Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - The Redistricting “Race To The Bottom” + Is Tucker Carlson Really Dumping Trump?

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Chuck’s Commentary - The Redistricting “Race To The Bottom” + Is Tucker Carlson Really Dumping Trump? · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: rates may vary. Hello there, Welcome to the Thursday edition
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: of the Chuck Podcast. You may see a different backdrop.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I am coming to you on the road. I am
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: at a gathering of people that are concerned about the
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: future of the democracy and want to do something about it,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: whether it's getting rid of partisan primaries, figuring out how
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: to change incentive structures so partisan hackery doesn't rule the day.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: You know, can we figure out a way to get
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: members of Congress to realize that Article one of the
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Constitution is about them and a variety of other ideas
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: out there. But it's a great group. It's people that
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: are truly concerned. There's a bipartisan event, if you will.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: There are Democrats here, it's really cross partisan. There are
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Democrats here, there are Republicans here, and there are people
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: think we need a third party or an independent movement,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: but everybody has the same concern that essentially what we
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: have learned in the last ten years of this experiment
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: that is Donald Trump. It's been one of the look
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I look at the Trump era as an MRI. I've
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: used that phrase every with you guys before, because it
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: certainly has exposed a slew of weaknesses in our system.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: And we know what's whether it's you know how norms
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: are just you can't really rely on a norm. You're
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: going to have to if you care about it enough,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: you're going to have to codify it. Right, You're going
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: to have to turn a norm into a law. Sometimes
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: you may need a constitutional amendment, whether it's a state level,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: federal level, et cetera. But I am I'm pretty this
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: is a really impressive group. I'm glad to be here
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: and trying to connect with people who want to do
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: solve real problems here and just want to make this
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: system function better and be majoritarian. Right, we are not
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: living in a majoritarian era, if you will. We've we've
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: you know, we've got essentially minority power, and that is
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: not what founders intended, you know, they intended to balance
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: on these things, and they certainly intended for the people
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: to have more of a voice than they currently do
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: not do now. So anyway, so that's why I'm here.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: But I'm going to begin with more fallout from Virginia
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: a little bit and sort of. It has been an
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: interesting twenty four hours post Virginia. You've had an amazing
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: amount of gloating from the Democrats, and then you've had
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: a bit of a divided response among Republicans. You have
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: got a half of Republicans upset it Donald Trump and
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: other Republicans for not fighting, for not spending enough money
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: in Virginia, and then you have the other half just
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: lamenting that this happened in the first place, and they're
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: somehow have amnesia and forgetting that this all began with
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: the hackery that we saw in Texas, and actually people
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: seem to forget it was a re redistricting effort by
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Ronda Santis in Florida in twenty twenty two that essentially
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: got Republicans of majority. If he doesn't likely violate his
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: you know, well, look, the courts didn't say he violated
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the state constitution. But there's a lot of questions about
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: whether that redistricting followed the spirit of the of the
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: constitutional amendment that said you cannot redistrict in Florida for
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: partisan gain. But the fact of the matter is if
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: he hadn't done it, Republicans wouldn't have picked up the House.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: That's how you know we see this narrow majority. It
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: is thanks to redistricting. And so now I guess you
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: could say what's good for the goose is good for
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: the gander. But I'm not sure this race to the
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: bottom is a race that Democrats ought to be gloating
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: about winning. But I want to address the Republican issue
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: here a minute, because there's this belief among some that
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: if only they had spent more money, if only Donald
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Trump had been more engaged, if only there. Let me
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: just tell you something. This is probably as good as
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: the No could have done in this circumstance. And let
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: me explain one. The more this became a Republican effort,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: the more the more independents were likely not to vote.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Now that's one. Two. The more this became red coated
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: on the No campaign, the more likely people were going
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: to feel uncomfortable and either not vote or vote for yes.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: You know Trump's involvement. You know, look, the Republican the
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: No campaign could have tried a message that was as follows, Hey,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe Glenn Youngkin gets on the air, my
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: party is wrong about Texas. What happened in Texas is
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: a travesty. It shouldn't have happened. It was a mistake.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I was against it, and that's why I'm fighting not
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: to let it happen here. You might have had a
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: tad more credibility, but nobody of significance on the right
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: had the guts to essentially say Donald Trump was wrong.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Texas Republicans were wrong, and this is why I think
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: this referendum is wrong. Right. So the fact is the
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: No campaign played partisan politics. They wanted to basically do
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: a little Hey, pay no attention what happened over here.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: We think what this is happening over here is bad. Man.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I'm happened to be one of those things people that
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: says what happened in Texas is bad, what happened in
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Florida in twenty twenty two is bad, What's happened in
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: California's bad, and what happened in Virginia's bad. But you know,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I don't want to hear from these fake outraged conservatives
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: like the slaps and that sort of you know, those
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: that clown show that is, those that pair who are
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: lamenting all of this or there's all these I've seen
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: some concerns who just don't acknowledge that this began with
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: a ridiculous order from Donald Trump to Republican governors and
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Republican held state legislatures. So this is where where we're at.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: This was potentially a winnable campaign, but let me tell
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: you more involvement from the Republican Party and Donald Trump
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: would have actually made this worse. One could argue him
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: getting involved twenty four hours before was probably a mistake.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: And this is the trap that the Republican Party is
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: in with Donald Trump everywhere and it's actually a bit
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: of a preview of coming attractions for Republicans that are
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: on the ballot. You can't separate yourself from Donald Trump
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: and then at the last minute try to get Donald
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Trump to get his people to come out and support you. Right,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: you can't do both things, right. This is the you know,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: he took over the Republican Party. He has become synonymous
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: with the Republican Party. And you know he even laments
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: anytime a Republican doesn't vote his way. He wants to
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: kick him out, right, He wants to not endorse them,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: he doesn't want to fund them. So you cannot separate
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: yourself if you're a Republican from Donald Trump unless you
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: fully repudiate Donald Trump. And the problem they have is
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: they need his base. And right now, when you look
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: at all these polls that have been coming out, I've
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: been a little bit cautious about overreacting. I know a
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: lot of people have been seeing this new ap pole
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: that puts it in the low thirties. Now, I'll say this,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: if that's in the low thirties, then my guess is
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: those with registered voters are going to be in the
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: high thirties now and that's a big deal if we
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: see when you see if you see the Fox News
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: poll or the NBC News poll, not Survey Monkey's NBC
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: News poll, but the one done by the two professional
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: campaign pollsters, because I know how they do their methodology.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: If you start to see that drop below forty on
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: his approval rating and his approval rating in registered voters,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: sort of likely registered voters in the twenty twenty six
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: mid term, if that starts to be in the mid
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: to high thirties, that's catastrophic. You know, you're looking at
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: in with this map, probably twenty five to thirty five seats, right, which,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: for what it's worth, which would have translated in twenty ten,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of twenty years ago into a forty
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: or fifty or sixty seat type of shift. We've obviously
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: so hardened and so partisanized the maps around the country
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: that there's just you know, the max, right, the absolute
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: tippy top that I could legitimately say Democrats could win
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: in the House is probably forty. And that's if Republican
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: turnout is in the total toilet and Democratic turnout is
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: through the roof, and they went independence by more than
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: five points, right, Like, if all of that came together,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: you could you could get to thirty five or forty seats,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: but the fact is that's the territory we're headed. And
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: of course the larger issue. And I think what Republicans
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: learned right, and you could see it in that ad
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: campaign during the No strategy. You know, first, you know,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: the most effective messenger the No campaign had was Barack Obama, right,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: and that they had had this one excerpt of him
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: lamenting jerry mandering, talking about that's why nothing gets done
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: in Washington, It's because of jerry mandering. And it was
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: pretty powerful. It was it was very Obama as quote
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: pretty powerful quote so powerful that that's why I think
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Democrats pulled the Abigail Spamberger stuff and doubled down on more.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: They needed, essentially Obama to explain himself, right, so he
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: didn't contradict himself. He still claimed jerry mandering was bad,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: but he wanted to say this is temporary, this is
