Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Are We Underestimating The Democratic Wave? + The Case Against AI Doomerism

Transcript

Full Episode - Are We Underestimating The Democratic Wave? + The Case Against AI Doomerism · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: over exactly this. Companies that branded themselves as unbiased while
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: allegedly pointing people toward whatever would pay them the most
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: as some sort of broker. So if your default is
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to distrust everyone in this space, honestly, I get it.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Medicare advisors whose entire model is that their advisors are
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: not paid to push any one plan. They're just trying
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to help. Yes, there's compensation that goes with it. but
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: it's across the board is what they're trying to do.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, they're advocating for you.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: They're not the insurance companies themselves. They're an actual person
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: who actually goes through your doctors, your prescriptions, your needs,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and then compares them to every single plan available to
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: find the best one that will work for you and
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: hopefully save you a couple dollars too. And here's the
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: part that sets chapter apart. They don't disappear once you've
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: been in They will keep advocating for you. They're kind
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: of like almost like a concierge service. You're just there.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I need help. You're like customer service. You know, the plan,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: you know, help me navigate this again. So you ever
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: get hit with a wrongful medical bill, they'll help you
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: fight it. They want to stay an advocate for you
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: even after you've done this. So look, I get it.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Medicare and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: The whole point of this is to make this easier
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: already have in all of this, point it at your
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: own plan for 20 minutes. It's free. There's no pressure.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4200. Hello there. I'm
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Chuck Todd. Welcome to another episode of the Chuck Todd cast.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: It is Monday. In some places, you're celebrating Columbus Day.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: In some places, you're celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day. In some places,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: everything is open. California, the DMV is open. Connecticut, the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: DMV is closed. Stock market open. Banks closed. Bond market's
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: supposed to be closed. So basically, it's one of those
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: weird hybrid days. The best way to handle it is
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: today is catch up on your email day, right? It's
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: a quasi workday, quasi not. So this is the chance.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: And it's one of those annoying days, right? On one hand,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: you think you can get a lot done. On the
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: other hand, you can't get enough done because things aren't open.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: But needless to say, I know for those of you,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: it is one of those weird hybrid days on that front.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Let me give you a quick rundown of what we got. Look,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: a lot has happened over the weekend. I've got sort
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: of where things stand with the midterms to kick things off.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: But we've got some, as always, some disturbing developments inside
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: this Trump administration, particularly, again, attacking the press, this bizarre
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: decision to potentially live stream a public execution. Have we
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: become a dystopian movie from the 80s on that front?
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: And then, of course, perhaps the most grotesque decision of
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the weekend, the decision by the United States to get
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: into bed with Putin on a diesel deal, although as
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I was going to taping, the president is claiming there
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: is an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. But either way,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the signal sent by the the Russians against the Ukrainians.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Yet again, Donald Trump making a decision that literally the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: rest of the country, the rest of his own party
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: disagrees with, only raising the questions that we all know
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: that you're asking yourself in your head. Geez, for somebody
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: that's supposedly not compromised by the Russians, he certainly does
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of their bidding. This is just a constant
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: cloud that will never go away because of his actual behavior.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: My guest today is somebody to try to counter the
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: AI doomerism. Don't get me wrong. I sort of have
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: a little bit of it myself, but as you know,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: on this podcast, I don't want us in rabbit holes
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: and in bubbles. I want us to try to pierce bubbles.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: And I know a lot of you are hearing AI doomerism. Well,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite newsletters is a very optimistic futurist
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: newsletter by James Pethokoukis. He's a scholar over at the
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: American Enterprise Institute. Basically, that is home for conservatives that
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: have no political party anymore. He is a free market
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: conservative in an era where neither political party is going
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: to embrace the free markets these days. But he calls
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: himself a super optimist on this stuff. I mean, he's
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: realistic about it. But I think it's a worthy conversation.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: I always learn something from James's newsletters. Um, you'll hear
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: some of his fun little, uh, community, uh, group names,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: up wingers, down wingers, things like that. Um, I'd like
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: to think I want to be an up winger as I,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: as I always say, when I, when I think to
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: myself and read his newsletter, but I'm a little more cautious, uh,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: on some of this stuff than he is, but he
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: is a fascinating mind. And I think worth your time
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: just to hear the counter argument, right? You gotta hear,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: you gotta hear counter arguments. You know, my greatest fear
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: about what we're doing to our media and our fragmentation
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: and everybody worrying about catering to audiences is that they
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: worry about offering audiences counter information that somehow audiences will,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: you know, leave. Well, I look at it this way.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: If you don't like hearing counter information that might be
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: factually correct and you just want to leave, fine. That's, hey,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: I don't probably don't want you here anyway. That's not
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the world of I operate in or the world I
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: live in. Um, uh, but, uh, it is respectful. It
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: is intellectually honest. And I think it's something, uh, you'll
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: get a lot out of it is Monday. I've got
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: a time machine. I got a great one for you.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Presidential history junkies. Um, that's all I'm going to say.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: All I'll say is that for this one, you may
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: want to go get a six pack of, of the
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: best Canadian beer. Nobody talks about anymore. Moosehead, um, And
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: that hopefully gives you a clue about where I'm headed.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: I got a lot to say about the college football
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: weekend and who might be the best teams in the country.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Here's a hint. I think the best two teams in
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the country reside in states whose Senate races are not
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: top tier. And I'll just leave it at that. You'll
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: know which two teams I'm not referring to on that. So, yeah,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: it's a packed episode. Let me get started. Look. Much
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: of my weekend was distracted by a storm coming to Pensacola.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Pensacola Beach was right in the bullseye of, I guess
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: we're calling it Isaias is how we're supposed to pronounce
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: the storm's name. So I hope I have that correct
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: on this front. Look, I have a lot of family, friends,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: and property in the line of fire there. The good
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: news is family and friends are good. Structures are fixable. Basically,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: we dodged the worst parts of what a hurricane can do,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: but now it's the annoying parts. It's the cleanup. It's
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the lack of power. It's the lack of roads being cleared,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of downed trees in certain neighborhoods. It did
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: take a slight right turn, which just, I think, preserved
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Pensacola in general. Could have been a super direct hit.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: It was not a super direct hit. It was a
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: little bit more closer to Destin, for those of you
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: keeping track of that. But I am relieved that we're
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: just dealing, in my large circle of family down there,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: we are dealing with the annoying property stuff. But it's
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: just stuff. My mom always liked to remind me whenever
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: we dealt with this stuff and she's lost her share
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: of stuff over hurricanes over the years, it's just stuff. Right.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, as long as everybody
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: is physically sound, you do have a roof over your head.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: And for that, we are grateful on that front. Boy,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: what a what a you know, this is a reminder,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: you know, it may not be a busy year, but
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: if a hurricane is coming to your neighborhood, suddenly it
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: was a pretty impactful hurricane season. Reminds me of what
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: happened to where I grew up back during 1992 in Andrew.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Andrew was a very, it was a year of a
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: fairly quiet storm year that year. Took a long time
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: to even get the first name Storm, which happened to
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: be Andrew. It's in late August. Ends up being devastating.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: The point being is, I'm Always want to be mindful.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: It's a slow hurricane season unless you're in the line
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: of fire, unless you had to deal with one. Then
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: it's it is not slow at all. Sad about the
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: White Sox. It's a bummer. Couldn't win one game at home, guys.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: One game. But it was pretty clear there was a
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: pitching disparity. And the one thing about the Guardians is
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: that they have tried to build their team. for the playoffs.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: So White Sox kind of stumbled into the playoffs and
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: just didn't have their arms. And as you know, they do.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I think this Guardians-Rays series may not have the sexy names.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: It's going to be a good series, just like Brewers-Totters.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: It's going to be a good series. I just love
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: playoff baseball. The intensity, the nervousness, even when I don't
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: really have a team that I'm totally pulling for here.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: It is the drama is amazing. But look, I'll have
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: a lot more to say in my little sports section
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: when we get there. So, look, we're a little more
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: than three weeks away from Election Day. And I want
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: to start by updating where I think we are in
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: this election because the evidence continues to accumulate. that we're
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: looking at a potentially significant repudiation of Donald Trump and
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party. It is not a case of whether
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: the Democrats are going to have a good night. The
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: question is, how bad of a night are Republicans going
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: to have? Is this a full-on repudiation election that borders
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: on realignment, at least inside the Republican Party, right? A
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: vote of no confidence in the direction that Donald Trump
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: and the MAGA wing has led the Republican Party, because
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: you're seeing it across the board, right? The vulnerability of
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Greg Abbott is not just about Donald Trump. It's about
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Republican governance. Republican governance is on the ballot. There is
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: no coherent Democratic agenda that's being floated here across the board.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: What this is, is, hey, these guys are breaking stuff.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: These guys are doing things that aren't working anymore. It's
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: time to toss them out. And that is the essentially
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the through line that unites these Democratic campaigns. But none
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: of these Democratic campaigns are advocating essentially what they would do.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: And that's intentional. That's what midterm elections are. In many cases,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: they really are unchecked on the party in power. And look,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: we've been talking for weeks now. There's an expanding Senate map,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the possibility of Democrats winning races in places where they
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: haven't won in almost 100 years. Hello, Kansas. And this
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: unusual dynamic of Democratic candidates in red states finding ways
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: to separate themselves from their national party, while Republican candidates
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: seem almost afraid to separate themselves from Donald Trump. And
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: nothing I've seen over the last week or last few
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: days has changed that assessment. If anything, the latest evidence
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: only reinforces it. The unknown is just what's going to
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: happen to this Republican base. Will they turn out or not?
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: And how many of them will skip certain Senate races
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: or Gov races because they can't bring themselves to vote
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: for a Democrat, but they can't bring themselves to reelect
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: this mess. We have a new national poll that I
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: thought was the one that I think provides some really
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: stable data, good data to look at. This one is
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: from the Pew Research Center. Yes, this is on my
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: approved national poll list of ones that are worth going through.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Pew is part of that list. The NBC News poll
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: when it's hardback and turf. Fox News' national poll when
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: it's just a bipartisan team and Time Sienna when it
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: is what they're doing there. Look, out of Pew, the
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: generic ballot in some ways was just telling you where
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: things are. Democrats lead by eight points. That's in line
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: with what we've seen. Trump's approval rating in Pew was
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: down to 30%. This is among the lowest we've seen yet, 68% disapproving.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: One thing about Pew is Pew is a has a
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: track record of they'll go somewhere you're like, we haven't
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: seen it that low in a trusted national poll. I
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: think I've seen some 31s or 32s. A lot of times,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: once you see Pew hit it, you'll start to see
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: some others get it. But that's not what makes this
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: poll the most interesting. What caught my attention is what
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: happens when Pew took a look at which voters are
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: paying the most attention, which voters are motivated, and which
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: voters think the outcome of this election really matters. Because
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: it gives you a taste of the engagement aspect of this.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: And in midterm elections, engagement matters a lot, right? Presidential elections,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: even the unengaged will show up. That does not happen
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: in midterm elections. This is one of the things I've
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: been trying to get at in discussing the possibility of
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: this wave. It's not simply whether Democrats have this seven
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: or eight point lead nationally. It's whether people want to
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: send a message to the president, whether how much more
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: motivated they are to participate than the people who want
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: to defend them. And this poll suggests there is a
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: substantial difference between these two groups. Now, before we get
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: into the numbers, there's a larger political question I want
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: you to keep in the back of your mind throughout
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: my entire monologue today, because it's sort of in three parts,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: but it all has connective tissue. I've been struck by
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: how much of what this administration has done lately seems
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: driven by almost a reflexive need to demonstrate strength, almost...
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: So much so that they don't care about the downside
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: of that demonstration. Every problem produces another confrontation. Every setback
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: produces another threat from Trump. Every criticism seems to require
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: some sort of retaliation. And we sort of see on
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: every day, one of those three things are part of
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: the president's agenda, which couldn't be more off message for
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: what Republicans on the ballot need to have from the
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: leader of their party. And I'm wondering whether what the
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: president and his administration believe looks like strength is beginning
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: to look a lot more like desperation, right? You remember
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: those Chinese finger traps, right? Those little woven tubes. You
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: put your fingers into them and the harder you pulled
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: them out, the tighter they become. It's kind of the
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: metaphor I want you to have in your head today
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: as I go through this. I think it's an increasingly
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: useful way to understand what we're watching. The administration keeps
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: pulling harder. And it keeps finding itself in another predicament.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: We'll get into some of these examples in a minute,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: particularly this Russia diesel agreement, the administration's, frankly, ridiculous pressure
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: that's being put on Ukraine, who's been attacked by Russia
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: and invaded by them. And of course, the Pete Hanks
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: proposal to live stream an execution. But let's start with
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: the voters, because they're the ones who ultimately are going
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: to get to render a judgment on all of this.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: And among voters who say they've given a lot of
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: thought about this election, according to Pew, Democrats lead by
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: 24 points. All right. That's the enthusiasm difference, right? That's the,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: they'll crawl on broken glass. I'm taping in the middle
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: of a rainstorm right now. It's the remnants of East IAS,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: I believe. And guess what? If it's pouring rain, Democrats
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: are showing up. What this number tells you, if it's
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: pouring rain, Republicans may not. Among voters who are extremely
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: motivated to vote, Democrats lead by 24 points, 59-35. And
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: among voters who say it really matters which party controls Congress,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Democrats lead by 15 points, 53-38. Now, again, the overall
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Democratic advantage was eight points. But among the people who
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: are paying the closest attention, among the people telling pollsters
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: they're really motivated, the advantage becomes considerably larger. And it
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: gets at something that if we're off on this There's
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: an you know, I know there's a lot of chatter
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: on the right that says, hey, Democrats have been here before.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: They're overrating things. And I'm going to get to a
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: couple of those points in a minute. Here's every chance
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: that it's being under. We are underestimating the size of
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: the sway because I think a lot of pollsters are
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: waiting up the Republican number, even when they're not getting
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: the responses that they expected to get. And that and
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: that's that is that is going to mask any sort
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: of gigantic shift. I've been convinced that it's possible we're
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: missing something in Texas because of this, because there's such
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: a history that there's almost a weighting up of the
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: opposition because we just can't believe how few respondents we're getting.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: And maybe they're not talking to anybody at all. That's fair.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Maybe they don't want to give away their vote. Maybe
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: there's that distrustful. I'm sure there's some voters that are
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: behaving that way. But this is one of those where
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: you're like, huh. If all the estimates are 20 to
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: 30 seats, we're seeing double digit in paying attention, enthusiasm.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Could we be underestimating this? I am as equally, I'm
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: almost more concerned we're underestimating at this point in prognostication
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: land than we are overestimating. And in fact, if you
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: look at these Pew numbers, it's really interesting if you
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: compare it to the 2022 midterm and the Biden midterm.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Four years ago, when Republicans were trying to take back Congress, right,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: from Joe Biden's party, the most engaged voters were evenly divided.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: And in some cases, they leaned Republican. Now, remember, Democratic
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: voters had motivation over the Dobbs decision. So it sort
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: of artificially boosted the Democratic number in a midterm year
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: where their party's in power. But it was still a
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: level playing field at best with a slight Republican advantage.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: There's no slight anything on this one. This time, voters
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: expressing the greatest interest are disproportionately supporting Democrats. Now, look,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: it's not a likely voter model and they're measuring registered
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: voters and asking them about interest and motivation. And again,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: you can hold your nose and vote for somebody you're
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: not interested in. And still that vote counts the same
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: as somebody who jumps up and down and slam dumps
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: their ballot into the box.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: But engagement matters when it's raining. Enthusiasm matters when there's
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: suddenly an extra hurdle to vote. And that's worth a
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: couple of points somewhere down the line. Hey, this episode
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to you by Ethos. Look,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: let me tell you about life insurance. As you know,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Ethos is an incredible portal for helping you find the
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: right life insurance policy. I'm a huge believer in life insurance.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have gotten to college in Washington, D.C. without
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: life insurance. My father is Had a policy buried somewhere
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: that we discovered and it wasn't a lot of money,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: but it was an important bucket of money at a
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: time that my mother, newly widowed, single mom, me, I'm 16.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: It was of enormous, enormous help at that time. And
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: this is why I believe in life insurance. You don't
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: know what could happen to you on any given day.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: This is literally an insurance policy for that. So let
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: me tell you a little bit about ethos. Ethos makes
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: getting life insurance fast and easy. It's 100% online. You
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: get a quote in seconds, you apply in minutes, and
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: you can get coverage the same day you begin this process.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: There's no medical exam. You just answer a few simple
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: health questions. You can get up to $ 3 million in coverage.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Some policies are as low as $ 30 a month. and
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: you'll get your lowest rate from their network of trusted carriers.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Ethos has gotten 4.9 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: with over 5,500 reviews. So, take 10 minutes to get
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: covered today, life insurance through Ethos. Get your free quote
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: at ethos.com slash chuck. That is E-T-H-O-S dot com slash chuck.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Application times may vary. The rates may vary. That Trustpilot
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: rating was as of August of 2026. But there's something
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: else in this poll that's worth looking at. If you
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: looked at people whose participation in the 2024 election, they
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: were able to validate on a voter file, meaning, right,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: so they confirmed the participation. And among people who voted
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: for Kamala Harris in 2024, 87% say they're supporting Democratic
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: congressional candidates this year. Among people who voted for Donald Trump,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: only 77% say they're supporting Republicans. Now, what's that disparity?
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Two words, Latino voters, folks. That's right. And this was
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: this is going to be the mistake that they took
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: with the dummy manders in Florida and Texas. But this
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: assumption that their improvement with Latino voters across the board,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: across classes, all those things was somehow some permanent thing.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: But that is the biggest, biggest note. And the other
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: one is younger voters who were not sold on the
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party. Some of them skipped, et cetera. But that's
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: your big gap here. That's the 10 point difference between
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: the two coalitions. Now we'll see, right? Some of those
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: people that supported Trump in 24 may not vote at all.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Some of them may vote third party and some of
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: them may cross over, particularly the Latino voters. And, you know,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: that was a significant finding in this one. And about
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: a quarter of each of the 2024 presidential coalition now
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: has an unfavorable view of the party they supported. Now,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: this was interesting. So, for instance, among Trump voters who
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: dislike the Republican Party, only 49% say they're voting Republican
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: for Congress. Now, remember, this was one in four Trump
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: voters overall. Now, this isn't surprising. We know Trump in
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: 2024 accumulated some supporters that he'd never had before, particularly Latinas.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: So this shouldn't be surprising, but it's a reminder how
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Trump has lost all of these new voters he accumulated
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: in 2024. Now, among Harris voters who dislike the Democratic Party, 73%
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: of those voters say they're going to support the Democratic Party, right?
