Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - Trump’s Corrupt Act Is Finally Wearing Itself Out + Trump Doesn’t “Own The Libs”... He Grifts His Base

Transcript

Chuck’s Commentary - Trump’s Corrupt Act Is Finally Wearing Itself Out + Trump Doesn’t “Own The Libs”... He Grifts His Base · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: This episode of The Chuck Podcast is brought to you
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  Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
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  Speaker 1: When I like about these Chapter folks, I've spent time
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  Speaker 1: three four three nine eight five. Hello, they're happy Monday Day,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: two days now after the fourth of July, America's two
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: hundred and fiftieth birthday. And I'm going to have a
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: lot more to say about sort of what the weekend
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: delivered to us as a nation and the unfortunate divisiveness
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: that the whole weekend felt and all of that. But
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: as you know here at the check Tad cast, I'm
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: just promising you politics for the rest of us. This
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: is not going to be some left wing screed or
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: right wings screen. It is just an attempt to sort of, hey,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: what about what does this all mean for the rest
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: of us? Politics for the rest of us as I want,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: as I'm calling it these days, and of course a
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: reminder that I cover politics as it is and then
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: do my best to try to give you some ideas
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: and how we can make it a little bit better.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: And let me give you the quick little rundown of today.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Like I said, I will have a lot, particularly on
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: the president's financial disclosure. I think the most remarkable thing
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: is what he's fessed up to, and I want to
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: get into that for a few minutes. It is Monday,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: which means we're going to go back into the into
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: my toodcast time machine, and I'm going to take you
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: back to an era when politicians use geography to cement
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: political power. Frankly, it's not new, but it is a
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: reminder that how we tell our stories, how we tell
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: our history, can sometimes mask what the real intent of
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: what happened actually was about. And so that is my
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: one hint. Then I'm giving you it is about the
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century and it really rings true with the current
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: situation that we're living in at the moment. Then I'm
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: going to give you my hot takes on Lebron. I've
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: got a lot of hot takes on Lebron, and gosh
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: do it. I want to send out my hot takes
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: before Lebron signs with the team and makes all of
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: us Lebron watchers feel silly or then some at that,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: I will talk about the one Nationals All Star snub
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: and then give you your complete Remember we're doing two
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: episodes for the month of July rather than three, so
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I'll have a drop today Monday here and we'll have
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: another drop on Thursday. So with that, let me get started.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: You know, one of the hallmarks of Donald Trump and
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: one of the worst set predictions there have been over
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: during the Donald Trump air is you know, some form
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: of ah, he'll never recover from this one, And yet
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump recovers from this one. But the fact of
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the matter is, even somebody with as many political lives
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: as Donald Trump, a man who seems to use teflon
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: as sunscreen, he's bathed in so much of it, and
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: stuff just slips off of him so easily that we
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: somehow many people may have convinced themselves nothing's ever going
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: to take this guy down. And sort of what I
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: would say is, I do think we know the ending.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: We just don't know when the ending is going to happen. Right.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: We know this is going to be not a spectacular ending,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: but a dumb ending. Right, we know this is going
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: to be the moment when you're just sort of trying
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: to look away. You don't even want to remember the era,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: You don't want to look at the time period. You
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: want to pretend it didn't happen. You just sort of,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: you know, wish it away, you know, sort of the
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: way some want to wish away. Then what actually happened
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century in American history versus what we
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: want to tell ourselves of what happened in the nineteenth century.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: And I think that in some ways we as a
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: coping MECHANI we want, jeez, nothing's going to get Trump.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: But the fact is the Trump Era is going to end,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: and it's going to end in a whimper. The Trump
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: era is going to be is going to be, is
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: not going to be something that survived that somehow gets
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: better with age. History is going to treat it in
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: one of the most damning ways. They'll explain it, History
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: will explain it, and we'll understand it. But this is
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: not right. There's no There are going to be very
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: few pieces of probably positive impact that you're going to
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: be able to apply to the Trump presidency. And in fact,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I kind of think it is going to be just
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: simply less memorable. Like I think, you know, we always
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: have this recency bias that somehow, you know, what's happening
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: now will be so memorable. But as I you know,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: think about one of the most bizarre things we had
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: done in our history before Donald Trump did it himself,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: which is elected president a second time after that president
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: was voted out of office like we did with Grover Cleveland.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I'm sure when it happened. There were people at the
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: time going, boy, this is going to be one for
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: the history books, and that this is going to be
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: an incredibly historic presidency and one that's remembered quite well.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Other than this one factoid about Grover Cleveland, what the
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: hell else is he known for, basically other than being
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: the Democrat that the only Democrat that could win a
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: majority between Lincoln and Hoover. Right, with apologies to mister
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Woodrow Wilson, who got to the presidency in a split decision.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: So the point is is that I look at sort
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: of how little impact Grover Cleveland had on history and
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: how essentially it just sort of it was a classic
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: fading away. Right. I know that that seems to be
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: the least likely scenario because we can't help ourselves in
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: the moment, but hey, there was a time Dick Van
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Dyke was the most famous American on television type of thing, right,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: you know the things. Things can come and go, And
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't shock me if one hundred years from now
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Trump is as memorable of a president as Grover Cleveland
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: or Polk or Millard fillmore Right, the likelihood that he
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: is in the either now he could be memorable a
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: lah Richard Nixon and Warren Harding are two most corrupt
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: presidents that we've ever had. But that is the likelihood
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: of his. I think of his historical significance. So what
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: is all this preamble about. Well, look, I've done it myself.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: What I thought had been career killers from him haven't been.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: But there's something about these last three weeks. Donald Trump's
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: behavior in and around everything having to do with America
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: at two fifty and the just extraordinary financial disclosure form
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: that he cop to right he admitted to profiting off
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: the presidency in a government form that in some ways
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: is shocking in its brazenness. And the question is, like
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: his entire career is filled with these moments where it
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: it's just over, and sometimes he certainly doesn't know when
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: it's over, but eventually the public lets him know when
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: it's over. My generation, this gave this phenomenon the title
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Jumped the Shark, based on a Happy Day episode that
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: actually didn't signify the end of Happy Days right away,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: but it's always been associated with this was when Happy
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Days lost its way, when they tried too hard to
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: make Fonds cool. When he decided he was going to
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: jump over a shark. And so while I know that
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: that phrase jump the shark has also jumped the shark,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I actually think when you're talking about Donald Trump and
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: you're doing and you're using references like jump the shark,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: it's actually very appropriate. He is somebody who in some
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: ways that era is such a defining era for him,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: and it's the era he lives in. I think in
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: his world it is still nineteen seventy six, somewhere between
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six and nineteen ninety which was his peak
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: period of relevance, and he has been trying to capture
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: that glory ever since, and he's, my word, gotten quite
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: a taste of it by hijacking a political party. So
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: that's where I'm going with this this morning. At some
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: point the act wears out. It's welcome, right. And it's
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: been the theory of Donald Trump's public life, not that
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: there is one perfect scandal, that there is one magic headline, ah,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: this is it. Not that the country wakes up morning
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: one morning, sees one new piece of evidence and says, oh,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: now we understand who this man is. That isn't going
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: to be how Trump collapses. Trump collapses when the product
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: becomes too much in and of itself, right, when the
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: gimmick becomes so obvious that even the people who wanted
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: to believe in it start to feel embarrassed for having
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: believed in it. And we saw this with the financial
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: disclosure this last week. The Wall Streeternal editorial page just
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: eviscerating him over it, as they should as any anybody
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: who doesn't want to be accused of hypocrisy. Right, if
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: you've spent a minute criticizing the Bidens for profiting Hunter Biden,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: for profiting office father, then you should be beyond outrage
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: and probably introducing articles of impeachment, given that there actually
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: is a constitutional provision here that in theory, Donald Trump
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: has violated on this front. But when you had like
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: the free press, you know some you know which certainly
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: is very shall we say particular about how often it
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: criticizes Trump, meaning they don't like to do it very often. Right,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: they want to be a bit right coded. They eviscerated
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: him over this. Wall Street Journal editorial page eviscerated him.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: And I think there is this there's a lot of
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: people who have used their own political prestige to criticize
