's all I want to see.
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: You know, it's unlike the crap product that the Wizards
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: have put out with this tanking situation, which is just
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: embarrassing for the NBA. I'm horrified. It is really left
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: a bad taste in my mouth. I desperately want to
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: try to be a Wizards fan, all right, I do.
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: My son loves the NBA. I wanted him to become
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: a Wizards fan. It's been so bad over a fifteen
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: year period. He's a Suns fan because he was a
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: Devin Booker fan and he just adopted the Sons and
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: he's all in with the Sons. And I blame the
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: Wizards that they don't even try. And when you put
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: out you don't even try. What Look, it's clear that
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: the Nats are not trying to win a World Series.
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: Their front office isn't. But they at least the evidence
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: is they want to win each individual game. I think
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: the way this the way professional and professional basketball always
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: looks even worse during during the NCAA tournament, right because
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: it's so fun and exciting to watch competitive basketball, and
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: then you're like, oh, now, if you happen to see
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: Thunder play the Lakers, they do compete, but you can't
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: watch your own hometown team play because they have no
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: interest in competing. That's no you know, nobody watches the
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: Washington Generals, and eventually people stop watching the Harlem Globe
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: Trotters because you kind of knew what was going to happen.
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: And I just it's embarrassing and I hate it, and
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: I really think it's a stain on the franchise. I
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: get it. I get what they're trying to do, and
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: they're not the only team that has done it. Utah
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: is doing it. It's gross. We saw what the you
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: know again, I see it. Shoot they you know, you
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: see it in baseball, but at least on at least
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: you know, the Houston Astros when they were tanking as
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: an organization, the players in the field were competing, and
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: the coaching staff on the field was trying to win games.
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: What's really gross about the Wizards is that as soon
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: as the player does well, they bench them. God forbid
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: that the Wizards accidentally win a game. So it is
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: absolutely the NBA is a huge problem, and you want
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: to expand clean up the league. At them, clean this
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: crap up, get a better regular season product, going figure
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: out how to incentivize better regular season basketball. You know
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: when I was, when I was in my teens and twenties,
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: it was appointment viewing in the eighties and early nineties
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: to see regular season matchups of Bird versus Magic, Magic
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: versus Jordan. You know you didn't miss it. Nobody's tuning
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: in for a regular season matchup. You don't feel that
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: sense of you know, you've got to fix this at them,
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: You've got to fix this. Basketball is a great sport.
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: This system has created a mess. All right, enjoy your weekend.
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: I'll see you on Monday.