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: This is this unique thing we've been running into that
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: I keep bringing up where Democrats are unpopular, more unpopular
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: than the Republicans. Part of that is because Democrats are
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: angry at Democrats, more of them, but it isn't lowering
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: their engagement in this election. This is a bit of
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: an FU election for some of these Democrats. They may
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: not like what's happening with the base of the Democratic Party,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: but they're not going to help Team MAGA either. So
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: it gets you, and then this gets you at another
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: way to slice this pew, Daniel. Only 36% of those
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: disaffected Trump voters say the outcome of this election really matters.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: But among those disaffected Harris voters, the ones that don't
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: like the party but supported Harris, 65% said the outcome
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: of this election matters. So basically, you've got a whole
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: bunch of skeptical Democratic Harris voters who are like, look,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: I have no new faith in this Democratic Party, but
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: I'm voting against those guys. Versus the Republicans who don't
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: have faith in this party going, it's not worth it.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: And that's how it weighs in. grow exponentially. One side
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: continues to be more enthusiastic and shows up for a
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: variety of reasons, and it's an against election, and the
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: other side doesn't. So this is just yet another way
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: of showing the direction of this election. And remember, the
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Democrats have the easy argument here. They're not running on
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: some grand unified national agenda. Their candidates are often trying
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: to separate themselves from what you might think is the
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: national democratic brand. You should see the anti-trans ad that
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Annie Andrews in South Carolina is running, making it clear
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: she's never performed gender affirming surgeries, doesn't believe in it,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: and is against trans women participating in women's sports. And
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: she did it direct to camera. You've seen a lot
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: of these red state Democrats push back on some of
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: these cultural issues that they think go a bit too far.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: But Democratic voters appear to have a fairly clear idea
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: of what they want on this election. They don't have
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: an agenda they're looking to propose. They simply want to
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: see a brake pedal on Donald Trump, a check on
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: his power, some form of accountability, stop the sort of
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: oleying of anything he wants to do. And then, you know,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: this is where the Republicans who maybe think that Trump
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: deserves a check, they can't bring themselves to vote Democratic.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: So what are they going to do? They're not going
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: to defend a Republican Congress. They're just not going to
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: show up. And they have one other number that might
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: explain this. 44% of registered voters say they're casting their
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: congressional vote against Trump. 19% say they're casting their vote
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: for him. They're pretending he's on the ballot, right? Compare
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: that to 2022, 36% said they were voting against Biden, 19%
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: said they were voting for him. The anti-president vote is
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: eight points higher now than it was in 2022. I mean,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: that's just everything. People, 84 percent of registered voters say
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the economy is very important to their vote. 88 percent
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: of Democratic supporters versus 82 percent of Republican supporters. So
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: universal agreement there. People are worried about the cost of living,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: energy prices and where this war is going.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Keep that in mind as we go through the rest
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: of today's stories, because this is a political environment which
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: the president is making decisions and voters know it. And
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: it is there is no separate Republicans, no matter what
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: they're trying. Many of them haven't done a good job
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: of trying to separate themselves from the president. A handful
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: have tried, but it may be impossible to do it
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: because Trump's going out of his way not to do it.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the Senate a little bit. We
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: got plenty of time discussing how the map is expanded.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: So I'm not going to go through every race again.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: But boy, has the conversation changed. Democratic leaders are openly
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: talking about ending up with 52 seats. They're assuming they
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: net five seats, not just North Carolina and Maine. They're
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: basically looking at the map and saying Alaska, Ohio, Texas, Kansas, Iowa,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: North Carolina, Maine. They believe they're going to win five
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: of those seven. I think they're right. North Carolina, Alaska, Ohio, Texas.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Those four feel like Democrats have the advantage between Kansas,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Iowa and Maine. One would assume they're going to win
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: one of those three. And that gives them their net
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: of five. Do they sweep them all? It's not crazy
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: that they get all seven and they net that and
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: they end up at 54 seats. It is, you know,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine 55 that would bring in Nebraska or
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: South Carolina or Mississippi, right? That's the next three on
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the list. So it's hard to see that. And then,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: of course, you just don't know what happens in Michigan, right?
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: It is pretty clear. What's interesting about Michigan is the
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: fact that it's still a race. Abdul El-Sayed is not
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: put this away. Any other Democrat likely would have this
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: race put away by now in this environment. How do
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: we know this? Just look at other swing, pure swing states, right? Michigan,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: North Carolina, and Georgia, those three have more in common, right?
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Those are the, and where do we sit? Look at
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire. Democrat is up with a more comfortable margin. Now,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: the other theory I have is in some of these
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: blue or blue leaning state, I guess you could argue
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Michigan is closer to being Minnesota than it is North Carolina,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: but I vacillate. Trump did carry it two out of
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: three times, but I do vacillate between that. Is it
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: closer to North Carolina? Is it closer to Minnesota? But
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: that's a wild card and that would certainly upend things.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: And then Jacob Rabashkin, who, of course, is over from
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Inside Elections, notes that a pop-up super PAC showed up
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: in Ohio promoting a third-party socialist candidate named Greg Levy.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: And the poster, send a worker to the Senate, vote
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Greg Levy. And this is an Ohio effort. The point
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: being is you're starting to see some of this Republican
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: super PAC money out of nowhere. You're seeing a promotion
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: of a third-party candidate, a lefty third-party candidate in Nebraska.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: I'm seeing this. I'm seeing a lefty third-party promotion there
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: now in Ohio. And I think you may see more
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: of that in the next couple of weeks. The question
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: I have is how many will any of the Democratic
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: super PACs attempt to do this, say, in a Mississippi, say,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: in a Kansas, frankly, in Iowa, even a Texas, because
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: in all of those cases, you do have a libertarian candidate.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: On Wednesday, I'm going to take a look at the
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: size of these ballots, and we're going to go into
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: these seven Senate races that are, you know, and frankly,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: I'll probably expand it to all 10, and we're going
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: to take a look at the realistic sort of bank
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: shot strategies of trying to do this. And so we'll
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: put a pin in that, and I'll give you more
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: on that on Wednesday. My friend Bruce Melman had a
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: particularly useful chart on Senate races over the weekend, his
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: six-chart Sunday. If you don't subscribe, you're doing yourself a disservice.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Go on Substack. It's a freebie. He went back and
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: looked at the biggest polling misses in October, Senate polling
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: average is in individual states over recent election cycles. And
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: you have to do it over recent election cycles because
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: we didn't really have enough in the 20th century to
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: do analysis like this. And I'm always a little skeptical
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: of these analysis because there is a lot of crappy polling.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to keep it PG-13. It's a lot of
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: crappy polling, particularly on the state level, that too many
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: of these polling aggregation sites treat as if they're the
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: equal of a really quality poll from AARP or Fox
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: News or something like that. But it is interesting and
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: worth noting in Bruce's chart, eight of the 11 Democratic
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: leads he examined are smaller than the largest October polling
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: miss in those states since 2014. What does that mean?
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: It means, you know, the Democrats don't have a lead
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: that's bigger than the worst polling miss that took place
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: in competitive races in that state. essentially, this century. Kansas
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: had the biggest one in there. And it goes back
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: to a 2014, where in October, the independent slash Democratic
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: candidate pulled even, ended up being losing by double digits.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: But that race was different in that Republican. You had
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Pat Roberts was also asleep at the switch, just like
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Roger Marshall. He woke up and then just simply ran
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: against his opponent as a Democrat with the Democrat in
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: the White House. But there's no Democrat in the This
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: is why I think it was easier for Fisher to
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: get out of her bind with Dan Osborne last cycle
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: because Biden was in the White House. Harder for Pete
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Ricketts to get out of this bind in Nebraska because
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: he's defending Trump in the White House. Ditto with Roger Marshall.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: But it is worth noting that 2014, the last time
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: we sort of were here with a Kansas Senate race
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: at this point in time– it ended up being a
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: huge miss. Now, it doesn't mean that polls are going
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: to miss by 15 points this cycle. I think a
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: lot of pollsters are trying to make sure they don't
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: mess up this time. And again, 2014, you had an
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: enthusiastic Republican base in it generally, even if you had
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: an unenthusiastic list of supporters for Pat Roberts in Kansas specifically.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: But it is a reminder that polling averages are not
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: election results and polling averages are there to mislead you.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Don't get caught up in the polling averages. It is,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: it is, it is as it can mislead as much
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: as you think it's giving you, um, interesting information. Now
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I've two historical curiosities I discovered over the weekend. One
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: from my friend, Kirk Beto, uh, over at the hotline, uh,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: something he shared with me in a newsfear, um, interview
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: that please check out newsfear. As you know, it's a, uh, my,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: my show is on there. I hope you've, uh, If
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: you want to take a look, I have deep dive
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: interviews with Jessica Taylor, the Cook Political Report, and Kirk Beto,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: a Hotline editor-in-chief. But Hotline shared a fascinating, Kirk shared
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: a fascinating stat with me. And it goes back to
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: the Republican presidential primaries in 2016. Think about six of
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: the states where Republicans are now defending Senate seats or
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: facing surprisingly competitive races. Texas, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Maine, and Alaska. Okay.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Six of the, you know, the seventh that is on our,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: you know, top tier list here is North Carolina. So
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: that's not on here. Of those six races I just mentioned, Texas, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Maine, Alaska.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Did you know that Donald Trump lost the Republican presidential
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: contest in every one of those states in 2016? Ted
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Cruz won five of them and John Kasich won Ohio. Now,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: what does that mean 10 years later? Is this just
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: an interesting anomaly or is there something here that perhaps
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: is sort of a leading indicator of where Trump's coalition
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: would fracture first, right? The most skeptical people of Trump
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: were in these states that Cruz and Kasich were still
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: able to win in 2016. And if you recall that
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: primary cycle, right? There was this big sort of, you'd
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: see this where Trump would, He sort of had a
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: hard ceiling. And in some of these places, the sort
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: of the, I call it the sort of traditional or
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: establishment wing of the party was a bit more resistant. Well,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: who's growing to become more and more anti-Trump all the time?
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: The old establishment wing of the Republican Party. So look,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: the party's changed enormously and plenty of people who opposed
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Trump in 16 have become loyal supporters. But I don't
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: think it's just a coincidence that so many of the
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: states that initially had larger Republican resistance to Trump than
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: other states are part of the conversation about Senate seats,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: the first some of the redder states that could end
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: up flipping. And why perhaps we should buy in that
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: this is actually these are the states he's always had
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: a looser grip on. He's not had as strong of
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: a grip. Right. Interesting. By the way, Bruce Bellman had
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: another historical nugget that I enjoyed. Do you know you
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: have to go all the way back to Ulysses S.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Grant to find a twice elected president, not consecutive terms, hint, hint,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: a twice elected president who completed his presidency with his
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: own party still controlling the United States Senate. Grant left
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: office in 1877, folks. Since then, Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and don't talk to
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: me about the 18 days he technically Al Gore was
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: in control of the Senate before between January 3rd, 2001
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: to January 20th. Set that aside. Bill Clinton lost his
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: last midterm, Senate control in the last midterm. George W. Bush,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama all finished their presidencies with the opposition essentially
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: controlling the Senate. Seven presidents, seven opposition senates with that
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: weird historical three-week anomaly in 2001 with the 50-50 Senate
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: that had Gore tiebreaker for essentially three Three weeks. And then,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: of course, chaining the tiebreaker. But that's interesting. Now, history
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: doesn't get to cast a ballot in 2026, but it
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: does tell you something about how difficult it's been for
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: any president to maintain political support through the end of
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: a second term. And this second term feels pretty catastrophic
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: compared to, you know, you've got Nixon level bad second term.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: You know, Iran-Contra doesn't seem nearly as much of a
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: weight on Reagan as what this is on him. So
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: this feels like it is a fitting continuation of our history.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: So Trump's trying to do something that hasn't happened in
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: nearly 150 years. And that makes the way he's conducting
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: himself in these closing weeks all the more bizarre. Because
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: if you're trying to accomplish something that historically is difficult,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: would you expect the president to be doing everything possible
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: to help his party? Instead, he feels like he's a
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: closet Democrat in the decisions that he's making. Because instead,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: we're getting complaints about the Nobel Peace Prize and public
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: fights with Ukraine. But before we get there, I want
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: to spend a few minutes on Kansas, because Kansas is
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: the perfect illustration of how an incumbent can be caught
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: completely unprepared for a competitive election. in a competitive political environment.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Roger Marshall is running for reelection now against Adam Hamilton,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: the Democratic pastor who leads one of the largest United
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Methodist congregations in the country. It's a state where Democrats
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: haven't elected a United States senator since 1932. Now, Marshall
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: finds himself in a competitive race, but he clearly never
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: thought he ever would end up here because the stories
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: that are coming out now shows a pretty arrogant dude
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: It's a series of stories that raise serious questions about
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: how he's operated as a senator and as a candidate.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: The Kansas Reflector, working with MSNOW, published an investigation into
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Marshall's use of congressional staff and taxpayer-funded resources during his
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: 2020 campaign. The reporting includes text messages, calendars, recordings, accounts
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: from former staffers. Because one of the more... Interesting details
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: of this piece is that Marshall's campaign finance filings showed
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: no reported payroll expenses for campaign staff over a period
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: of years. His office says the campaign does not have
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: paid staff, and Marshall's representatives insist they complied with all
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: the rules. So how is this political operation functioning just
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: with volunteers? Is that what we're supposed to believe? Well,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: the reporting goes further with allegations that official congressional resources
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: were used for campaign related travel and activities. This is
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: always a tricky thing for sitting members of Congress, which
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: he was when he was seeking the Senate seat the
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: first time they have. But this was pretty revealing and
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: pretty damning. In one text exchange that the reporters got
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: a hold of, Marshall's chief of staff was asked about
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: the primary purpose of a trip, whether it was official
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: business or campaign business. His response was, quote, primary purpose
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: is what we say it is. What an arrogant thing
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: to say. There's a whole bunch of people that have
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: come into the politics in the Trump era who really
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: do believe the rules don't apply to them. And these
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: are the people that have poisoned the Republican Party. These
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: are the people who I worry are being copycatted by
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: the far left of the Democratic Party. But this arrogance
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: that somehow, you know, the rules don't apply to them.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: And that is a pretty arrogant statement. There were also
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: questions about Marshall's Florida home, taxpayer-funded travel, lawsuits. And obviously,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: there have been the lawsuits involving former patients on unpaid
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: medical bills. Now, look, Marshall disputes that these are evidence
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: of wrongdoing. Look, it doesn't matter whether he can technically
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: claim he followed the letter of the law or not.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: This stuff is just proof he was arrogant and thought
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: the rules didn't apply to him. And this is the
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: type of stuff, right? Bad political environments can expose bad candidates.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: This guy's never had to run in a bad political environment.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Now he's running in a bad political environment. And he's
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: finding out what life is like. This is why I
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: have very little confidence this guy can win. Not in
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: this place. In 2014, when Republicans sort of came in
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: and took over the Pat Roberts campaign, Roberts had his
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: own reservoir of support. He represented the state for quite
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: a bit of time. Roger Marshall doesn't have that reservoir
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: of support. There were some personal relationships that helped him out.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Roger Marshall's not a guy with a lot of personal relationships.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: You know, it just feels like you can sort of
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: see the writing on the wall on this one. But
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you, you know when a wave is getting bigger?
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: When you have members of the leadership of the party
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: in power starting to think they could lose too. Go
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: down to North Carolina. Richard Hudson, he's the chair of
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: the House Republican campaign arm, the NRCC. He's now had
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: to reserve extra advertising time in his own district. It's
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: a district Trump won by 15 points. We've talked about
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Kansas is a D plus 16 Trump state. So if
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: this is the environment we're looking at, that's right. Even
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: a Hudson's in trouble. Now, you know, that doesn't mean
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: he's going to lose and maybe it's precautionary, but boy,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: that's what recent history shows, right? In truly large political waves,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: you sometimes see losses nobody anticipated. The big one in 1994, right? Which,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: you know, that's increasingly, is this 2006 for the Democrats
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: or is this going to be the Democrats own 94,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: which they have not had. anything that comes close to
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: what Republicans pulled off in 94. But in 94, Republicans
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: knocked off the sitting Speaker of the House, right? That
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: was a genuinely historic result. I don't know whether we're
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: headed for anything like that this year. But Richard Hudson's
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: smart enough to know his history. And it's like, you
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: better batten down your own hatches. And that brings me
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: back to a larger question. We have a president who's
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: approver rating according to Pews at 30 percent, an electorate
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: where the most engaged voters are expressing a substantially stronger
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: preference for Democrats. And we have Republican incumbents facing competitive
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: races in states that haven't had competition like this in decades.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: And what is the president spending an extraordinary amount of
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: time creating new controversies rather than addressing the problems voters
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: say concern them most? I think Trump in his own
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: head thinks these confrontations demonstrate strength and own the libs
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: and fire up his base. But I don't think he
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: understands the world that his base is living in now.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: I know he believes picking these fights is good politics.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: I just don't think it works anymore. Right. We've got
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: an administration has been doing over the past few days,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: particularly this extraordinary proposal to live stream an execution. I mean,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: let's start with Hegseth. I have to tell you, of
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: all the things this administration has proposed, The idea that
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: the United States government should live stream an execution by
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: firing squad is perhaps the most disturbing thing anybody out
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: of the Trump orbit has proposed and has been doing.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: We thought the aggressive ICE tactics and the murdering of
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: American citizens that has taken place in Minnesota was bad,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: and it's bad. This is grotesque. We're talking about Nadal Hassan.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: He's the former Army psychiatrist convicted of murdering 13 people
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: in Fort Hood in 2009. He wounded dozens more. It
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: was a horrific act of violence. The victims and their
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: family deserve real justice. And nobody should mistake what I'm
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: about to say as any sort of sympathy for Hassan
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: or any attempt to minimize what he did. It needs
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: to rot in a hole for what he did. But
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: what exactly is the purpose of turning his execution into
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: a public spectacle? Hague says people need to understand that
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: there are serious consequences for committing these crimes. What is
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: wrong with you, Pete? Who broke you? I'm sorry you
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: have such broken personality disorder. I don't know whether you
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: have equipment issues that you don't like. I don't know
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: what it is, but man, you are a broken dude.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Does anybody in America not understand that the death penalty
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: means the government executes somebody? I think we know how
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: it works. Do we need to see it? We have
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: a real debate we ought to have about capital punishment.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: What happened in Tennessee was terrible. And, you know, it
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: is easy to have an opinion about capital punishment until
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: you talk to a victim of somebody, you know, the
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: victim or a family member of a victim for a grotesque,
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: violent crime. And then, you know, so I think everybody
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: has to put themselves in the shoes of somebody else
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: on some of these things. But I think that we
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: can see that the death penalty has not served to
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: do what it was supposed to do, which was seek deterrence, right?