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: about a larger fight. And I'll say this, the Yes
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: campaign improved their messaging. You know, when this campaign first started,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: they were lying about what it was. They were trying
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: to claim that this was a fairness issue. As they
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: realized that that wasn't working, and I'm guessing some focus
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: groups told him that because it's not like we were
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: seeing a lot of public polling on this. Then they
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: shifted it and had to essentially explain it. And it
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: is still fascinating how wordy this camp the campaign messaging
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: was for the s campaign. But this is a unique
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: political electorate. As I've indicated to you before with Northern
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Virginia that you have essentially, you know, extraordinarily focused voters. Right,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: this is an electorate that pays a lot of attention.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: They understand minutia, and they had you know, you had
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to you had to be honest about it. Look, this
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: is a this this is not something anybody wants to do.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: But here's why we're advocating it, and it's why they're
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: I think at the end, their messaging was able able
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: to work. You know, making it all about Donald Trump
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: doesn't hurt either, especially in Northern Virginia, because one of
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: the things that I don't think people fully appreciate, and
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: I've said it before, is that there is there is
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: no group of people that Donald Trump has targeted more right,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I would say there's probably two communities that feel like
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: they've been personally targeted and had their lives turned upside
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: down by Donald Trump Minneapolis, and we've seen that response,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: you know, with isis killing of two American citizens, and
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: of course in northern Virginia where he and frankly the
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: suburbs all around DC, and we just haven't had any
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Maryland elections that have been of significance or we would
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: have seen it there, but you could just feel it
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: because this is you know, Northern Virginia is not a
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: really liberal, ideologically liberal area. What it is is it
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: is just simply anti Trump, and it is angrily anti Trump, right,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: mister chainsaw Elon Musk. When he came in and he
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: essentially gutted the government, he put a lot of people
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: that live in Northern Virginia out of work, He forced
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of people into retirement. And these are people
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: that are pretty ticked off and they're watching and seeing.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: So this destruction of the federal government is some sort
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: of intentional destruction based on politics rather than based on
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: whether something's a good idea or a bad idea. Right,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: The gutting of USAI D just one of the colossal
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: mistakes that he's made, is why I think you've seen,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: you know why. It was just this was never not
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: going to pass because of this angry elector so those
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: that are lamenting if they're of more police, if the
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: rnc AT poured money, or Trump or Club for Growth,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: these are just uncredible institutions, uncredible people on this stuff,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: and it just it wouldn't have worked. The only message
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: that I'm curious about that might have worked for no
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: is if Glenn Youngkin went candidate the camera. He's the
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: most prominent Virginia Republican and and had said my party
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: is wrong. What they did in Texas is a mistake.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: What's been done before is a mistake. I'm sorry it happened,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: but let's not do that here in Virginia. Uh, in
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: some form or another. But they couldn't do it right
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: because they couldn't risk Uh. They were afraid of attacking
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, right. So to me, the what you see
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: here right, and their inability to do what would have
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: been their best messaging to win this thing, which was
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: criticize Texas and criticize this national Republican effort, but they
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: couldn't bring themselves to do it. Well, That's why I
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: think this is a harbinger of just how disastrous this
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: is going to be for incumbent Republicans who by the
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: fall are going to be desperate to try to separate
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: themselves from Donald Trump and just aren't going to be
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: able to do it because they're going to have he's
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: got you know, yes, his numbers are in the somewhere
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: between you know, thirty three and thirty eight. That's his magabase.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: That is all that approves of what he's doing. Right,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: These are the folks that have been mainlining the kool aid. Right,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: they don't just drink it, they mainline it, and they're
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: not going to go anywhere. But they could set out,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: they could decide not to support certain Republicans if they
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: think that they are somehow working against Trump. So I
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: think that the the limitations of the No campaign their
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: inability to look inward and criticize fellow Republicans. Well, if
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: you can't do it in what would have been the
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: easiest environment to test that message out, you're going to
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: tell me that your Republican nominee for senate's going to
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: be able to pull that off. In Iowa, the Republican
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: incumbent senator in Ohio is going to be able to
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: pull that off. The Republican combent senator from Nemaska is
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: going to be able to pull that off. I'm skeptical
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: the the try and and so you're either you're going
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: to see one of two things. You're gonna see some
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Republicans try to separate themselves from Trump, and maybe one
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: or two might pull it off. Right there's you know,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe a Susan Collins kind of has some credibility
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: with her own voters on that. Uh, you know, she
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: is a better shot than most. Maybe a Dan Sullivan,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: I say, maybe, I know he's not a real maga
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: guy and he does have cover in Lisa Rakowski. But
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: outside of those two guys, excuse me one one gallowe
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: guy there, I don't see. I don't see a lot
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: of Republicans that are going to successfully to be able
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: to sort of distance themselves from Trump too much, right,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: and they've all felt the need to get his endorsement
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: in primaries and those endorsements. I think I think it's
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: gonna be one of those things. We saw this in
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: six and I saw it in fourteen. It was a
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: cookie cutter ad that both parties ran, but it worked
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: and the cookie cutter. Ad was incumbent senator or incumbent
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: congressman so and so voted with the unpopular president ninety
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: five percent of the time. And it absolutely and it
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: just pounded that over and over. It's what worked in
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: six It ended up working in O eight for Democrats,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: it worked in ten for Republicans, it worked in fourteen
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: for Republicans. And this is gonna end up working the
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: same way, except it'll even be easier with some of
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: these folks because you're gonna have Trump's own words, right.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: He has these flowery, absurd tweets when he endorses, and
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: so it only makes it even that much more memorable
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: and sticky who he does. So look, as you know,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I think this is I think this race to the bottom.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: And I will say this, I want you know, I'm
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: not gonna you know, I've made my point clear that
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: I think this is a long term mistake. I think
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: this is going to hurt the credibility of the Democratic
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Party going forward. I think that for those of us
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: that actually do want to fix the frickin democracy, Like
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: why I'm up here in Boston today and we need
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: to fix the infrastructure of democracy. And I'm a believer.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: By the way, it doesn't. This isn't about good people
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: or bad people getting better people into office. We have
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: to have better incentives, all right, As I'm going to
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: towar butcher Milton Friedman quote, but as my friend Dave
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Kensky reminded me of that Milton Friedman quote, and I've
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: used it a few times, bad people will do good
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: things if the incentives are aligned, and good people will
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: do bad things that the incentives are misaligned. It is
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: incentives that we have to change. Whether it's all party primaries,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: whether it's constitutional amendments, whether it's full disclosure on money.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: We have no idea where any of this money came
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: from left or right in the Virginia referendum. It is
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: all dark money these days. And this is where why
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: I'm probably so tough on the Democrats on this, because
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: dark money is another example of this. Right, the party
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: is lamented dark money and lamented redistricting, and they've essentially
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: done it by saying, well, we don't like to do this,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: but we're going to do it because we can't tie
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: one hand arm behind our back and going up against
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the Republicans. I understand that mindset. I understand the rationale.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: I understand the argument, and it may be that, you know,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: I have more faith in the American voter than some
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: other people, do. You know? When I see some of
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: this get it's about time Democrats, you know, went up
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: there and say fuck around and find out, Okay, are
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: you gonna are you gonna govern fairly? Or are you
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: gonna jam shit down everybody's throat? Because that's what the
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Right's been doing and people don't like it. And I
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: promise you they're not gonna like it. Emulating Donald Trump's
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: campaign style, emulating Donald Trump's governance is bad for America.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Hard stop, So be careful. You know, I don't think
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Democrats should want to celebrate winning a race to the bottom. Now,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: the upside of what could happen, maybe cooler heads will
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: prevail and dumb ass Republicans won't try to keep jerry
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: mandering their way and keep trying to rig systems, and
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: then you know, maybe maybe this is mutual assured jerrymandering destruction.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: And if that's what we have, that's what we have.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: But you know who the losers are here, and this
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: is why I am not you know, it's the losers