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the Bidens and the Clintons over the years for making
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: money off of government, and no one has done it
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: like Donald Trump. The man has perfected it, right. And
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: so the idea that you do have a lot of
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: people vote for Donald Trump feeling embarrassed by his behavior
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: is not a surprise to me. Because when the sales
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: pitch keeps going after the room has changed, it's just
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: sort of right. When the gold lettering is still on
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: the wall, the lights are still flashing, the matre d
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: is still pretending that this place is exclusive, but the
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: carpet it smells old. The money is gone. And everybody
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: has seen this episode before. Every era of Trump's public
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: life has ended with a whimper like this, and so
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: this is why it's likely to end end with a whimper.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: And I've made it clear I think he's already in
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: lane duck territory. We just all haven't. Just there isn't
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: majority acceptance of this just yet. And it's hard to say, oh, geez,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: he's a lame duck when he can still have influence
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: on Republican primaries, right, So he is not a lame
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: duck without some power left. But this is the question,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: is are we at the beginning of the end or
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: are we in the middle of the end or are
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: we starting to come to the end of the end.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: But I definitely believe in the ending. The Atlantic City
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: era ended this way for him. The casinos were supposed
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: to be proof that he was some genius, a visionary,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: the master builder, the deal maker, the guy who could,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: who was going to create an East Coast Vegas and
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: if anything, it had more advantages than Las Vegas had.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: And then the whole thing, thanks to Donald Trump, became debt, bankruptcy,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: overreach and pure ruins. Right, nobody has had a bigger
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: negative impact on a city on the East Coast than
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump and Atlantic City. The inherited business myth ended
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: this way right. The story is that Donald Trump was
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: some self made billionaire, when the more honest version of
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: that literally, he inherited his place at third base, got
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: a fortune, and if he had just invested that fortune
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: would be wealthier today pre presidency, because presidency has given
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: him access to wealth beyond his own imagination. But he
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: had not. If he had just taken his dad's fortune
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: and just literally bought at and t he'd have more
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: money than he did today. And he had been a
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: billionaire sooner. But of course he has spent the rest
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: of his life trying to convince everyone that while he
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: was born on third base, that somehow he hit his
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: own grand slam. Donald Trump, real estate mogul. That act
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: ended this way. The branding, deals, the licensing, the gold
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: plated fantasy of wealth and taste. Right. It works until
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: people start noticing that the brand is not proof of success.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: The brand was the product, the image was an asset,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: and the illusion was the actual business. His television era
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: ended this way, right. The Apprentice worked until it didn't.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: It was a hit until the trick got old. It
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: made him look like the businessman he had spent decades
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: pretending to be. It put him behind a desk, surrounded
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: him with glass and steel and fear, and edited him
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: into some executive genius that he had always fantasized that
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: he was. And then when the format started to fade,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: he turned it into celebrity Apprentice, which really is probably
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: the single most revealing cultural artifact of the Trump age.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump sitting across from Gary Busey, pretending this was
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: still a high stakes boardroom and not a failing franchise,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: trying to resuscitate itself through absurdity. In some ways, Trump
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: and Gary Busey together explain trump Ism better than most
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: political science can. Celebrity without excellence, drama without stakes, authority
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: without competence. Is that that's not Donald Trump. I don't
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: know what is the aesthetics of power, right, the look
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and feel of power, but it's empty of everything that
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: is actually supposed to make power legitimate. The only strange
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: thing is that the very baucy phase of his celebrity
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: era happened before the presidency and not after. Politics has
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: been the exception. In politics, Trump has had nine lives.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Things that would ordinarily end a public figure did not
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: end him. Things that would have destroyed any other politician
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: made him stronger with the people most invested in his brand.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to start with a little humility on
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: this prediction. We've been here before, and yes, even before,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: I probably can be quoted as saying you can find
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: a quote that saying, wow, this time is different. Right.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Insulting John McCain seemed like a bridge too far. A
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Republican candidate for president mocking a prisoner of war that
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: was supposed to be impossible and certainly something that would
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: have made somebody unhireable axes Hollywood, you can grab him
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: by the you know what. That should have been disqualified.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: How about his own confession the Fifth Avenue line. Trump
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: said he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: shoot somebody and not lose voters. And the shocking thing
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: is not just that he said it. The shocking thing
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: is that became a pretty decent description of his political
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: immunity for a good six years. How About in his
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: first term, the Helsinki Summit that seemed like a bridge
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: too far, standing next to Vladimir Putin, casting down an
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: American intelligence, siding with the Russian propagandist, that seemed like
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: the kind of thing that would break the fever, didn't
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: do it. This episode of The Chuck Podcast is brought
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  Speaker 1: and three hundred and sixty five day returns quints dot
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  Speaker 1: com slash chuck. How about him going to a foreign
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: government begging them to help him in his re election campaign.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: That was the Ukraine call. It led to impeachment, he
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: was acquitted. Then there's January six, where he literally instigated
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: a riot against the country, trying to stop certification of
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: a free and fair election. I'm sure if you told
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: people in twenty fifteen that a president would try to
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: overturn an election, that a mob would storm the capital,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: that the president would be impeached for and that he
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: would then return to power and pardon nearly everyone charged
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: and connect with the attack, most people would have thought
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: America had been lost and that somehow we were part
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: of a first Reik of some sort, because that's how
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: ridiculous that scenario would have sounded, even to the ears
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: of a political electorate in twenty fifty. But all of
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: that happened. I haven't even brought up him stealing classified
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: documents as a civilian and former president or the felony
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: conviction that he received in New York. Then the pardons
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: of the January sixth riders, you know, just all of
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: them across the board. The Qatar plane, a foreign government
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: literally bribes an American president with a luxury Sebber forty seven,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: and the bribe works. Qatar's got a security agreement with
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the United States signed by Donald Trump after they gifted
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: this plane. The pro and the quot is all right
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: there staring us in the face. And somehow the official
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: posture is, why would anybody have a problem with this?
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: He just wants a plane, and we're going to take
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: care of Cotter. We got a military base there, so
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: what's wrong with that? We might have done this anyway.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: There's the UAE crypto investment right that. My god, every
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: time you think it can't get worse, it gets worse.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: A Trump linked crypto venture, a stable coin, billions in
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: foreign backed investment, propping up giving his sons, Oh wait,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Hunter Biden was criticized by some of Trump's supporters for
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: making money off of his paintings. These guys are selling
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: American foreign policy to the highest bidder in the golf.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Remember what the UA bought with this bribe of Trump's kids,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: they got access to important chips that Donald Trump now
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: it is the UE, a important ally of the United
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: States strategically in the region. Sure it is. That doesn't
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: mean you're justified going into business with them while you're
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: also in charge of taxpayer decisions about how we interact
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: with said government. And yet here we are. So I'm
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: not going to sit here say very confidently this is it.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Nobody should pretend the outrage itself is a strategy, and
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: we shouldn't pretend the country has some hidden emergency break
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: that automatically activates when a president crosses a moral line. Right,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: we have learned all too painfully that it does not.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I think all of us wish we had one, But
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: there's not. But there is another lesson. Immunity is not immortality.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: And there's a difference between surviving a scandal, keeping power,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: staying in office, and remaining compelling and remaining influential. And
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: that's really the argument of me. He has no ability
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: to influence beyond his most devoted followers, and it's a
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: shrinking and shrinking group of people that are still drinking
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: the Trump cool it because there is a difference between
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: getting away with something and keeping the audience. And there's
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: a difference between shocking people and boring them. And Trump's
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: entire theory of political powers dependent on his ability to
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: turn misconduct into some larger spectacle. Right, he could make
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: scandal feel like domination. He could make disgrace look like
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: proof he was just fighting the system like you are,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: you know, and they're coming after him simply because he's
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: standing in the way of them coming after you. He
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: could make every indictment and investigation and outrage condemnation part
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: of the show. But what happens when the show gets old?
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: What happens when you start to look like Gerry Busey yourself,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: which lately Donald Trump has. What happens when scandal no
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: longer feels like rebellion, it just looks like an invoice.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: And what happens when the corruption is not even hidden anymore?