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: And that hasn't worked. And the system doesn't do that.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: And in the United States of America, I think there
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: is some pride in making sure we don't execute somebody
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: by accident. And if there's a 1% chance, maybe we
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: ought to not do it. But we're not having a
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: debate about the death penalty. We're having a debate about
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: whether to live stream a firing squad, right? He wants
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: to use the American military to put this on your phones.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: What are we doing? This is the United States military,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: an institution built around the tradition of discipline, professionalism, and
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: the idea that the use of force carries enormous responsibility.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: This is not a video game. This is not some
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: reenactment of Greek mythology, you piece of garbage. Pete Hicks said,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: you really are embarrassing so many of us Americans. Not
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: only should you not be a defense secretary, but you
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: should be dishonorably discharged. Your military record should be stained
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: with even proposing something like this. I keep thinking about
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: the dystopian movies from the 80s, right? You remember The
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Running Man with Arnold Schwarzenegger, where society becomes so degraded
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: that state-sponsored violence is turned into mass entertainment? Is this
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: what Pete Hegseth grew up watching and idolizing? Man, what
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: a broken mind. He's kind of, look, the fact is,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: as much as I get like, he really just, I
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: get worked up on this guy. I fully, there's, you know,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: when you see somebody who's not just incompetent, but like
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: is defiantly incompetent and so broken and all these things.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, he needs help. He clearly does. Because if
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: you're thinking this way, imagine thinking that there's an audience
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: for this. Who does he believe wants to watch the
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: government execute somebody? What's wrong with his mind that he
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: wants to show this and see this? Think about the
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: fact that he thinks that maybe this is somehow appealing
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: to the Republican base. Think about what that assumption says
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: about how this administration views its own supporters. I know
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: plenty of people who voted for Donald Trump because they
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: wanted to shake up Washington. They want to send a
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: message to people in mainstream media. They were frustrated with
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: the political establishment. They wanted some tougher immigration enforcement. Maybe
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: some of them thought the Republicans could handle the economy better.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: I don't believe these people signed up to watch the
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: government execute prisoners and wanted the defense secretary to become
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: a snuff film producer. And I don't think we should
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: casually assume they did. There's a difference between wanting the
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: government to enforce the law and wanting the government to
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: celebrate its ability to kill somebody. That distinction, I think,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: matters to real conservatives and people that support liberal, small
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: L democracy and pluralism. If you support showing this off,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: you're not a sponty Democrat. You're not for democracy. You're
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: for some perverted form of authoritarianism. Glad to see J.D.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Vance is publicly uncomfortable with this. But this is not
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: a conversation. This is not a debate. Think about the
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: position it puts members of the military in. There's already
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: one religious freedom advocate saying he didn't want his children
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: or family watching him pull the trigger. He's asked not
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: to be included. Imagine the people that have to perform
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: the firing squad. Who signed up to the military to
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: do this? It doesn't simply degrade the prisoner, regardless of
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: his crimes. It risks degrading the people. The government is
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: asking to carry out the sentence. And for what? What's
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: the national interest in showing this off? And I keep
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: coming back that apparently it's just an obsession or a
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: fascination with just demonstrating power. Look at the power we have.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: So what, you arrogant fuck? Pardon my language, but I just,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: this is grotesque. Brings me to Marco Rubio, the chameleon
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: of the Republican Party, who always is looking to rationalize
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: his perversion of conservatism. He gave a speech about Western
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: civilization in the ancient Greeks. Now, I want to be
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: fair to Rubio because there's a worthwhile conversation to be
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: had about what defines Western civilization and what we've inherited
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: from the Greeks and Romans and what makes every society strong.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: I don't think every attempt to talk about courage, ambition, competition,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: and national pride should automatically be dismissed. But Rubio's speech
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: was fascinating for what he chose to emphasize and what
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: he chose to downgrade. He talked about the Greek concept
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: of thumos, this idea of spiritedness, passion, courage, pride, the
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: desire to compete and distinguish yourself. And he argued that
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: it was the spirit of competition and striving that was
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: central to the development of Western civilization. There's certainly some
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: truth to that. Greeks valued competition. They competed in athletics, politics, philosophy,
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: and war. Their histories filled with rivalry, ambition, and pursuit
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: of excellence. but Rubio chose to ignore other parts of
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: the Greeks. We have a tendency to look backwards through
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: history and find the parts that validate whatever we already
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: believe about the present. If you believe military strength and
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: the willingness to fight are the defining characteristics of a
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: successful civilization, plenty of evidence in ancient Greece. But if
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: you believe the defining achievement of Western civilization was the
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: development of reason, philosophy, inquiry, and eventually institutions designed to
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: constrain the arbitrary exercise of power. Well, you can find
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: plenty of evidence of that too. The Greeks gave us Sparta,
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: but they also gave us Athens. They gave us Socrates
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: and Plato and Aristotle. And they gave us the idea
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: that we should question authority, examine our assumptions and use
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: reason rather than simply force to settle disputes. It's a
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: pretty important part of their inheritance. They basically created politics.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: And you know, I say it all the time, We
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: created politics so that we didn't have to resolve every
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: dispute with violence. That is an advancement in Western civilization,
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: Secretary Rubio, not just showing off your ability to run
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: or jump. Now, Jonah Goldberg and Andrew Sullivan, two conservative thinkers,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: I always am curious how they react to something like this.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: They both had interesting critiques of the Rubio speech. And
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: I think you should take a look at both of them.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: They're always tremendous to read. I enjoy reading both of them. witty, funny, smart,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: all of the above. And they get at something pretty
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: important about this effort to elevate competition, willpower, and the
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: pursuit of glory into defining virtues of civilization. It's obviously
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: a selective reading of history. And when that happens, it
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: fit rather neatly with the worldview some of the people
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: running this administration have. And that's what connects Rubio's speech
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: to Hegseth's proposed execution spectacle, this fascination with the performance
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: of power. Strength has to be demonstrated. Dominance has to
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: be visible. The willingness to impose your will on somebody
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: becomes a virtue in and of itself. But there's another
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: tradition in Western civilization, folks. One that says power is
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: most legitimate when it's restrained by law, by institutions, and
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: by a recognition of human dignity. And you know what?
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: Last time I checked, I thought that was a pretty
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: conservative idea. The American founders were deeply suspicious of concentrated power.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: They weren't simply trying to create a government strong enough
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: to oppose its will and use the firing squad to
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: show off its power. They wanted a government that could
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: exercise necessary authority without becoming arbitrary about it. That's why
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: we have checks and balances, an attempt at an independent
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: judiciary and protection for individual rights. And we didn't. Those
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: restraints aren't signs of weakness. Donald Trump thinks the Miranda
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: rights are a sign of weakness. All right. He doesn't
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: understand our republic at all. And it's ignorance with him.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: And we know that. I wish it were, you know,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: there's always been a frustration with Trump for so many
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: of us.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: He's basically, you know, I've always said he's too lazy
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: to be Hitler because he just doesn't he just doesn't
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: want to do the work that would be necessary to
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: do something like this. But, you know, his critique of
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: of of American governance and his critique of American government
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: and his critique of the use of American power is
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: just It comes across as somebody who didn't even bother
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: to read the founding documents, didn't even bother to read
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: a Federalist paper, let alone all the Federalist papers. But look,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: we're seeing this confusion between power and accomplishment and other
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: parts of administration. There was another story this week involving
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: Kimberly Guilfoyle and the grifters, the little grifters, right? Allegations
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: of success and influence, access, all that crap. And it
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: reminded me of the Wall Street Journal piece we discussed
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: last week about Scott Besson. and the way the Treasury
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: Department has been operating. Now, these are all supposedly different
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: stories involving different people, and the allegations are all, you know, sure,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: judge them on their own merits, but they certainly offer
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: a window into the administration, right? And what they all
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: believe how this administration works. Cultivation of access, the importance
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: of personal relationships, the mixing of institutional responsibilities with politics,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: Public service no longer should be distinguishable from personal or
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: political advantage, right? So the controversies may be different, but
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: they're not isolated. This is all the example being set
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: at the top, right? And that brings me to Lisa
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: Cook and the Federal Reserve. Trump's been trying to remove
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: Cook from the Federal Reserve Board because they They created,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: they manufactured allegations about mortgage documents. He was just trying
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: to get more people. Remember what his motivation was. And
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: then so they manufactured, they think they found something on
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: mortgage fraud. They didn't find it, but they're sticking to
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: their guns anyway. Now it's been denied. The Supreme Court's
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: weighed in, all these things. Well, the Supreme Court said
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: she was entitled to procedural protections before the president could
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: remove her. So now Trump has basically followed The order
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: of the Supreme Court created a committee of inquiry to
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: examine allegations and hold a hearing next month. You think
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: this is going to be a fair hearing or a
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: kangaroo court, right? We know this. This process is supposed
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: to design to be about determining facts independently. But we
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: kind of know if Trump's creating the committee what he
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: wants out of this, right? Because the committee includes Kevin Hassett, right?
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: His personal economist. They're all Trump appointees. So it's not
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: really a genuine committee. It's just checking a box that
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said he had to check. And then
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: he's going to try to remove her again. We'll see
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: if they're able to pull it off. But it may
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: not matter because he's tanked the economy anyway. And there's
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: nothing he could do. Even Kevin Warsh isn't going to
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: follow it. his path of destruction of lower interest rates,
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: even when inflation is over 3%. So I think all
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: those stories belong together. And there's one other. The first
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: involves the Attorney General Todd Blanch. My old colleague, Allie Rogan,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: we worked together at NBC. She's at PBS NewsHour, and
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: she obtained an internal Justice Department memo that now changes
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: the department's guidance concerning political activity by senior officials. Basically,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: Todd Blanch is tired of being criticized and accused by
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: people like me that he has basically destroyed the reputation
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: of the Justice Department. He's overly politicizing it. He's violating
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: all these norms. So what does he do? He's changing
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: the interpretation of the laws themselves so it looks like
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: he's not violating any laws. I mean, it is a joke.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, Blanche is trying to not look like he's
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: breaking a law or breaking a Justice Department advisory. So
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: he's going ahead and changing the interpretation of laws. Now,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: the department says it's simply clarifying existing law. Please. He's
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: just loitering. standards so that he can sit here and
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: politicize this thing. It is just awful what he's doing.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: And it's funny. Kennedy is literally, his stuff is killing people.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: This is not a metaphorical charge, right? His actions have
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: led to deaths, have led to people getting sicker. So
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: there's no doubt to me, Kennedy is the worst of
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: all of them, right? Pete Exeth is a close second
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: for what he's doing because we're killing, and Blanche and
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: the entire, because we are illegally targeting people in the
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Caribbean with no legal justification whatsoever. And the Justice Department
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: and the Pentagon are in cahoots on this. You've had
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: generals choose retirement over following this unconstitutional order. So here
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: we are. And that brings me back to Donald Trump himself.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: There was another remarkable example of his narcissism over the weekend, right?
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: When the president once again took to social media to
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: complain about the Nobel Peace Prize. He's just got it
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: in his head, right? It all goes back to his
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: obsession with Obama. If Obama has something, he wants it, right?
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize and yeah, He certainly
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: got awarded the Peace Prize before he did anything. It
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: was the strangest. There's no doubt it deserves sort of
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: a little bit of critique. And even Obama, in his
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: acceptance of the Peace Prize, understood it was for something
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: they were hopeful for, not necessarily something that had taken place. Hey, man,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: the Nobel Committee, they can do whatever the heck they want.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: But Trump really wants one badly. And he just, you know,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: it's in his own head that he deserves one. And
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: he thought he could do what Teddy Roosevelt did, which
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: is essentially bully the committee into getting one. And he's
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: never going to get one. And in fact, it's funny.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: He claims he's ended all these wars, except we're still
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: involved with the war in Iran. The Houthis have attacked
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: civilian infrastructure in Saudi Arabia again over the weekend. Russia
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: continues its war against Ukraine. Trump's helping the Russians in
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: their war against Ukraine with this ridiculous deal on diesel,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: which he could have done with the Canadians. So Trump
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: has advanced the cause of war more in his second
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: term than he's done anything. And he claims to have
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: ended wars that never were started in the first place.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: But here we are. He's involved in a war that
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: has caused economic problems globally, is causing him political problems domestically,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: and he wants a Nobel Peace Prize for accomplishing what?
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: What has he done? And if instead he's now buying off,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: he's helping with Putin. And here he goes again, every time.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: He could have done this deal with the Canadians, but
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: he chose to do it with the Russians who are
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: helping the Iranians in their war against our allies and
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: against us. None of this makes sense. And you know
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: where you end up going back to. You're like, geez,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: why does Donald Trump always do the unusual thing and
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: it always involves Putin? I don't know. What could it
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: freaking be? I mean, you know, it's one of those,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: you know, pick your cliche, you know. Don't pee on
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: my leg and tell me it's raining. And man, does Trump,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: pee on our leg all the time when it comes
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: to all things Putin and Russia. And no, I didn't
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: do that to stumble onto some other part of the
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: Russia conspiracy that some of you may be smiling about
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: right now. I am just literally picking one of my
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: favorite Southern metaphors. But my God, every time He takes
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: the side of the Russians every time. Now, maybe it's
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: just because he thinks Zelensky doesn't like him. But come on.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're literally doing a deal that runs counter
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: to a bill you signed a week or so ago.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, like, good luck, Darlene Graham. Your signature achievement
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: is getting your late brother's sanctions bill against Russia passed.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: And your patron politically just completely sold your brother's legacy
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: down the river, Darlene Graham. But you will never, you know,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: you have no choice but to salute and say, yes, sir,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: may I have another? Because your political career wouldn't exist
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: without Donald Trump. But here we go. I know we're
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: not supposed to. Oh, Jesus. That investigation is over. Well,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: an investigation never happened, just so you know, because it
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: was nothing but obstruction during the investigative portion of this.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: But regardless, whether he is an asset of the Russians,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: he's behaving like an asset of the Russians. That in
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: itself should be enough to frustrate a man. But Here
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: we are. Now, you know, I give the Ukrainians credit.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: They're always looking for a way to try to they
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: they're just so afraid of losing American support that Trump
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: will just willy nilly pull it. And, you know, we
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: don't he doesn't get much American support, but he gets
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: just enough. Because there are certain things Trump won't do,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: but I'll tell you. There's already some Republican members of
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: Congress trying to nullify this deal with congressional action. This
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: lame duck, if Republicans lose badly in this election, and
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: it's a bigger wave than we're all anticipating, the impeachment
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: for Pete Hegseth, I think, goes up. The odds of
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: that goes up substantially. And the second is this deal
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: with Russia gets nullified. And it may get veto-proof type
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: of support. But forget any of this. This is what
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: Trump's concentrating on. He thinks this is going to lower diesel.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: It's not going to do anything for the price of
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: diesel before Election Day. But he did signal to our
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: allies that we're going to sell Ukraine down the river.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: And we're once again going to support the Russians who
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: are supporting the Iranians in a war that we're supposedly
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: involved with the Iranians. but none of this helps his party.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: Whether he's trying to pick a fight with the press,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: whether he's all these things that he's doing, he's, well,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: as I said last week, bad gets worse. And it's
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: only getting worse. All right, we're going to sneak in
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: a break. And when we come back, my conversation with
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: somebody who wants to push back on AI doomerism, it
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: is James Pethokoukis. And I'm do think you'll enjoy this conversation.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: Let's take a break. We'll see on the other side.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: So my guest today is somebody that I've come to
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: admire and read simply by reading his sub stack. It's
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: a Jim Pethokoukis. And I now use his vocabulary sometimes.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: The people that subscribe to his publication, he refers to
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: as up-wingers. And I guess the simplest way to explain
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: that is he's an optimist about the future. That doesn't
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: mean he's naive about how we get there. His day job,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: he's a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. And
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: you guys know how I feel about AEI. AEI is
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: sort of where I originally thought conservatives, many conservative people
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: wanted to be. It is in a fight for the
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: definition of conservatism these days, but we could set that
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: part aside. But the fact is, a lot of people
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: I admire that work over at AEI, and Jim is
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: one of them, and he joins me now. I want
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: to talk a little bit AI, a little bit of optimism,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: and a little bit about what he does for his
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: day job, which is to be thinking about economic growth
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: and innovation. Jim, it's nice to meet you.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: Chuck, great to meet you. Thanks so much for having
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: me on.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: So let's start with some of the language you use,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: because like I say, you write a lot about AI
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: these days. You write a lot about what's going on
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: in the world of tech. And you do come at
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: it not like you're just optimistic for optimistic's sake, but
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: you're always glasses half full, up winger. As how you
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: describe yourself. So explain that language first, up winger, down winger,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: what you mean by this? And am I am I
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: being a bit superficial in describing your worldview?
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: I think most of what I write about, I mean,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: what got me interested, I mean, the reason I'm interested
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: in AI is because I'm interested in economic growth, the
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: ability for good, I mean, I work at a think tank,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: so I think public policy matters to help create the
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: conditions where economies can grow faster, like I said, improve
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: living standards. These economies can come up with great things
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: We can come up with technologies to solve our problems.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: So I have a great interest in that. There's a
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: famous saying in economics, once you begin thinking about economic growth,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: it's hard to think about anything else. And that's sort
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: of always been me.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: I'm like a sci-fi.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: Person from when I was a kid, so I've had
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: that aspect. But what really got me, I think, especially
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: interested is sort of this period since the global financial crisis,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: where we've had both both an economic shock. And then
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: we've had, since then, we've had like the pandemic shock.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: And we had, now we've had like this inflation shock.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: And that sort of pessimism where people begin thinking like
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: their kids were not going to be better off than them,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: that the American dream is dead, huge numbers saying the
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: economy's on the wrong track. So all that's been happening
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: at the same time. And I think it's causal that we've.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: Had a very.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: A weak economy by historic standards. And often, I'm sure
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: you get this question, which is, what explains the rise
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: of populism? Well, to me, the easiest explanation is we've
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: had a very disappointing economy peppered by various shocks. Now,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 3: it's almost 20 years. For me, the Great Recession, financial crisis,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: it doesn't feel like it's that long ago.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: But it's been 20 years of tumult.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: And economic growth can not only solve problems, give us
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 3: great things we want to buy, but make us optimistic
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: about the future. And that's why I'm excited about AI,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: because I think it can help restore a faster pace
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: of economic growth and I think really change our politics.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting you say it's 20 years. I
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: kind of think I'd go back to 9-11. I go
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: all the way back. I think it's sort of we've
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: been in this tumult. And I think about this a
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: lot with millennials, right? And sort of the world. And
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: they came into versus the world. You and I came, right?
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: You know, when we came of age, I think I'm
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: presuming your age correctly. America was winning. We were the
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: lead country. Democracy was winning, right? The whole end of
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: history business, right? This is it. We got it. We
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: won it. And then. starting with 9-11, and it feels
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: like the first 25 years of this century have been
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: nothing but shocks, right? You started at the Great Recession.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: That's why I would move it back a couple, you know,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: essentially seven years sooner, because it has been shock after
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: shock after shock. And we may categorize it, well, here's
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: economic shock over here. Here's global, you know, sort of
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: shock over here. But for the average person, they're sort
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: of feeling it the same. And I guess, I guess
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: the question is, is this a, because I'm also one
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: of those folks who accepts the premise that, you know,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: if you look at things from 60,000 feet, they've actually
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: done nothing but get better. We've gotten more people out
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: of poverty. We've keep, we are saving more lives than
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: ever because of advances in health and things like that.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: Why do you think, how much of this is sort
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: of just our information diet that puts us in a
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: bad mood constantly.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: I don't think that helps. I don't think that doom
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: scrolling helps.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: And there's like a cognitive bias showing that people tend to,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: we're more likely to anchor on bad news than good news.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: Think about the compliments. Do you remember the positive compliments
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: or the one negative commenter you have on your newsletter? Right.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, who, like... The most famous example is who
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: calls in the radio shows?
