Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - A Growing Number Of Republicans Are Breaking From Trump + Todd Blanche Has ZERO Chance Of Getting Confirmed

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Chuck’s Commentary - A Growing Number Of Republicans Are Breaking From Trump + Todd Blanche Has ZERO Chance Of Getting Confirmed · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 2: Hello there, Happy Thursday, and welcome.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: To another episode of the check podcast.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: It has been quite a week.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: There's been a lot of political news, a lot of
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: campaign news. We're in the middle of the never ending
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: vote count in California, which, yes, this is a problem
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the state needs to deal with. I'm tired of people
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: trying to defend the system and so just be patient. No,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: this is creating problems. But I'm going to get to
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: that in a minute. Don't want to start my start
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: some of these election counting rants too soon here. But
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I've just had a week because I also have some
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: sad news. But in some ways that that is that
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: has hit my family. We lost my grandmother this week.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: She lived an incredible life ninety nine years on this
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: on this earth, and I am going to use the
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: privilege of this podcast at the end of it to
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: share a few a few thoughts on her and just
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: share a few nuggets about her that I want anybody
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: that wants to know me needs to know about her.
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  Speaker 1: So it's just all happening. I've been traveling a lot anyway.
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  Speaker 1: My point is is, it's it's been a week. It's
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: been a week both it was a busy week in
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: and of itself in my professional world, in our professional
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: world of campaign politics, a busy week, and what's happening
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: in the real world of war and peace and and
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and things like that with Ukraine, with Iran, et cetera.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: We just kind of we just got a lot going
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: on so and got my own situation there so, but
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  Speaker 1: I think we had to begin.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Let me be a rundown.
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  Speaker 1: Now. On the political front, I want to tackle a
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: few things. We've got some new news out of the
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: White House regarding potential permanent pick for the post of
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Attorney General. I've got some updates on Maine Senate and
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: a focus on how what I would say is how
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: we should assess how Janet Mills does against Graham Plattner,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: and the Democratic primary planner is going to be the
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Democratic nominee that we know, but Janet Mills's name is
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  Speaker 1: on the ballot, and it is going to be a
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: barometer to see how, you know, how much of a
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: problem has all of this, all of these disclosures about
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: his personal life and personal habits. How much of a
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: toll has this taken with rank and file Democratic voters.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Let's just say I did a little bit of research
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: and have a data driven metric for you to watch
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: that main center race, and I want to go through
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: a poll memo that he put out to try to
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: reassure donors and supporters that things aren't as bleak as
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: the media coverage has said. But I want to begin
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: and then we'll a little update about California, because I
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: think the best you can hope for is maybe maybe
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: my friends over at Decision to SAQ will have enough
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: information to at least call the second slots of the
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: runoff in La Mayor and in California GOV. Maybe, and
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  Speaker 1: we're hopeful by Friday or Saturday. But if it, obviously
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: if some of these drops make things even closer between
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: second and third and it could go another few days.
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  Speaker 1: But not only will I sort of help you in
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  Speaker 1: how to watch this a little bit, but I do
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: think we've got a this really needs to I think
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  Speaker 1: the way California is conducting itself here is introducing more
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: just allows for conspiracy theories to fill the vacuum. And
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: it's just unnecessary to feel to allow a vacuum like
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: this to exist. But we're going to get to that
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  Speaker 1: as well. But I want to begin what I think
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  Speaker 1: has been the most significant development of the week, and
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: that is Congressional Republicans and starting the increasing number of
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Congressional Republicans that are pretty much done capitulating to Donald Trump. Now,
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  Speaker 1: maybe for some of you it may not be enough,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: and for some of you, you may think that they're,
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  Speaker 1: you know, only doing the minimum and there are more
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: ways that they should push back on Donald Trump. But
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  Speaker 1: the reality is this has been a pretty significant development.
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  Speaker 1: When the Senate Republican leader, as I was telling you
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: in the last episode, he immediately reacts to the Bill
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Poultine nomination as we don't for the Director of National Intelligence.
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  Speaker 2: We don't need.
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  Speaker 1: Weaponization and a weapon using the word weaponization, right, it
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: was not a democratic talking point. First, it came from
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  Speaker 1: the leading Republican in the Senate. It's you know, and
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  Speaker 1: Thune wouldn't have done this if he wasn't speaking for
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  Speaker 1: a majority of his own conference. The Senate Republicans have
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  Speaker 1: had enough, and now you've even got any you know,
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  Speaker 1: some of this is due to absentees, but you continue
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  Speaker 1: to see a trickle of House Republicans, at least on
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: the War Powers Act when it comes to Iran, and
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: we'll see if more happens of the next day or
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  Speaker 1: two when it comes to aid Ukraine, but an increasing
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: number of Republicans slower in the House. I remember, House
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Republicans are more closely aligned with Donald Trump's wing of
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  Speaker 1: the party than Senate Republicans. Has just been the case
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  Speaker 1: pretty much his entire presidency. But the fact that you know,
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  Speaker 1: it's a symbolic vote in the House, but Republicans lost it,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: or more importantly, the Trump administration lost it. So even
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: though that Donald Trump has had mostly success in punishing
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  Speaker 1: Republicans that have crossed him, it appears there are fewer
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  Speaker 1: that fear him, and there certainly is this growing Yolo caucus.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, that we've been talking about in the Senate.
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  Speaker 2: But even on Tuesday night, his.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Ability to tell primary voters what to do was has
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: been called into a little bit of questioning, at least
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: in the state of Iowa, given that his endorsement, which
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: was seen as necessary essentially to rescue the Republican ticket
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: for fear that Zach Laine, who did win the Republican nomination,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: is just not going to is going to be a
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: bit of a drag on Ashley Hintson, the Republican Senate
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: candidate nominee, rather than an asset. And so there's no
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: doubt how the President was talked into that. But the
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: point is is that tons of data points this week
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  Speaker 1: that the Republican Party that is not Trump centric is
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: ready to move on and they are comfortable now treating
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: this president as a lame president. And then of course
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: there's his behavior himself, and when things are going badly
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: for him, he gets cranky, he lashes out, he's doing
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: his misogynistic attacks on journalists. I mean, what he does
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: to Caitlin Collins is just outrageous, and.
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  Speaker 2: It's so.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't react every time he unfairly maligns
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: reporters unfairly maligns news organizations, because it would be all
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: I would do if that's what I do. And I
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: do think that the compact I've made with you with
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: this podcast is to basically try to do two things.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Cover politics as it is, but also present politics perhaps
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: as it could be or should be. That's essentially my
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: north star here, and I don't want to be labor.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I mean I could sit here and wine and wine
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: and wine about just how ridiculous, how un american that
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: the Pentagon behaves when it comes to the First Amendment
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: in journalists, how the White House behaves when it comes
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: to the First Amendment in journalists, and then just the
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: absolute nasty way that he speaks about women journalists in particulars.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: And this is sadly not anything new. What's disappointing is
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: not that plenty of us fellow journalists will speak up
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: from time to time, because you just get to a
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: point where, like Jesus, you know, does anybody you know
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  Speaker 1: have you no decency?
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Sir?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, this is the moment, but I really would
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: like to hear it from somebody inside, you know, the
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  Speaker 1: Republican Party that you know this is, this is becoming
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  Speaker 1: embarrassing and it's damaging and it's fairly destructive to the
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: political discourse in the country.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: But he's not.