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Not even clever, he's not even he's not even trying
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: to spin his greed. Just a nine hundred and twenty
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: seven page government filing that reads like a catalog of
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: impeachable offenses. That's where we are now. The last few
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: weeks have been one of the most intense pressure tests
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: of the Trump spell that we know much of the
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: country is in Not because one new fact is more
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: shocking than January sixth, not because one new grift is
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: more corrupting than everything that came before it. But now
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the whole thing feels so undisguised. Right, He's not even
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: trying to hide it anymore. He's not even trying to
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: explain it away, spraise it. It's so strangely tired that
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: that's why you can feel this act entering a late
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: stage form. Right. The financial disclosure, basically because he has
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: so warped the system. He's like, I'm going to disclose
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: all the different ways that I am using my office
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: to personally profit, and no one's going to give a shit.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: That's how little he thinks of you. The crypto money,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: the branded bibles, I mean, it's so gross. This guy
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: sells bibles with his name on it, watches coins, all
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: to monetize whatever popularity he has within this presidency. Then,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: of course, a guy who from a political party that
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: wants to banstock trading, all the guy does is trade
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: off of policy in advance. I had already brought up
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the plane, the crypto UAE crypto story. Then there's the
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: America two fifty celebration that he completely co opted and
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: made it a Trump branded spectacle, literally driving people away.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Fewer people came to Washington. Not the white supremacists, they
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: felt welcome, but fewer regular Americans decided to come because
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: he just made it less. He basically made it that
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: if you showed up to an event in Washington, you
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: were endorsing him. He tried to make the America two
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: fifty an endorsement, and you know what, plenty of people
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: are like, I'm endorsing America the idea, I'm not celebrating
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: your fat ass. I know I got a little, but
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: it's just so insulting what he's done to us. It's
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: so insulting. He gets to insult us with small, stupid playground,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: and then the rest of us, if you fight back,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: you look like the smaller one, right, I mean, the
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: reflecting pool in itself has been so symbolically obvious, right
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: of just what a ridiculous presidency this is turning into. Again,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: maybe he survives all of us, but when you're like
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: monetizing patriotism like this, literally selling the presidency to the
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: highest bidder, selling pardons, selling policy, literally is doing these things.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: This is not made up shit, and yet it always
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: is like, oh, Trump's, Trump's, Trump's critics are going over
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: the top. No, it's under the it's like literally underplayed.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: That's what made thank God for this government for me
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: actually filled it out. By the way, do we think
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: he's been one hundred percent honist? Imagine the stuff he's
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: not copping to. So look, he has survived more than
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: enough for skepticism to be an honest position here. But
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: the question is no longer whether Trump has done anything disqualifying.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: That ship sailed a long time ago. The question is
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: whether the public is finally beginning to experience him not
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: as just some sort of transgressive rebel, not as entertaining,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: not as strong, but as exhausting, and as an act
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: that it's worn, worn itself out. It's a faded act, right,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: It's Morton Downey junior. For those of you at a
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: certain age, if you know, you know. That is the
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: jump to sharp theory, not the theory that the law
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: finally catches up to him, Not the theory that Republicans
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: suddenly recover a conscience, Not the theory that is stronger
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: supporters instantly abandoned him, realizing they're the mark owning the Libs.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Now we know who he owns. Just look at government form.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: He owns his own supporters. He monetizes the bibles, the watches,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: the gold coins, all sorts of gaudy khaki stuff. The
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: theory is simple. Every Trump act eventually wears out. It's welcome. Right.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: He did so in Atlantic City and literally destroyed the city.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: All right, what should have been East Coast Vegas. Everything
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: that Vegas is today is because Donald Trump wasn't allowed
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: in to smuck it. Literally. The difference is one city
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: wouldn't give him a a casino license to actually open
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: a casino one day. Which city would you rather be?
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Las Vegas or Atlantic City? And this is why I
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: think the moment where the political act is going to
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: start to feel the same. This financial disclosure, it's not
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: a rumor or a leak or opposition research. This wasn't
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: like a whispering from an anonymous source, elked tax return,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: an official government ethics disclosure and what he admitted to
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: we're impeachable offenses. We don't even know what's not on
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: there now. Remember why we even have this document. It's
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: one of the few things still surviving the Watergate ethics reforms.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: We decided in the late seventies the public had a
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: right to know whether people in power were using power
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: to enrich themselves, simply letting us know what's your wealth.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: You want to be you want to make public taxpayer
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: decisions and public taxpayer money, You've got to let us
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: know about your financial situation. That's why financial disclosure exists.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: It's a relic of an era when reform was still possible,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: when scandal produced ethics laws, when exposure would produce new
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: guard rails. The country believes sunlight might actually disinfect. Now
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: that Trump era is testing whether sunlight still has got
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: any sort of impact, any sort of ability to disinfect.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Because the most shocking thing about the financial disclosure is
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: not just the money or the scale. It's so much
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: of it's sitting right there on paper. The disclosure runs
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: nine hundred and twenty seven pages. For comparison, Obama's financial
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: disclosure with eight, Biden's was eleven. Vance Jade Vance's current
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: one was seventeen. Trump's is nine hundred and twenty seven pages.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: So before you even have to you go through it
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: page by page, the scale tells you something. This is
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: not a president with a few boring mutual funds. This
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: is not a president whose finances are simplified to avoid conflicts,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: or if somehow put himself in a blind trust. This
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: is not somebody trying to build a wall between public
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: office and private gain. This is a financial universe, and
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: it is a universe built around the Trump brand. The
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: filing shows hundreds of millions of dollars tied to that
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: questionable crypto investment, mostly coming from UAE and the Meme coins.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: There's six hundred and thirty five million dollars in royalties
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: from a licensing deal tied to Celebration coins, hundreds of
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: millions tied to that World Liberty financial token sale, stable
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: coin related entities, and other crypto link proceeds. And I
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: know somebody you are going with the hell Yes, this
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: is a part of the investment community that not everybody
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: thinks is even legitimate yet, and whether it is legitimate
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: is a regulatory decision by Trump's administration. So what did
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: he do? He put his policy position up for sale,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: because originally Trump was anti crypto, but then he realized
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: there was money to be made, so he sold his
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: position to the highest bidder. Now, depending on how you
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: categorize these entities, you are talking about well over a
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: billion dollars just in these crypto related bribes. And I'm
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: sorry I'm calling them bribes because again, he literally believed
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: one thing. He got all this money, and now he's
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: doing another. A sitting present, mean coins, token sales, stable
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: coin proceeds, all this stuff, right. Then there's the other part, right,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: the licensing arrangements, the family brand, the office, you know,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: it all creates this aura of power. Now, of course
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Trump just says, all the market went up. Please, this
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: is not the market went up. This is a presidency
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: being converted into a new business for him in order
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: to solidify wealth that he used to pretend he had
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: and now he actually has it. Right, he was a
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: fake billionaire and now politics has let him become a
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: real billionaire. And then there's all the merchandise, right, the
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: disclosure shows money from selling Trump branded bibles. The fact
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: that he's there's no shame with that, right, this guy
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: thinks he can sell a Bible. And they we wonder
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: why more people are questioning organized religion and certainly questioning
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: certain Christian pastors. Excuse me, I don't even want to
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: they're not serious religious people. They're just grifters using religion.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: There's the brand Trump branded watches, the Trump sneakers, Trump fragrances,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: there's Trump guitars in there right, an entire retail universe
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: of political devotion, all all tied to revenue for him
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: and his sons. And this part deserves some moral focus
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: as well as legal attention, because the saddest part of
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: the Trump era has always been this. The people he
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: owns are not the liberals or the left. It's not
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: the media. He doesn't own the media, right. He doesn't
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: own the elite he claims to be humiliating. He owns
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: the people who send him money, the people who buy
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: the Bible with his name on it, the people who
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: buy the cheap watch that's marked up, the people who
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: buy the meme coin that they know, in their heart
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: of hearts is worthless. The people who buy the collectible.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: They're told if if they purchase some little piece of
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Trump branded air, it will become valuable, because he is valuable.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: It's quite the con. The people who think they are
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: owning the libs are the people being monetized. They are
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: the product. Maga is the product, and his financial disclosure
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: is the biggest middle finger to you. Guys. I don't
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: get it. I don't understand. I'd be pissed off. They
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: have been taken like this by somebody I trust it,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: and he is literally stealing from you. The MAGA movement,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: the people who think they are defending America are being
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: directed to a merchandising table. I'm sorry. I know you
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: think you're part of a movement, but he's simply is
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: treating you like a customer to be taken advantage of,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: not even a customer that he that he that he
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: cares about. You think you're a part of history. He's
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: trying to sell you a souvenir. You think you're buying
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: into the future. He's just selling you a token. You
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: may think he's your champion. He's monetizing your loyalty. I
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: know some people, Hey, well they chose it. They chose it.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Adults make choices, Okay, but leadership still has sort of
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: moral con You know, you should still have some morality
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: to this. You know, politics still has moral We should
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: still have a moral clause in it. There's still something
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: rotten about a man who takes the faith and loyalty
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: of his most devoted supporters and just simply converts them
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: into a sales funnel. It's not just monetizing the presidency,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: He's monetizing devotion. Right. He's as bad as any one
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: of those Jimmy Swaggert era preachers, right he really I
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: think he's Trump is best understood through the seventies and
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: eighties televangelists, grifters. Right, your Swaggert's your folks like that.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Franklin Graham is kind of one of those people. Billy was.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Billy wanted. Billy Graham always wanted to avoid being seen
• 38:44
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  Speaker 1: think this is this careful saying that this time is different.
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  Speaker 1: But this is why I think this time is different.