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: are communities that are just being blown to smithereens when
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: it comes to their federal resources. Right, folks that live
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: in southwest Virginia, uh and and folks that live in
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: the western part of the state, all of a sudden,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: you know, have have their congressional districts begin essentially at
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Arlington Cemetery or at National Airport. I mean, it is ridiculous,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: and it is an insult to the founders of what
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: we're doing, and that you know this is this is
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not picking on just Virginia here, this is the
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: whole mess. The losers are the American people. The losers
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: are those who aren't partisan warriors, not hard left or
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: hard right, those of us that are sort of looking
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: for moderate and temperament. Doesn't mean we're looking for centrist policies,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: by the way, just moderate in temperament. That's what a
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: majority of this country wants. They don't, you know, this
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: is why they keep rejecting both parties the second either
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: one of them gets power, all right, they don't want that.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: What they want is an open debate and they want
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: an opportunity to see different things debated. Now, I'll say this,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Democrats do get credit for at least going to the
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: voters in California and Virginia. Texas never asked voter permission.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: They just shoved it down people's throats. Florida actually violated
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: what the voters wanted and shoved it down their throats
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: in twenty two. And we're going to see if they
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: do it again. Although I think they're going to get
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: cold feet. It's not that they don't want to do it.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: I don't think they can come up with a map
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: that either meets constitutional grounds because again it's in its
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: state constitution. All right. I'm going to read the exact
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: amendments in Florida, and this is why I think they're
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: a not going to be able to pull it off
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: even if they try. Right, it was Amendments five and
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: six passed with over sixty percent of the vote in
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Florida and twenty ten. Remember Florida puts this anti democratic
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: hurdle on the constitutional amendments they have. The threshold is
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: not fifty percent, but it's sixty percent because they didn't
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: want the people to have full say there. Look, I
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: do think these sixty just a quick aside, I think
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: these sixty percent thresholds are I understand the mindset of it. Hey,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: you don't want to make it too easy to amend
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: the constitution. Look, instead of sixty percent thresholds, do what
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Nevada does. You have to get fifty percent plus one
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: and back to back election cycles, you know, make it
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: two bytes in order to amend the constitution. But raising
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the threshold to sixty is arbitrary, It's sort of, It's
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: not arbitrary, it's like purpose. It's done purposely so to
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: sort of just because the majority party wants to control
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: that situation better. But anyway, let me read Amendments five
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: and six of how they passed. Maps cannot be drawn
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: or an incumbent. It's straightforward, that's what it says. They
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: also cannot quote diminish the ability of racial or language
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: minorities to elect representatives of their choice. And then the
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: second part of the amendments says districts must be compact, contiguous,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: and use existing political geographical boundaries like city or county lines,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: or feasible. So the only feasible way Republicans can pick
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: up seats in Florida is to do what I think.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I use this language either in the of a live
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: stream that we did on Tuesday night or on Wednesday
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: morning's podcast. Forgive me for conflating the two, but essentially
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: think of it as a strip of bacon there in
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: the South. What they want to do is there's a
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: handful of Democratic districts every Washerman Schultz, Jared Moscowitz sort
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: of that are in Broward and some parts of Palm Beach,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: even parts of Miami Day and they want to, like,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: like a strip of bacon, go from the Atlantic Ocean
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: to the Gulf of Mexico, basically through Lake Okuchobe through
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: the Everglades. Well, let me ask you this. Districts must
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: be compact, contos, contiguous, and use existing political geographic boundaries.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Trying to do that wouldn't do that. So then they
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: have to figure out if there's any north south ways
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: that they can do this, and it just doesn't appear.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean they won't try and that that. But
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I have a sense that you're going to have enough.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Right DeSantis has already had, you know, because he's a
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: lame duck governor. This is his last year in office.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: You do have Republicans in the legislature that are not
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: necessarily ready to just salute the flag right now. So
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: I think this is going to be a bit harder
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: than they think. But who knows. Maybe Trump essentially bullies
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: them into doing it, which may only do something that
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: they regret, which is actually energized an anti Trump plurality
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: in Florida that could turn into an anti Trump majority.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: All right. I mean, Florida Republicans are operating as if
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Florida is Idaho and Florida ain't Idaho. All right. It
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: may not be what Florida was fifteen years ago, but
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: it hasn't gone that far right, and so they could be.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: They could be playing with matches next to a gas nant.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you
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• 29:27
  Speaker 1: want to pivot to Iran Is. It's interesting to see
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: now if you've noticed, there's now a lot of legacy
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: media coverage going back to the Oran nuclear deal that
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: President Obama and John Kerry negotiated, because there's now a
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: realization that the best Donald Trump can hope for is
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: some reanimation of the nuclear deal that he tore up,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: one that, if you recall, he tore up despite everybody
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: arounding around him at the time, Secretary Pompeo, Secretary Madis,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: everybody was telling him, don't do it. Even they didn't
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: like the deal, but don't do it. Ripping it up
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: was a bad idea. And now he's got to figure
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: out how to reconstitute it, and he's going to end
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: up handing them probably more cash in order to get
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: them to relinquish the straight offor moves. But what was
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: interesting is Wall Street Journal editorial board sort of unloaded
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: on him and noted and there was a great headline, right,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: and it got his attention. The Iranians take Trump for
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: a sucker. They do. It was essentially the point I
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: was making when he extended this seasfire right. He did
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: it on his own. The Iranians actually basically flipped him
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: the middle finger, and he still extended the seasfire, right,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: so they know he desperately wants a deal, and he
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: wants one badly. And the journal I think correctly in
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: the editorial Patriot, essentially ripped him for this. Right. I
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: am what he has done with Iran. I mean, it
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: is astonishing, right, he actually got involved and made everything
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: worse than somehow strengthened Iran and strengthened China. I do
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: think eventually China is the one that's going to get
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Iran to back down and get to the table and
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: they'll get their rand nuclear deal. So I have some
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: cautious optimism that I think I know where this comes
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: to an end, because it's clear Donald Trump just absolutely
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: is afraid. I have been quoting Todd Young, who, in
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: a interview with my friend Lynne Caldwell at Puck used
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: a fabulous metaphor, and you know he was not in
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: favor of going and bombing Iran, right. He was one
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: of those that thought it was a mistake. But he's
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: also one of those. And it's kind of where I
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: am on this. I'm uncomfortably in this position. And I'll
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: explain it in a minute, which is, you know, it's
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: a bad idea to try to grab a tiger by
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: its ears, But if you grab a tiger by its ears,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: you know what a worst idea is letting go, right,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: because the minute you let go, tiger's on top of you.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: So and that's the situation he's in, Right, he grabbed
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: the tiger by the ears with Iran, but he doesn't
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: have the guts to finish the job because what it
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: would take to finish the job is something that would
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: be extraordinarily unpopular. Would probably h e rode certainly are
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: it would it would it would be a it would
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: certainly make a rock uh seem like a little excursion
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: to use Donald Trump language, and it would certainly sort
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: of we I'd say it would weaken our standing in
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: the world, but Donald Trump has I don't know how
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: he could weaken our standing anymore than what he's done.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: But I want to read his response because the fact
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: of the matter is the louder he squeals, the more
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: you know the criticism is correct. So I always want
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: to remind people of that. And then I'm going to
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: get to one other topic before we get to my interview. So,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: of course Donald Trump says, the Wall Street Journal has
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: lost its way, and then he's got a lot more
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: to say, and he goes. An idiot on the Wall
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Street Journal's editorial board named Elliot Kauffman just wrote an
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: op ed entitled the Iranian stake Trump for a sucker.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Yes they do, and he goes, Really, for forty seven years,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: they have killed our people and many others, and taken
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: advantage of every president except me. And what did I
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: give to them? A country in tatters. Their entire navy
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: is at the bottom of the sea. Their air force
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: is gone, their anti aircraft and radars wiped out. Their
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: nuclear labs and storage areas were obliterated late one dark
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: June evening by our great B two bombers. Their leaders
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: are dead, all caps, including General Solomoni, their evil genius
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: who destroyed the lives of so many with his favored
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: roadside bombs. The straight Offord Moves is blockaded and totally