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  Speaker 1: You know, he's clearly when when, like I said, when
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: things don't go well, you can you know, he wears
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: he wears it all. You know, he is terrible. You know,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: We've said this, He's a terrible poker player. He wears
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: all of his uh, he wears it all out there
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: in a sleeve. Both how he's feeling his strengths, his weaknesses,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: his vulnerabilities, his projections. Right, he does not hide any
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: of them, right, he is he is oddly incredibly easy
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: to read. Which is why he can't get a deal
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: with the Iranians, right, which is why he's been such
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: a terrible negotiator and trying to supposedly put together a
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Right, because he's just in
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: why she is eating his lunch in every single negotiation
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: the United States has had under Donald Trump with China.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: He's a terrible negotiator. You know, That's why he loves
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: to say he's a great negotiator. This is a classic
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: attempt at gaslighting. Right, But he is just awful, Right,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: one of the worst that we've had in this in
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: this position. So he's in as he wears it all
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: on his sleep, He's not in a good place. And
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: this is all happening right when he's about to have
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: this inward celebration of himself while trying to wrap himself
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: in America to fifty. And I will tell you, I
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: think there's a lot of political riskiness here, you know,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: creating this UFC event on the South Lawn. You know,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I know how Republicans would have reacted if Barack Obama
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: had decided to host the All Star Game on the
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: South Lawn and manufactured a basketball court. Might be a
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: lot of fun, might be a great idea, but nah,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would at the time
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: would have seen that that's you know, is that the
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: way we should use the White House? And oh, you're
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: just doing it because you love basketball, right and all
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: these things, But that's not the way Barack Obama was
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: going to conduct his presidency or use the White House
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: this way. And you do this and there's a part
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: of this it's like, you know, put it on the
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: National Mall, and.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: You know it is some way.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: It's like, you know, there's it's always with Trump, like
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: especially with this beautification aspect of DC. There are things
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: that I'm glad he's doing. Cleaning up some of these monuments,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: absolutely please. The federal government should spend money to present
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: a capital that people can be proud to visit in see.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: But it is your federal government, mister President, that consistently
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: underfunds things like this and makes it very difficult for
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: the Park Service and the Smithsonian to keep everything in
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: tip top shape. Good to see that there's some part
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: of this is but like with everything with Trump, by
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: ten percent of what he says is legitimate, but he
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: goes ninety percent too far, almost all of it. Right.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: How he's behaving with this reflecting pool, I mean, he
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: almost is convincing himself that he built the reflecting pool
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: now that he's comparing it to skyscrapers. And as someone
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: said in social media, ay man, if he can build
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: a vertical reflecting pool that would be taller than you know,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I'm here for it. Love to see it. That'd be
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: an engineering marvel. We'd love to see this. But I
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: think that this sort of exhaustion, this sort of inward
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: celebration at a time when the economy is not popular
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: when people feel as if this White House is focused
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: on anything but people's day to day lives, spending two
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: months celebrating himself in June, sort of hijacking the two
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: hundred and fiftieth birthday to make it all about himself,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the Indy car race, which we'll try to make all
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: about himself. I don't know if it's going to wear well.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: And this is a campaign year, and this is a
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: time when the Republican Party's brand is not in it
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: in some ways has been in slightly better shape than
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the Democratic brand. I don't think it's going to be
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: after Donald Trump's finished for the next sixty days, especially
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: as his actual political grip on governing the country and
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: controlling the Republican Party is slipping away. And so he's
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: going to you know, almost be more desperate for these
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: events to be about himself, more desperate to you know,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: and he's going to you know, continue need to get
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: angry when you know, major celebrities feel uncomfortable with how
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: much he's politicizing America's birthday. As I said before, you know,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump could have gotten all of the ego bump
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: he wanted out of this if he knew how a
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: tiny bit of humility and he knew how to actually
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: engage the former presidents into co hosting a great celebration
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: of America two fifty. But that's not who Donald Trump is, right.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: He burns bridges with everybody, burned bridges with the former presidents,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Republican and Democratic alike. He burns bridges with our allies
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: in Europe right when we have no help. We're having
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: to go it alone with the straight ofform muvesm with
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: what's happening there. Right. All he does is burn bridges
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: on this front. But I you know, I don't know
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: if this is going to go so well and it's
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: going to be this is you know, the Marie Antoinette
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: comparisons to let them eat cake.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Optics on this.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: I think are a lot more dangerous for Republicans that
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: are on the ballot. Wouldn't be surprised if you start
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: to see some Republicans find more ways to distance himself
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: even from these celebrations. I think, and maybe Donald Trump
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: doesn't want some of these people around, but they're not
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: going to be with them. And one other thing to watch,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Supposedly they're going to do this midterm convention, and he
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: hasn't quite announced it yet. I think it could be
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Dallas is one idea that they had it. I'm not
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: sure Republicans running in some of these Senate races want
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: to have a nationalized political rally with the president, right.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the Republican coalition is a tricky
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: thing in a midterm year because there is some data
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: that says, well, actually getting the president's base fired up
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: about the midterms could help, right with turnout.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: But the very.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Voters they need as sort of the ones that are
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: not big Trump fans, but maybe you are, are kind
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: of turned off by the left woard turn of the
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party. Do they become less gettable if he magnifies
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: things too much? Of that midterm convention, for instance, you
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: think Dan Sullivan's going to show up to that, I
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: know if I were one of his advisers, and you're like, yeah,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: you might want to go to that, right. You think
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Ashley Hinson goes. Maybe she goes because maybe she needs
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: she needs a Trump voter turnout in Iowa, you know,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: so it you know, I'm not sure John Houston goes, right,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure Johnson who goes, I'm not sure Mike
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Rogers goes. We'll see it'll be an interesting test over there,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: and you'll know by those that go to that convention
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: who needs Trump based voters more and who needs swing
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: voters more. So it may depend a little bit on
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: the nature if you're electorate. This episode of the Chuck
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  Speaker 1: those metrics, that's a pretty good bet on Team USA.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: You only have to lay a dollar nine to win
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: a dollar. This is going to be a great opening
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: crowd at Sofi. People are going to be fired up,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: people are going to be excited. So I know where
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: my patriotic bucks are going to be going. So from
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: the opening whistle to the final kick, let there be
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: goals on FanDuel. Visitfanduel dot com to get started. Now
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: this is offered by FanDuel Prediction Markets LLC. It's a
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: registered Futures Commission Merchant eighteen plus. The bonus is on
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: withdrawal and expires seven days after receipt. Trading derivatives involve
• 20:05
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• 20:10
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• 20:15
  Speaker 1: See the terms at FanDuel dot com. Slash predicts, Slash
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Bonus hyphen offer hyphen terms, which brings me to what
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: may be the news of the of the morning, because
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: by the time I'm recording this, there's one report that
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: indicates the President is likely to announce that Todd Blanche