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  Speaker 1: It's the lame spin. When Trump was asked about all
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: of this, his answer was basically, well, the stock marker
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  Speaker 1: is going up everybody's profiting. So that answer matters because
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  Speaker 1: one it is so weak, right, and two it's oblivious
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  Speaker 1: to his to work with people in this country. You know,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Trump so lives in the K shaped economy. He doesn't
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: realize what's going on on the on the on the
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  Speaker 1: downslope of that K, right, because he has money, and
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  Speaker 1: has money. This truly is a guy who lives in
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: a gilded cage and has no idea what the rest
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: of the world is experiencing. You know, it is another
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: thing to look at a filing full of crypto royalties,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: token sale proceeds, stable coin money, branded watches and bibles,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: foreign income and say everybody's making money. No, everybody didn't
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: make money this way. But the fact is, it's not
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: even a good explanation. I mean, he's literally like a
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: magician pointing to his left hand after we all saw
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: the card fall out of his sleeve. You know, that's
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: why this feels different. Trump is not more corrupt than
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: he was before. He's saying the corruption has been obvious
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: for decades. But what feels different is that the concealment
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: is cone right, and the salesmanship is worse because, in
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: his own way, well, I keep he keeps, you know how,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: he's thinking, I keep getting away with it. So this
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: is working. The old Trump would have made the griff
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: feel like a crusade, and the new Trump seems to
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: think the existence of the grift is itself the argument.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: He's robbing the bank in broad daylight and even finding
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: a disclosure form to let you know what he robbed. Right,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the portfolio shows, and then you look at his stock trading,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: My goodness, tens of thousands of stocks trading. He's got
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: stakes in company after company with government contracts, regulatory interests,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: national security connections, immigration connections, defense connections, AI and tech connections.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: And the problem is not that every trade proves a
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: secret policy is attached to it. The problem is the
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: system itself. The problem is that this is a conflict
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: of interest machine in the disclosure form, just just screaming
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: at Neon signs Right, he's invested in something called the
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Geo Group. He bought and sold shares of the Geo Group,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: a private prison and detention contractor. Well, immigration enforcement and
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: detention are central news policy agenda. The money and the
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: policy occupy the same world. That is the scandal. The
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: money follows the power. The old question, can you prove
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: the corruption? My god, it's out in plain sight to me.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: The better question is what would non corruption even look
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: like inside this arrangement? If the president is financially tied
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: to Crypto and the government takes a friendly turns toward Crypto,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: what is the public supposed to conclude? If the president's
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: family business makes foreign deals with the countries that negotiate
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: with the United States for treaties and other national security commitments,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: what else is the public supposed to conclude. You do
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: not need to find the secret envelope in the locked
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: drawer to understand this arrangement. He's telling you, he's showing you.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: His simple appearance is the scandal. And in a healthy
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: political system, the appearance would be enough to force retreat.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: In this political system, the appearance has become a business model.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: It's the Trump ethic. Why bother? Why bother with concealment, restraint, shame?
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: Why bother with the norms that kept earlier presidents from
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: doing the thing that might be technically possible but obviously
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: corrodes public trust. Why bother the pretending the presidency is
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: not a licensing opportunity. My goodness to you how much
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: money the Reagans could have made or the Obamas had
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: they done this? Why bother pretending the office is not
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: a set of keys and the country is not just
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: simply a customer base for a new CEO. That's where
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: we are. But every con does have an emotional expiration date.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Not with everyone. Some people will never leave. Some people
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: will go down with the ship, insisting that the water
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: in the cabin is fake news as their draw roll
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: living in the gurgles. Right, Oh, this is not true.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: But political movements are not sustained just by the true believers.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: They require the periphial believers, right, the ones that say, wow,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: I think he's kind of a I you know, he's
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: kind of an a whole, but he's my ahole. The
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: soft supporters, the people who don't read every filing but
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: have a general feeling, well, he seems to be strong
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: or entertaining. He's always a fighter, and they're always coming
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: after him. The question is whether those people begin to
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: feel not outrage but embarrassment. And that's what you sense.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: Notice who wasn't with him In the fourth of July,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: I couldn't find many elected Republicans, certainly not anybody that
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: is in a swing election. These people are not going
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: to be inviting Trump right. Nobody wanted to be standing
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: with him when he was monetizing the fourth of July
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: and America's two hundred fiftieth birthday. It's notable who didn't
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: want to be with him. Outrage might be polarizing, but embarrassment,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: that's corrosive. Embarrassment turns into distance. And this is what
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: happened to the previous Trump acts. Right The casino's not
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: They didn't become morally worse than one day. They became
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: bad bets. The TV show did not become fake one day,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: It just became stale. The brand did not collapse because
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: everyone suddenly discovered that the guy was full of shit.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: It collapsed because the performance stopped producing the feeling and promise.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Trump's political danger right now is not that people discover
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: he's selfish. They knew that going in. His danger is
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: that the selfishness stops looking like a strength, that the
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: KHN stops feeling like rebellion and starts feeling like a
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: guy selling watches from the Oval office. And then, of course,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: what he did to the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: It was the easiest assignment in American politics. You are
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: the president of the United States, the country's turning two
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty. You don't have to be brilliant. You
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: don't have to solve every division. You don't have to
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: give the Gettysburg address. You just have to make the
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: holiday itself bigger than you. That's it was the entire assignment.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Make it about the country and not yourself. Make it
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: about the founding, but also about the founders. Make it
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: about people who expanded the promise of the founding. Make
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: it about the soldiers, the abolitionists, the suffragettes, the immigrants,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: the inventors. Make it about a country that has failed
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: often and endured anyway. It was a layup, and Trump
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: could not help himself, right. He couldn't accept it bipartisan
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: commission to run these things. He had to have his
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: own structure, his own TA task force that turned into
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: another slush fund. And of course his alternative organization was
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: just doing ideas that or revolved around his tastes, his politics,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: and he made everything about his own political brand. A
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: normal president would have looked at America's two hundred and
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: fiftieth birthday and understood the assignment. Disappear into the office,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: Let the country be the star. Let the flag be
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: bigger than the man standing in front of it. Gerald
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Ford did it the bi centennial. This president couldn't do it.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: He saw a stage and he believed that two hundred
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: and fiftieth birthday was his. You know it's funny is
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: that Trump cared so little about his own people that
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: he did not heed warnings that people made about heat. Right,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Washington's actual Independence Today parade had to be canceled because
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: of the heat. Organized canceled it after an the extreme
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: heat warning. The temperatures are expected to push into dangerous territory,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: and all those things. The city made the obvious public
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: safety decision. Don't put people in the pavement for a
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: parade in danger. That's what civic institutions do. They look
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: out for the general public. Besides, the celebration is not
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: worth hurting people. What was Trump's response. It wasn't let's
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: be careful. It was not let's make this day about
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: the people. His response was, I'm going to talk longer.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: It's going to be approximately one hundred and seven degrees.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go and I'm gonna make it a really
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: long speech, just to show that I can do anything. Again,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: He's not even hid it. Just to show that I
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: could do anything. Not to honor the country, unify the country,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: celebrate the declaration of independence. He just wants to use
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: the event to show he can do anything he wants. Well,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: in some ways, it's a confession. It's the Trump presidency.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: In one sentence, a public safety concern becomes a masculinity
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: a fake masculinity test. A national birthday becomes his endurance stunt. Look,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: the country's feeling it. The country wanted permission to celebrate itself.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: It wanted a moment, and Trump gave it more Trump,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: and so people walked away. That's why nobody showed up
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: to this fair. That's why attendance was so poor. Right,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: you know they've got they should be thankful for all
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: of these weather warnings because they can now hide the
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: low attendance and the lack of interest behind that. And
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: that's the tragedy of this moment. He can't let anything
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: just belong to the country. Everything has to pass through him,
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: even the reflecting pool. Right. Look, sometimes history is too
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: on the nose. Trump wanted the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: degree resurfaced an American flag blue. Not for a civic reason,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: he just wanted it blue. He looked at the Lincoln
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: Memorial reflecting pool and saw a swimming pool, and of
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: course he knew a guy. I mean the whole thing, right,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: this is an incredible metaphor. And then he's trying to
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: blame other people. You know, sabotage makes up all sorts
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: of fake news. Right, It's the perfect little Trump story.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: The National Monument gets treated like a backdrop, the public
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: space gets turned into a branding exercise, The job itself
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: costs more than it's promised, the result looks worse than
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: it was promised, and then he shifts the blame to
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: somebody else. This is not just an anecdote about a pool.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: It's been his entire philosophy. By the way, the reflecting
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: pool exists to reflect. It's supposed to reflect Lincoln and
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: the Washington Monument. It's supposed to reflect the national story
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: back at itself, flawed, solemn, open to interpretation. Trump looked
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: at a reflecting pool and thought not blue enough, like
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: totally not even understanding why it's positioned where it's positioned,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: and then he turns it into a no big cost overrun,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: blame shift fiasco. He sees an institution and all he
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: thinks is how can I brand it? How can I
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: give it the Trump brand? He never has an instinct
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: to be a steward or a custodian, so always how
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: does this look on television? But hey, the reflecting pool
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: story works. The naked Emperor is not just naked. He's
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: standing next to a blue reflecting pool in dangerous heat,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: promising a really long speech just to show he could
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: do anything, while the country's birthday party becomes another episode
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: of his show. And then, because subtlety is completely dead,
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: a bunch of white supremacists from the Patriot Front show
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: up in Washington on July fourth. Look, I'm not saying
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: Trump organized it, I'm not saying he invited them, and
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not implying there was any coordination. You don't need
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: to say any of it. The point is simpler and more.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Damn it movements here dog whistles and they hear signals permission,
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: and they knew Donald Trump was fine if they showed up.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: So when a white nationalist group shows up on Americas
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: two undred and fiftieth birthday. It's not whether Trump sent
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: them an invite. The question is why did they feel
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: so at home in Trump's Washington. And this is where
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: I have a very little patience for the Republican Party
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: sudden lectures about extremism in the Democratic Party. There's this
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: whole cottage industry of worried conservatives wo want to tell
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: Democrats that they aren't fighting their own insurgency hard enough.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: They want to lecture Democrats. But the dangers of a
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: party being pulled too far to its extreme position or
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: being captured by activists losing touch with the mainstream of America.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Parties can be captured. They get captured all the time.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: They're vehicles. They're not inherently good or bad. But I'm
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: old enough to remember when the political party with the
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: elephant as at symbol faced an insurgency its own And
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: how did that go? Did they stand up? Did they
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: defend the constitution? Did they say no to a demagogue?