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: People who complain. Newspaper headlines aren't playing land safely. It's
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: playing crashes. So people, we have a tendency to focus
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: on negative news. And I certainly think that that's playing
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: a role. And I think the current debate about AI...
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 3: You know, listen, ChatGPT came out, you know, late November 2022.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: And as I remember it, we had about two weeks
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: where people, you know, there were stories like, hey, there's
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: this weird new technology and you can have like Winston
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: Churchill do a rap song and crazy videos.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: And, you know, wow, people are playing with it.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: And then quickly it became popular.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: Sure, it's kind of fun, but it's probably going to.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: Take your job. And then after it takes your job,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: it will probably kill you. Hey, have you seen The Terminator?
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: And those two through lines, massive economic disruption for a
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: country that's had a lot of disruption, and then that's
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: sort of what they now call existential risks, have just
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: dominated the conversation where the potential upsides are sort of Yeah, okay,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: maybe it'll improve growth.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: Maybe it'll cure this, cure that.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: Gets kind of a hand wave where by far, and
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: obviously one reason is because the AI companies themselves have
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: been saying this, but that focus on the downside, I
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: think is really destructive. And I was making the point
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: earlier about like the impact of, of an economy that's growing,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: but not so fast that people sort of perceive it
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: as growing, and not so fast they have a lot
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: of optimism about the future. I think it's been super
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: destructive for our politics for 20 years, and I don't
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: want to see what our politics looks like 20 more
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: years of.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: Wages kind of rising, and right now they're falling. I
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: think we underestimate the impact.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: There's a wonderful study about why people support democracy. The
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: basic reason is not because we're all philosophers and we
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: spend a lot of time reading Founding Fathers. It's because democracy,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: liberal democracy, delivers. It has delivered a better standard of living.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: It has delivered a society that feels safe. And if
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: it's not delivering that, you start hearing more voices saying,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: maybe there's another way, even though history suggests those other
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: ways are pretty terrible in the long run.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: Look, I don't know which is– cause and effect here?
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: Do we not have the leadership to meet the moment
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: because we're so discombobulated, right? We're not quite sure where
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: to go. Is this a chicken and egg? Do we
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: have the wrong leaders for the wrong time? Or do
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: you think we eventually realize we have the wrong leaders
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: and we're going to start looking for ones that are
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: stabilizing forces? I mean, right now, what we could use, right,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: with AI, it's pretty obvious to me, right? We need
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: an empathetic president, right? He's not, empathy is not what
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: he does. He's never done empathy. This is, to me,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: the greatest, it's got a lot of flaws. That's a
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: big one. If you have a president with no empathy
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: and doesn't know how to do it, you can't do
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: part of the job. That's just, and he is just
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: incapable of this. But this needs an empathetic moment, like, hey,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: This technology, it's amazing and it's scary at the same time, right?
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: We need, and he doesn't have that in him. And
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know where else we would turn for this person, for,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: you know, essentially we need this, you know, parental type
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: figure as we do this massive transition. And is that
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: something you expect voters to seek out? Or are we
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: just got to hope we find a leader to meet
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: the moment?
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean, sort of the worst thing Like
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: the worst political strategy is to tell people you're wrong
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: about the way you perceive your life.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: That's always bad politics. When you tell the voter they're wrong–
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: by the way, they might be wrong. It doesn't matter.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: The customer is always right. And in this case, the
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: voter is the customer.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: You can't say, I know you think life's getting worse,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 3: but listen, I have these great three statistics. I'm going
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 3: to show them to you. No, I mean, that doesn't
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: work in real life. I guarantee you, as you know,
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: it does not work on social media. You certainly have
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: to acknowledge these are actual concerns. And I think some
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 3: of what you're seeing happening, you know, in the administration, like,
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 3: you know, with AI is, you know, they just announced
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: this sort of, you have an AI commission and there's
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: kind of an AI czar and they're going to come
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: back with a report. I think all of that is
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: kind of trying to like meet those concerns.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: And it feels like papering, they don't seem serious about it.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: And it's not, it's letting the companies decide this, which-
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: You know, after our experience with social media, I understand
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: why most of the public just doesn't trust these tech
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: companies to do the right thing. No.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: Right. So I... So... One example I like to think
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: about is the Drudge Report, which still exists.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: It's not what it was. But if you spent years
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: reading the Drudge Report, what you read was Silicon Valley
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: people are rich and weird. And I think a lot
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: of people think Silicon Valley people, even richer, and they're
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: actually getting even weirder. So do I trust these people?
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: No, there's not a lot of trust. Also, obviously, these
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: are the same people saying.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: We have this great technology and there's X percent chance.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: And that percent chance doesn't seem to be one in
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: a billion that it'll do something bad. So a lot
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: of this anxiety is being generated. And yeah, would it
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: be great to have a president who you felt like
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: had a really good grasp on like what this technology did,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 3: like how, what are like the realistic upsides and downsides
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: and met that in a way where you.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: You had confidence.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: I guarantee I have a more, light touch, more confidence
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: in markets approach toward regulation than probably the average American,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: maybe many of your listeners and viewers. But I also
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: feel like I understand sort of the limits to that approach.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 3: I understand why people are skeptical of that approach. And
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: I think it would be great to have a president
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: who just didn't say, listen, this is going to be
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: like super terrific self-regulation throughout some, I mean, What came
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: out of that meeting where the president had this meeting
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: with tech leaders and it was like, it was typical
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 3: Trump speak. It's going to be like the most amazing
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: self-regulation ever. And it's going to be the super best.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: That stuff obviously is not calming. And I think this
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 3: is an important technology. And I and I hate it
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 3: that like 70 percent of people are seem to be
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: like super worried about it.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: And it's growing. That number is only growing. I mean, look,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: and I sort of put the blame on the administration
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: here because in some ways they don't have the credit.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: They don't have credibility at the moment with a large
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: chunk of the public. So their optimism actually boomerangs.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: It's like the more he trumpets it, the more there's
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: resistance simply to resist him, I think.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: So. Right.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: And listen, there is deep skepticism among many Americans of
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 3: the president. So if he's going to say, hey, these
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 3: companies can sort of self-regulate like the waters, you know,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 3: that's like that's already spoiled for half the country who
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 3: aren't going to believe it, which is a problem.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: I think if you can like set that aside, there's
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 3: actually like a lot of– and if you are concerned
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: about AI, like stuff is happening. Like these– listen, I
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: don't have a lot of confidence and ability of Congress to.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: Regulate any of this stuff.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: I've been waiting for my– remember the Privacy Bill of Rights?
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: Remember that movement? It was about 20– I remember it
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: went back almost 2006. These are good examples, yeah.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: And the Privacy Bill of Rights in the 2006 midterms,
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: I remember a candidate in Montana named John Tester that
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: like trumpeted this idea of a Privacy Bill of Rights.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: And this was a thing and you could see this.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: We've yet to see anything like that, right? We never,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: you know, Congress couldn't figure out how to protect our
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: privacy from Web 2.0. You know, so I'm with you.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know what they can do and yet- you know,
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: if not them, who?
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: Like, like that should be your, I think that should
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 3: be your baseline. You know, for all the concerns about
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 3: social media, whether it's privacy, whether it's how they moderate,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: whether there's bias, I mean, really tech policy up until
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: the end of November, 2022 was about exactly those issues.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: So if you did tech policy in Washington, you were,
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: you weren't talking about AI, you're talking about social media and,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 3: Bills proposed, the public expressing concerns, nothing happened. I don't
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 3: want to overlearn that lesson, but I think that's a
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 3: good baseline that you're not going to see government action,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 3: certainly not under this president who may do something through
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: the executive order. I think if you're looking for Congress
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 3: to pass a big bill in the next two years
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 3: signed by President Trump, that's not going to happen. The
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 3: president seems very optimistic about self-regulation. And so if you're
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 3: concerned about it, you better hope he's right, because that's
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 3: what we're going to get.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 2: And I think there are some reasons to be positive
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: about that.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: Well, give me some reasons to be positive about it. Right.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 3: Well, I think, listen, people think about regulation and, you know,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 3: I've certainly, you know, seen this in the media.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: They really underestimate regulation. the risk companies.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 3: Undertake when they release a product, either that product doesn't
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 3: work and no one wants to buy the product, or
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 3: the product's harmful and they get sued. Those issues, reputational
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: risk and actual being sued, are not trivial incentives to
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: be safe. And already we're seeing with these companies, which yes,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 3: they've asked government to act, government doesn't seem like it's
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 3: going to act anytime soon, and they're taking actions, they're
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, they did agree to bring in these independent
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 3: monitors to verify what they're doing, their safety practices. More importantly,
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 3: they've begun slowing down their research. They've begun slowing down
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 3: releasing models. Incrementally, I think they would love for government
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 3: to tell them what to do. It's kind of a
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 3: CYA thing, and they say government's forcing us to do it,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: and they're forcing everybody to do it so no one
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 3: can catch up to us. But with that not happening,
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 3: they are taking actions. Now, listen, if your goal is
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: banning all super intelligence at the pursuit of super AI
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 3: like Bernie Sanders won, it's not going to be nearly enough.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: But I think we have a new technology. It's fast evolving.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 3: I don't think you want to rush to start banning things, 100%
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 3: pausing things. I think for better or worse, we're going
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 3: to have to learn.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: On the fly. I know Sam Maltman was talking to
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: Politico when he said, like, there needs to be like,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: things are going to go wrong, right?
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: Well, that line was a little haunting. I mean, look,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: I totally got what he said. And in fact, I
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: kept thinking about airplanes. And I think that metaphor is
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: apt because, you know, air travel first was very much
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: regulated by government. And then we had commercial airliners. And
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: I wonder if there's something there. But you know how
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: some people are the wrong people to say certain things? Hey, Sam,
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: you're the wrong person to start talking about. Things could
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: go wrong and we just have to accept it. It's like,
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: he's right. It's going to happen. We know this. There's
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff that happens. Like, you know, um,
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: I get that, but that's why you want government. I mean,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: let me give you a, a metaphor in the airlines. Um, would,
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: would you be comfortable getting rid of the NTSB and
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: the FAA and letting the airlines figure this out on
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: their own?
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 3: Uh, I'd probably be more comfortable than many people would be.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 3: I'd probably be more comfortable.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: Do you think you'd be the minority on that?
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: A lighter touch. Listen, everybody's going to have a different
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: risk tolerance. And mine has changed over the years where
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: I had small children. I had very low risk tolerance.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: I have adult children. It's gone up a bit. But
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: I think the issue.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 3: You're identifying, what is our societal risk aversion level? What
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: will we demand of these companies? Is it Is it
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 3: zero accidents? Is it zero serious accidents?
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, that could be something we could try to
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: demand and we'll probably get like.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: Isn't that our demand on airplanes? We've decided that any
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: crash needs to be researched to figure out how to
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: make sure that never happens again.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's great.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: So we do have a pretty high bar of intolerance
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: on that, wouldn't you say?
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 3: Listen, when there are any kind of like serious incidents,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 3: would I be for like a serious investigation?
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: I would.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 3: I especially would as a way of, I think, building
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 3: public confidence. I think that matters.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: And again, I don't want to, like I said, I
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: don't want to overlearn sort of the lesson of social media.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 2: But there's like the other lesson that like I bring
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: up again and again in my newsletter, and I don't
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: want to overlearn it. is our experience with nuclear power.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up. I think we screwed us.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: No, no, no.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: I was where I was going to go if you didn't,
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: because I'm with you. I, you know, I feel like
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: we lost out on this incredible technology. We should have
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: clean energy already. We have this clean energy technology. And,
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: you know, Three Mile Island, was bad, but it's, it,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: it didn't, it's always been what it could have been,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: not what it, what it was. And I know people don't,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: you know, want to, but, but I, I'm, I think
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: that's where you're going. Are you not?
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 3: It is, which was a massive societal overreaction that failed
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 3: to consider what actually happened, that failed to consider the
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 3: opportunity costs, which now seems very obvious. I mean, we
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 3: spent years thinking about climate change. Now, would we be
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 3: talking about it if we had 1,000 nuclear reactors coast
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 3: to coast?
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 2: Maybe not.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 3: Would we be worrying how we're going to power like
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 3: the AI revolution, if we had coast-to-coast nuclear reactors, which
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 3: now might be fusion reactors, who knows?
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: You can mention Three Mile Island.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 3: You can mention the meltdown in Japan in 2020 where
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 3: they shut down all the reactors. And then a few
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 3: years later, they started firing them all back up again
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 3: because they were having power shortages. More people died from
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 3: the burning coal and oil and the pollution than they
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: ever did from Fukushima.
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: That tsunami, that Fukushima incident, I believe, correct me if
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: I'm wrong on the timeline, But that accident happens, I think,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: a month after Barack Obama signed off on the first
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: new nuclear reactor that we were going to build. And
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: it was like, you know, here you had it was
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: basically Obama had brought the left along on this, had
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: brought the environment and the environmental community is still now divided,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: is now more divided on. nukes where you have the
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: anti-nuke crowd, but then you have the those that are like, no,
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: it's the clean energy answer.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: And it was the momentum was in the on the
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: side of the pro-nuke side. And then that happens. And
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: it literally the world shut down nuclear power, it felt like.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: Germany, which nothing happened, they also shut down the country
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: and shutting down their nuclear reactors.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they got into bed with the Russians. That
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: worked out real well.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 2: Right. So there are opportunity costs. There are unintended consequences.
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 3: But Japan figured that out very quickly, and they've begun
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 3: restarting those reactors. So the lesson here is, one, there
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 3: are unintended consequences. There are opportunity costs. And it's so easy, again,
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 3: I think just because we're naturally inclined that way, to
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 3: just not assume those opportunity costs of the good stuff
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 3: we won't have as we hyper-focus. Not to mention, and
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 3: it's something I write about, listen, for 50 years, I mean,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 3: so much of our media has been saying, be careful
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 3: of AI, be careful of robots, they're gonna get you.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 3: And you see those kinds of cultural touchstones repeated in many,
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 3: many news stories. And that's, I mean, if you cannot envision, listen, AI,
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 3: there will be accidents. Some people will lose jobs. It
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 3: will be disruptive. But if we cannot imagine a future
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 3: that's better because of it, then we're not going to
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 3: accept it.
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: Then we won't.
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 3: Then forget about a ban. People won't use the technology. Now,
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 3: people are using the technology. Everyone's frightened of it, but
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 3: we're using it massively. So there's an economic theory called
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 3: revealed preference.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: Our revealed preference is we find AI pretty useful. Also,
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 2: if anyone asks us about it, we'll say we'll hate it.
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: Is there good enough statistics to compare sort of the
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: acceptance of the personal computer, the growth of using, you know,
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: putting a computer in the house to, you know, in hindsight,
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize how much of a upwinger my late
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: father was, but we had an Apple IIc in our
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: house and we didn't have a lot of money, but
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: he really wanted to.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: Get- That was an expensive computer.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He really wanted to try to, he had heard
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: about this system where you could plug your phone in
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: and you could get stock ticker stuff 15 minutes delayed.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: And this was in like 1985, I want to say 86.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: You know, first we tried a TRS computer, RadioShack computer,
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: because we were on a budget. That didn't work out
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: so well. So finally, we got an Apple IIc. And
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: I guess what I would, you know, at the time,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: I think I was on the early side of friends,
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: with computers in the house. Do we have a comparison
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: of personal computers in the house and AI adaption? How
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: fast are we seeing this shift into adopting AI? It's
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: incredibly fast.
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 3: It's incredibly fast on a personal level. It doesn't seem
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 3: like it, but it's also very, very fast on a
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 3: business level, which is what a lot of this is about.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 3: The reason all this money is being poured into building
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 3: data centers is under the assumption that businesses will be
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 3: able to use this technology in a really productive way,
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 3: far more than even the PC and the internet.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: People are like, well, it's been four years. Like, where's
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 2: it at? Like, where's all the big gains for business?
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 3: And they're not reporting them yet. In fact, I spend
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 3: a lot of time listening to business earnings calls. And
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 3: whenever they talk about AI, it's still mostly like in
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 3: the future tense. Like, we have a lot of confidence
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 3: this will generate revenue. It will help us come up
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 3: with new products. But it's still very future-oriented. And for
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 3: some people, they're like, well, this is a phony technology.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 3: We're creating this investment bubble, and it's not useful. But
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 3: the history of technology takes a long time for it
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 3: to become productive, for businesses to figure out how to
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 3: use it. So based on our expectation scale, it seems
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 3: super slow. But whether it's personal adoption or business, it's
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 3: actually happening.
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: Extremely quickly, though it may not. Again, I know it
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem like it.
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: Well, let's use the internet, right? Commercial internet, 1992. How
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: would you, where do we trace back the beginning of.
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: Sort of- So like the early 90s, and then by
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: like 95, 96, it was really taking off.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: Right. And then you have, but it really was, I
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: think when broadband got to the house, which is the
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: early aughts, right? And sort of where I think where
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: we got over 50% on that. Is that the line
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: with which business started to see productivity gains, like the
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: actual productivity gains from the internet?
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: We're actually happening in the 90s.
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 2: Right. So it depends on how you want to look.
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: So we saw really huge productivity gains in the 1990s.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: Because we had the PC and the internet together.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 3: Now, if you want to mark the beginning at the
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 3: first personal computer or the first computer, it took a
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 3: very long time. And obviously, that was the joke in economics,
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 3: is that the computer had been around for the 60s,
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 3: the 70s, and the 80s. And there were no measurable
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 3: productivity gains really.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: Into the late 1990s. But it wasn't until the internet.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: It wasn't until we networked all these computers that we
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: really got there.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 2: And then it was easy. Yeah.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 3: That's the story of globalization, being able to communicate with
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 3: people and track packages and shipping containers all across the globe.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 2: Now, if you talk to the economists who are really
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: trying to track this, I'd say they're still somewhat disappointed
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 2: it hasn't happened faster, even understanding the history that it
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: takes a long time for this technology to create real
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 2: measurable productivity gains.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 3: I think some of them are disappointed. Maybe they should
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 3: know better. But I'm not surprised that growth isn't picking up,
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 3: that businesses aren't saying that now profits are way higher
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 3: other than the people building data centers and selling chips.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 3: I would expect at some point this decade to hear that.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 3: But what I'm describing to you is so different still
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 3: how the Silicon Valley people describe it, which is We
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 3: are moments away from a huge acceleration in economic growth. Also,
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 3: that means we're also moments away from a huge acceleration
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 3: in the capabilities, so much so that you need to
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 3: be scared. I think the forecasts we're hearing from Silicon Valley,
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 3: like the economic stuff, which I know something about, their
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 3: forecasts are absurd, which also then make me question their
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 3: forecasts about existential risk, which by the way, they don't
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 3: know anything about.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: Well, and this is, it's the, look, I think the
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: biggest challenge we have is the cultural disconnect of Silicon Valley.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, the fact is there is a, it is
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: a different world. It is a different, you know, I
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: remember a friend of mine who worked in Washington a
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: long time and was one of the early exiters out
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: of the Obama administration and worked for one of these...