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: controlled by the US. Is it though okay? With no
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: ships allowed to go to Iranian ports. It is said
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: that they are losing five hundred million dollars a day
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: because of this. Their country is an economic catastrophe that
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: is hanging on by a thread. Barack Hussein Obama gave
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: them one point seven billion dollars in green cash flown
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: in by a Boeing seven fifty seven to their leaders,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: and hundreds of billions of dollars in order to help
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: them on their way to a nuclear bomb. Other presidents
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: did nothing to stop them. A blight on the office
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: of the presidency. But despite all this, I have a
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: moron on the editorial board of Wall Street Journal writing
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: about me being taken for a sucker. Ran certainly doesn't
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: think so. Oh really, I mean it. It is amusing
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: how clueless he is on this. But again I think
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: he knows he made a gigantic mistake. I don't know.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: I would sit here and say this will this will
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: define his presidency. No, it's not going to define his president.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: His presidency's defined by the destruction of the of the
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: world order that he has done for us. I mean,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: I have to say, I'm shaking my head that the
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: latest idea from Zelensky and Ukraine is to say, hey,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: can we We'll call the don Bas region Donnie Land,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: and maybe that'll make and name it after Trump, and
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: that'll make him want to help Ukraine push back the
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Russians from the donbas reason. The reason I think A
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: that's I mean, first of all, you can't you can't
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: reward ridiculous behavior like has been done with Trump. One
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: but two, don't forget Zelenski. Putin will always offer Trump more,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: and Trump will always take that deal. So if you're
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: promising him Donnie Land, he'll probably promising promising him something else.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe he'll give back certain tapes that some
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: people are afraid of. But I digress. But I read
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: that whole thing for you, because you know this is
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: where his head is at. Look, I've destroyed their navy.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: It's so clear he doesn't understand the Iranians. Number one,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: it's clear that they didn't really have a strategy for
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: what they were going to do. Because if they've all
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: this military success, it's not worked who controls the straight
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: of horror moves. If the United States controlled the straight
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: of horror moves, oil would be going through. But nothing's
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: going through. So he is he is. I guess he's
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: going to say, I'm not going to give him a
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: palette of cash. So I'm different than President Obama anyway.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: I think we know where that's at. It. I'm going
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: to hit one final point because I rarely like to
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: make too many comments about other journalists or other columnists
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: or podcasters or whatever you want to call us in
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: this independent space, because you know, a lot of times
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: there's a huge chunk of folks that are here that
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: just want to hear their name said, just are hopeful
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: that you know, someone like me notices them so they
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: can somehow use it to game an algorithm. So I'm
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: I'm always a little hesitant to sort of overreact, but
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: I've had I've had people in my life today, multiple
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: people's ask me what I make of this Tucker Carlson,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Heel turn on Trump in this very public airing and
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: this supposed apology, two folks for misleading Trump. So I too,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: I have two reactions to it. One is the reaction
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: that I've given you after Marjorie Taylor Green and everybody else,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: that this is every single relationship Donald Trump has ever
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: had that it wasn't blood, and he's even had some
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: relationships and badly that were with relatives, but every single
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: professional relationship ship he has had has eventually ended like this,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: where the person regrets some form of either supporting him,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: doing business with him, working with them. Right. The list,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: you know, I could sit here, if I was just
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: running a scroll here, we'd need another thirty minutes of
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: this podcast monologue in order to list all the people
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: over the over the decades that have expressed regret for it.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, he he abandons everybody eventually, even his most
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: important mentor Roy Cone, you know, as roy Cone's response was,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: you know Donald Trump pisses ice water, meaning he's just
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: a cold hearted, self centered sob, and he will everybody
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: gets eventually feels alienated by Donald Trump, right it is.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: The list is long, so that that's one reaction I
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: have to, you know, to to Tucker's heel turn on this.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: There's another part of this and why I'm a little
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: skeptical to really make a big deal out of this.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: You know, I think I believe Marjorie Taylor Green was
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: genuine as genuine in her disgust and why she's walked
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: from from him, not the movement, but him. Tucker Carlson
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: has never been I don't know what's a genuine thought.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: He's an incredibly smart guy and there was a time
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: he was an incredibly fun dinner companion. Okay, this is
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: why there's sort of the Tucker Carlson Why so many
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: in the sort of Washington ecosystem don't ignore him because
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of us have known him for years, but
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: clearly we didn't know him, right, you know, he just
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: sort of was another frequent person that showed up to
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: some of these events that we were all covering together,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: and we were all of a similar age as we
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: were rising up in the nineties, and all of us
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: sort of got you know, those of us that are
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: still left caught a break early on with various either
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: new publications, the Internet and all this stuff. So you know,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: we we have sort of common career direct trajectoris. So
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: I think that's why there's also this extra layer of
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: interest or fascination into what, you know, what where Tucker's
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Tucker's head is. But I'll tell you the other reaction
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: I had to this is that if it's about is,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: it's it's like, oh, well, the WWE has a new
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: World Champion. You're like, oh, so the scriptwriters decided to
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: do that, right, this there's every chance that this is
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: sort of a WWE type of heel turn, right, sort
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: of a fake heel turn. And he wants to do this.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: So I, like I said, I'm not. I can't sit
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: here and guarantee you that that what he's doing is
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: genuine because he's spent so much of his professional life
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: contradicting himself for years, right, whether it's on cable television,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: whether it was in his writing, whether it's been in
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: his political support on and off for Donald Trump. You know,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: the the fact that he was sort of you could
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: see that sort of the two face in him during
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: the dominion trial with all the league texts and sort
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: of right, Tucker would think, would say one thing off
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: air and then say something different on air. So again,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: like I said, it's possible that he now is one
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: of hundreds of people over the years that have that
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: at some point, really, you know, Trump finally crosses the
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: line for them that are I'm out. I can't. I
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: can't deal with it. You know, maybe it's because Trump
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: didn't pay a bill, maybe it's Trump insulted, or maybe
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Trump you know, Lida, whatever it is, that is not
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: a shock to me, and so I can't rule that out.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: But because of his history of essentially saying whatever it
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: takes to get at an audience, whatever, it takes to
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: make a buck. I'm gonna be honest with you. I
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: don't know how how seriously to take to take what
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: he says. And there's also one other option that he
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: might be up to. Maybe he's so delusional he thinks
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: he can be president. And this is the beginning of
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: And I do wonder, you know, the if you're I
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: do wonder if there will be space for somebody to
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: be an anti Trump MAGA candidate. I don't know how
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: big that constituency is. It may be that quote unquote
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: the MAGA influencers are anti Trump, but the MAGA rank
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: and file not so much. But that would be a
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: curiosity to me if somebody decides, And it wouldn't surprise
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: me if somebody essentially says, hey, I'm I'm everything. I'm
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: I'm a more honest version of what Donald Trump tried
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: to be. Maybe, but anyway, I just I normally don't
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: address otherman like, you know, it's like, please, I know,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Megan Kelly's just trying to make a buck. I have
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: no idea what she really stands for. I don't think
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: any of you do either, right, Like, there's just never
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: been a through line of principle or honesty there. I
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: feel that way about Tucker, you know, And there's so
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: I'm not interested in, you know, creating these like podcast
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: standoffs and all this stuff. I know it's supposedly good
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: for business, but that isn't that isn't why I'm doing this.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to be a voice for the rational majority here, right,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: we're the ones that have been We're looking around here going.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: I got jokers to the left, clowns to the right, right,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: and here I am stuck in the middle with all
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: of them. This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought
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  Speaker 1: as Chuck. But we're gonna start with Max. Any writes Hey,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: as ever, appreciate that between the thirties view you deliver
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: on important stories. Thanks for the rare bit of rational
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: sanity in the whirlwind of chaos we face every day.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: You have frequently discussed that we seem to be entering
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's Lane Duck era. But considering his insistence on
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: gilding everything around him, painting everything gold, wouldn't he be
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: our first lemae duck president Cheeserrie. Thank you, Max. You
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: made me laugh. He put the accent on the ease.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: That's why I said, le may duck. I think it's