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: is longtime his personal attorney who has been the acting
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Attorney General. He's going to nominate him, to formally nominate
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: him for the post of Attorney General and have them
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: put up for confirmation. This is this could be the
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: jump the Shark moment for Donald Trump. And I'm sorry
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: for using that old cliche in metaphor, but this is this.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: There is zero chance Todd Blanche can get confirmed. And
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: I think Trump in his own head thinks, well, you
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: know what if I flood the zone with crazy at
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: the Senate. They're not going to reject all of that. Right,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: That's how it worked in the beginning of this second term,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: right when he flooed the zone with crazy Matt Gates, RFK,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: hag Seth, Tulci Gabbart, he got three of the four through, right,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: So maybe he thinks Bill Poulti and Todd Blanche that
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like Darren to reject both. And my
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: answer to the President and to folks in the West Wing,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you're paying attention here, Todd Blanche
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: has not made any friends. This weaponization fund was the
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: clearly Todd Blanche creation. And if he didn't create it,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: he blessed it. It doesn't matter.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: It's his. He owns it.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: And by the way, they haven't scrapped they just scrapped
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the financial reward. Part of this settlement in place is
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: still this ridiculous idea that the president's former personal attorney,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: but I don't know if it's former, if he's acting
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: in his personal capacity or for the government, has somehow
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: agreed to give I guess amnesty to Donald Trump on
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: every tax form and anything any of the Trump's have
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: filed with the IRS through calendar year twenty twenty five.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, guys. You love to have
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: permanent amnesty from any sort of IRS scrutiny of your
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: taxes in you know, for every single tax form you've
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: ever filed, especially if you run some weird, sketchy development
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: deals all over the country. I mean, it is, you know,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the idea that Blanche has a snowballs chance in hell,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: there's no Susan Collins votes to confirm him. She's got
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: a very winnable race for reelection Uphill, and she can't.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: The further away she is from Trump, the better chances
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: she's going to have. There's no way Dan Sullivan is
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: going to vote for this. We kind of know where
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the Yolo caucus is. We really think Tom Tillis will
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: vote for Tom Blanche. You think John Cornyn or Bill Cassidy,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: So there's three. How about Mitch McConnell. How comfortable do
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: you think he is? Then you have to start looking
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: at Kenned John Houston afford this vote. I don't think
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: they fully appreciate how tough these votes are going to be.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: And maybe this could be an indication that Trump's done
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: listening to any sort of advice like this, maybe he's
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: done with Senate Republicans. He's so angry that they took
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the fund away from him. He's so angry that that
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: they can't pass that they won't pass this funding for
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: his East wing project, and he's just you know, this
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: is he's just gonna go Tony Montana on the Republican
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Party and just you know, push the envelope, wait for
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: the courts to say no, wait for the Congress to
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: say no, still try to get away with it as
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: much as he can until he's sort of forced not to.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: And maybe that's what the next two years are like.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: But my word, it's one of those I I'm like
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I said, there's one report indicating that this may happen,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: and by the time you hear this, it may have
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: already happened.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: But as I indicated.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Before and Bill Poulti yesterday, there's no way where this
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Republican Senate is currently. There is no way Bill Poulty
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: has a snowballs chance in hell of getting confirmed, and
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: neither does Todd blanche And it's almost as if Donald
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Trump wants to put a neon sign on the White House.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: That's as I no longer am I am a lame
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: duck that and just put it in flashing lights when
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: you offer up people that your party is just going
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: to summarily reject. That is I think the very definition
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: of what a lame duck president starts to look like.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: And we haven't even gotten to the midterms yet. Usually
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: this formally doesn't begin until after you get the sill
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: acking in your second midterm, at least the way it's
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: happened in the last couple of decades. Speaking of the midterms,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: two things. One quick California update. So we've gotten you
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: as I as we left off with each other after
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the results, going into Wednesday's podcast.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: I indicated that there's.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: A that there's an open question can Spend Pratt's hold
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: on to that second runoff spot or is the Momdaniaca
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: like remain going to catch him? And in the governor's race,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: does Stire have a chance of catching Well, right now
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: it's as I'm taping this, it is still Kilton that's
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: ahead in the governor's race. But all indications and all
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: sort of our understanding of when these vote drops are coming,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: and you can see it by the by Friday or Saturday.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: But Sarah's going to be the first place candidate. Kilton's
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: likely to hang on to the second slot. The question
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: is how much will the Styre vote grow now we've
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: seen we saw a lot more drops on Wednesday in
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: La County than we really did statewide. Not every county
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: updated their vote counting, which is just absurd. But we'll
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: get to that in a second. But it was some
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: interesting trends in La which means these are ballots that
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: came in closer to election day and we're getting closer
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: election day vot vote and in those votes and the
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: governor's race, at least in La County it was Besarah Stier,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Hilton and Hilton being in third. So Styre certainly did
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: pick up some you know, made up a little bit
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: of ground on the top two. As he is, he
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: tries to see if he can pick up six percentage
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: points minimum to try to sneak into this runoff. I
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: think it's unlikely, but again I think that you're going
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: to see some unusual late like we saw even in
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: La Mayor with the last drop. Well, you know, Pratt
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: seems a bit stronger I think in holding onto the
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: second slot than what we might see in the governor's race.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: And but you know, I'm.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Always hesitant here because of how we still don't know
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: how many ballots, our total ballots we're dealing with. We
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: may not actually feel comfortable saying what that number likely
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: estimate is going to be until Friday or Saturday, because
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: at that point they'll know as they deal with the
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: trickle of member. Ballots can keep being processed up to
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: one week after Tuesday, so up to June ninth, as
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: long as the ballot was postmarked on June second, and
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: it's quite common. There's one of the California race I
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: want to point out, and it's one I was talking
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: about a lot in the live stream, and it's one
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: that at the time we didn't make that our friends
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: and Decision a SQ weren't making it one of our
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: key races to watch. And that's California six. And this
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: is the race that features Kevin Kylie, a republic who
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: was first elected to Congress as a Republican who decided
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: to drop his Republican party affiliation and run for reelection
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: in the sixth congressional district after the remap in California
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: as an independent and as and look, it is only
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: half the vote is in and as of this taping,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: a Republican is in second place and the Democratic that
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: this district was drawn to elect a Democrat. It's about
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: a fifty six fifty seven percent performing Democratic district. The
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Democratic candidate is currently in third place, not that far behind,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: about a thousand votes behind second place the Republican candidate.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: But there's every chance they're you know, on paper right now,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: if these if somehow this these percentages hold, Democrats will
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: get locked out of a congressional district that they designed
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: to win. But it would be kind of and the
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Republican and I think the question is is if you're Kylie,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: you're going to You're going to be in the top two,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: You're going to be an I do you? You know?