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Did they protect the country from a cult of personality?
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Did they put institutional responsibility above short term power? Now
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: they folded, they negotiated, they excused, they normalized. Then they
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: became it, so careful of those lectures about what's happening
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: on the left in the Democratic Party by people who
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: watch their own party become a vehicle for Donald Trump
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: and now want to offer seminars on responsible gatekeeping. Just remember,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party had a lot of chances to stop this.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: The McCain moment, the access Hollywood moment, the hell Sinki moment,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: the first impeachment January sixth, the second impeachment, the criminal indictments,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: the conviction, the pardons. There were plenty of Republicans wh
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: knew better about every one of these things. Some said
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: it privately, some leaked their concern anonymously. Some wrote books
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: after they left the Senate, some gave solemn speeches after
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: it was too late to matter. But institutionally, they chose power.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: And that's why Trump's survival is not just the story
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: of Trump, story about elite surrender, a story of cowardice,
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: and a story about a party that decided the danger
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: of losing its voters was worse than the danger of
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: losing its soul. And now that same party wants to
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: warn everybody else about extremism. So why might this time
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: be different? And why are we. I think in the
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: end stages of the Trump era there are three reasons. One,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: Trump is older, and old Trump had kind of a
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: feral media instinct. The older version of Trump, Yes he
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: was cruel and reckless and all of those things, but
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: he had a weird animal sense for the camera and
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: what would work. He knew how to manipulate the attention economy.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: The instinct is still there, but a lot less sharp right.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: The rallies ramble more, the explanations are weaker, the spin
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: is not as clean. The answer to financial disclosure, everybody's
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: profiting from it. Vintage Trump would have turned the accusation
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: into a slogan, right Instead, he just you know, the
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: corruption now is less deniable because it's less hidden. Literally,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: it's he's admitting all of this right here. Look at
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: how I've ripped off my own supporters by selling them
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: bibles and watches. It's not a conspiracy theory if the
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: form itself says it. Third, the country is simply tired.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: And that's the hardest thing to quantify, because you can
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: feel it, and the numbers start to support it. It's
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: pretty clear the country was not in the mood for
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: a Trumps branded spectacle for the fourth it wanted some
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: reassurance and steadiness, and Trump gave him more Trump, and
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: I think it's a huge mistake. I think this is
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: going to linger because when people are angry, he can
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: use anger, and he can sometimes use revenge, But when
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: people are exhausted more Trump is never the solution and
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: the one thing. And this is why I'm pretty convinced
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is not going to be remembered as a
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: great American president. Unless America gives up on history, unless
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: we become a country that literally erases memory, manufactures mythology,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: and treats the archives, historical archives as enemies, he will
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: not be celebrated as a great leader. He will simply
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: be remembered as a warning. Not because historians are liberal,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: because the record is the record. Two impeachments January sixth,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: try to overturn election, monetize the public office, normalize political violence,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: constant war. In truth, there's no serious version of history
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: in which that resume becomes a mount Rus Rushmore resume.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: And I think this is where Trump's fear really lies.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: He's not fearful of losing another election or legal eccount
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: of his biggest fear has always been exposure. He's got
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: the worst foam of posure complex ever. Right, exposure, as
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: in ridicule is what he fears. Right, it was always
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: ridicule that motivated him, supposedly to run for president in
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: the first place. He didn't like that people were making
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: fun of the guy. What a joke? Can't ever be president? Well,
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: he got to tell us, right, the strong man is
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: not strong in the way he said it. The winner
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: is not winning the way he said it. The emperor
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: has no close is not a legal argument. So that's
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: why I think we're here in this jump the shark moment.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: He's in a humiliation We're in the humiliation portion. The
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: audience is finally seeing the trick and feeling stupid for clapping.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: And look, I don't think this is going to end cleanly.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: It won't. It's not going to end with a grain confession.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: The strongest MAGA believers are not going to wake up
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: and say I have reviewed the Office of Government Ethics
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: Disclosure Form and reconsidered my life. But it does end
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: with slippage. There's less energy, more distance, less laughter as jokes,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: more Republicans quietly calculating that he is a burden right,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: it's not a dramatic exit. It's people leaving before the encore.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: We've seen this, people leave his rallies earlier. It's why
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: the Gary Busey image is where I'm going here, and
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: it's the one thing I want to leave you with
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: is Gary Busey. It ends when the desperation becomes visible,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: when the guest stars get weirder, when the format gets louder,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: when the producers keep adding spectacle because the core thing
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: no longer works. That's why Trump is politically vulnerable in
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: this moment. He is suddenly doing things that are out
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: of character. It's not because he's doing things that are
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: out of character. He's actually being more trumpy than ever.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: The problem is they look like reruns. Right, It's the
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: version we always knew was there. Is all we're seeing.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: We're not seeing the fun guy, the good salesman, the
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: interesting marketer. It's just the grifter in all of its glory. Now, look,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: if you want to be skeptical, trust me all you've
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: earned that right. We've all watched Trump survive things that
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: should have ended any other political career ten times over.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: But at some point, every spell breaks. At some point
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: the audience stops mistaking shamelessness for strength. Trump has spent
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: ten years testing this electric fence, right, he touched it
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: with McCain, nothing, Access, Hollywood, nothing, Russia, Ukraine, January sixth.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: You get the point. Maybe this time the shock is
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: not going to be a dramatic bolt. Maybe it is
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: a buzz or a hum, But it's the sound of
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: people finally saying, ah, enough of this crap. Because explaining
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: the failure the Trump years are going to be quite easy.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: Explaining why it took so long is going to be harder.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: How did a country this wealthy, this educated, this historically
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: mature fall for this not once, but twice. How did
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: a republic built around suspicion of kings become so fascinated
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: by a man who wanted to be treated like one.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: How did millions of people who said they hated elites
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: turn themselves over to a golden penthouse salesman who sold
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: them coins, watches, bibles and grievance. And how did a
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: political party that claim to love the Constitution become a
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: protection racket for a man who tried to overturn an election.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: That's going to be the questions historian to ask, and
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: the answers are not going to be flattering exhaustion. The
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: audience has seen the trick. The brand is overextended. The
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: con is just too visible. So the jump the shark
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: moment is not when Trump becomes someone else. It is
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: when everyone can finally see that he has always been
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: exactly this, a man who confuses attention with love, money
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: with somehow merit, and dominates with greatness and the country
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: with himself. And I have a feeling every day more
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: people are starting to see the difference. So is this
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the end? Now? I think that's already happened.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: Are we in the middle of the end. That's probably
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: the fairest look at this. But we are closer to
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: the end than we are at the beginning. I got
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: a good one today and an evolved expansion of the
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: US Senate. So tenth eighteen, that is the anniversary of
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: Wyoming being brought into the statehood. So here's a fun
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: little fact that many of you, I bet she didn't know.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: Between November of eighteen eighty nine and July of eighteen ninety,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: the United States admitted six new western states, North Dakota,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming. Those six states
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: immediately sent twelve new senators to Washington. Every single one
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: of those twelve was a Republican. Now, imagine if that
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: happened today. Imagine Congress admitting six new states in eight months.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: Imagine all twelve new senators belonged to the same political party.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: We'd spend the next ten years arguing about whether the
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: system had been manipulated and corrupted. And yet that's exactly
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: what happened in the late nineteenth century. Now, the funny
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: thing is, we almost never tell the story this way.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: We call it westward expansion, manifest destiny. We tell the
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: story through wagon trains and railroads and homesteaders. All of
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: that happened. It's not untrue, but it's just one part
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: of the story. So while settlers were building the American West,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: politicians were building the United States Senate. So to understand why, though,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: you have to understand the moment. Right the Civil War
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: was over, the Union had won, which meant Republicans had won.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: They preserved the Union, they ended slavery, they passed the
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: Reconstruction Amendments, built a stronger national government, created a national
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: banking system, funded the trans Continental railroads protected American industry
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: with high tariffs. That was the theory of the case
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: of trade at the time, considering how slow shipping was
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: around the world. Whether you agree with all of those
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: policies today is not the point. By the eighteen eighties,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: Republicans had spent twenty years building this governing philosophy. Then
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: reconstry struction began collapsing. The federal troops that were stationed
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: in the South were withdrawng right that you know, the
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy six Compromise rigged election. If you will gave
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: us this, one Southern state after another returned to democratic control.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: The solid South wasn't just becoming democratic, it was becoming
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: politically unreachable for the Republicans. So put yourselves in the
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: shoes of a Republican senator in eighteen eighty eight. You've
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: just watched the South completely slip away. The region on
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: your party once hoped to compete in is now almost
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: entirely gone, preventing all these new black voters from voting.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: The coalition that won the Civil War is shrinking. So