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: duck alrange, right, I mean, how did you miss that
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: one right? That was sitting there for you, Max Duck.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Let me in fact, we'll use your lemae duck a
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: larrange the orange lame duck man right, So anyway, brilliant,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: But yeah, we got to add the uh uh a
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: la range right. Next one comes from might be a
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: six timer, he says. When I first got into politics,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Tim Russell was my favorite go to media figure. He
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: had the perfect blend of common sense and sharp intelligences
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: when needed. Can you just tell a good story about Tim? Thanks,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Adam B. Davey, Florida. I'll give you a good one.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: And it's a good Florida story. So, and it's something
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: I'm a young Chuck Todd at this time. This is
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight. I'm just like trying to think of
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: when this was. This is twenty oh eight February. He he's, uh,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: we're down in Boca Raton, Florida because he's moderating a
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: Republican presidential primary debate at FAU Florida Atlanta University. And
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: I believe the debate was on a Thursday, and he
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: decided to do meet the press on the road. But
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: the guests that we could get for the show was
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: John McCain and he was going to be in Tampa. So,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: you know, we get in the car and we drive,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: you know, we just do the quick, short trip. But
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: he decides, you know, we we decided it's myself another
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: producer of his and Tim. Tim was driving and of
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: course for lunch, you know, and I'm this way too.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: You know. No, we're not any in a chain, no
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: chain restaurants or any of us come on. Let's let's
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: go find something interesting. So we find a little barbecue joint. Man,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think where we were. I mean, we
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: would have been on seventy five because we took where
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: we were headed over. I think we would turn Pike
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: to seventy five. So I can't remember where we were,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: but I'm gonna say probably, you know, somewhere west of Sarasota,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: excuse me, east of Sarasota. And somebody recognizes Tim, but
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: they don't know it's Tim Russer. They just know they
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: know him from TV. And this woman comes up and
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: she says, hey, do you do the sports in Cleveland?
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: And he goes, no, that's not me, and they go okay.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: And so when we're and we were eating, I think
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: it was Barbara. I know we were having barbecue, but
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: it was a local barbecue place and we were eating,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: and so it was the person was sort of it
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: was one of those where you quit your order then
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: you you know, it wasn't you know, you serve yourself.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: And then this was somebody as we were in the
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: middle eating and they were sort of they were just
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: coming in and going to sit down, and we were
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: we lingered longer because we were chatting. We were probably
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: you know, who the hell knows what we were chatting about.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: You know, hey, Tim, tell us a story, right, just
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: like you were asking. You know when it was just
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: whenever I was doing meals with him, right, I was
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: always getting some interesting, interesting stories. And then the person
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: comes back, and this woman then comes back about half
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: hour later and she goes, are you sure you don't
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: do the sports in Cleveland? Like as if Tim was
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: like lying about it. I mean, I understand if you
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: don't want people recognizing you. I remember where we are.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: We're like, you know, somewhere on I seventy five east
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: of Sarasota on our way to Tampa. And this person
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: is thinking that the local sports anchor of Cleveland wants
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: to be so anonymous, right that they are lying to
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: them about that and what Tim never does and what
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: I don't do, nor is other producer. We don't say, no, no, no,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: he's Tim Russer. You must know who he is, because
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: there's something frankly arrogant about it, right, There's something weird.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: Anytime people have come up to me and say, well,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: where do I you know? Do I know you from somewhere?
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: It's always it's always awkward. I don't know, like I
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: never know what to say, or like you know, where
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: did you or a lot of times that the one
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: one will say where did you go to high school?
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: And I'll say in Miami, oh, well, you just look
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: like somebody I thought I went to high school with.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: And then sometimes people will come back to me go,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: I know where I know you from, and then they'll
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: figure it out. Anyway, so the person comes back to
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: him and says this, and then and he goes, no,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: that's it. And then they're walking out the door, he goes,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: but go Indians, And you know he did say, he goes,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: I went to law school in Cleveland, which is true.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: He did go to law school in Cleveland. But we've
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: often wondered, my friend and I, Betsy Fisher, we've often
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: wondered about that story. Whether the persons like left later
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: go oh my god, now I know who that is, right,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: and they got it on the way home. So I
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: hope that's good enough. You know, you can hit me
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: with it in six months. You can ask me to
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: come up with another one if you will. Anyway, Thanks
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: for the question, Adam. Next question comes from Jim m
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: and he writes, Hey, every Monday, I watch your show
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: with Chris Eliza. This week you mentioned a project you're
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: working on to get independence elected in major elections. Can
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: you expand on that. Well, it's actually in part why
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: I'm up here in Boston as well. It's it's about
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: not just independence, but it's also about coming up with
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: a mechanism and a support function for members of either
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: party who decide not who decide not to, who decide
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: to break from leadership right and you know, actually vote
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: what they think is in the best interests of their
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: constituents rather than what's in the best interests of a
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: party leader. Because what you're seeing now is that when
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: you break from the party, suddenly the party won't support you.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: You lose all this stuff. So, you know, is there
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: a way to create a third alliance, if you will,
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: that supports elected officials who simply want to be more responsive,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: whether they're independent, so they so you want to number one.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: I hope you can give them the opportunity to not
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: have to feel like they need to belong to a
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: political party in order to effectively govern. And unfortunately, right now,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: I think some of our infrastructure isn't there yet for
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: that ballot access is difficult for independence and things like that.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: And by the way, some aspects of this is about
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: helping you know, maybe you know, helping to get camp
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: you know, run referendum campaigns, to force open primaries, maybe
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: create all party primary ballots, which I'm really you know,
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: when I look at all the different iterations of what's
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: the fairest way to make sure you're actually getting elected
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: officials who represent the electorates that they're trying to represent,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: I think it's pretty clear we need all party primaries
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: and everybody on the same primary ballot. If you want polarization,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: then please separate your primaries. But if you don't want
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: polarization and you want just actual debates on merits, I
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: think you want you want everybody on one ballot on
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: that front. So I don't want to get too much
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: into it because it's in the you know, it's in
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: the it's not in the incub it's out of the
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: incubation stage. But we're still in the you know, finding
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: the supports system. But I'm working with a lot of
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: interesting folks, uh, And there's people from both parties involved
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: with this effort, people and independent entities, and in both
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: with this effort, people in other walks of life, like
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: myself involved in this effort. But all I'll say is
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: stay tuned. You know, as you can see this is
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: this It is clear to me there's a plurality of
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: Americans that are just underrepresented in our politics. Right we
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: have the fastest growing party is no party. And we
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: have got to align our small d democratic system with
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: the electorate that we have, rather than forcing the electorate
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: to choose between to choose to support an outdated system,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: and that's essentially what we have as an outdated system.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: I am coming to you know. I look, this is
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: probably a decade away, so this is something that will
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: either age really well or you can use it and
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: put it on my epitaph. But I think both parties
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: are facing a existential crisis that probably comes tor for
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: which sometime in the mid to late twenty thirties. So
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: we shall see bills as the next question. Hey, Chuck,
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: I get frustrated with surveys that separate MAGA from Republican.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: Is there really a meaningful distinction if the same voters
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: are supporting Trump? And how should accountability work within the
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: GOP for the direction of the party has taken under
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: his influence. Hope you had a happy four twenty and
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: enjoyed a HEMP derived beverage of your choosing. Hey, get sold,
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: ay Man, Remember get sold and use the code. Thanks
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: and go Nats. Their record is better by one loss
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: than my ever anxiety inducing Mariners. Well, Bell, I will
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: tell you this. I have Emerson Hancock on my fantasy team.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: I just picked him up. So I'm a little invested
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: in your Mariner succeeding there for what it's worth, and
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: I'm just pleasantly surprised that my Nats are. I love
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: put it this way. You know, sometimes you know you
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: have your favorite team and you're like, you know, do
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: you want to watch them when they're on offense or defense?