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Is it is probably an easier path to re election
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: for him if the Republicans and second, and he's got
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: a better shot at winning over some skeptical Democrats if
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: he says, no, I'm going in there to be an
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: independent and I'll make my decision who who if either
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: party I call becus with depending on on what happens,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: or he may say, you know, which is what I
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: might do if I were an independent. Look, if elected,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I'm going to caucus with the majority. I'm not going
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: to be the candidate that gives any party the majority,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: but I'm I'm going to caucus with them because that'll
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: be in the best interest of my constituents in my district.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: It will give me the loudest voice that I can have.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: But if the other party went, I'm going to switch
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: and organize with them. That's how I would handle trying
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: to be an independent and just the way our system
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: is set up in the House of Representatives. But it's
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: it's to me, it's one of my It's one of
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: my under the radar favorite races because UH an independent
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: has as I think, a real shot UH winning here
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: and it you know, we've had a growing no party
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: affiliation set of registrants. You know, can Kylie actually appeal
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: to that growing set of electorate? So I just think
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: it's an interesting political science experiment at a minimum on that.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: But before I moved to.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: This deep dive that I did on Maine and how
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: to watch the primary on June ninth and how you
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: should interpret that pole memo that has been circulating on
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: social media from the Platner campaign, I just want to
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: put a plea out there to the California Legislature. California governor,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: you know, my understanding governor Knews called up these counting
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: clerks and said, you gotta you really got to, you know,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: work faster. And essentially the response to the governor was
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: give us more money. You know, if you want the
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: count faster, we you know, we need to hire more people.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: We need to be able to pay more overtime, put
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: the resources in place to count these ballots faster, to
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: process these ballots faster. The integrity of the democracy is
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: on the line, guys. You know, I you know, do
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: I trust this process? I do, all right, I've toured
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: to vote Voting Center. I understand your signature match, but
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of Americans don't. And the ability to fill
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: a vacuum here with conspiracy theories, nobody has enough credibility
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: to convince people that they don't get to see it
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: with their own eyes. Okay, So, and when forty nine
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: other states seem to be able to get somewhere to
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: ninety five two one hundred percent, I guess forty eight
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: because Washington State can take a little bit of time too.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: But at forty eight or forty nine, other states can
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: pull this off. Come on, California, you spend a lot
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: of money on governance. Put some here. If you care
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: about the democracy, if you care about the perception of
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: the democracy, if you care about trusting the democracy, then
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: the California Legislature and the California governor should be focused
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: like a laser beam and making sure the vote can
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: out happens accurately and quickly, so that you are protecting
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: the integrity of the democracy. So you're minimizing the ability
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: of people who want to fill that vacuum with misinformation
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: and who want to play games like Donald Trump does
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: because he's he's impatient, or he's ignorant, or he just
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: wants to be exploitive on it. Right, you pick your
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: pick your answer on that one. The guys, this is
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: I think this is this is not a nice to have.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: This is something that is uh that again, if you
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: if the rhetoric that many of you California leaders use
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: about the democracy, if you mean it, start by making
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: this a pristine process. State of Florida does a lot
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: of early vote, a lot of mail and vote, and
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: they seem to be able to pull this off. But look,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: we are friends in Maricopa county need need a lot
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: more resources to I am all for giving people as
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: many options as possible to vote. I think there's nothing
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: wrong with mail in voting, and you have signature verification
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: and it's The California system is very impressive when it
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: comes to security and verification. The one thing it lacks
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: is speed, and that can be fixed with resources. So
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: come on, guys, get your act together. Don't make it
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: easy for trolls on the Internet to create conspiracy theories
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: about these votecasts. This episode of the Chuck Podcast is
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• 36:23
  Speaker 1: here before we get to the interview with Todd Records
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: with an update on the Platner campaign. The most fascinating
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: thing about what's coming next with Platner. It's clear that
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: his visit to d C was okay when it came
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: to his meetings with Democratic senators. Those that wanted it,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: that were desperate to look for reassurance believe they somehow
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: found it. But you can kind of tell if you
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: if you read that Wall Street Journal story about what
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: he said, where he he didn't seem to say no
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: more was going to come out. You just seemed to
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: say that the worst stuff you've the worst stuff you've
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: heard is not true. That was to me far did
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: not quite get to the point of there's nothing more
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: there and there's no there there. So you get that
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: report and then you get this memo that the Platner
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: campaign put out as an attempt to and they shared
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: it all over social media, and it's clearly an attempt
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: to try to calm calm down the nervous the folks
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: that are nervous about Platter and they they go, hey,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: we just we just came out of the field and
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: they did a quickie pole. But they didn't use you know,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: one of their uh, they didn't use put it this
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: way anytime I've ever seen a poll where Democrats wanted
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: to make it look like they had a better chance
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: somewhere than they probably have. It's amazing how often the
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: poll comes from PPP. PPP is definitely a Democratic leaning firm. Uh.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: It is a robopoll, it is, you know, but there's
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of VR, you know, where you press a
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: button or now it's talk to text and all that stuff.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: But if you track PPP surveys, you know, it has
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: definitely a den bias to it. There's always a two
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: to four point you know. It's it's always sort of
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: the perfect electorate that Democrats would need. I'm not saying
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: they manipulate the numbers that. I'm not saying. It's just
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: you know, they they they they will, they will do
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: a SAMP, they will do the they will find the
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: rosiest sample that is defensible in order to put it,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: get get a result, get a pole result that reinforces
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: a narrative that they're trying to get out there. And
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: so what's the narrative the platner wants to get out there.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Hey we've had a terrible week, We've gotten all this incoming,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: and you know what, guess what we're still ahead of Colins.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: So that's what this poll says. Except if you're going
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: to throw out a pp P pole and you know,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: this is one of those for the political community, if
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: you know, you know anybody that does this for a living.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: And again, I'm not here to tell to wish cast here,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: I'm just telling you the reality. Anybody that's serious about
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: political announcers handicapping discounts PPP polls by a couple of
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: points for Team Blue, and the best they could, the
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: best results that the PPP folks could produce for the
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Platiner campaign was a forty nine to forty five lead
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: over Collins. Now you say, hey, he leads an incumbent.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: This is an incumbent senator under fifty the challenger is ahead,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: that's a big deal. Except all the public polling for
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: weeks has shown Platiner with the massive lead over Collins,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: you know, anywhere from high single digits to even some
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: low double digits, and he would So this is definitely
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: left a mark. And then they did a when you
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: hear the worst about Platiner and you hear the worst
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: thing that they believe they can stick on Collins, that
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: it doesn't it that the damage is minimal to his standing,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: and essentially it produces the same result. Well, you've got
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: to be careful when you do these. You know, you're
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: trying to do these hypothetical questions. So you know, if
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: you learn that, you know, and they read the text
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: messages or they read about sexting with Platner, and if
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: you knew that, you know, Susan Collins's husband benefited from
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: insider government contracts to a massive amount of money, you
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: know it wouldn't you know? You know. So they introduced
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: both pieces of information to their voting sample and it
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: didn't change their head to head. The point is is
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: that while the memo on its face was an attempt
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: to reassure support everything's going well. We still we've got
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: some good fundraising metrics to share and we're still leading
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: in the poll because we did this quickie pole. But
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: we didn't use the polster we normally use. We used
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: PPP to do this. So again, it feels like a
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: trying to just plug a hole here, right. So the
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: bottom line is, I think Platiner is in much more
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: trouble than anybody's letting on. And I don't know if
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: there's you know, if there is any more shoes that drop,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: if there's any more drip drip here, I'm not sure
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: how many more drip drips that he can handle. So
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: the question is how much of this matters to main Democrats. Well,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: we're gonna have an interesting experiment on June ninth looking
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: at this Pole memo and realizing, oh wow, this must
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: be a lot worse. You know, Look, I am not
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: convinced this is going to end Platner's campaign. He could
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: recover from this and win. I think there is definitely
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Collins fatigue in the state, right He could still win
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: with all of this out there, So I don't rule
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: that out. But I thought, wow, that Pole tells me
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: this is this. You know, basically the memo is saying, hey, yeah,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: we took a hit, but this is recoverable. Don't panic yet.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: That was essentially the tone of the memo, even though
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: you know it didn't. They weren't acknowledging any of the
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: negatives in it. But if you sort of read between
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: the lines, they're telling you, yeah, Platner took a pretty
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: big hit. So if there is any buyer's remorse on Platner,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: this is one of these occasions where voters actually can
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: get a do over if they really want it right.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: Janet Mills, while she's not actively campaigning, did not take
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: her name off the ballot, a fact that Janet Mills
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: herself chose to remind a reporter about during an interview
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: earlier this week. So I thought, Okay, Mills is going
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: to get some votes obviously in the Democratic primary next Tuesday.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: Maine is one of a couple of states next year.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: We're going to Nevada, South Carolina, Maine. Maine's got a
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: tremendous governor's race. It's crazy on both sides of the aisle.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: That'll be a lot of fun to watch. We're going
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: to do our live stream. But what I wanted to
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: do is try to try to come up with a
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: metric to decide what is the Mills number that she
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: gets in a primary that should set off alarm bells
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: at the d SEC or set off alarm nails among
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Democrats to say, hey, maybe you out a swap platiner
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: out And Maine, for what it's worth, is actually one
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: of the easier states to replace a candidate on the
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: ballot if the candidate willingly wants to get off of
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: the ballot by the deadline in July. Literally, there's no
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: other rigormarole. You have to go to party can decide
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: who they want to put on there. It's a you know,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: New Jersey and Maine two of the easier states to
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: pull this off. So she's going to get some number.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Is it ten percent, is it eighteen, is it twenty five?