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: the question isn't whether you'll lose seats. The question is
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: whether you're going to eventually lose the country. Where do
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: you find replacement votes? For all the lost votes in
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: the South, where do you find replacement senators? The answer
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: wasn't New England or the Midwest. Yes, they'd maxed out,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: and it was west. The frontier wasn't simply America's future.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: It became the Republican Party's future. Now this is where
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: the map becomes really political. We tend to think of
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: maps as geography. Politicians think of maps as votes. Right,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: every territory represented a choice. Congress could leave it as
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: a territory or they could admit it as a state.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: Congress controlled the timing. And timing is one of the
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: oldest political weapons in Washington. Take the Dakota territory today,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: we assume there were always two Dakota's history says otherwise,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: Congress hadn't plenty of options. One territory could have become
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: one state. Instead, it became two, one territory, four new senators. Now,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: there were some legitimate reasons to divide it. The territory
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: was enormous, Its population centers had developed differently, but we
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: let Montana be an enormous land grab state. And there
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: were some administrative arguments, But politics doesn't require to invent opportunities.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: It rewards you for recognizing opportunities that already exist. And
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: Republicans understood exactly what two Dakota's meant, and Democrats understood
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: it too. Nobody in Washington was confused about the math,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: and the admissions came quickly. North, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, wy.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: Only eight months, six states, twelve new senators, All twelve
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: were Republicans. It wasn't the whole Republican coalition, but it
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: became one of the strongest pillars. And boy did the
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: timing matter. Because these weren't just senators. They were votes
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: to preserve a governing philosophy, votes for protective terrorists, which
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: Republicans believe would help American industry compete against cheaper foreign imports.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: They were votes for continued railroad development. They were votes
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: for Western infrastructure. They were votes for veterans pensions. They
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: were votes for a much stronger national government than many
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: of the Southern Democrats of that era wanted. So the
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: Senate wasn't simply deciding legislation. It was literally deciding what
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: kind of economy the United States was going to build
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: for the next fifty years. And one thing that struck
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: me while researching this story is how often we talk
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: about manifest destiny as though it explains Western incs alone,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: explains the Western expansion. It explains why Americans wanted the land, sure,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't explain why state had happened when it did.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: And that's a much different question, and it's a very
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: political one. Institutions aren't built in a vacuum. They're built
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: in moments of political opportunity. Republicans believed they had an opportunity,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: just as importantly, many Northern voters believe they should take it.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: Remember this is only twenty five years after epimatics. Many
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: people who fought the Civil War were still alive. The
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: memory of secession wasn't some distant chapter in a textbook.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: It was pretty recent. So aggressively admitting Western states, if
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: that is what was going to help prevent the old
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: Southern Democratic establishment from regaining power in Washington, many Republicans
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: and many Northern voters thought that was perfectly legitimate, even
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: if the means were a little questionable, and that context matters, right,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: you had basically you had a popular mandate to get
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: away with it. So this wasn't simply partisan hardball. It
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: was partisan hardball operating inside the long shadow of the
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: bloody shirt of the Civil War. So did it work?
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: Certainly helped. Republicans didn't win every presidential election for the
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: next fifty years, but Grover Cleveland interrupted them. Woodrow Wilson
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: interrupted them after Teddy Roosevelt split the Republican Party in
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: nineteen twelve. But they were literally interruptions to a broader
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: era of Republican dominance. From Lincoln TH's Hoover Republicans built
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: and largely maintained the governing coalition that defined the Gilded
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: Age and much of the Progressive era. Now, those Western
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: states didn't create the coalition by themselves. The industrialization actually mattered,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: immigration mattered, Civil War matter, All of that mattered. But
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: a Western leaning Senate helps sustain it. And that's the
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: part of the story we don't tell with great emphasis. Now,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: fast forward to today. Listen to debates about Washington, DC
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: statehood in Puerto Rico representation. The Senate supporters argue democracy,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: opponents argue partisan advantage. Everybody insists they're motivated by principle.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: Everybody also understands the math, and that shouldn't surprise US
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: America has been arguing over who gets to build the
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: Senate for more than a century. The parties have changed,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: the coalitions have changed, right, the solid Democratic South is
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: now the solid Republicans out right. The issues have changed,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: The incentives, though barely have changed it all. And that's
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: the larger lesson. We imagine our institution simply evolved, no
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: they were built. The Constitution tells us every state gets
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: two senators, but it says remarkably little on what it
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: takes to become a state that's always been left to politics,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: and politics asks the same question most of the time,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: not whether an opportunity exists, but how much of it
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: can we legitimately take advantage of. The question has never
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: been whether politicians will seek the maximum political advantage. They
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: always will. The real question is how much of that
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: advantage is the public willing to tolerate in that particular
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: historical moment, And in the late nineteenth century, after a
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: civil war and a collapsing reconstruction, the answer was quite
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: a lot. So we remember the pioneers, the railroads, Michael Landon,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: I'm teasing remember manifest destiny. We spend much less time
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: remembering that while Americans were settling the frontier. Politicians were
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: settling something else. They were settling the future of the
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: United States. Side for it more than a generation. And
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: once you see that, the map of America stops looking
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: inevitable and it starts looking like what it has always
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: been a series of political decisions made at very specific
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: moments by people who understood that geography could become political power.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: So the point is we're going to get to new
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: states at it, DC and Puerto Rico were coming. It's
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: just a matter of when does political will match the
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: public's appetite for acceptance, match the political party who wants
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: it being in power having enough power to pull it off. Right,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: So you need timing, you need some form of a
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: popular mandate for it, and you can see how this
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: will happen. We just haven't hit that moment yet, ask Chuck.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: All right, let's do a little last Chuck. We're going
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: to start with Kevin from Spokane, Washington. Longtime listener, first
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: time questioner. I've heard you advocate for expanding the House,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: but I'm curious about your thoughts on DC statehood. With
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: roughly seven hundred thousand residents and no full congressional representation,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: do you support statehood and as part as in politics,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: the main obstacle what would realistically need to happen to
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: make it possible. Thank you for all you do, Kevin.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: How great is it that I just did a toodcast
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: time machine this week in history on this very topic
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: about the last time we went through an aggressive expansion
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: of the states, it was always done with political power
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: and mind, and I think that gets lost. The point
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: is statehood is usually a political It is always a
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: political question. It is not something else entirely. And the
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: fact of the matter is when you have a bunch
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: of people without rights, whose population is larger than nearly
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: a dozen states or approximately a dozen states, you got
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: a problem, right, I mean, you know, no taxation without
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: representation seems like a pretty good slogan for statehood, which
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: has been the mantra of Washington, d C. For some
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: thirty years now. It's been on the license plate. So look,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: it's going to happen. I still think DC and Puerto
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: Rico coming together. I've done. If you want to go
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: back into my archives, I've had an interesting conversation with
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: a DC politician and a Puerto Rican politician about you know,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: right now the two sides don't work with each other,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: but there's real Republican support for Puerto Rican statehood. Rick
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: Scott Marco Rubio both publicly are on the record for it.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: And so the point is, and portocus currently as a
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: Republican guy, both places deserve statehood if you could make
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: the argument that it might not necessarily upset the balance
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: of power but will make people more represent I think
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: that's how you would sell it in today's political environment.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: But I will say this the next time. Democrats if
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: they can, if they get to say they're not going
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: to leave DC on the cutting room floor like they
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: did during the Obama era when they had sixty Senate
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: votes and a massive you know, when they had the
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: ability probably to force statehood through. They could have done
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: it then, and they chose not to because Obama didn't.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: He feared these backlash. He really didn't want to become
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: a polarizing president. And he certainly was less polarizing than
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump because he chose to avoid some of these
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: fights over power. Now, some base fort as the Democratic
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: Party look back and say this and see the Obama
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: era sometimes as a failure because he didn't aggressively use
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: power when he had the power, right when he had
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: sixty Senate seats, even though it was for fifty nine,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: even for a period of time that he could have
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: he could have done some things that cemented certain certain
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: parts of the system that over time might have favored
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party but would have been defensible as being
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: an advancement for the country. Right. So the point is
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: is that I'm curious how you would have Kevin rewarded
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: your question after hearing my little history lesson for the
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: week about the aggressive expansion in the Republican power play
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: of the late nineteenth century. All Right, Mark writes, Hey,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: Chlorado seven here I miss she had MTP, but really
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: enjoy what you're able to do with this medium. I
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: am a commercial pilot who can't hear his girlfriend when