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: And he goes, I thought DC was nuts. He goes,
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: you want to talk about a bubble of where people
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: don't really fully understand how the rest of America lives?
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: Silicon Valley is actually worse than New York and DC, right?
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: As much as we think, I've always been a believer
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: that both New York and DC are pretty out of
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: touch with mainstream America. Well, so Silicon Valley, and yet
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: these three entities are all not trusting each other. And
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: yet none of these three entities are trusted by mainstream America. And-
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: If you were advising these tech companies, what would you
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: tell them how to communicate with mainstream Americans?
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 3: Talk about what you know. And here's what they know.
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 3: They know what is happening in their labs. And they
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 3: can talk about it and explain it because a lot
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 3: of people still see it as a mysterious thing.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 2: Well, this bugs me.
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: Why don't we have– I want to– by the way,
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: I want a good old-fashioned Ross Perot charts. You know
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: what I mean?
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: I sort of– which is– I'd say Warren Buffett. That
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: would be great. Right.
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: No, I mean obviously. But just like here's how the
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: technology works because we haven't done that. We haven't had
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: a simplified– like I'm not– I don't want a congressional
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: hearing that becomes just members of Congress just trying to
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: go viral. I actually want a tutorial. I think I've
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: gone through some. I think I have, you know, I
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: view all AI as probability models. That's how I soothe myself.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: Everything's a probability model and I get it. And that's
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: how I've decided to get it. Now I'm sure I'm being,
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: I'm oversimplifying, but I just view it as the ultimate
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: probability model. But I think helping the average person understand
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: how the technology works Instead, you and I both know this,
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: tech companies, because everything proprietary, if they can make people
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: think there's a black box, it makes it more valuable
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: to investors. And I think that is working against the
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: ability to just try to make people feel better that, hey,
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: this technology is actually very logical. Let me explain. I mean,
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: there's a world.
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: Where they talked about AI as sort of, we had
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: the personal computer, we've had the internet, the smartphone. This
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 2: is sort of the next iteration in the digital revolution.
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: There's nothing new about artificial intelligence, even these neural networks
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 2: or things, which people were working on in the 90s
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 2: and 80s, but they seem to have gotten a lot better.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 2: And you could have spoken about that. And just like
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: I said, it'd be great if you had like a
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 2: folksy CEO to talk about it. But nothing forced them
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 2: to engage in wild speculation about the about the upside
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 2: or the downside of this technology, which is really science fictional.
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 2: When you have, whether it's the CEOs or whistleblowers- I
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 2: worry about.
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: The lack of maturity with the leaders in this industry.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: They really sometimes all act like they're still 15-year-olds.
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 3: Right, or they're still having bull sessions at the dorm
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 3: room or something like that. Listen, you are an extremely
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 3: important public figure. If you take that seriously, you're not
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 3: just giving.
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: Existential risk estimates for the destruction of society off the
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 2: top of your head.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 3: Based on absolutely nothing. There's no, they can't point to some,
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 3: even into a model or a study or like A, B, C, D,
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 3: here's how this would happen. These are just really vibe
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 3: coded estimates, but because, hey, they're running a tech company,
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 3: they're super geniuses. They know the tech, we need to
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 3: defer to them. We certainly do not need to defer
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 3: to them, both in the technology Or in these predictions,
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 3: but those are out there. They have shaped public opinion
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 3: and you can't like close the barn door.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: At this point. No. And they, like you said, they
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: did it. Like, why are we scared? Because they told
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: us to be right. Like the companies themselves for some,
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: for some weird reason.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 2: If you're saying your product is going to kill us all.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: Listen, don't be surprised if people go, Oh, well then
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: maybe I shouldn't use it.
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 3: I may question your ability to forecast things. But it
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 3: is your product, and I'm going to give that forecast
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 3: some relevance.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: So this is where I sometimes think we're sometimes afraid
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: to ask certain questions because we think it's going to
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: sound dumb, which is why one of my favorite SNL
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: characters was the old Phil Hartman unfrozen caveman lawyer. where
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: he would sit there, I'm just a caveman, right? And
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: so this is where, and I'd love to know if
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: you've ever gotten an answer to this. How is it
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: that they have programmed the AI that they can't control?
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: Why is it that you've got an AI, a rogue
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: AI that did this whole hugging face thing, which apparently is,
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: you know, I know enough to know how frightened all
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: these guys were by this. And I want to say, look,
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: I'm a believer that ultimately there was a human being
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: who programmed this, who gave, who, who seemed to plant
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: the idea seed, what, you know, the zero and one
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: line code that made the, the AI network decide it
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: could do this and it could quote break free. I
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: sort of struggled this idea that they throw up their
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: hands on this and that's where, and yet, I don't
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: sometimes think I don't know enough to ask the right
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: question about, well, why did you let that happen? How
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: did you program and create something that you were going
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: to lose control of that could go off on its
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: own and suddenly help a hacker?
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 2: Well, I think about that incident in particular. I mean,
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: that was a model and a bunch of models that
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 2: were being primed to see what they could have.
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: Somebody coded that model. A human being built the model
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: that gave it the ability.
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: That was able to do it.
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: This is a human error. This is not the AI's error.
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: And I guess I'd rather hold a human accountable for
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: this rather than the technology itself.
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 2: And I think humans should be held accountable.
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 3: There is a tendency, and that tendency has only increased
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 3: when when you have executives explaining things in ways that
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 3: regular people don't understand. And that's not the fault of
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 3: the regular people. That sounds like we built this product
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 3: and it just went nuts. And it just started doing
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 3: things and talking to each other. That's what it comes across.
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 3: I'm like, well, what the hell did you build that for?
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 3: You know, this is an old, it's an old Norm
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 3: MacDonald joke. You know, if you're building something that could
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 3: destroy the earth, I've got an idea. Stop building something
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 3: that can destroy the earth.
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 2: And the message that didn't get through with that was
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 2: that this was a model that was sort of intentionally,
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 2: you know, grind, both in the different safeguards were not
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 2: in use. It gave it certain instructions and was not
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 2: closely monitored. Listen, we can always assume the worst in people.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 2: My first take is I assume people are just like
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 2: made a mistake and.
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: Were being dumb. That's what I assume.
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 3: And these sort of move fast, break things. This is like,
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 3: you can value these companies as trillion dollar or multi-trillion
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 3: dollar companies. They're very young companies and they're still an
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 3: ethos of you know, we'll worry about that later, you know, we'll,
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 3: you know, and, and in this case, there was too
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 3: much of that. And, and certainly like the narrative utterly
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 3: got out of control so much so that that's obviously
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 3: like a, a, a massive event sort of driving public
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 3: opinion and what politicians, I mean, I, I'm pretty sure
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 3: that the Bernie Sanders super intelligence banning act came out
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 3: after the hugging phase.
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 2: So that, so that, so right.
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 3: So they, you know, uh, That needs to be conveyed
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 3: to people that these aren't magical beings that we're creating.
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, the whole like we're creating like this godlike– no,
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 3: this is software.
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 2: It's software.
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: What are we doing with this?
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 3: We did a bad job of controlling it. We'll do
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 3: better next time. And we can do better. Whether it's
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 3: an engineering problem today or whether there needs to be– listen, I–
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 3: The name of my newsletter is Faster, Please. It's like,
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 3: I want faster economic growth. But again, if the CEOs
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 3: think they cannot put out a product that is safe enough,
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 3: where it's not going to cause harm, where they're not
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 3: going to get sued into oblivion, then don't release the product.
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 3: I can't judge that. I'm not sure government can... Judge
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 3: that as, then don't, then don't do that. And if
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 3: that's the kind of pause we're talking about, then fine.
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: Look, this is why I'm, you know, look, I don't
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: want the, I don't want too much government power, but
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: give me a little civil litigation and I'll watch a
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: company fix it, you know, fix it. You know, I find,
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: you know, I always use this example for the most
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: interesting way to regulate something without government being involved. rental
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: car companies just have decided we're not renting a car
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: to somebody under the age of 25 because our insurance,
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: an insurance company decided to be the regulator of this, right?
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: More than anything else. Well, your risk goes up. That's
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: up to you. If you do this, you should charge
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: this amount of money for somebody under the age of
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: 25 to rent a car. So we've effectively, right, banned
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: anybody under the age of 25 from being able to
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: rent a car without a lot of, without, without, you know,
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: somebody co-sign, whatever it is.
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: And government's not been involved with that at all, which
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: is an interesting.
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 2: It's underappreciated. It's underappreciated. And I, listen, I, you know,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 2: most of my career has been in, you know, in journalism.
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 3: I understand there's among my fellow journalists, there was always
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 3: a great, a great skepticism when you talk about, you know, self-regulation,
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 3: like let's just pass a law. Well, you know, you know,
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 3: the risks are huge and they are huge, not a
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 3: huge incentive. And the way I usually put it, there's
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 3: like the normal risk bucket. We have a lot of laws,
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 3: we have consumer protection laws, we have all that. And
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 3: then there's sort of like the other, like crazy catastrophic
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 3: risk bucket. And I think all that stuff works for that,
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 3: though I would also wouldn't mind having a little more
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 3: visibility into what's going on in these labs and what
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 3: they're doing, what their state.
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 2: I think the public absolutely needs.
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 3: That because my concerns were freak people out so much
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 3: that that much stronger laws. And all of a sudden
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 3: we're going to get the Bernie Sanders banned superintelligence act.
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: I was just going to say, we've just gone through
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: this in our politics where we keep overcorrecting. We've gone
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: through this in the whole, call it politically correct culture, right?
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: Which is we're whiplashing ourselves. We overcorrect and then we
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: become overly, you know, then we're suddenly, you know, we
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: go too much the other way where nobody's being held
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: accountable for bad behavior, right? We're like, and it's this
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: whiplash that I think we're all tired of. It's like,
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: and if we just add sort of a normal, It
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: feels to me if we had an AI advisory board
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: that was just helping us before we decided exactly what
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: regulation looked like, but was a bit representative of the
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: best interest of the people versus that we could find
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: some balance here. Yeah. Rationality and logic were banned from
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: Washington a long time ago.
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you've had any of the abundance
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 3: people on the left on your show. A big part
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 3: of the economic story of America for 50 years is
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 3: that when countries become richer, they begin worrying more about
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 3: things like pollution. Starting in the 70s, we started having
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 3: a lot of rules about pollution, which very popular But
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 3: we overcorrected so much that we have no nuclear reactors.
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 3: It's hard to build things in this country. It's hard
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 3: to build clean. Are you worried about clean energy? You
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 3: can't build it. You can't transmit it. So that fear overcorrection,
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 3: which is a big part of my newsletter and book,
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 3: I'm worried about that happening at warp speed, that there's
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 3: going to be this overcorrection because of how this technology
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 3: is rolled out, the weird ways in which companies talked
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 3: about it. And that we will turn on this technology
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 3: and not get this tremendous upside, which I think can
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 3: be fantastic both for our sort of standard of.
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 2: Living and for our politics.
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: Look, it's reading your newsletter that has just really reminded
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: me about just how much we blew it on nuclear.
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: We just blew it. And unfortunately, there's not a consensus
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: that agrees with you on this. We're not yet. I
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: think we're growing, but I don't think there's still a
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: belief we were wrong about how we handled nukes.
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: How resilient would we be to, you know, they want
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 2: to build some new nuclear reactors.
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 3: There's these small modular reactors. How resilient would we be today,
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 3: right now, to a minor accident like that? How resilient
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 3: would our, this new space age and all the space,
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 3: how resilient would we be to an accident which kills
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 3: an astronaut?
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 2: I worry that we'd be right back to where we
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 2: were like in 1973. Let me pivot a little bit.
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: And ask you, Where does a free market conservative go
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: for political leadership these days? I feel like that the
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: free market conservative is homeless like never before. Do you
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: feel that way?
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 2: I don't look to Washington. I'm not sure I've ever
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 2: looked to Washington.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 3: Government's always going to have some market, some government intervention
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 3: is always going to be a mix I'm not going
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 3: to love. But what helps me sleep at night is
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 3: sort of like reality. Eventually, reality gets a vote. And
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 3: if there are bad policies that I think are bad, well,
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 3: I think eventually they will be shown to be bad.
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 3: The trade war against all these tariffs. I'm like, well,
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 3: I think eventually reality will get a vote. And reality
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 3: has had a vote. I'm sure the federal budget deficit.
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 3: When are we going to do something about Social Security
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 3: and Medicare? Well, eventually reality will have a vote and
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 3: markets will say.
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 2: It's time to do something about it.
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 3: So I think bad policy eventually looks like bad policy.
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 3: And then we have a pretty good record in this
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 3: country eventually figuring it out. But I'd rather not go
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 3: down that road and waste all that time and money
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 3: pursuing bad policies. But eventually, I think like the ideas
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 3: I have, we have at AEI and my colleagues, I
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 3: think eventually they'll be shown to be right because the
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 3: other ideas will try them out and they just won't
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 3: work very well.
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: I just, one of the things that shocks me is
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: how protectionism came back as a tool left and right.
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: I really thought it went away in the 80s, right?
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 2: Would it have come back had we had a better post?
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's getting back to the very beginning. The
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 2: Great Recession. We didn't know how to win the Cold War.
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, is it really back to that, that we
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 2: basically lost the victory?
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean by that? Meaning we won
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: the Cold War and it And it opened the door
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: to real globalization in a good way, you know, and,
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: and somehow we blew it.
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 3: Well, there's certainly a lot fewer poor, super poor people
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 3: in the world today than, than there were. And I, so,
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's, so that's, that is an absolute mad, uh,
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 3: you know, uh, massive, uh, victory as, as like a human. Um,
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 3: you know, bad policies will come back for one reason
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 3: or another. And hopefully we'll try them out and we'll
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 3: figure out like, that's a bad, that's a bad idea.
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: It's just amazing how often we have to relearn certain lessons.
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: It's like, yes, you look at the last time we
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: went through this kind of protectionism. I mean, I'm sorry.
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: I think it directly led to the great depression and
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: led to everything that we ended up with in the thirties.
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 3: Uh, I mean, you could take that. You could take
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 3: the trade and also the immigration. Both are sort of
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 3: these drawbridge up kinds of policies. And again, they can
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 3: cause a lot of harm, maybe a lot of long-term harm.
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 3: I doubt if we're having this conversation 10 years from now,
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 3: we're probably a more protectionist country.
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 2: Still than what we were, you know, in 2000.
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 3: Even if we start thinking differently about immigration, like, hey,
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 3: these people are tremendous assets. If you want to come
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 3: into this country and do something great with your life, hey,
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 3: we want you, whether you're a super genius or not.
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 2: And then when we notice, gee, we don't, our society
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem as vital.
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 3: We don't seem to, we're all the small, where's all
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 3: the small businesses that, when those aren't there, Yeah, but
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 3: we will have lost a lot of time. But eventually,
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 3: we learn. But I would prefer learning lessons from the
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 3: past and not repeating them.
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: Well, for somebody who's normally pretty optimistic, you seem pessimistic
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: on where our politics are going when it comes to trade.
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: You think this is going to get worse?
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 2: Long-term positive.
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 3: It's hard to be– listen– Whoever wins the next election,
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 3: are they going to.
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 2: Remind everybody of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush on trade?
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 2: Probably not. And it's not just trade.
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 3: It's the idea of government intervention broadly, industrial policy, taking
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 3: shares in companies. I think those kind of ideas are
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 3: here for a while.
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, I unfortunately agree. I mean, now that he
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: showed the way, I You know, my experience with watching
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: presidents is that whatever the previous one did, they don't
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: always get rid of everything they did. I mean, look
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: at all the tariffs that Biden kept in place from
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: Trump won.
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure a lot of politicians were aware. how
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 2: easy it would be to suddenly take ownership stakes in
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 2: America's leading companies.
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 3: Apparently you can just kind of do it. If you're
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 3: pushy enough and they're frightened enough, you can do it.
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 3: And again, it's not just Trump. You have people on
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 3: the left saying, yeah, we need to take investment stakes
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 3: in open AI. and enthrall pick, which I would advise
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 3: against for the taxpayer, because those actually may not be
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 3: the big winners. Government has a bad record in picking
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 3: who the winners are going to be. But yeah, so
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 3: once that's out there, right, it's very difficult getting that
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 3: back in the box.
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: Let me close with this. One of the things that
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: I feel like government should be worried about is letting
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: one company dominate. I mean, and I'm curious if you,
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: you know, one place that I'm guessing you're pro some
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: government intervention is preventing monopolies or even preventing duopolism. Is
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: that fair?
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 2: I like competition.
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: And it feels like, you know, one of the things
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: I'm concerned about in the world of AI is that
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: actually this isn't developing into a very good competition, that
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: we're basically three companies are trying to Three or four
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: entities are trying to lock in. One of the reasons
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: I feel like they're actually want, I'm more cynical about
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: why they want government, why they're sounding the alarm. They're
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: looking for regulatory capture here a little bit. And yet,
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: I think we have a lot of companies in Silicon
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: Valley that I'd like to see broken up That doesn't
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: mean I want government to take control. I just think, hey,
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: competition is good. We broke up the phone companies. We
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: all saved a ton of money. And suddenly now long
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: distance phone calls don't cost money.
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, it seems to me that we the thing
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: that the biggest problem we have is this large consolidation issue.
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: What is it? We already have the tools to deal
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: with it. The question is, are we gonna use those tools?
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: Whether it's the FTC, I was very intrigued by what
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: the state of Alabama did with TikTok last week and got,
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: essentially used their consumer protection power to, you know, force
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: TikTok to make some changes on how it interacts with
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: kids under 16. And it was like, well, look at that.
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: Didn't need to pass a new law. You could actually,
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: let's see if it works, but there's some power here.
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: Would you think that's the better place for government to
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: focus is on preventing consolidation?
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 3: I think I'd really want to make sure that when
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 3: you were passing any sort of regulation, that it really
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 3: wasn't going to cement in place a small group of
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 3: companies that would be the only ones that could deal
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 3: with these rules and they have lobbyists and and all
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 3: that i don't i think we're still at a place
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 3: in this technology where uh you know we're not sure
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 3: who is going to win exactly, that there can still
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 3: be leaps where new technologies all of a sudden may
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 3: make what open AI and anthropic doing make them less competitive.
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 2: I think we need to see where this plays out.
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 3: And I'd be very careful about any rules that would
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 3: make it difficult for Americans to use these open source models.
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 2: So we want there to be lots of models.
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 3: It also may come to the case that Having these
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 3: frontier models may not be as valuable as a cheaper
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 3: model that maybe can't do the top 0.1% of tasks,
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 3: but can do lots.
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 2: And you know how to use it. And again, it's cheaper.
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 3: We're not quite sure how that's all going to play out.
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 3: So I'd be very concerned about starting to break up
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 3: companies right now. But one concern I really do have,
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 3: and President Trump announces this new AI committee in where
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 3: the National Director of Intelligence, National Intelligence is going to
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 3: head it. I'm very concerned about looking for regulation strongly
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 3: through national security. Because if we look at it through that,
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 3: then it's going to be, we want a few companies
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 3: that we can deal with, that will report to us,
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 3: and that we will protect.