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: And there's no doubt whatever her number is, there's going
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: to be a temptation for myself and everybody in the
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: chattering class to try to react to that number, what
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: does it mean and decide on the fly whether it's
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: a disaster for Platner or whether hey, you know, because
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: I think there's some amount of mill support that was
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: always going to be there because her name's on the ballot.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: So I don't I don't want to be knee jerk
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: about it, and I want to, frankly give you some
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: tools to decide for yourself what the metrics should be.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: So I did a little I did a little research.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: So this is what I want to do. So tonight
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: I'm sort of channeling a little. This is something you
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: normally would see in the Nate Silver substack. So stay
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: with me here a minute. I want to set the
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: bar of what the Mills primary number. You know what Mills'
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: primary number is sort of a nothing to worry about
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: at all, that's kind of an issue or oh my god,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: five alarm fire. So we're gonna start with this. A
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: chunk of whatever Mills gets has goods, nothing to do
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: with how Democrats feel about Graham Platner. Two things guarantee that. One,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: there are already going to be some banked votes. Maine's
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: been voting early for weeks. A lot of those ballots
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: were even filled out, probably before folks fully understood that
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Mills was getting out, was right around it, so she
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: was still to a lot of voters in Maine, probably
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: seen as a real candidate. So she probably banked, you know,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: in the first or you know, part of early voting,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: banked a bit more vote than usual. And they're already
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: locked in, right, they're in a box. They count for Mills,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: no matter what anybody thinks today. And then of course
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: there's the name id factor. She's true term sitting governor.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: So some people are going to walk in see two
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: names they sort of recognize and one they really recognized,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: and they'll pick the governor. It's not a protest, that's
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: just fame, right. So I know there's going to be
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: a certain amount of votes she gets that you kind
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: of you shouldn't make a big deal of. So part
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: of her number is going to be mechanical inertia, if
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: you will. So the real question, and the only interesting question,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: is how much sits on top of that sort of
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: mechanical floor that we're creating here, because that part the excess,
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: that's the part that's actually a message to Platner and
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: to figure out where the floor is and where the
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: danger starts. I use two recent elections to basically do
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: all the work for us on this. So the first
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: yard stick I used was a campaign in Iowa in
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. This was a governor's race in Iowa Democratic
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: primary in twenty eighteen. A state senator named Nate Bolton
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: was running second, pulling around twenty percent semi serious candidate.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Then about twelve days for the primary, multiple women came
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: forward with allegations of sexual misconduct. After those allegations of
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: misconduct from the multiple women, Bolton suspended his campaign. And
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: this will sound familiar, early voting had already started in Iowa.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: His name stayed on the ballot and the votes for
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: him got counted. He ended up finishing with five percent,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: pulling at twenty at the time of the allegations ending
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: at five. So there's that lesson, and this is the
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: limit of the lesson. The five percent is the floor.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: That's the name id plus banked early votes, and not
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: much else. Because when you leave a race and disgrace
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: your supporter scatter, they run away from you. So Bolton
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: tells us that that mechanical floor is real and it's low.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: But Mills did not leave in disgrace. There's no scandal
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: attached to her. She left over money and frankly, over math.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: She was losing her voters don't have a reason to
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: be ashamed of her. So Mills starts probably above Bolton's
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: five percent. So Iowa gives us the floor, It does
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: not give us the ceiling on this sort of inertia business.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Right for the ceiling, I'm using Nicki Haley. So in
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, remember Nicki Haley drops out of the
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Republican presidential race in early March of twenty twenty four,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: but her name stayed on ballot after ballot and the
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: guide she'd been running against Donald Trump was somebody a
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: real slice of the party just would not get behind.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: So Haley became a protest vehicle, a way to vote
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: not him without having to vote for a Democrat if
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: you were a Republican. And the numbers were quite striking.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Right two months after she quit, she pulled seventeen percent
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, almost twenty two percent in Indiana, twenty in Maryland,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: eighteen in Nebraska. And nobody thought Nicki Haley was going
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: to be the nominee. This was all protest vote. Everyone
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: understood those numbers for what they were, a measurement of
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: how many Republicans were not sold on there on Donald Trump.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: Both campaigns read it that way. The phrase that got
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: used over and over was red flag. Now here's the
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: part that matters the most for Tuesday. It wasn't just
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: how big the Haley vote was. It was where they
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Haley vote was. It piled up in the affluent, college
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: educated suburbs in all of these places, the Philadelphia Coller counties,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: places like that, which happened to be the exact areas
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: where Trump was weakest later in November. The size of
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: the number told you the size of the problem. The
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: map told you whether the problem actually mattered, And that's
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: the platinor parallel here. Yes, no he's not Donald Trump,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: but I'll let some of you sort of think about
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: that metaphor here a minute. But let's be clear, but
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: he is a wounded front runner. Those old Reddit posts,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: the tattoo that resembled a Nazi sign, and now reporting
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: about explicit, you know, some sexting with women. If Maine
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Democrats are nervous about handing this guy the nomination against
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins, Janet Mills is the obvious easy place to
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: register that discontent, a respected governor right there in the
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: ballot who pointedly has not told them to stand out.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: So let's start to the bar. Well, we're gonna start
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: with that floor pull out of late May, a month
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: after she quit the race and before the latest story broke,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: had Mills sitting around ten percent. So we're going to
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: call that a pure sort of stagnant mechanical number and
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: inertia number, right name I D in early votes, basically
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: nothing else. So here's how I'm going a great Tuesday night.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Low teen, say, twelve thirteen, fourteen percent for Mills. I'm
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: going to chuck that up to just inertship to just
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: this mechanical floor that we're discussing here. That's the famous
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: governor's name doing famous governor things, right, green light, don't
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: need to overreact, don't let anybody tell you it's a story,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: you know. Fifteen percent, that's where you start to see
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: the green turned to yellow as far as my flag
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: is concerned. So why am I saying fifteen because that
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: clears the famous person who quit zone, if you will,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: and it beats this this sort of stagnant you know name,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: you know number by enough of a margin that you
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: can credibly say the scandals moved real votes, that people
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: went out of their way to send a message about Platnter.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: So if you look at it, fifteen to twenty five percent,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: that's kind of the Hailey band, right. She would be
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: somewhere between fifteen and twenty five. That's where she lived
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: in stayed after state, and in her case that range
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: was treated correctly as a genuine warning to Donald Trump.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: So if Mills lands in there, I'm not going to
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: call it on the top line alone. I'm going to
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: I want to see the map of where this vote
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: came from, and we're going to go more on that
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: in a minute. Obviously, anything over twenty five percent, and
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: this is you know, where you have one in four
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: Democratic primary voters or more than one in four actively
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: choosing the woman who quit the race over the man
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: who is going to be their nominee. That's a red flag,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: no asterisk, no explanation. Twenty five or more, and then
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: you're going to start hearing about should he be replaced,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: because that's even greater than where Haley landed in most
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: states in twenty four That's a party standing up and
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: telling you it is not sold on its own presumptive
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: front runner, and you're going to put him up against
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: one of the most durable Republicans in the country in
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins. Sitting there in November was Senate Control writing
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: on it. Now, let's talk about the gray zone of