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: she talks in a noisy restaurant or bar, but can
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: hear a cricket around the corner. You need a WD
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: forty sprints on that chair. Oh interesting, So I see
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: what you're saying. My question. Given how third party voters
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: votes can become counterproductive in presidential election, what would actually
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: have to change for America to have a viable third
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: option with a real chance of winning in schemes we
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: trust Mark. So look, I think it's I go back
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: to it's pretty simple. What the third party needs or
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: an independent needs is you need a charismatic leader. A
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: charismatic leader, and you need and I also believe if
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: you have a charismatic leader, that gives people because the
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: independent or third party movement will to be defined by
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: the leader, whoever that is anyway, So that's why you
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: need a charismatic leader. You probably need a few converts,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: high profile converts, so well known political brands who choose
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: to leave their party either the d ers or the
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: RS for this new movement or become independent. So you
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: and I think you need both right. That gives it
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: some legitimacy to you know, maybe those that want to
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: be supportive but are skeptical, if they see others willing
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: to sort of change their party allegiance to get on board,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: then they might be more open minded to do it.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: So I think you need both right, There's no doubt
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: there's an opportunity. The conditions are there. It's like it's
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: like talking about the conditions have never been greater for
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: horrible storms to be to develop thanks to a warming
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: Pacific ocean and what's coming. That doesn't mean the storm develops, right,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: You still need a few other features for it to develop.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: In this case, there is a storm waiting to overthrow
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: both parties, but you need a charismatic leader and you
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: need a sort of a realistic belief that you can win. Right.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: And it's sort of like one doesn't happen without the other.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: They're both sort of combined. And I think the two
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: necessary ingredients are the charismatic leader and the high profile
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: conference who basically leave right who flipped? You know, if
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: you think about it, if you follow sports at all,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: and you see you know, when a program is trying
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: to be it's trying to gain traction, or maybe when
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: a competing league, right, you need a few high pro
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: like the USFL got off the ground because they had
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: a few really high profile people willing to take the plunge.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: People that you knew would be stars in the NFL
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: were willing to go to the USFL. First. You saw
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: it with the AVA. You know you need some of those, right,
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: That's why you need that too. But I think you
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: need both of those ingredients first and foremost. And apologies
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: for the squeaky chair, you crack me up, but it
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: shows you. I have very similar hearing, and I've always
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: wanted to understand this. I can hear an individual sound
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: in the faintest way. It is. It is when there's
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: multiple pieces of sound, right. It's discerning sound, when you
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: know the being on an airplane, when you have sort
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: of that constant white noise behind and then suddenly it
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: covers up some things you can't hear. So I heard
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: myself in your critique and your remarks. Next question, Grand
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: f in Minnesota. He writes from a rare toss up district,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: So I'm guessing he's in the first or the I
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: think the first, if that's the case. Quick question about
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: the proposed Trump Arch in Washington, d C. It's actually
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: in an Arlington, Virginia. If you're keeping score. If construction
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: begins but Democrats take control of Congress after the midterms,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: what would be their smartest move. Should they halt the
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: project and risk leaving a half finished eyesore, a scale
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: up back and complete a less extravagant virgin politically and practically,
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: which approach makes the most sense? Look Grand Aff. The
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: approach it makes the most sense is just taking the
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: recommendation of the original architect this arch, this idea for
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: an arch at that circle is not the craziest idea.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: It's been proposed by previous folks. It's the size of
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: the arch. It's what you would call the arch. So
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: I think what you would do is make sure its
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: original size so it's within reason. Again, this is not
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: saying the idea. It's with everything with Trump, not every
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: idea is bad. It's his execution that's horrendous. You know,
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: nobody wants the largest arch of mankind, and it's supposed
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: to actually sort of convey something about where you're headed
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: on your way to the Lincoln Memorial, on your way
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: to the nation's capital. You know, it's like it's a
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: gateway as you're going, and there needs to be some
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: humility because it's connecting Arlington Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: There needs to be real humility there. It's connecting where
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: Abe Lincoln sits and where Robert E. Lee's land was
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: used to bury the Civil War dead, right, So you
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: know it needs to have that. So I think in both,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: I don't think you get rid of it. I just
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: think you right size it and you make sure it
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: is not named for any one individual. So that'd be
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: I think the not everything should be a culture war fight, right,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: And I know the instinct of some will be just
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: not to do it. But there was you know, had
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: there been a democratic president, this idea was there too. Okay,
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: it was from a bipartisan This was not invented. It
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: was like he just saw something and said I want that.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: It was like he was given a catalog of choices,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: give me that, and can I can I deck at it?
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: Can I can I trick it out with my brand
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: on it and my name and da da da da da.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: And it's a bummer because the whole idea now has
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: been like Trump ruins everything. Right, he can take something
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: that generically would have been celebrated and seen as a
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: fine idea. Maybe you turn it into a fountain, or
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: you turn it into something else too, But it's like
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: the whole now, the whole idea of an arch like
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: there'll be some can't even vote for an arch. But again,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: it was originally an idea of sort of of of historians.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: And so that that's why my instinct would be, let's
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: make it work and make sure Trump's fingerprints are not
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: on it at all, all right, Andre in La Rights.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: Four time, long time, all right, proud member of the
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: four timers club. All right, I think I don't know.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know if we have merged for four timers yet,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: but we'll get there. My question is about the Ohio
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: governor's rates. Vivik Ramaswami has Trump's endorsement and has seemingly
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: been running for years, yet he continues to trail slightly
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: at several polls in a Republican leaning state like Ohio.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: What do you think of as holding him back regards so?
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: I think there are some obvious things holding him back,
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: and then I think there's one issue that we shouldn't
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: pretend isn't there. I think the big thing is he's
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: a national Republican and national conservative, and he's really sort
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: of an outlier in Ohio Republican politics compared to your
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: Mike the Wine you're Johnny, you said, even jd Vance right,
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: I think Doje itself was unpopular. I think he's kind
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: of a he's always been kind of a polarizing name.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: He's actually proposed one idea he's proposed, it's been absolutely
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: gotten a terrible response, which is he wanted to consolidate,
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: you know, some of the state's universities, like Ohio is
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: a ton of state universities, and the original goal was
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: that somebody was no more than thirty minutes away from
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: a college education. And that was the theory. That's why there,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: that's why the MAC exists, right, the Mid American Conference,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: and why it's almost entirely Ohio schools. Not all, right,
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: there's a handful of Michigan schools in there, but there's
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of little Ohio towns that have their own universities. Well,
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: guess what. People have a lot of pride in those
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: local universities, and so Ramaswami wanted to consolidate some get
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: rid of a few. It's like getting rid of a
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: military base. Right. Everybody agrees that the military bases that
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: are wasteful spending ought to go. But the one in
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: my community is never about wasteful spending. It's an important
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: part of my community. And that's how people feel about
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: their universities. It's somebody else's university that's a waste of money,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: not the one in my community. Right. So, I think
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: all of that explains why he's had trouble. I don't
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: think we should assume race isn't playing some role here.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: It's impossible to you know, And and look, oh I
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: was going to make history either way, right, they're going
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: to elect a non white guy governor or, they're going
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: to elect a woman governor. The only person that served
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: as governor only woman that served as governor Ohio is
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: somebody who assumed office after Governor George Wonovitch won a
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: Senate see and left office early. But the point is
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: is that so either way, it's there's a small I
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: it's a I don't know how to me. These things
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: are are not always pollable, but I do. I do
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: think there's a little there. It just sits there right again, unpollable.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: But he's not doing as well with Republican voters as
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: he should be. So you have to ask yourself, what
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: do we miss it? So I think it's a lot
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: of little things, right. I think he has sort of
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: branded himself as rich guy, tech entrepreneur. I think not
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: everybody sees him as a local Cincinnati kid. So I
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: think you've put all those things together and it's you know,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm a I've been on the amy acting like
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: keep an eye on her. Before it was cool that
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: bandwagon I still believe in it. The two doctor the
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: two women doctors running Amy acting in Ohio and Any
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: Andrews against Lindsay Graham in South Carolina. I think one
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: of the two wins, and I think the one that
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: doesn't win is going to come awfully close. Just FA
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: that sucker earway. All right. Next question comes from Julie,
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: who lives in Oregon's sixth Congressional district. In Julie rights,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure I fully understand the birthright citizenship. Really,
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: if a constitutional amendment requires broad approval and ratification, how
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: can five Supreme Court justices effectively overturn or reinterpret it?