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: Like you know, this last year with the University of Miami,
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: I was always more excited when Miami was on defense.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: I just loved watching that defense that Weirdly, the offense
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: always got me nervous. You know, you're back up. I
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: hope he's got it. Oh good, he handed it to
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: Fletcher right, like you know, you just sort of like
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: your cridge. Well, this year with the Nats, like when
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: they're at bat, I can't wait to watch when it's
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: their time to when when when the other team's up
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: and we're pitching, that's when I get really nervous. Well, look,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: we've been as as the person who helped author the
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: original that we were the first entity to start doing this.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: When I say we, it was the former my former employer, NBC.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: They're two pollsters, Bill mcadurff and Jeff Horatt Hart McInturff,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: the combination there. We came up with this question going
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: way back in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen, and we've
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: been consistently seeing, like you know, we just said, there
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: are many men. Do you consider yourself more of a
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: supporter of the Republican Party or more the way the
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: question is asked, at least certainly the best version of
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: the question, I think is the way I'm outlining here,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: which is, you know, and we just ask it among
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: folks who already align as Republican, do you consider yourself
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: more of a Republican or more of a Trump supporter
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: and make America Great Again mag and just saying shorthanding
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: MAGA at this point, or do you consider yourself more
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: of a Mega supporter than you are a Republican. And
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: here's what we've noticed is that what it this is
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: good of a test of trying to figure out what
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: is Trump. How tight is Trump's grip on the party right,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: and when it's more MAGA, his grip is tighter, when
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: it's more Republican, his grip is looser, right, And it's
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: it's an early sign to sort of see where things.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: It's another way to sort of because you know, some
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: of these folks aren't going to say they disapprove of
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: Trump's job if they're a Republican, even if they kind
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: of do but they don't want to say it. But
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: if they start saying, well, no, I'm more of a
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Republican than I am a member of MAGA, and it
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: may be that the very same person three surveys before
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: I said no, no, I'm mega more than I am Republican.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: It's a it. We have found it to be the
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: best sort of early warning sign to try to understand,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: you know, is he got he got problems inside the GOP.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: So I think that distinction, I you know, it is
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: for strategicy reasons. I think the distinction does matter because
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: it matters how you talk to Republicans, right, It matters
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: how much do you feel. And if you start to
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: see that Republican number going up and up and up,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: then you'll see. What you will also see is more
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: elected Republicans feeling comfortable distancing themselves from Trump. So look,
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here and say that I
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: think that I have, I believe. I'm not going to
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: quote myself. I want I just I associate myself with
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: Marco Rubio when it comes to Donald Trump and the
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: accountability question. And this is what Marco Rubio said in
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: March of twenty sixteen. And I think this quote will
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: live longer than Marco Rubio's lack of support for Donald Trump.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: But anyway, the quote is for years to come, there
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: are many people on the right, in the media and
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: voters at large that are going to be having to
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: explain and justify how they fell into this trap of
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: supporting Donald Trump because this is not going to end
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: well one way or the other. It is probably the
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: most prescient quote that the current Secretary of State has
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: ever uttered, and it is one that I'm here, here's
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: my prediction. One day he himself will quote himself and
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: you have to admit he should have known better. Maybe
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: not in his fifties, maybe not in his sixties, but
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: at some point he too will have to do what
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: he predicted. Many other people will have to do. So
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: I take your point, Bill, and I do think supporting
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Trump is a is a tattoo, not a stain, and
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: the people that it's you know, I don't think many
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: are going to have luck scrubbing that away. You're gonna
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: have to go full repudiation. Next question comes from Joe Nashville. Hey, check,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: if there's a third party that emerges from today's ultra
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: partisan environment, what do you think they will call themselves?
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: I think you should make this a top five list.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: Will they try to reconstitute a past party? Name the Federalists,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: the Whigs, the Constitution Party are something new, the America Party,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: the Freedom Party Joe in Nashville, you know, the Freedom
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Party is interesting. That's an interesting idea, you know, or
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: you might call him, you know, you could see sort
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: of a hybrid right freedom Democrats. Remember there was a
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: time we had the we had the republic the Democratic
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: Republican Party. The early early version, uh, one of the
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: early versions back the Federalists are an interesting idea is
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: to go back me and are you are an actual federalist.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: I like that better than the Constitution Party. The Constitution
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: Party has been associated with some quirky crazy There is
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: a Constitutional Party that that has existed, and it's super
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: far right, not really a serious entity. But I certainly
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't I wouldn't want to be associated with the Whigs,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: that's for sure. But I could see federalists is a
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: good one. And that's kind of where I think that
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: there is how you would rationalize, right, you know, it's
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: a federalist system. We're a republic right in that sense.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: The Republicans right at the time, you know, they don't
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: believe in us being a republic anymore. I don't think
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: they fully. There's a lot of Republicans who don't understand
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: the actual origin of the of the term that named
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: the party. But I digress. But I guess I would
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: embrace I could embrace federalists on that run. Look, in
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: the way our systems designed, I suspect that you will
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: have a party collapse, in a party replacement, not necessarily
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: a third party, that it would act the way, you know,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: you'd have sort of one or two cycles of success,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: and if it had a huge success then you just
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: essentially they would become the majority of party. Look, we've
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: seen you know, this has happened, right, parties have all
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: sorts of party coalition names have come and gone in Israel.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: We're starting to see this now in the UK. So
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: I am I don't think this is something that people
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: are to say is pie in the sky anymore. You know,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: there's just when you look at the brand and I
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: mean the fact is we've torched We've torched every institution.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: So why do we think the two parties are going
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: to survive this? Right? Every other instant tution hasn't been
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: able to survive this. So I'm you know, I think
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: there's going to be a reckoning of how did we
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: get into this mess? You know at these two parties
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: in some ways both have a hand had a hand
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: in it. And I think that in that sense, why
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: that you it won't be additions, it'll be replacements john
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: S and Miliewaukee writes what effect on the midterms do
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: you think the retirement of Alito and Thomas would make
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: if this is done in October? Well, here's what I
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: do believe that the that the Republican campaign strategists would
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: love to have anything to change the subject from the economy,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: changed the subject from the war. Perhaps a Supreme Court
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: nomination could do that. And you know, and there's no
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: doubt that whoever Trump Trump would want to nominate somebody
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: as controversial as possible, almost to to bait Democrats into
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: doing whatever it took to stop this person. Even though
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: you could argue if it's a leader for the Leader
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: or Thomas Sea, it's you know, sort of right winger
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: for right winger, right, like, it's not really going to
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: change the makeup of the court. You know, I think
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: the smart strategy would be to basically olay it in
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: and don't create the fight because I think, you know,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of Republican consultants who believe, well, boy,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know how else to motivate voters. Maybe we
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: can do Maybe it can be we can do it
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: again on judges, right, we can do it again, you know,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: and that that has been a go to for getting
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: out the Republican base for years. I just don't know
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: now that they've overturned Roe, I just don't know if
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: it has the same salience that it did in twenty eighteen.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: Where I do think the Kavanaugh nomination taking place when
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: it took place, and because there was the scalea vacancy
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: at sixteen. I do think these Supreme Court vacancies had
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: a huge impact on the twenty sixteen election. I mean,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: you know, if you want to all the different butterfly
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: effects at twenty sixteen, if you had just told me
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: what's one to get rid of sc Scalia lived, Trump
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: doesn't win and Kavanaugh in eighteen, I think definitely cost
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: Democrats two Senate seeds. I think they were on their
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: way to having a much better midterm year and they
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: still had it in the House. But I do think
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: it it cost Claire mccaskal her Senate seed, and Joe