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: that fifteen to twenty five percent bar, which is actually
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: where I expect the number to be. I don't think
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: unless somebody decides to insert some super Pac money over
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: the weekend to say, you know, you have literally proactively
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: trying to get Mills more votes or try trying to
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: damage Platter, I think we're looking at somewhere between fifteen
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: and twenty five percent, you know, and this is where
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: how to interpret the Hailey lesson I think helps us here.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: If the Mills protest vote is concentrated in the first district,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: basically Portland and the southern suburbs, the wealthy areas, Democrats
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: should be less worried about it, right. Those are blue voters.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: These are people that don't want to vote for Susan Collins.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: However grumpy they may be about Platner's character in June,
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: they're probably simply going to go in there and vote
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: Jersey color in November. You could consider a lion's share
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: of the votes coming from the first district for Mills
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: as basically a bit of a wine of a tantrum,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: but not a full defection. But if Mills over performs
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: in the second district, the rural, working class, more conservative
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: northern half of the state, the district that Donald Trump
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: has carried three times now in presidential elections, that makes
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: that yellow flag look a little more red because the
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: second district is where all the swing voters are. That
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: is where a statewide main race is one or loss.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: And if Platner is bleeding Democratic votes in the second
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday, means he is weakest in the precise place
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: he cannot afford to be weak in the fall. So
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: it's the same stay wide number, twenty percent, let's say,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: but it means two to completely different things depending on
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: where the twenty percent is coming from. Twenty percent out
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: of Portland, yeah, footnote twenty percent out of the second district.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: That's a warning Democrats to take quite seriously. And you
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: might actually hear chatter, a little bit of chatter about replacement.
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: So that's the bar.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: So when you're watching us on our live election stream
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: and you see us pull up, we're going to constantly
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: check that main Senate vote. You know, we're going to
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: do our best to let you know where the votes
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: where her support appears to be coming from. And if
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: you want to do it on your own, keep track
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: of where if you start to see Mills in the twenties,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: where's it coming from? Is it coming from the first
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: or is it coming from the second. And if this
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: is making you nervous about democratics chances to win the
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Senate or making you nervous about Republican chances to hold
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: the Senate or Collins's chances to win, I think that's
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: the best way to look at this unique situation where
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: we have a candidate that appears to be a bit
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: in battle, and voters have an opportunity to essentially escape
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: this if they choose to just a little extra something
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: to watch for on Tuesday night. Ask Chuck, it's a
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Thursday episodes. So we'll go we'll go a little a
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: little long on questions here. So the first one comes
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: from Bill s Newberg, Oregon, and he writes, Hey, thanks
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: for the focus on character and politics. I agree that
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: it matters. I'm curious though, if a candidate's poor character
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: is clear, how do you think about voter responsibility in
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: choosing to support them? Is voting for that candidate in
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: some way a reflection on the voter as well? Also,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: if you tried to book Graham Platner on your show,
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: thanks Bills in Newberg, Oregon. PS, My mariners are finally
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: firing on all cylinders. Listen to Ian Bremmer on as
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: our client show. Would love to see you too, do
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: a home and away on that well. Ian Bremmer's coming
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: up pretty soon actually. And as for Graham Platner, we
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: we the invitation is out, it has been out for
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: a while. We would love to have him. I'd love
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: to talk with him. I've certainly he strikes me as
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: somebody that would want to have the conversation I want
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: to have. At least that's what a lot of people
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: tell me. So I am not going to pre judge.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: I think he's I think that I think the campaign
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: is a may put him out, So we'll say, but
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: I look forward to it, and I think we and
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: have a you know, I've had I'll do ls I
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: ed on this podcast. I've you know, I want all
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: flavors of the political spectrum to make their way onto
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: this podcast because I think the the the audience that
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping to appeal to is is quite broad and
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: and one that understands that that you can be one
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: hundred percent assured of your point of view, but you
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: know that ultimately you're going to have to compromise somewhere,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: and that's that's sort of the big picture thing. So
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: yes on that. So as for character, look and and
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: in some ways I'm glad this question is coming here
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: because I also want to In fact, I got a
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: few on sub stack from folks that I'm going to
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: include because they're very similar. In questions that you asked
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: me here because it's it's it's it's it's this question
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: of degrees. Right. Let me let me read you one here.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: Here's one that I think gets it sort of similar.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Here's a one from Amy Smith. She writes, I get
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: where you're coming from, but I don't agree with you
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent. I've been a lifelong Democrat from a
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: lifelong Democratic family. As such. Truthfully, there has been a
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: lot of judging over the years, a lot of we
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: are a party that is better than that. While I
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: agree that there should be norms and standards, I'm not
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: sure that space really exists anymore because that leaves no
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: room for people who are different than I am, who
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: think differently or speak differently. It also doesn't allow for
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: rehabilitation if someone accepts responsibility, realizes the air of their ways,
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: and no longer behaves in that manner. Should personal stuff
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: really matter that much? Now? I'm not saying that covers
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: terrible people like Donald Trump who have abandoned morality altogether.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: But I know in my own life I have made
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: terrible decisions, have hurt family, friends, etc. When I was younger,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: I had terrible ideas and behaviors, But I eventually quote
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: got it, did what I had to do, make it right,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: and don't make those same mistakes anymore. Does that mean
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: I should never run for office because at some point
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: in my life I was on the wrong side of something. Truthfully,
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be a part of a party
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: that believes that flawed character is a non starter. I
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: don't know if that makes any sense. Honestly, it makes
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: a ton of sense. And I think this is the look.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: I don't think there's any one way to look at this.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: I think we all process this slightly differently. I do
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: process it differently than most of you because I probably
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: not probably I know I do this, which is I've
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: had a lot of experience covering candidates, covering flawed candidates,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: being surprised at the flaws, right, you know, stuff that
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: gets unearthed, affairs, money issues, all sorts of things like that.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: It's how somebody deals with it. And ultimately, I guess
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: I would put it this way in because I as
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: I it's sort of hinted at you, Bill, I got
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of versions of this same of some form
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: of this question, and I guess I think the voter
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: responsibility is this. You've got all these data points. Think
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: about your own life. We all know people that have
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: that have you know, had a rough time in their twenties,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: maybe had a rough time in their forties, but you know,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: pulled things together, became the most important or started a
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: great business, or did all these things, you know, after
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: sort of getting getting back on track right on their life,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: whatever back on track is for them. And yes, I
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: think a rehabilitated person in public office in some ways
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: is somebody who who's probably going to bring a bit
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: of empathy to some decisions. And that's something that does
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: matter to me. So, for instance, I think there were
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: some people with George W. Bush who saw his ability
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: to quit drinking as an asset, and there were others
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: that saw the fact that he became an alcoholic for
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: a period of time as a flaw and the and
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: in some ways, it's probably more reflective on who you
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: are as a person to decide which should matter more
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: to you. And that's ultimately it, right, I can't sit
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: here and say what matters to me should matter to