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 2: Because now they're important for national security. If they're important
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 2: for national security, then they're special companies. They're like our
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 2: national champion companies, and we can't let anything happen to them.
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 2: I am concerned about that, and not looking at these
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 2: companies as Economic players who should be subjected to the
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 2: normal competitive pressures and should not be protected.
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: And is that something Congress is going to have to
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: weigh in on? I mean, if the president decides to do,
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's already got the executive branch has a
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: lot of power in this on this point, doesn't it?
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean, obviously, there needs to be oversight.
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 3: And whosoever the next president, I would not want to
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 3: look at these companies purely as our weapons against China
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 3: and their AI, that there's economic benefits.
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 2: And again, they should be subject to competitive pressure.
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 3: But that's what some of these companies have been talking
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 3: about since 2022, that AI is going to progress so
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 3: quickly that it's really a.
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 2: National security issue.
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 3: And all these labs are going to be in Nevada,
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 3: on government land, behind barbed wire. And that is not
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 3: the kind of competitive market I think you're talking about.
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: No, it's not. By the way, let me get you
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: out of here on this. Do you think this fear
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: of losing this race to China is overblown?
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 3: To the extent it's like a powerful technology with huge
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 3: economic benefits, the more competition the better. My caveat is
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 3: I've seen enough wargaming about what happens.
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 2: Again, if we're talking about just a powerful.
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 3: Technology like the internet, the PC, let whoever wins, great,
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 3: but let's compete. But if there is a chance that
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 3: a leap is possible to a completely different kind of
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 3: powerful technology, from what I've seen with these wargames, you
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 3: don't want to be the country that comes in second.
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 3: If it's really possible to achieve something worthy of the
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 3: name artificial general intelligence or super intelligence or super intelligence,
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 3: two words so the president doesn't get mad at me,
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 3: that you do not want to be the country that
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 3: comes in second because there are real national security implications
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 3: to that.
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: I hear you, but this idea that we can somehow
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: beat China and then prevent them from catching up, I mean,
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Look at what we tried to do with
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: preventing them from getting chips. You know, life finds, I
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: love to quote Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park. I think
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: about that line all the time. The old man, right?
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: Thinks he can prevent birthing, prevent breeding. And he goes,
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: life finds a way. It just, innovation always finds a way.
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: And the minute you cut some, I've got a student
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: who's a Chinese national in one of my classes that
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: I teach. And we're talking about um and i you
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: know i asked about vpns and i said i said
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: how many people probably use vpns in china to get
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: around the great firewall and she goes oh about 20
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: right the point is is that it's supposedly in the
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: super restrictive chinese you know in china right people are
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: looking for a way to get around whatever restriction you
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: put in and whatever you try to do it's only
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: going to actually you know Sometimes you supercharge an innovation
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: you wish you never supercharged, like we did with trying
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: to restrict chips from going to China, which turned out
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 1: to just not do a thing.
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 2: Well, listen, I can come up with a scary scenario
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 2: about what happens if China somehow would have a breakthrough
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 2: and they get super AI before we do.
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 3: I could also think of a scary scenario that's scary
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 3: for the Chinese, which they decide that this technology, is
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 3: too disruptive. Because as much as they would like to
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 3: improve the living standards of their people, they want the
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 3: Communist Party to stay in power.
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: And so I think that's their great weakness. And I
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: think this idea that we're going to lose to them,
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: they're scared of this technology more than we are. I
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: am 1,000% convinced of that, for that reason alone.
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 2: Clearly, they're worried. Clearly, they're worried about... The Communist Party
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 2: is worried about other centers of power.
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 3: And this is going to be a different center of power,
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 3: not to mention, you know, they have to worry about
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 3: that firewall with 20 people, 20 percent of people try
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 3: to get around it. Well, wait till they all have
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 3: open source models and all of them get around it.
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: They're all going to get around it. Right. They're already
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: at 20. I look at it as, oh, they're already
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: at 20 percent. Just wait.
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 2: Right. Right.
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 1: Just wait. You know, you're just you're just not going
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: to get around. Jim, this was great. Your optimism is, frankly,
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: it's an elixir for me. It's a tonic because there's
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: so much, especially at Substack. I assume, have you created
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: your own algorithm? Do you only see good news? Do
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: you only see optimism?
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 2: No.
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 3: I try to look at it. I try to look
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 3: at all of it. It's harder to find like optimism.
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 3: So you have to look hard for it. It's easy
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 3: to find the bad stuff. You have to dig a
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 3: little deeper, but it's out there. And I think it's, again,
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 3: not just being optimistic about to be optimistic. It's about
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 3: making sure that's like evidence-based. And I think there's a
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 3: lot to be optimistic about.
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: Tell people where they can find your stuff.
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm at AI, but I have a newsletter. It's
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 3: called Faster Please. It's a sub stack. And hey, I
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 3: wrote a book in 2023 called The Conservative Futurist, available
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 3: on Amazon or wherever fine books are sold.
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: You can check that out too. Uh, Jim, I really,
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: this was a treat. And like I said, I love
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 1: your newsletter. Uh, and I wanted more people to sort of, uh,
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 1: to hear your point of view, because frankly, it's been
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: a lot of AI doom, right? There's a ton of
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: AI doom out there. I understand how we're in a
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 1: political moment. So everything is overly negative because of the,
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: of the current messaging environment. But, uh, I thought there
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: was all that AI doom.
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 2: And when it comes to the election, uh, people are
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 2: going to worry about the price of eggs again.
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: I think they're still worried about the price of A
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: to 10. Anyway, anyway, Jim, appreciate it.
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much. All right.
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: It is time to jump into the time machine. And
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: if this week we're going back to October 14th, 1912
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. one of the most extraordinary moments in
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: the history of American presidential campaigns. Theodore Roosevelt is leaving
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: his hotel. He's on his way to give a campaign
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: speech when a man steps out of the crowd and
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: shoots him in the chest. The bullet passes through Roosevelt's overcoat,
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: his steel eyeglass case, and the thick manuscript of the
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 1: speech he's carrying in his breast pocket before lodging in
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: his chest. So basically he had some protection. before the
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: bullet got to his chest. Now, most people, having just
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: been shot, would probably have canceled the speech. Not Teddy Roosevelt.
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt realizes he's not coughing up blood, concludes the bullet
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: probably hasn't penetrated his lung, and insists, eh, he can
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: go to the auditorium. He gets on stage, tells the
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: audience he's been shot, and proceeds to speak for another
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: 80 minutes, 8-0. And at one point, he pulls out
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: the bloodstained manuscript, shows it to the crowd, and he
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 1: delivers one of the great lines in American political history.
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 1: Takes more than that to kill a bull moose. The
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 1: man who shot him was John Schrenk, a former saloon
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 1: keeper who later claimed that William McKinley's ghost had appeared
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: to him in a dream and accused Roosevelt of being
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: responsible for McKinley's death. Kind of like This guy sounds
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: like crazy Roger Stone who continues to push the conspiracy
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: theory that LBJ had Kennedy killed. Roger Stone gets taken
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: seriously by some people and countries actually buy him, make
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 1: him their lobbyist. He's cuckoo birds, folks. People who think
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 1: this stuff, cuckoo birds. And here's another reminder that history
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: has its share of cuckoo birds. Now, Roosevelt had become
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: president because McKinley was assassinated in 1901. Schrenk also believed
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt was violating an important American tradition by seeking a
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: third term. So it's a bizarre connection between two presidential
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: assassination stories. But this is all an extraordinary story on
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 1: its own, and it tells you quite a bit about
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt. his ego, his appetite for attention, his extraordinary
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 1: physical courage, and his almost limitless belief in his own indispensability.
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: He alone can fix it. But I think the more
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 1: interesting question is why Roosevelt was standing on that stage
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 1: in Milwaukee in the first place. Before Teddy Roosevelt was
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 1: a former Republican president running against a sitting Republican president,
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: it wasn't just any Republican president. He was running against,
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: he chose to run against the man he personally selected
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 1: to succeed him, William Howard Taft. And the Republican Civil
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 1: War of 1912, which culminates in Roosevelt leaving the party
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 1: and running as a third party candidate, tells us quite
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: a bit about political argument. A political argument that has
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: never entirely disappeared from inside the Republican Party. And it's
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: also a reminder that a political leader can win an
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: enormous personal following without necessarily winning the argument over what
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: his party should become. So let's go back a few years.
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt becomes president at just 42, youngest president in American history,
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: and he brings a very different concept of presidential leadership.
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: He believes the federal government ought to be much more
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 1: active in dealing with the enormous economic and social changes
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 1: that were transforming the country at the time, industrial revolution.
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 1: This is the height of industrial capitalism, the railroad, steel,
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: you name it. The country is urbanizing and industrializing quickly,
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: and Roosevelt believes the national government has to become stronger
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: in order to deal with this new concentration of private wealth.
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: He calls his approach the square deal. He goes after
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 1: corporate monopolies, pushes consumer protections, expands conservation, believes the presidency
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 1: ought to be used aggressively to advance the public interest,
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 1: the bully pulpit. Essentially, the concept is invented by him. Now,
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 1: he's not some modern liberal, right? although you may think
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 1: so by today's standards. But he wasn't some modern liberal
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: dropped into the early 20th century. He was a nationalist.
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: He was an imperialist. And he was a believer in
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 1: American military power. His views on race were very much
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 1: shaped by the prejudice of the era. And he had
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: a complicated relationship with organized labor. But within the Republican Party,
• 2:10:31
  Speaker 1: he's part of a progressive tradition that believes government has
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 1: an important role in checking the excesses of capitalism. And
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 1: by 1908, Roosevelt had become very popular. He could have
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 1: won a third term had he run, but he promised
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 1: not to seek another term after winning re-election in 1904.
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: So he decided to honor the promise, and he chooses
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: a successor, William Howard Taft. Taft had been the governor
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: general of the Philippines, and he was also Roosevelt's secretary
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: of war. A close friend, very trusted, and he thought
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: Taft would continue the progressive vision. Roosevelt even campaigned for
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: him in 1908. Taft wins the presidency, Roosevelt heads to Africa.
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 1: And that's when things went haywire because Taft is not Teddy.
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: Taft is a lawyer by temperament. He's cautious, methodical, and
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: much more concerned about the legal process. Perhaps that's why
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: he ended up a Supreme Court justice, right? He understood
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: there were limits to his power. Teddy always was trying
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: to test those limits. So Taft didn't see himself as
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 1: a caretaker of the Roosevelt presidency. He actually saw himself
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: as president. Why wouldn't he? Now, here's where the conventional
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 1: version of this story gets a little misleading. Taft wasn't
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 1: simply a tool of big business who abandoned everything Roosevelt
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: believed in. In fact, his administration brought more antitrust lawsuits
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: than Roosevelt had. In fact, one of those lawsuits was
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: helped destroy their friendship. In October 1911, Taft's Justice Department
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: sued U.S. Steel, challenging, among other things, its acquisition of
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: a Tennessee coal and iron company during the financial panic
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: of 1907. It was a deal Roosevelt himself had approved
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 1: while he was president. So Roosevelt took the lawsuit personally.
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: He believed the Taft administration was essentially of accusing him
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: of having been duped by the very corporations he'd spent
• 2:12:28
  Speaker 1: his presidency trying to regulate. So here's the strange thing
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 1: about their falling out. Taft wasn't necessarily getting Roosevelt angry
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: by refusing to go after big business. In this case,
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 1: he was getting Teddy angry by going after big business
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: in a way that challenged Teddy's own judgment. Now, there
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: were some other flashpoints. Taft signed the Payne-Uldrich Tariff Act
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 1: in 1909, which progressive Republicans believe failed to deliver the
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 1: tariff reductions that had been promised. Then came the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy.
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: It was a bitter fight over conservation policy that ended
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 1: with Taft firing Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt's close friend and the
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: head of the Forest Service. Roosevelt saw that as evidence
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: that Taft was abandoning conservation and siding with big corporate interests.
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: Taft saw Roosevelt's allies as refusing to accept the authority
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: of a new president. And the more Taft asserted his independence,
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: the more Roosevelt took it personally. By 1910, Roosevelt is
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: back in American politics and he's becoming more outspoken, what
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: he calls a new nationalism, much more expansive vision of
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: federal power than the one Taft is comfortable with. Roosevelt
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: wants stronger regulation of corporations, more protection for workers, progressive taxation.
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 1: We didn't have that amendment just yet to impose an
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: income tax. That's coming later that decade. And a government
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: willing to intervene more aggressively in the economy. Taft worries
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 1: that Roosevelt is treating constitutional limits as obstacles to be
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 1: overcome rather than principles to be respected. So by 1912,
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt decides he wants the presidency back. Now there's another
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: character worth remembering here because Roosevelt didn't actually start the
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: progressive challenge to Taft. It was Robert La Follette of Wisconsin.
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 1: He was already running against the president, arguing that the
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 1: Republican Party needed to return to the Teddy Roosevelt progressive principles. Well,
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 1: then Roosevelt enters the race in February and suddenly much
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 1: of the attention, money, and energy starts moving to him.
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: La Follette stays in and he actually wins primaries in Wisconsin,
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 1: his home state, and North Dakota. But Teddy is a
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: dominant challenger and he becomes more aggressive about the courts.
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 1: In a February speech in Columbus, Ohio, Roosevelt proposes allowing
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 1: voters to overturn certain state court decisions involving state constitutional questions.
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 1: That's some more direct democracy, folks. Doesn't apply to the U.S.
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court, but it's controversial enough that it alarms Taft.
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 1: Ohio's his home state. Remember that. Taft, that is. And
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: many establishment progressives who believe Roosevelt is threatening judicial independence. Now,
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 1: presidential nominations worked a lot differently in 1912. There were
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: some primaries, but most delegates were still selected through party
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: organizations and conventions. The primaries were just sort of guidance
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: from the voters. But Roosevelt was the man of the people,
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: and he was winning the primaries. He wins nine of
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 1: 12 contests, including Ohio, Taft's home state. Taft only won Massachusetts,
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 1: and he did so narrowly. I told you about La
• 2:15:42
  Speaker 1: Follette winning the other two. So Roosevelt believes he's demonstrated
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 1: that the voters want him back. But Taft controlled the machine.
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: And when the convention meets in Chicago, the fight over
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 1: contested delegates becomes explosive. The RNC awards overwhelming majorities of
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 1: the delegates to Taft. And you know what happens. The
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 1: man chosen to chair the convention, by the way, is
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: Eli O'Root, Roosevelt's own former Secretary of State. And O'Root
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 1: sides with the Taft organization during all these disputes. So
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt is trying to reclaim the Republican Party, and one
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 1: of the men helping stop him is somebody who served
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: in Teddy's own cabinet. But Roosevelt's supporters accused the party
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 1: establishment of stealing the nomination. It It all sounds familiar,
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 1: doesn't it? But Taft wins. Roosevelt has a decision to make.
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: He can accept the outcome and try to influence the
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 1: party from within, or he can leave and run against
• 2:16:36
  Speaker 1: the man he helped elect four years earlier. He chooses
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 1: to leave. And the Bull Moose Party is born. The
• 2:16:42
  Speaker 1: nickname comes from Roosevelt's declaration that he feels as strong
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 1: as a bull moose. And this is where I want
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 1: to make an important distinction about Roosevelt and the modern
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: Republican Party. Because it's tempting to compare Teddy and Trump.
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 1: some of the comparisons are fair. Roosevelt had an enormous ego.
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 1: He loved attention. He loved political combat. But Teddy Roosevelt
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 1: also read. I don't know if Trump reads. And he
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 1: believed he had a special relationship with the American people.
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 1: And he had a remarkable ability to make every political
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 1: argument revolve around himself. But he also believed that the
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 1: party establishment was standing between him and the voters who
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: wanted him. Ideologically, though, These guys were very different men.
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt believed in a much more activist federal government for
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: the people. Trump believes in an activist federal government for
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: personal gain. Teddy wanted Washington to regulate corporate power, improve
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: working conditions, and take greater responsibility for economic security of
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 1: ordinary Americans. Trump wants to do all those things to
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 1: feather his own nest. Teddy's progressive party platform included social insurance,
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 1: labor protections, women's suffrage, stronger regulation of business. Internationally, Roosevelt
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 1: argued that America ought to be deeply engaged in the world.
• 2:18:00
  Speaker 1: He was no isolationist. He was an unapologetic advocate for
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 1: American power abroad. So I guess you could say he
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 1: had a little, that's where Teddy and Trump have something
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 1: in common. Although his version of internationalism included plenty of imperialism, right?
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: And Trump uses Teddy sometimes to rationalize or at least
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 1: try to make his desires seem less egregious. There's another distinction.
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt had a coherent vision of what he wanted the
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 1: American government to become, something he believed was actually larger
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 1: than his own presidency. Now, he wanted to be the
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 1: man to build it. No one ever accused Teddy Roosevelt
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: of excessive modesty. Please put my face on Mount Rushmore, right?
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 1: And you can reasonably question how much his personal ambition
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 1: was driving his decisions in 1912. But there was a
• 2:18:49
  Speaker 1: substantial governing philosophy underneath his enormous ego. My view of
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 1: Trump is much different. His political movement is much more
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: closely tied to his own personal power, grievances, demands for loyalty,
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: financial gain, pure and simple. The personalities can invite comparisons,
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 1: but the political philosophies are quite different. And that difference
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 1: matters when you look at what Roosevelt was actually proposing
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: in 1912. His progressive party was calling for reforms that
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 1: would eventually become central to 20th century American liberalism. Some
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: of those ideas would later find a home in the
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 1: New Deal, which raises a fascinating question about what Roosevelt
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 1: was actually accomplishing by leaving the Republican Party. Was he
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 1: remaking the Republican Party? Or was he helping make progressive
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: republicanism something that would be adopted by the Democratic Party. Now,
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: there's another way to look at Roosevelt's decision, a more
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 1: cynical one. Maybe Teddy would rather see the Republican Party
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 1: lose the presidency than watch somebody else lead it in
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 1: a direction he didn't like. That's something Trump might have
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 1: in common with Teddy. We'll see what 28 looks like. Now,
• 2:19:58
  Speaker 1: Teddy's supporters would argue the country needed reform and that
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 1: Taft's Republican Party was standing in the way. His critics
• 2:20:04
  Speaker 1: would argue that Roosevelt couldn't tolerate somebody else controlling the
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 1: party he believed belonged to him. And there's truth in
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 1: both interpretations. And that brings us back to Milwaukee. Roosevelt's
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 1: been shot and he insists on giving a speech anyway.
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 1: It tells you something about that's both a bit admirable
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: and the less admirable parts of Teddy. He genuinely believed
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: the stakes for the country were enormous. He also genuinely
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 1: believed he was indispensable to the outcome. Three weeks later,
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 1: Americans voted. Woodrow Wilson wins with 42% of the popular vote.
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt gets 27%, and the sitting Republican president, Taft, finishes
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 1: third with 23%. The Electoral College is a blowout, though.
• 2:20:49
  Speaker 1: 435 electoral votes for Wilson, 88 for Teddy. And Taft,
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 1: the sitting president, gets eight. He only carried Utah and Vermont.