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Domley his Brayden and Charlotte Right. Hey. I really enjoy
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: the podcast and always learn something. It feels like part
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: of Trump's coalition is more focused on owning the Libs
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: than on policy. So how do Democrats or independence actually
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: make inroads with those voters. Is there a way to
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: shift the conversation towards tangible issues like cost of living,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: in governance, or just as a segment of the electorate
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: that's increasingly out of reach. I just yeah, I think
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: they own the Libs. Segment of the electorate are just
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: those aren't. They're not serious people. They're performers, they're theatrics.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: They're just they're they're not they're not persuadable voters. So
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't treat them as persuadable voters. But I do
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: think there's quite a few Trump voters that are persuadable voters,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: those that are frustrated with the system, those that wanted disruption. Right.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: I think the own the Lib's crowd is really kind
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: of like, you know, kind of what the current version
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: of heritage is, Right, there was a Heritage in the
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: nineties was like a serious institution. Heritage today is a
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: kind of a clown show. They just they're just sort
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: of organized around quote owning the Libs. And that's that's
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: kind of, you know, kind of what I think these
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: the MAGA influencers who are right now all upset at Trump,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: but what they really want to be is, you know,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: they're also the ones that like, do these silly little
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: I want to drink liberal tears and all this stuff.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: So no, I think you ignore the own the Libs crowd.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: In fact, when you're doing research, you find a way
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: to you just you know, this is not about talking
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: to one hundred percent of everybody in the electorate. Right.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: I always say this, if you want to be a
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: successful politician, you've got to be able to be credible
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: with sixty percent of the electorate. You're not going to
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: get support from sixty percent of the electorate most of
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: the time. You know a few could, but you need
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: to be credible with sixty percent of the electorate. If
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: you want to be an effective politician, you want a
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: job approval rating that's closer to sixty, which tells you
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: you know it. You know, in the in the twentieth century,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: it was common for our presidents to have higher approval
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: ratings than their actual vote number. Now it's common, it's
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: more common for presidents to get elected with a where
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: their approval rating is already below the number that they
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: received their overall percentage numbers. So yeah, I just think
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: the the own the LIBS crowd isn't worth talking to.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: But I think that's probably half of mega right, Maybe
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: it's two thirds of the Republican Party, maybe it's half
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: the Republican electorate. But I think there is a somewhere
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: between twenty and thirty percent of the of the Republican
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: electorate and sort of seventy percent of the independent electorate.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: And you know, depending on your point of view and
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: the part and the Democratic party, right, if you're looking for,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: you know that that is that is persuad you know,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: and I think probably thirty percent of the Democratic electorate, right,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: I think it's sort of sixty percent of Independence, thirty
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: on each side. That are the persuadable people that you
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: know that that center left Democrat that every once in
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: a while might support a Republican, that center center right
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: Republican then might every once in a while support a Democrat. Uh,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: and of course the Independence. But yeah, you know, I
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: wouldn't the own the Lib crowd. You know, the best
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: way to deal with them is just simply use them
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: as a use them as a foil. Right to me,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: the the you know, if you're like this, the leadership
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: is in the owned the LIB business, right, Like Johnson's
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: not serious about policy, He's just in the own the
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: Lib game. So it is a way I think to
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: to to sort of make if you're trying to paint
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: your opponent as not serious about helping people, you use
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: that on the LIB messaging. Jim in Pennsylvania rights. Is
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: there any way to stop jerrymandering? What it need to
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: be state by a state by state regulated? Could it
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: be regulated through Congress or an executive order with a
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: different Supreme Court? And then one NFL draft question? If
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: you were GM, what would your strategy be? Standpad every year,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: trade up for the star players, trade back in stockpile
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: picks when with volume and quality depth gem in Pennsylvania.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: So I will say this on redistricting, it is written
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: into the Constitution that the states are in charge of this.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: So you need a constitutional amendment if you want to
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: try to put some rules in place for how it's done.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: I think instead there are ways to minimize the impact. Look,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: I think you're you're always going to have one person's
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: fair map is another person's gerrymandered map, right, Because I
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: could argue that a community of interest is not a
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: competitive district, but a competitive district is not a community
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: of interest because in some places the community of interest
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: is pretty partisan. You know, and they and you know,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: it's a it's sort of a one sided thing. But
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: you know, if you if you mandated competitiveness, then you
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: might actually need to jerrymander and create all sorts of
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: weird districts if your goal was to create nothing more
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: than fifty five to forty five. So so there's the
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: state by state referendums are about the only way to
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: do it, because the problem is if you don't have
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: a if you're not a referendum state and you're asking,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: you have to ask the state legislature to take away
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: its own power, and they're just not going to do that.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: I will go back to the solution that I've been advocating.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: I think there's there's two things I would do. I'd
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: have a constitutional amendment that mandated that a congressional district
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: could be no bigger than point zero three percent of
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: the population. And so why do I put it that way,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: Because that right now would put us at one per
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: four hundred thousand members of Congress population. It would probably
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: pretty close to double the size of the House. And
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: a larger House wouldn't eliminate jerrymandering, but it would minimize
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: jerry meandering's impact because if you have more district lines,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: it's just sort of it's easier to create the communities
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: of interests, and there's just less less votes to play with,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: less communities to break up and all of those things. Alternatively,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: I will tell you I have always I have always
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: fantasized about creating the following metric, which is, you take
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: that every ten years, you know, and this is what
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: you'd have to write into the constitution. You average the party,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: You average the vote by party of the governor and
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: the president in every state during the the decade up
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: to the census. Right, So let's say, going into twenty thirty,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: you would take, you know, all the governors results by
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: party in the president, and then you'd sort of average
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: it out, and let's say it worked out to fifty
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: three forty seven R to D. Well, then I would
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: say that's your baseline, which means no congressional district could
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: be drawn more than you know, with a with a
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: Republican advantage, no more than ten points higher than the
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: best performing overall average Republican statewide. So you know, you
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: couldn't have a district that was more than sixty three
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: percent Republican, and you couldn't have a district that was
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: any less than forty three percent Republican. And did it
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: with the Democrats. You do something, you know, and whatever
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: it is that you create sort of a a ten
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: point guard rail over and above what the what the
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: statewide average is and said state over a ten year period.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: So that way you're reflecting the general direction of the
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: you know, is this a republican state, this is a
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: democratic state? Or is this a purple state? And maybe
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: you put a limit that if that if if it's
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: under you know, if your state is under fifty five
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: to forty five, if the average is below fifty five
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: to forty five, then it has to be as evenly
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: divided as you possibly can can come up with. So
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: those are sort of some of the math ideas that
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: I've had put to this. But I do think the
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: simpler way to sort of d defang Jerry Manderin is
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: to just uncap the house and you know, let's let's
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: go double cat the house. All right. As for your
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: uh as for your GM question, I'd have a simple strategy.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: I would draft the best offensive tackle or defensive tackle,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: best offensive lineman or defensive linement available every single first round,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: hard stop just about every single first round. Unless I
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: needed a quarterback. That's it. I would never use a
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: first round pick for any other position. Ultimately, you win
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: football games at the line of scrimmage. I am only
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: becoming more convinced to this the more, the longer I live,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: and the more I watch football. Right, I mean, just
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: think about it. Every championship team, NFL or college, they
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: always have a dominant offensive line or defensive line. And
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: you build football teams inside out, you can always find
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: receivers all over. I would never draft a receiver in