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: you when it comes to character. But you take all
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: this and it's predictive, and ultimately it does become predictive.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: I will just tell you this. In my experience, it's
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: how the candidates that handle it's it's it's how you
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: find out about their mistakes. It's how how they decide
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: to handle it when those mistakes become public information that
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: ultimately tells me who somebody is and perhaps tells me
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: how they'll handle pressure or crisis or own situation. I mean,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: you know, that's that's what these campaigns ultimately are about.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: It's pressure testing these folks to see, you know, who
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: are they and how and are they going to be
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: able to in some ways do to do the job.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: And just because one person believes somebody's personal life should
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: be fair game and another says somebody's personal life should
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: have nothing to do with X, Y or Z, well
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: look we all we all have different reasons for voting
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: the way we vote. So I don't think it's that.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: But I worry about the slippery slope. I worry about
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: looking the other way. And when you you know, the
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: ability to step back and say, if if this, if
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: instead of Graham Platner, this were Ashley Hinson, right, what
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: would you say? Or instead of Graham Platner and this
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: were Byron Donald's And if you're defending name Graham Platner,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: how would you you know? And the thing is, actually,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: I don't even have to pretend about bio en Off.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: It's Ken Paxton. It's it's Graham platter And I've seen
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: folks say, yeah, but this is worse than this. And
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: it's like, you know, now, if you wanted to make
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: the case to me that Paxton has already proven that
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: in public office, he brings his bad morality and bad
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: ethics into office, so that obviously makes him even more
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: unqualified than Platner. That's a fair argument, right, Platner hasn't
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: been in public office. There is there is concern that
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: if he's you know, had had a hat a very
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: you know, a bit of a tumultuous feels like not
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: the right word here, but uh, A challenging first twenty
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: years of adulthood is you don't know for sure that
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: he's going to somehow bring some of the irresponsibility. And
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: I think in the case of Platinum, it may not
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: be irresponsibility. It may be struggles coming back from war,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: which I think you know. But the question is when
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: if you've got your personal struggles, if you haven't dealt
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: with them, should you be bringing this into the public
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: square because there are many people that are counting on
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: you to look out for them, not yourself. And the
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: decision to go into public service to me is you've
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: made the decision that you're going to put put others
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: ahead of yourself. And if you are not prepared to
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: do that because of what's happening in your life, then
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: please go fix what's going on in your life first.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: Don't bring your personal life and have it get in
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: the way of public service. Now that's where I come
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: down on this. I will you know, I've been making
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: the case that I think that unfortunately this is this
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: is predictive, and we've seen this. You know that that
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean there isn't a redemptive quality to plenty of people.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: I think. Take the Speaker of the Virginia Assembly. Here's
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: somebody that in his early life got into a lot
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: of trouble. I had to serve some time, fully rehabilitated,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: paid his debt to society, came back, and over time
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: worked his way into politics. It's right there front and
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: center he you know, announces for office. Here's here's essentially
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: here's my APO file. These are the mistakes I've made.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: Here's how I've learned from these mistakes, and let me
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: so let me and I know I'm a bit rambling here,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: and I'll explain why I'm rambling. Some of it is
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: lack of sleep from our near all nighter with the
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: California Primaries on Wednesday night Tuesday night. But there's a
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: few other things that I'm going to get to at
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: the end of the podcast, So stay tuned, as they say,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: but let me let me put out another scenario for
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: for everybody that has written me about the about my
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: character critiques here and the yes, I both sided it
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: and some people hate both sighteries right decided, But this
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: is one that I'm very concerned about because I do
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: think this is a spiral that that we're going to
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: regret that we're going down. If Graham Platner said, look,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry that this came out the way it came out.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry that somebody decided they didn't want to respect
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: the privacy of my marriage, uh and decided to leak this.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: But I'm not going to hide from this. Yes, I
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: did these things, and and you know, if you and
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: if it bothers you, I understand, and you're going to
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: give me time to work back up. It's, you know,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: the more defensive someone gets in these situations without sort
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: of knowledging the wrongdoing or accepting responsibility or trying to
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: sort of say, yeah, but you know, one of my
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: this is a piece of advice I gave a commencement
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: to me, Yeah, butt right, don't give me the butt
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: you know, yes, take responsibility. Don't say but if it
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: wasn't for this, this or this, I might not have
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: made this mistake, or I might not or you might
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: not have known, and we wouldn't have had to have
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: this conversation. I think perhaps this might have landed differently.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: So this is a very long winded way for me
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: to say. Ultimately on these issues, in my opinion, it's
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: as much of how they acknowledge the character flaw, how
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: they lean frankly lean into it, accept responsibility and say,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: well this is look I'm you know, this is not
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: who I am, and let me explain why I'm not
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: this anymore. And then you know, look, we can you
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: ask a great question about when does forgiven And this
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: was the question I think from substactic sort of when
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: when does somebody get when have you paid your debt.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: We went through this with the me too movement, which is,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: if you own up to your bad behavior, if you
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: sort of you know, take take responsibility and all of this,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: are you canceled or are you suspended? You yet my
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: drift there right? And are you welcome backed or is
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: there always an asterisk and you're not necessarily welcome back
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: into your profession, whatever this profession is. And I think
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: we you know, we've we've collectively struggled with this, and
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: I think we individually are always all more empathetic, and
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: collectively collectively we're usually a bit more skeptical of people,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: of people's redemptive qualities, and so you know, it's and again,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: the other point of the column is my criticism was
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: less about Platner himself and more of the blind defenses
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: that partisans are making to sort of look the other way.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: Some of these same people that are defending everything, defending
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: Platner like this mocked those on the right who were
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: using the same language, the same rationalizations to come to
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: the conclusion that they were going to support Donald Trump
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: or that they were going to support Ken Paxton. And
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: I think that that's where the brand damage to the
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: Democrats comes in, it's not. It doesn't become about grand
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: Platner anymore. It becomes like, oh, you only believe character
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: counts for the other side that when questions are raised here,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: if the person's winning, you know you're not going to
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: risk a sentence it over fact just the other way. Right,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: it wasn't that long ago that essentially Democrats forced al
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: Franken to resign. Also that they could have Democrats could
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: keep the high ground in the Doug Jones Roy Moore
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: Senate race, which they did win. Next question, chrisin Roscoe, Illinois. Right,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: second time are here. I don't miss an episode, even
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: on trail runs. Well, I appreciate that. As someone who
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: worked in the in facilities management, I'm all for expanding
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: the house, but I wonder about the logistics. How would
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: the capitol accommodate hundreds of additional members and staff. Would
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: it require major construction or is there space to support
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: that kind of expansion. Well, actually, I hope you caught
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: and I'll be curious. I hope you caught the Q
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: and A portion they asked Chuck from Wednesday's episode because
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: someone asked a similar thing, and we talked about one
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: of the questions was about. It wasn't necessarily about the logistics,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: but I sort of turned it into the logistics because
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: I told I was telling folks that I had a