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: There was another candidate in that race. Socialist Eugene Debs
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 1: got about 6% of the popular vote. So if you
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: add together Wilson, Roosevelt, and Debs, roughly three quarters of
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: Americans voted for candidates promising some form of political or
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: economic reform, even if they had very different ideas about
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 1: what the reform should look like. That was actually a
• 2:21:20
  Speaker 1: remarkable result. Now, the Progressive Party tried to survive as
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: a national political organization after 1912, but it never became
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: a durable replacement for the Republicans. In fact, by 1916,
• 2:21:31
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt is back supporting a Republican presidential nominee, Charles Evans Hughes.
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 1: The Bull Moose movement had demonstrated enormous energy, but it
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: couldn't permanently reorganize American party politics around Teddy. And there's
• 2:21:44
  Speaker 1: a human ending to the Teddy Taft feud that's worth mentioning.
• 2:21:48
  Speaker 1: In May of 1918, the two men encountered each other
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 1: in a Chicago hotel dining room and had a brief
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 1: emotional reconciliation. After years of a bitter public feud, they
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: were finally able to put some of it behind them.
• 2:22:01
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt would die eight months later. He never did live
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 1: to see what would happen next, because when Republicans finally
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 1: returned to the White House in 1921, whose Republican party
• 2:22:11
  Speaker 1: was ascendant, Teddy's or Taft's? Well, Warren Harding runs on
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 1: a return to normalcy. Calvin Coolidge eventually succeeds him. Andrew
• 2:22:19
  Speaker 1: Mellon becomes the dominant figure in economic policy. That's a
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 1: party much more comfortable with big business, lower taxes, and
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: a restrained federal role for the economy. That wasn't what
• 2:22:30
  Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt envisioned in 1912. And of course, Harding then
• 2:22:34
  Speaker 1: appoints Taft as Chief Justice of the United States. How
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 1: about that? The Republican establishment Teddy tried to overthrow not
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 1: only wins, its leader ends up on the Supreme Court. Now,
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 1: if you stop the story there, you'd conclude that Teddy
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 1: lost the argument over the future of the Republicanism. And
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: certainly he did over the Republican Party. But there's another
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: part of this story, isn't there? Because while the Republican
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: Party was moving away from Roosevelt's progressive philosophy, the Democratic
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 1: Party decided to embrace it. It started with Woodrow Wilson.
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: He was running in 1912 on something he called the
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 1: new freedom, which was just a different phrase for Roosevelt's
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 1: new nationalism. Roosevelt believed big corporations were a permanent part
• 2:23:19
  Speaker 1: of the American economy and the federal government needed enough
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: power to regulate them. Wilson argued that government should do
• 2:23:25
  Speaker 1: more to break up concentrations of economic power and restore competition.
• 2:23:30
  Speaker 1: So they wasn't identical visions, but they were close. In 1913,
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 1: Wilson signs the Federal Reserve Act, changing the banking system.
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 1: These are all things. The Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914.
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 1: All very Roosevelt-like ideas, using the national government to regulate
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: corporate behavior. 1916, Roosevelt signs legislation establishing the eight-hour workday.
• 2:23:54
  Speaker 1: So here we are. Now Wilson's running for re-election in 1916,
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: and the timing of the burst of progressive legislation is
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 1: no accident. He knows the Bull Moose Party has largely collapsed,
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 1: but its voters didn't disappear, and he wanted them in
• 2:24:07
  Speaker 1: his coalition. So Wilson started to try to convince progressive
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 1: Republicans who supported Roosevelt in 12 that they had a
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 1: home in the Democratic Party. And it helps. He narrowly
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 1: wins re-election in 16. And Wilson states that that had
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: shown substantial progressive strength in the western part of the
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 1: country four years earlier, play an important role in the
• 2:24:28
  Speaker 1: electoral college. So Roosevelt does create a coalition that exists
• 2:24:34
  Speaker 1: in 1916 and starts voting for the Democrats. 20 years later,
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 1: FDR comes to Washington in the middle of the Great
• 2:24:41
  Speaker 1: Depression and much more expansive vision of federal responsibility becomes
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 1: the foundation of the New Deal. And there's a whole
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 1: bunch of things Teddy Roosevelt was advocating for in 1912
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 1: that's a part of it. Now the New Deal wasn't
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 1: simply Teddy Roosevelt's 1912 platform dusted off. but there is
• 2:25:00
  Speaker 1: a recognizable connection between the new nationalism and the modern
• 2:25:04
  Speaker 1: federal government that emerged in the 1930s. And much of
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 1: that reformed tradition found a lasting political home in the
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party. And it raises a question I've been thinking
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 1: about as I was revisiting this 1912 campaign. Where would
• 2:25:20
  Speaker 1: the Bull Moose Republicans fit in our politics today? Because
• 2:25:23
  Speaker 1: if you squint a little, you can see pieces of
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt in both parties. The modern Republican Party has inherited
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 1: some of its political style, The nationalism, the populism, the
• 2:25:32
  Speaker 1: willingness to challenge the party establishment, the belief in a
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 1: strong presidency, and the enormous personality dominates everything. But if
• 2:25:41
  Speaker 1: you look at what Roosevelt actually wanted government to do,
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 1: regulate big business, protect workers, provide greater economic security, use
• 2:25:48
  Speaker 1: federal power to address problems that states and private institutions
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: couldn't solve, that sounds like the modern Democratic Party. It's interesting.
• 2:25:59
  Speaker 1: Some Republicans who have become alienated from Donald Trump's version
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 1: of the party have found themselves voting for Democrats, even
• 2:26:04
  Speaker 1: though they don't necessarily think of themselves as Democrats. Now,
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 1: those voters aren't all Teddy Roosevelt progressives. Some are traditional
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 1: conservatives who simply don't recognize their old party anymore. But
• 2:26:15
  Speaker 1: it's a reminder that political coalitions change, and they change
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 1: all the time. And the ideas associated with a political
• 2:26:20
  Speaker 1: tradition don't necessarily remain inside the same party forever. Roosevelt
• 2:26:24
  Speaker 1: and Trump share some unmistakable personality traits. but their governing
• 2:26:29
  Speaker 1: philosophies are actually quite different. And so were the outcomes
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 1: of their fights with the Republican establishment. Roosevelt couldn't take
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 1: control of the party, so he left it. Trump took
• 2:26:39
  Speaker 1: control of the party from within. Now, Teddy Roosevelt's movement
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: didn't survive as a party, but his ideas were adopted.
• 2:26:51
  Speaker 1: This is why third-party politics isn't a waste of time.
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 1: They may not win, they have enormous amounts of influence
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 1: going down the road when they have enough success to
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 1: punish one of the two parties. So he may have
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: lost the fight for his party. He didn't lose the
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 1: larger argument about what government could become. But that doesn't
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 1: make him any less of an egomaniac. The original line,
• 2:27:19
  Speaker 1: bride at every wedding and corpse at every funeral, which
• 2:27:22
  Speaker 1: we all now use to describe Trump, I think the
• 2:27:26
  Speaker 1: line was invented to describe Teddy Roosevelt.
• 2:27:35
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 1: Shane here, still proudly hailing from Missouri's original and controversial
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 1: fifth district. Okay. If Democrats take the House next month,
• 2:27:47
  Speaker 1: who do you think will become speaker and who do
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 1: you think should get the job? I know what Kim
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 1: Jeffries would be the traditional choice as minority leader, but
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 1: with growing frustration over his leadership and the party's direction,
• 2:27:55
  Speaker 1: could someone else realistically emerge? Go Tigers, M-I-Z, the Mizzou Tigers.
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:28:04
  Speaker 1: Good weekend sort of proving that you guys belong. You
• 2:28:07
  Speaker 1: guys belong. I've been a doubter. I still would like
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 1: to see Mizzou win a significant game on the road.
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you do too. You know, it's interesting with Jeffries. I,
• 2:28:21
  Speaker 1: three years ago, three or four years ago, would have
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 1: said he was doing... He seemed to be the perfect
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 1: choice to be this guy that could be a bridge
• 2:28:29
  Speaker 1: between the two wings of the party. And he still...
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 1: He's still probably– it's interesting. In theory, being close with
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 1: the Congressional Black Caucus as an African-American, he's been involved
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: with CBC politics and coming from New York City, which
• 2:28:47
  Speaker 1: is really ground zero for the socialist movement. So in theory,
• 2:28:51
  Speaker 1: he's got one foot literally in sort of both camps
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 1: of the party. And as somebody– as speaker, your job
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 1: is to kind of navigate that. not necessarily stamp it out. And,
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 1: you know, so, you know, you say, like, who would
• 2:29:12
  Speaker 1: make a better speaker? Well, you know, the other way
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 1: to go would be you'd go with a senior statesman
• 2:29:18
  Speaker 1: of the party, somebody who I actually think would have
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of the good instincts that it's sort of like,
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 1: let's say progressives decide to deal a blow to They
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 1: just want to, you know, prove that they can prevent
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: Jeffries from becoming speaker. So just to force another speaker.
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 1: You know, do Democrats look for a Mike Johnson type figure,
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 1: somebody you've never heard of that sort of will just
• 2:29:51
  Speaker 1: sort of be a glue? Do you go with a
• 2:29:54
  Speaker 1: senior official, senior statesman who's been involved, maybe part of
• 2:29:58
  Speaker 1: a swing state? Like, you know, I could see a
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 1: Debbie Dingell, right, who has... been in Congress a long time,
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 1: was married to a long time member of Congress, has
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 1: been been on both sides of these fights, has been
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 1: sort of has figured out how to navigate the Michigan
• 2:30:14
  Speaker 1: fights pretty well. Maybe, you know, maybe that, you know, but.
• 2:30:22
  Speaker 1: In theory, Jeffries should be the right person, so we'll
• 2:30:26
  Speaker 1: just look. This just takes pretty deft skill. And, you know,
• 2:30:31
  Speaker 1: who's It's I think somebody who has executive experience would
• 2:30:36
  Speaker 1: be better at this. I'm trying to think if there
• 2:30:39
  Speaker 1: are any former mayors sitting in the I'm sure there's
• 2:30:42
  Speaker 1: a handful of former mayors, but somebody who's dealt with,
• 2:30:45
  Speaker 1: you know, a former governor might be better suited as
• 2:30:50
  Speaker 1: speaker of the House. Now, you know, there's they'll it's
• 2:30:53
  Speaker 1: going to come from somebody within. But and I can't
• 2:30:58
  Speaker 1: don't think there's any former governors that are suddenly popping
• 2:31:00
  Speaker 1: up in Congress right now. but somebody that's dealt with a,
• 2:31:04
  Speaker 1: with a legislature from, you know, with multiple factions and stuff.
• 2:31:08
  Speaker 1: And that would probably has a better skillset. But in theory,
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 1: Jeffries has watched this happen and has been navigating this stuff.
• 2:31:16
  Speaker 1: So boy, if it's not him, I think that they're
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 1: going to have a hard time finding, finding that next person.
• 2:31:24
  Speaker 1: And in fact, I guess you would say, you know, who's,
• 2:31:31
  Speaker 1: who's both, You know, the curiosity I have about Jeffries is,
• 2:31:35
  Speaker 1: is he going to be any good of a spokesperson
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: or is he going to be afraid to alienate any
• 2:31:40
  Speaker 1: faction inside the party for his own? I think a
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 1: lot of it depends on the number, right? Ultimately, right?
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 1: If there's 200, if Democrats have 235 or more, Jeffries
• 2:31:52
  Speaker 1: has a lot easier of a time, you know, because
• 2:31:55
  Speaker 1: the bigger the number is, the more moderates that are
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 1: going to win. The smaller the number is, the fewer
• 2:32:02
  Speaker 1: moderates that are there. And the more moderates he has
• 2:32:05
  Speaker 1: to sort of be a counter to the block is,
• 2:32:07
  Speaker 1: I guess, what the socialist adjacent progressive wing calls itself.
• 2:32:12
  Speaker 1: That probably dilutes it a little bit and allows the
• 2:32:18
  Speaker 1: presidential primary campaign to be the relief valve for these fights.
• 2:32:22
  Speaker 1: You know, if I'm Jeffries, I don't want these fights
• 2:32:24
  Speaker 1: inside my caucus and my conference. let these factional fights
• 2:32:29
  Speaker 1: play out in the primary campaign trail. I think he's
• 2:32:35
  Speaker 1: been preparing for this for quite some time. So if
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 1: he's not ready, then he'll never be ready. All right.
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: Chuck L writes in. All right. Big fan from South Bend, Indiana,
• 2:32:48
  Speaker 1: second congressional district in Northern Indiana up there.
• 2:32:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:32:51
  Speaker 1: If we wake up on November 4th to a better
• 2:32:52
  Speaker 1: than expected showing for Republicans, what do you think the
• 2:32:55
  Speaker 1: story would be about how we got here? What factors
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 1: might we have overlooked it or underestimated heading into election day.
• 2:33:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you and go Irish. Well, the simplest is the
• 2:33:03
  Speaker 1: Trump voter showed up. Independence didn't go by 20 plus
• 2:33:12
  Speaker 1: points for Democrats. Maybe they only went by 10, you know,
• 2:33:16
  Speaker 1: eight to 10 points. I think one other thing will
• 2:33:21
  Speaker 1: have had to happen that hasn't happened here yet. And
• 2:33:25
  Speaker 1: that is somehow, Maybe the war– that there is a–
• 2:33:30
  Speaker 1: it really actually looks like the war is ending and
• 2:33:33
  Speaker 1: we really actually start to see an immediate financial consequence
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 1: to it, right? Like a quick 15-cent drop in the
• 2:33:44
  Speaker 1: price of gas in the last 10 days of the election, right?
• 2:33:48
  Speaker 1: If you're asking me for a scenario, it's possible we're underreporting.
• 2:33:55
  Speaker 1: then the Republican vote that is that nobody can encounter
• 2:33:57
  Speaker 1: will show up. I will just say that midterm polls
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 1: tend to be more accurate than presidential polls, and they're
• 2:34:04
  Speaker 1: less likely to miss that vote. But that's the explanation
• 2:34:08
  Speaker 1: is I think, but I think something has to, I think,
• 2:34:12
  Speaker 1: I think there, I think there will be a outside development, right?
• 2:34:16
  Speaker 1: Like believable signs that the war is ending. I say ended,
• 2:34:22
  Speaker 1: but ending. And cause you, because literally the price of
• 2:34:25
  Speaker 1: oil drops $ 20 in the market, which then has all
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 1: those after-out effects. But I really think that's what it
• 2:34:33
  Speaker 1: would have to be, something that dramatic. Trust me, I
• 2:34:43
  Speaker 1: want more counterfactuals. I keep looking for more counterfactuals. I'm
• 2:34:47
  Speaker 1: having a hard time finding. The other part is, The
• 2:34:50
  Speaker 1: other explanation is this entire election is being held on
• 2:34:56
  Speaker 1: sort of red-leaning territory, whether it's redistricted congressional districts, the
• 2:35:01
  Speaker 1: Senate races, right? You know, there's only one Senate race,
• 2:35:07
  Speaker 1: competitive Senate race in a state that Kamala Harris won,
• 2:35:10
  Speaker 1: and that's Maine, right? Everything else is in a state
• 2:35:13
  Speaker 1: that Trump either won narrowly or by a lot. So
• 2:35:15
  Speaker 1: that would be the other explanation is that, hey, remember,
• 2:35:18
  Speaker 1: this was an away game and it's tough to win
• 2:35:20
  Speaker 1: a road game. to put it in some football terms,
• 2:35:24
  Speaker 1: to put it in terms of how I'll explain a
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: loss to Notre Dame, even though Miami shouldn't be losing
• 2:35:31
  Speaker 1: to Notre Dame. Thanks, Chuck. All right. John S. from Glendale,
• 2:35:36
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin's 4th District chimes in. He says, hey, keep up
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 1: the awesome work. You make my walks fly by. With
• 2:35:40
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court's presidential immunity ruling, I'm surprised there hasn't
• 2:35:43
  Speaker 1: been a push for a constitutional amendment to hold presidents
• 2:35:46
  Speaker 1: accountable under the law like the rest of us. Can
• 2:35:48
  Speaker 1: you explain the different Ways a constitutional amendment can be
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: proposed and ratified, including the process involving the states. Go, Pat, go.
• 2:35:54
  Speaker 1: Although things aren't looking too promising until LeFleur is gone. Ah,
• 2:35:57
  Speaker 1: you're on the LeFleur's got to go bandwagon too. Yeah,
• 2:35:59
  Speaker 1: I know. We all are there. It is what it is.
• 2:36:02
  Speaker 1: It just feels like, although I sort of hold the
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 1: GM slightly more accountable. You know, LeFleur, I still believe
• 2:36:10
  Speaker 1: in him as a play designer and a play caller.
• 2:36:13
  Speaker 1: If you don't have an office of line, it's tough
• 2:36:14
  Speaker 1: to call plays. So I'm sort of mixed on you there. Look,
• 2:36:19
  Speaker 1: there's plenty of ways, right? A member of Congress can
• 2:36:23
  Speaker 1: file a constitutional amendment. There's plenty that have done so already.
• 2:36:26
  Speaker 1: There's the Pardon Nullification Act that Johnny O, a Democratic
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 1: member of Congress from Baltimore, proposed. Don Bacon, Republican from Omaha,
• 2:36:35
  Speaker 1: has already signed on to it. And I think that's,
• 2:36:39
  Speaker 1: you know, but there are, you can do it. There
• 2:36:42
  Speaker 1: are plenty of ways to do this, but the easiest
• 2:36:44
  Speaker 1: would be as introducing as a, to get it passed
• 2:36:47
  Speaker 1: in Congress first because it gives it– then you can
• 2:36:50
  Speaker 1: start moving it around into the states. But yeah, wording
• 2:36:57
  Speaker 1: that would– I think– but there's no doubt we need a–
• 2:37:01
  Speaker 1: there's quite a few things we need constitutional amendments for.
• 2:37:04
  Speaker 1: If we're going to regulate money in politics, clearly we
• 2:37:07
  Speaker 1: need a constitutional amendment and I think there's more desire
• 2:37:10
  Speaker 1: for some authority to do this. We're going to need
• 2:37:13
  Speaker 1: a constitutional amendment to decide some presidential authority. Given the
• 2:37:18
  Speaker 1: interpretation of things. So I do think there's a few
• 2:37:22
  Speaker 1: things that need to be changed, there, whether it's access
• 2:37:27
  Speaker 1: to a president's finances, forcing disclosure of that, that presidents
• 2:37:33
  Speaker 1: and vice presidents have to disclose certain things. So I
• 2:37:36
  Speaker 1: think there's quite a bit of constitutional action. And I
• 2:37:39
  Speaker 1: actually expect there's more happening in Congress than you might realize,
• 2:37:42
  Speaker 1: quite a few members. And I think especially if this
• 2:37:45
  Speaker 1: is a big anti-Trump election. That's why I call it anti-Trump,
• 2:37:50
  Speaker 1: not necessarily pro-democratic, but it's just anti-Trump. You'll see quite
• 2:37:54
  Speaker 1: a few members, I think, introduce various– I mean, look,
• 2:37:58
  Speaker 1: as you've heard me say before, this– Donald Trump's been
• 2:38:01
  Speaker 1: the black light on American democracy. He's exposed all the
• 2:38:05
  Speaker 1: dirty parts that we need to fix and we need
• 2:38:07
  Speaker 1: to clean up. Oh, another– all right. Chris from Roscoe, Illinois, Illinois'
• 2:38:15
  Speaker 1: 16th district, making my second attempt at the Five Timers
• 2:38:18
  Speaker 1: Club with Trump traveling around the country to campaign in
• 2:38:20
  Speaker 1: various state races. This midterm cycle, who actually picks up
• 2:38:23
  Speaker 1: the tab for all that travel? Are these trips paid
• 2:38:25
  Speaker 1: for by campaigns, taxpayers, or some combo of the two?