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: Do you do they really have that power? Or is
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: there some nuance in the ruling I'm missing? Thank you
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: so much, Julie, who lives in organics. Well, that's the
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: thing with the Supreme Court is that you know, you,
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: you know, we sit here and think that there are
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: certain specific rules of law, and ultimately the Supreme Court
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: decides how we interpret the so called rule of law. Right,
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: so it's certainly an interpretation. In this case, the interpretation
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: is whether the executive branch gets to decide the definition
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: of birthright citizenship and to me, that was a glaring
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: no that if you were going to change how you
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: interpret birthright citizenship, you needed to start in the legislative branch.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: You were never going to see this court at John
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: Roberts Court think that the executive branch had this kind
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: of interpret interpretive power to it. But again, I guess,
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: you know, I know, I understand why so many people
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: want to focus on the dissent, But in these polarizing times,
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: the fact that the court said what it said, and
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: it was by the way, only if you want to
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: do it. By the Trump numbers, the Trump appointees voted
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: two and a half to a half in favor of
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: birthrights citizenship, right right, Well, I guess it was one
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: and a half to one and a half, right. Gorsitch
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: was on one side, Barrett's on the another, and Kavanaugh
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: split the difference. So the fact that he didn't have
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: unanimity for his own position with his own people, his
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: own appointees, I think should we should see that as
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: a as a positive and not. You know, sometimes I
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: do think coverage can be so focused on the negative.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: Fact is, we're not going to have somebody try this
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: from the executive branch again. But I do think when
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: you you know, if Congress tried to put some limitations
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: on it, it would probably go back to the court
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: at birth tourism, right, and you know, no one I
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: think that that's the question. And if again, like with
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: with everything Trump does, right, if he really wanted voter
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: ID for elections, he could have just gotten voter ID passed.
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: But that isn't what he wanted. He wanted to essentially
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: change the election rules so dramatically that his side had
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: had an early advantage. He wasn't interested in the longer
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: term goal. And I think the same thing here. If
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: he focused on birth tourism and just focused on that,
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: try to get a law passed, you probably get a
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: pretty in Congress pass the law that he signs. You
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: might have had a court that would have accepted the
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: premise that some limitations can be around it, around some form.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's of if you know, how you know, whether
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: anybody attempts to reside in the country or whatever it is,
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: if you're just showing up to get birth and leaving
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: just so that your kid can have the option, right
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: that is there is there is there legislation you could
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: pass around that. That's that's something that I think is
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: if you care about this issue, that's worth trying to
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: deal with. And I think that's and at that point
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: this court might be more open to that final question.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: Robbie S and Charleston, South Carolina rights. Hey, I caught
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: your political anassis on CNN the other day and couldn't
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: help but notice the Miami hurricane sulm in the background.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: As Miami native now living in Charleston, seeing the you
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: always feels like a little piece of home. Just wanted
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: to say thanks for proudly displaying it. Definitely didn't go unnoticed.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it, Robbie. And by the way, man, I
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: love Charleston, South Carolina. I have a good friend of
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: mine kid is going to be getting married there next
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: year and I can't wait to go have a great
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: weekend in the spring in Charleston, South Carolina. But yes,
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: it's not just any you helmet. It is autographed by
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: none other than Jimmy Johnson. The one place that when
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: he is on his death bet he's going to say,
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: my greatest time coaching was not being a Dallas cowboy.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: It was all about you, all right with that? Thanks
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: for letting me show off my memorabilia there. Appreciate that, Robbie.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: And with that, I'll see in seventy two hours. Oh
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: should I do my Lebron thing real quick? Yeah? Yeah,
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: I did. I teased it. Let me just do it, yep,
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: all right, yep, I'll keep it going three to one.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: All right, just I got I told you I had
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: some Lebron hot takes. First of all, I want to
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: sign on, you know, as a signer of the Declaration
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: of Independence. I'd have been me too in it, and
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: I've been let me sign too. I'm going to sign
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: on to a piece of pure speculation from Bill Simmons
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: where his theory is that is that Lebron James could
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: pull a Roger Clements and just decide not to sign
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: until essentially January and just make the quote unquote playoff front. God,
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: I hope Lebron doesn't listen to him on this. God,
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: I hope Bill Simmons isn't getting insider access to Rich Paul,
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: who is a contributor to RATE, and that this is like,
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: this is informed speculation, not just idle speculation. I hope
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: this isn't true, But gosh, I hate how much sense
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: it made. Now I have my own personal hottakes on this.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: I love that Rich by the way, I do the
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: fact that Rich Paul gave the entire NBA basketball community
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: like a bunch of content to just pour over. Like
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: we were like, we're looking for We're watching the movie
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: National Treasure, and we're looking for all these hidden clues, right,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: so we have this entire whiteboard that Rich Paul did.
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: Look what I love about it is the stuff. I
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: can tell you what I took away from it. He's
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: not going to Cleveland. He didn't say he wasn't going
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: to Cleveland, but he's not going to Cleveland because they
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: ain't no way He's going to play with James hard
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: Now why did he say that? Because very quietly in
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: the corner, even though Cleveland's clearly one of the five
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: teams they're considering where Lebron's addition would add something, They're like, oh, no, no,
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: Darius Garland. Do we really think that Lebron James said
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: I've always wanted to play with Darius Garland or is
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: that code for n FW? Is he playing with James Harden.
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: I'm going to choose the James Harden motivation. As a
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: Bandwagon heat fan, I am glad that there was no
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: sort of subtext. And I actually think he makes a
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: lot of sense for the Heat. In fact, I think
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: the Heat is one of the There are two teams
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: where if he joins, he makes them title contenders, but
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: without him they're not. One is Denver and the other's
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: the Heat, pure and simple. Now, I'm a believer that
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: he's going to look east. Well, here's the thing we
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: don't know for sure. Does Lebron want to maximize his
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: impact on the attention to con or is he really
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: chased on a fifth rank? Because I will say this
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: right now, he doesn't get a He doesn't have a
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: place at the five ring table. Right, Kobe is a
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: place at the five ring table. Magic is a place
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: at the five ring table. Kareem has a place at
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: the five ring table. Michael has a place at the
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: five ring table. He's got a place at the sixth
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: ring table. Right, you know he's a He's in a
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: separate table with Bill Russell. Right. The point is Lebron's
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: got four So how bad is this about looking for
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: a fifth title? Is it about maximizing the attention economy?
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: Is he trying to have his cake and eat it too? Right,
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: Miami could be a cake and eat it too scenario
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: Golden State. If he goes to Golden State, he's not
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: interested winning a title. He's just interested in maximizing the
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: attention economy and having a good time while he does this.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: Farewell too. You go to Miami, you go to Denver,
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: you're making a you want to a show that like.
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: If he's truly ring chasing, it's please san Antonio. I'll
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: sign for literally the league minimum. So he's not purely there.
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: He wants to be an important piece, right, It's not
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: just the Robert Horry ring chase. It's something a little
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: bit different. And you look at these different scenarios, I
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: could see Lebron being probably has a friendship with Alex Rodriguez.
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: That makes Minnesota potentially probably more of a player than
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: they should be. But Lebron has to play in the
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: front court if he goes to Minnesota. Lebron gets to
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: play in the back court if he goes to the Heat.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: That's why I think the Heat, for what the style
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: of play he wouldn't want to have, it makes more
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: sense for him to be in the Heat. By the way,
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: I think that's most I would argue that that might
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: be the case with Denver too, that he gets to
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: be gets to play a little bit more, a little
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: bit more in the back court necessarily that he is
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: in the front court, where Minnesota he'd have to be
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: a front quarter. And I just you know, with both
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: LaMelo and ant One in the ball and that just
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: feels like too many. It feels like the same situation
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: that he's walking away from in La and Reeves and Luca.
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: That's why Minnesota did so you start looking around. So
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: for me, by the way, why aren't the Wizards on
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: the list? We have everything, and Lebron would be Lebron
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: actually probably would make the Wizards at least a contender
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: for the six or five spot in the East. And
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: then you never know. But in trying to read the
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: Lebron tea leaves and there's one other factor nobody is
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: factoring in here. His son is going to be a
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: red shirt freshman at the University of Arizona. How close
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: does he want to be to Tucson to be able
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: to catch as many games as he possibly can. Denver
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: becomes the ideal spot for him. If it's about Bryce,
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: If the University of Miami is if he wants to
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: go two years and the University of Miami and Jay Lucas,
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: son of John Lucas, who probably has an interesting relationship
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: with might have some personal relationship with Lebron James or
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: at least be be able to have a conversation. Does
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: Jay Lucas want to coach Lebron's son at the University
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: of Miami and then does that become a package deal
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: at any point in time? Now, the portal in college
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: basketball doesn't open up until March of next year, so
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: this would to me only work if Lebron's going to
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: sit out for four or five months, then decide what
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: team he's going to play for for the next eighteen months.
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: That's where I think the Heat would be a contender.
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: But bottom line is for me, the two teams where
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: he would have the biggest impact and truly turn them
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: into an interesting title contender Denver, which is kind of
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: the one. Even though, like I say, I'm a Bandwagon
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: Heat fan, I kind of want to see him with Denver,
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: Jokicic and Lebron. I would love to watch that. I
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: don't know if it works, but it feels like I
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: don't know if I'd want to face that team if
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: I were Oklahoma City for San Antonio, but the shortest
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: path to the finals it's in the East, and I
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: still think it's you know, if it ain't the Knicks,
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: I don't buy the Sixers with an MBID that may
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: or may not be healthy, the heat or the sure
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: bet as far as I'm concerned. So there's my totally
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: fan driven Lebron set of hot takes. Enjoy them while
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: they're still available, and with that, I'll see in seventy
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: two hours