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: the first round. They're always receivers to be found. I
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: would never draft a running back in the first round.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: There are always running backs to be found, so that
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: would be That would be my basic strategy. And yes,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: I would stockpile as many second, third, and fourth round
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: picks as I could get. I think those are the
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: sweet spots. I'd use my first round pick almost exclusively
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: on the line lines and or a quarterback if I
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: needed a quarterback, and then spend two, three, and four,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: the second, third, and fourth round on linebackers, defensive backs, receivers,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: and running backs, and then fifth and six are flyers, right,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: are sort of you know one of those that you've
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: But that would be my basic strategy. So there's my
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: hot take on that. I am. I love the draft.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: I will admit I found out that my new partner
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: in the sports history podcast that I'm doing, Dynastic, Jayadande.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: He hates the draft. We had a fun little We
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: just taped our it's not yet up, it'll be up
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: in very soon, but we taped our next episode of Dynastic.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: We are just putting it through the editing machine here
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: for a few minutes, and it's a focus on the
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: Pittsburgh Steelers, and a big part of the story of
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: the Pittsburgh Steelers is there. Essentially, they i'd have had
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: the greatest draft run in the history of professional sports
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: from nineteen sixty nine to nineteen seventy four, and so
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: I've been I've spent a lot of time learning about
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: draft strategies. But in nineteen sixty nine, their first overall
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: pick was a kid from North Texas, from the from
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: the mean Green down there at North Texas, guy named
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: Joe Green. Right, So you know, I'm I think you build,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: I think you build inside out. So that would be
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: my strategy. All right, I'm gonna leave with you know,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: as I told you about the NBA playoffs, I'm I'm
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: I'm enjoying Wemby. I'm bumm that he's hurt and we're
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: gonna not have him this weekend. I hope he can
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: get back and get healthy pretty quickly. He's just it's
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: just fun to watch him out there. And uh, I
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: can't quit Lebron. I love I want to, you know,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: I want to see Lebron in the playoffs, which brings
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: me to Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant is one of the
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: is is going to be the most If you get
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: people that know basketball, there's nothing I enjoy more than
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: getting them to debate Kevin Durant right, because he's one
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: of the greatest players of all time, there's no doubt
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: about it. But it's pretty clear he's a shitty teammate. Now.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know if he's like a shitty teammate because
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: of how he behaves or he's just a shitty teammate
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: because of how he plays. But look at you know,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: you know, there's this old joke that you know, you know,
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: this person complains, you know they've had a bunch of jobs,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: and they're going, yeah, I had this asshole boss, and
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: then I had this other job. And boy, I had
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: this asshole boss, and then you have this another job.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: You know, I've had this asshole boss. And then you
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: start to say to yourself, Huh, if everybody you work
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: for is an asshole, is it possible you're the asshole? Right?
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: And I don't you know, Durant's sort of a head
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: scratcher to me, right, He's got his whole the weird too.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: He seems consumed with himself and he's consumed with critics.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: And I feel for him. I do because I think
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: he's there's something he's looking for that he's apparently never
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: going to get right, like some form of satisfaction. Like
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: he's got a chip on his shoulder, and I think,
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: you know, there's nut. Look. I think chips are important
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: for successful people. A lot of successful people have a
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: chip on their shoulder. Maybe it's a daddy issue, maybe
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: it's a mommy issue, maybe it's something else. But you know, I,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: in a weird way, I respect chips on the shoulder.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: But I want to share with you a quote that
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: goes actually back to Dynastic. So there was there's this
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: great book about the Steelers by a gentleman named Gary Palmerantz.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: And he wrote this book in twenty thirteen about basically
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: the dead Pittsburgh Steelers that had passed on and he
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: called it their life's work. And there's this there's this
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: factoy that I couldn't shake. And so before Terry Bradshaw
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: was the initial starter for the Steelers, he was in
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: a QB controversy with two other quarterbacks that there was
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: a bit of a rotation. Joe Gilliam and he was
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: one of the early black quarterbacks to get a starting
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: job in the NFL. Back the seventy four season, he
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: was the starting quarterback for the Steelers, not Bradshaw. Bradshaw
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: would eventually get get the job later and a former
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: Notre Dame quarterback named Terry Hanratty and Joe Gilliam all
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: sorts of talent, but he and Noel just couldn't get
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: along with each other anyway. In the Gary Palmeran's book,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: he had notes this that Joe Gilliam's gravestorm epitaph was
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: he was loved in spite of himself. And I just
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: remember I read when I first read that, it just
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: sort of gut punched me, and I thought, man, man,
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: I'd love to know more what happened with Joe Gilliam
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: and all this stuff. And he had he ended up
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: he had addiction issues, and there were clearly some other
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: demons there. But I thought of that quote when I saw,
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: you know, and I was sort of like, well, another
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: disappointing Durant performance right against you know, Lebron. And I've
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: been thinking about this, right, Phoenix got better after Kevin
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: Durant left. Right, he couldn't make Brooklyn happen. He had
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: to join Steph Curry's team to win a title. And
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: I say all this, and I'm it, there is nothing
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: scarier than that fifteen footer that Kevin Durant takes because
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: he never misses, right, that little arc shot that you're
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: just like, man, it's it's like Kareem and his jump
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: shot and is a hook shot, right, It's like it's
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: indefensible some foot guy you know who has this incredible,
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: you know, just just automatic from about fifteen wherever he
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: is in the court. But that epitaph he was loved
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: to in spite of himself. And I kind of feel
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: this way about Durant, like I think there's something and
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: I don't think any of us know what it is,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: and it's I feel like it's holding him back and
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know what it is. And I you know, look,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: I put politicians on the couch, so hey, guess what,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna put professional athletes on the couch. But this
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: is going to linger as part of his legacy that
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: he was this roving player, right. I mean, and I've
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: been trying to think of who's the who is somebody
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: like him one of the all time greats? Probably I'm sorry,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: he's probably one of the ten greatest basketball players period
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: on the planet Earth of all time, and yet I
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: wouldn't put him in the top ten all time NBA
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: guys because he doesn't make people around him better, I
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: think the closest comparison, and I'd love Look, I'm I'm
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: a amateur basketball fan, meaning I'm not going to sit
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: here and claim I'm I'm super expert on any of this.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: I'm not a basketball historian and probably a little bit
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: more of a football and baseball historian than I am
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: a basketball historian. But the the the player I think
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: about when I think about Duran is Wilt Chamberlain, where
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: you're just like, individually amazing, but for some reason the
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: teams he were on, you know they were great, but
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: they weren't great enough, right, and you know, you never
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: look it's not like you hear that Kevin Durant has
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: a bad attitude or anything like this. But there's you know,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: maybe he's a loner. I don't know what it is,
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: but there is a there's an emerging pattern here and
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: it is something that is gonna it is it is
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: gonna linger in this discussion. You know about him, you
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: know it is his You know, everybody's got a butt,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: you know when you talk about in any greatness, you
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: know they were this this and this butt right, and
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: the butt with him is going to be this. The
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: unanswerable question is this. He's never seems happy where he's at,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: and even when he has nothing but success, it doesn't
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: seem to fulfill him. Right, He's missing something. So all
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: I'll say is I hope he finds it. But it
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: is it is, It is a it is an intriguing pattern. Look,
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: I I confess, man, I hope when I'd hoped, and
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: I'd hoped that he was going to be the guy
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: to resurrect and rescue the Washington NBA franchise. He is
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: a PG County kid, but apparently the last place he
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: wanted to play. He's been willing to play just about
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: in any other NBA city except his hometown, which is
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: which is quite the bummer. All right, what a weekend
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: of sports. Enjoy the Draft. For those of you that
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: enjoy the draft, we get the big White House correspondence dinner.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: So get ready for all sorts of faux outrage this
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: weekend from people either self satisfied that they're not going
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: or self satisfied that they are going. Either way, I
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: think people overreact to both parts of this. And I'll
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: see you on I'll see it on Monday. Thanks for listening.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: Don't forget the like and subscribe.