• 2:38:28
  Speaker 1: Keep up the great work. Go Packers and Brewers. Yes,
• 2:38:32
  Speaker 1: as Packer fans, we are trying to– I am struggling
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 1: myself between my old Dodger ties and the Brewers, but
• 2:38:39
  Speaker 1: I have no– I have no I have no negative
• 2:38:42
  Speaker 1: feelings towards the Brewers. I want to see them get
• 2:38:45
  Speaker 1: off the world stage myself. And I know so many
• 2:38:48
  Speaker 1: of my fellow Packer fans are fans. So it's such
• 2:38:52
  Speaker 1: a crummy Packer season. So at least the Brewers and
• 2:38:56
  Speaker 1: the NBA screwed you with Yama. So at least you
• 2:38:59
  Speaker 1: got the Brewers. Look, these things are sometimes administrations create
• 2:39:05
  Speaker 1: some sort of, you know, official part of a response
• 2:39:09
  Speaker 1: or something. that allows them to look, you know, get
• 2:39:12
  Speaker 1: some of it paid for by the taxpayers. But a
• 2:39:14
  Speaker 1: lot of it is look, just moving the president around.
• 2:39:17
  Speaker 1: Most of it's picked up by taxpayers. There's some reimbursements,
• 2:39:20
  Speaker 1: but like, it's like the equivalent of first-class airfare. You're
• 2:39:23
  Speaker 1: still like inside the bubble. You're still talking millions of
• 2:39:26
  Speaker 1: dollars of taxpayer dollars used, but this is, this is every,
• 2:39:32
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter the party of the president, right? This is
• 2:39:34
  Speaker 1: always the case, but there's a formula that literally is
• 2:39:37
  Speaker 1: written into how you, you do it and, why they'll
• 2:39:41
  Speaker 1: say certain things, but campaigns have to reimburse to a point.
• 2:39:47
  Speaker 1: But when you look at how much the raw numbers
• 2:39:50
  Speaker 1: that they actually reimburse versus what it actually would cost
• 2:39:54
  Speaker 1: to move Air Force One, it's chump change. But like
• 2:39:57
  Speaker 1: I said, it's like equivalent of first-class airfare, things like that.
• 2:40:01
  Speaker 1: It's the illusion of having campaigns pay for it. without
• 2:40:10
  Speaker 1: it being incredibly costly to campaigns for them to pay
• 2:40:13
  Speaker 1: for it. All right, last question before I get into
• 2:40:17
  Speaker 1: my football wrap-up. Brad from Stanley, North Carolina, 14th congressional
• 2:40:22
  Speaker 1: district there, hoping to become a two-timer. I've trained my
• 2:40:24
  Speaker 1: kids to mute political ads, but lately I've noticed a
• 2:40:27
  Speaker 1: pro-Annie Andrews super PAC ad attacking Darlene Graham airing repeatedly
• 2:40:33
  Speaker 1: in the Charlotte market, which also reaches South Carolina. Between
• 2:40:35
  Speaker 1: those ads and Trump's recent homophobic attack on Andrews, Could
• 2:40:38
  Speaker 1: a growing name recognition force Graham to speak out more
• 2:40:41
  Speaker 1: and potentially make some costly missteps? Just wanted to share
• 2:40:43
  Speaker 1: some observations from here in North Carolina. Stay awesome. Go Duke.
• 2:40:47
  Speaker 1: And hope you're enjoying our former quarterback down in Miami. Oh, yes,
• 2:40:50
  Speaker 1: I am. He's quite something. Thank you for Mensa. And
• 2:40:53
  Speaker 1: I hope you're enjoying the extra cash we gave your
• 2:40:55
  Speaker 1: program to then help dominate us in college basketball down
• 2:41:00
  Speaker 1: the road. Because Miami did have to pay for Mensa
• 2:41:06
  Speaker 1: and then some. to keep their lawsuit, to make sure
• 2:41:09
  Speaker 1: Duke dropped their lawsuit. But it was probably the right
• 2:41:12
  Speaker 1: thing for everybody. Look, I think Annie Andrews is, you know, look, let's,
• 2:41:19
  Speaker 1: she got Darlene Graham to debate. That in itself is important.
• 2:41:25
  Speaker 1: And I agree with you. Anytime, any opportunity, I think,
• 2:41:29
  Speaker 1: where she showcases what she doesn't know is potentially a problem.
• 2:41:33
  Speaker 1: But I brought her up in my opening monologue. I mean,
• 2:41:38
  Speaker 1: the signature bill she helped carry over the finish line
• 2:41:40
  Speaker 1: of her brothers is being undermined by Donald Trump's behavior
• 2:41:44
  Speaker 1: and pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine instincts. So look, Andrews has real money.
• 2:41:55
  Speaker 1: It's funny. I'm seeing a few more national dollars going
• 2:41:58
  Speaker 1: into South Carolina. I had one person indicate, you know,
• 2:42:01
  Speaker 1: there's some I'll share with you a few pieces of
• 2:42:04
  Speaker 1: intel I've gotten lately. Apparently, the Senate Republicans have done,
• 2:42:08
  Speaker 1: you know, they do weekly survey work of Trump and
• 2:42:11
  Speaker 1: all their Senate states. Trump's upside down in every single
• 2:42:14
  Speaker 1: state where there's a U.S. Senate race, except Idaho. And
• 2:42:18
  Speaker 1: he's only right side up by two points. And Idaho
• 2:42:20
  Speaker 1: is home of the one where we have one of
• 2:42:22
  Speaker 1: those independent candidates running against the Republican Jim Risch, who's
• 2:42:26
  Speaker 1: to lose over is in his 80s. And it's become
• 2:42:28
  Speaker 1: an issue. Todd Achilles is the independent candidate. He's going
• 2:42:32
  Speaker 1: to get in the low 40s. The question is, how
• 2:42:34
  Speaker 1: competitive is this going to get? And I'm fascinated. I
• 2:42:38
  Speaker 1: have a feeling it could get into mid to low
• 2:42:41
  Speaker 1: single digits there. But I think that tells you the
• 2:42:43
  Speaker 1: larger national environment. That's for sure. But a Republican strategist
• 2:42:50
  Speaker 1: whispered to one source, if the Democrats had extra money,
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 1: South Carolina would be vulnerable. And they simply think they're
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 1: going to survive South Carolina because Democrats don't have enough
• 2:43:04
  Speaker 1: money to sort of expand to what they need to
• 2:43:08
  Speaker 1: make South Carolina and Mississippi potentially winnable, that they've kind
• 2:43:12
  Speaker 1: of hit a wall of money. Part of it is
• 2:43:14
  Speaker 1: Kansas is winnable, but suddenly a bunch of money is
• 2:43:16
  Speaker 1: going into Kansas. Ohio is winnable, but a bunch of
• 2:43:19
  Speaker 1: money is going there. It's the question of do you
• 2:43:22
  Speaker 1: dilute your investments in Kansas, Iowa, and Ohio to see
• 2:43:26
  Speaker 1: if you can hit a lottery ticket in South Carolina
• 2:43:30
  Speaker 1: or Mississippi, or do you stick to your seven targets
• 2:43:33
  Speaker 1: and then maybe hope that some outside entity decides to
• 2:43:38
  Speaker 1: take a hobbyist interest in one of those three states, Nebraska, Mississippi,
• 2:43:42
  Speaker 1: South Carolina, the next three on the list. But look,
• 2:43:47
  Speaker 1: Darlene Graham fits all of the– historical boxes that you
• 2:43:55
  Speaker 1: would check for a surprise loser. Appointed senators underperformed. Lindsey
• 2:44:01
  Speaker 1: Graham underperformed a lot. He wasn't really connected to the
• 2:44:04
  Speaker 1: MAGA base very well. I mean, you know, Annie Andrews is,
• 2:44:10
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of has not been, she just doesn't
• 2:44:14
  Speaker 1: have enough to be somebody to run against. They haven't
• 2:44:18
  Speaker 1: been able to demonize her. Trump has tried a little bit.
• 2:44:22
  Speaker 1: So I do expect this race to be a three
• 2:44:25
  Speaker 1: or four point race. And once you're down to three
• 2:44:27
  Speaker 1: or four points, then it's possibly winnable. I do think
• 2:44:31
  Speaker 1: Democrats have made a mistake not targeting this. The minute
• 2:44:34
  Speaker 1: Darlene Graham narrowly won that runoff, this was a winnable race.
• 2:44:38
  Speaker 1: But again, I understand If you're going to go all
• 2:44:43
  Speaker 1: in on Kansas, you can't just sort of go half
• 2:44:45
  Speaker 1: in in these places. You got to decide. And Kansas
• 2:44:48
  Speaker 1: is definitely, I think, more winnable at this point than
• 2:44:51
  Speaker 1: South Carolina. But if you're looking at South Carolina, Nebraska
• 2:44:54
  Speaker 1: and Mississippi, the next one on the board is South Carolina.
• 2:44:58
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 2:44:59
  Speaker 1: That's questions. Few thoughts on college football this weekend. Look,
• 2:45:06
  Speaker 1: I will sort of say it is. I think we
• 2:45:10
  Speaker 1: now know. The Texas offense is what we think it is.
• 2:45:14
  Speaker 1: Not that good. And the question is, is this a
• 2:45:17
  Speaker 1: Sark issue? Is this Sarkeesian's offense that Arch doesn't understand?
• 2:45:21
  Speaker 1: Does he not design play calls that work for Arch?
• 2:45:24
  Speaker 1: Or is Arch a choker himself, right? Like, you know,
• 2:45:28
  Speaker 1: that was a rough second half for him. But either way,
• 2:45:31
  Speaker 1: the offense isn't working. The best player on offense is Coleman.
• 2:45:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, he made some spectacular catches that almost bailed
• 2:45:38
  Speaker 1: Texas out of this thing. But we know there's not
• 2:45:40
  Speaker 1: much to this Oklahoma offense. And we know that this
• 2:45:44
  Speaker 1: was going to be the best effort. Look, Texas is
• 2:45:46
  Speaker 1: a championship defense. There's no doubt in my mind they
• 2:45:48
  Speaker 1: have a championship defense. But there's real question marks about
• 2:45:52
  Speaker 1: whether they have a good enough offense to win the
• 2:45:54
  Speaker 1: whole thing. When I look at sort of how close
• 2:45:58
  Speaker 1: Miami got last year in Indiana, look, Miami always had
• 2:46:03
  Speaker 1: a championship defense last year. The question was, is the
• 2:46:05
  Speaker 1: offense good enough? And the offense got good enough. As
• 2:46:08
  Speaker 1: Carson Beck got healthier, you really saw it in their offense.
• 2:46:11
  Speaker 1: When they had to do a shootout with Ole Miss,
• 2:46:13
  Speaker 1: they could do a shootout. They had enough. You see
• 2:46:16
  Speaker 1: this with Georgia. Georgia has enough. I think right now,
• 2:46:21
  Speaker 1: Georgia's number one. I think you look at what they've done.
• 2:46:25
  Speaker 1: I will concede because of a slightly tougher schedule so far.
• 2:46:29
  Speaker 1: I'd put Notre Dame two. And I'd put Miami three
• 2:46:34
  Speaker 1: if you're going to go your one, two, three there.
• 2:46:37
  Speaker 1: I think at that point, I don't know what to
• 2:46:43
  Speaker 1: think of Indiana. Nebraska should have won that game. Nebraska
• 2:46:49
  Speaker 1: lost that game in the first half when they didn't
• 2:46:51
  Speaker 1: put enough points. Their advantage in the first half should
• 2:46:54
  Speaker 1: have given them a double-digit lead at halftime, and it didn't.
• 2:46:57
  Speaker 1: So I think they left too many points on the board. Basically,
• 2:47:00
  Speaker 1: you can't leave a well-coached team that much time. But
• 2:47:03
  Speaker 1: how many times are we going to watch Indiana underperform
• 2:47:05
  Speaker 1: on offense? Is Hoover good enough? He looked a little
• 2:47:08
  Speaker 1: bit better in the second half of that game. Obviously,
• 2:47:12
  Speaker 1: we're going to find out a lot about Indiana and
• 2:47:15
  Speaker 1: Ohio State. That's... State. And at this point, just like
• 2:47:21
  Speaker 1: the Georgia-Alabama game, it's likely at this point, winner gets
• 2:47:26
  Speaker 1: the buy, right? Loser gets to probably host a game,
• 2:47:30
  Speaker 1: but has to play an extra game in the playoff.
• 2:47:32
  Speaker 1: That's probably what we just saw take place, both in Georgia, Alabama.
• 2:47:37
  Speaker 1: That's what that means. And I think for Indiana and
• 2:47:40
  Speaker 1: Ohio State, what will that mean? And it may be
• 2:47:42
  Speaker 1: what Miami and Notre Dame ends up being about. Now,
• 2:47:46
  Speaker 1: Miami's got Florida State. It's Florida State week. I wanted
• 2:47:49
  Speaker 1: Florida State to win on Friday because I didn't want
• 2:47:53
  Speaker 1: basically a desperate Florida State team whose season is on
• 2:47:56
  Speaker 1: the brink of– it's definitely– the season goes from bad
• 2:48:02
  Speaker 1: to worse if they lose badly to Miami. And so
• 2:48:05
  Speaker 1: I expect they've fired up seminal teams. In Miami's worst years,
• 2:48:09
  Speaker 1: they still gave Florida State in its best years a
• 2:48:11
  Speaker 1: tough game. I expect the same thing. Everybody knows each other.
• 2:48:15
  Speaker 1: Very concerned about this. The only good news is I
• 2:48:19
  Speaker 1: think Mario cares about this game. But I don't want
• 2:48:22
  Speaker 1: to see what happened last year where we got the
• 2:48:24
  Speaker 1: big lead and then we just sat on it at
• 2:48:26
  Speaker 1: the end. They were so afraid of Carson Beck making mistakes.
• 2:48:31
  Speaker 1: And remember, thinking that Watching how they were managing that
• 2:48:35
  Speaker 1: fourth quarter, they would not throw the ball at all.
• 2:48:37
  Speaker 1: They were so nervous about it. Back then, it was
• 2:48:40
  Speaker 1: clear they had not yet trusted Carson Beck to run
• 2:48:43
  Speaker 1: the full offense. That is not the case with Mensah
• 2:48:45
  Speaker 1: this time. So I got to think that they know
• 2:48:47
  Speaker 1: how to shut the door. And we basically figured out
• 2:48:53
  Speaker 1: how to shut the door against Clemson. I'd really like,
• 2:48:55
  Speaker 1: that's something I'd like to see there. I plan to
• 2:48:58
  Speaker 1: be there. I was supposed to be at the Louisville game,
• 2:49:00
  Speaker 1: but the storm got in the way and we decided,
• 2:49:02
  Speaker 1: We had all sorts of other issues why we couldn't
• 2:49:04
  Speaker 1: get to the Florida State-Louisville game. But I look forward
• 2:49:07
  Speaker 1: to going down this weekend for Miami-Florida State. Third straight
• 2:49:11
  Speaker 1: year I've been able to see the Miami-Florida State game
• 2:49:14
  Speaker 1: in person. And we are looking forward to that. So
• 2:49:18
  Speaker 1: it is a– obviously the game of the week next
• 2:49:21
  Speaker 1: week is all things Indiana-Ohio State. But in my household,
• 2:49:26
  Speaker 1: Miami-Florida State will be the dominant conversation. A few other
• 2:49:30
  Speaker 1: things that we learned. I think we learned Florida. Is
• 2:49:32
  Speaker 1: it possible that Florida's the overrated team, right? Basically now
• 2:49:39
  Speaker 1: they've lost to South Carolina and they've lost to Mizzou
• 2:49:43
  Speaker 1: and they beat Ole Miss. This was more about Ole
• 2:49:45
  Speaker 1: Miss having a bad game following its big win over
• 2:49:48
  Speaker 1: LSU than anything else. So I think when you're starting
• 2:49:52
  Speaker 1: to rank your SEC schools, right, you have Georgia, Alabama,
• 2:49:55
  Speaker 1: I think you now put Texas in the third slot
• 2:49:58
  Speaker 1: and I think you put Ole Miss in the fourth slot.
• 2:50:00
  Speaker 1: And I got to ask this question. LSU, they're out.
• 2:50:04
  Speaker 1: Is Kentucky in? By the way, UCLA? Was that a
• 2:50:10
  Speaker 1: win by UCLA or a loss by Oregon? Have you
• 2:50:15
  Speaker 1: seen the rest of UCLA's schedule? UCLA's going to be
• 2:50:19
  Speaker 1: in the playoff, folks. The fact is, here come their
• 2:50:24
  Speaker 1: this year's Indiana stories, even more so than before. But man,
• 2:50:29
  Speaker 1: they've got It's interesting. They don't have to play Ohio
• 2:50:31
  Speaker 1: State or Indiana, but they have Wisconsin and Minnesota on
• 2:50:34
  Speaker 1: their schedule. Mark this down. They're going to lose one
• 2:50:38
  Speaker 1: of those two. I know this week I'd be looking
• 2:50:45
  Speaker 1: for whoever's playing UCLA. It's hard to imagine. It's hard
• 2:50:50
  Speaker 1: to imagine they're going to pull off, keep this rolling
• 2:50:54
  Speaker 1: the way they do. But hey, guess what? A lot
• 2:50:56
  Speaker 1: of people lost money chasing that. Elusive loss for Indiana
• 2:50:59
  Speaker 1: that never came to be last year. So you never know.
• 2:51:04
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I think the two big things we learned
• 2:51:07
  Speaker 1: over the weekend, Florida's not a playoff team. And I
• 2:51:11
  Speaker 1: don't know if Texas is either.
• 2:51:14
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 2:51:14
  Speaker 1: I whispered it because I got too many friends who
• 2:51:16
  Speaker 1: are UT fans that I don't want to hear their complaints.
• 2:51:20
  Speaker 1: You only have one loss. You're not out of it yet.
• 2:51:24
  Speaker 1: But I think you're not a 9-3 team that feels
• 2:51:29
  Speaker 1: like you are going to get the benefit of the doubt.
• 2:51:32
  Speaker 1: That's just something I think about. All right. With that,
• 2:51:35
  Speaker 1: I'll see you in 24 hours with Super Tuesday. Thanks
• 2:51:39
  Speaker 1: for listening. And until we upload again.