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: student and I'm going to share more of these next week.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: Their ideas that they had of fixing Washington, because I
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: know you guys will love to hear some of the
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: But one of the more unique one was to take
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: Congress out of Washington. That basically Congress should should meet
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: every year in a different location around the country, and
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: that you know, logistically, this is much more viable to
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: do today than it would have been thirty years ago,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: let alone two and fifty years ago. So to get
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: at your physical so to get at the facilities issue.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: So here's how I would do it. My recommendation. We're
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: at my eight hundred and ninety members, if from my
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: House of Representatives at eight hundred ninety members, which would
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: be one per four hundred thousand, I would make the
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: district offices the main offices for members of Congress, that's
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: where all the staff is there. I would make Washington
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: so we already have all this house office space that
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: there's suites, offices or you know, multi floors, you know
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: there's there's one hundred person staffs and Senate offices. Uh
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: So if you essentially, at least on the House side,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: everybody just you know, every member of Congress got a
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: office and like you know, one other room with two
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: you know, with with with with the two staff are shared,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: that would be enough. And that the essentially the main
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: office and the main staff and the main people that
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: interacted with constituents were all in the state offices, all
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: in the district offices. I would allow for remote voting,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: but only from the district office main office of the
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: of the House representatives. And then you'd have these so
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: I you know, I think that's how you would deal
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: with this logistics challenge. Right, this is not about adding
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: you know, if there's say three thousand house staff, right
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: more than that. But I'm gonna let's put it five
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: thousand staff for the four hundred and thirty five members. Suddenly,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: where the hell are we going to put another five
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: thousand staffers? See, I wouldn't do that. I'd almost figure
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: out a way to take your eight ninety and cap
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: it at about twenty five hundred staffers total for the
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: for the form for the eight hundred and ninety right,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: So what does that puts you at about two and
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: a half two point five staffers, right, you know, per
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: per office in the capitol, and then you have a
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: more expansive office in the district itself. So I think
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: remote governance plays a role here in order to make
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: this a bit more feasible rather than just building three
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: more house office buildings and that, you know, maybe you
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: build one more house office building because they got to
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: put Pelosi's name in a house office building, first woman
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: Speaker of the House. You know, her name needs to
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: be on a building. I think, you know, whatever you
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: whether you're left or right, I think she's earned that. Moniker,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: uh the ploe, you know, So maybe you add the
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: polos Se house office building when you expand the house.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: But I think that there is I think there is
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: a way to do this without allowing logistics to crush
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: the idea. Next question comes from Jake and Denver, Colorado.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: He says, Hey, your recent deep dive on character raised
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: a question for me. How much should in Canada's private
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: sexual behavior factor in public judgments of character and where
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: should journalist draw on the line and reporting on those details?
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: Are we're at risk of setting a standard that discourages
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: otherwise qualified people from running for office. A loyal to timer,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: I mean ask questions, not fulling. That's very funny, Jake
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: in Denver. Well, look, here's the thing. We over corrected
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: after Gary Hart, right, we excuse me, we over corrected.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: We were on the wrong. We were sort of overly
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: moralistic with Gary Hart. And we've clearly over correc acted
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: with Donald Trump, right like you know, we we've you know,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: and and so we've we vacillate here. It is ultimately,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: if you're going to do risky behavior and you're going
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: to have a security clearance, that's a national security vulnerability.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: So if you're asking me about that, I think that
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: it is the line you got to draw, is you know,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: are you know? Is you know? It's just why there
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: is a deeper dive of background checks and extra vetting
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: for people that get various levels of security clearances when
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: it comes to the American government. So I think that
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: there's there's some fair lines to draw here. I think,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: I I, you know, what happens in the bedroom should
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: stay in the bedroom. How people treat people and deceive
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: people is a different story. And if you're a serial
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: decepter in your personal life. I think that's a relevant
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: piece of information for the voting public. There are plenty
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: of people are going to say that's a character trait,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: that's you know, if you're comfortable doing this, then you
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: might do this. And I don't know if I want that,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: I don't. You know, you know so right, you're getting
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: at to all of the debates that we've had in
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: I've had in newsrooms for thirty years. What's fair game?
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: What isn't? Now I could tell you what political consultants
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: believe is fair game, all of it. Everything is fair game.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: They'll say, oh, some things are off limits, will say
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: kids are off limits. But at what point are kids
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: off limits? Right? Kids below twelve are off limits? Kids
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: below sixteen? You know at eighteen and nineteen. We've certainly
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: seen plenty of political campaigns try to make behaviors of
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: adult children part of part of the issue. I'll just
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: be frank. I've always thought it was weird that Hunter
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: Biden is about the same age as I am. We
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: treated this idea that Joe Biden should know everything about
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: Hunter Biden's finances of a forty nine at the time,
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: a forty nine year old man, and I was like,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: my mother knows nothing about my finances. And I think
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: at the time I was a forty nine year old man,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: and I, you know, just not. I don't think it's
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure there are some adult children that
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: are very financially intertwined with their parents and they and
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: they share, and there's plenty of adult children who you know,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily share their financial details with their parents, and
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: vice versa that their parents. And so I've always been
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: I've always thought, I don't see how that's fair game.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: Now if you're trading off your family name, like you know,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: Hunter's business dealings, that was another story, as he was
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: certainly basically pitching himself as the son of a vice
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: sitting vice president to get business, not necessarily something else.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: But to me that there was some life, you know,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: that was the debate we would have in our newsrooms there.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: And so I think in the private life, it's well,
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: I'll give you I'll give you an example where I thought,
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: I think that there's a fair critique of whether this
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: was this should be a news story. The original potential
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: Republican challenger to Barack Obama in two thousand and four
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: in the Illinois Senate race gentleman by the name of
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: Jack Rynan. The scandal that basically took him down was
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: a detail in his divorce records. He was married to
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: at the time. I think she's still an actress, still
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: a working actor, but it was of some prominence at
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: the time Deep Space Notch. She was a character on
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: that show. For any of you Star Trek fans, and
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: you know, in the divorce records, I think it came
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: out that she, you know, was you know that one
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: of the one of the things that you know, she
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: basically said was he was trying to pressure her to
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: have essentially to have sex in a in a public
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: club of some sort or some sort of swingers club
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: or something like that. And you know, one of one
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: of my sort of punchlines back then, and I'll admit
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: the younger version of me being a little snarky was man,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: It's not often that a politician finds themselves in a
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: scandal because they want to have sex with their own wife.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: But obviously you needed to know the details understand it.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: But was that relevant to voters? You know, sex lives
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: or sex lives, people have kinks, fetishes, and you know,
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: there are some laws on the books that some fetishes
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: are illegal, but you know, kinks there's plenty of people
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: have their thing, and if we start going down that road,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: we start losing, you know, the feeling of personal freedoms. Right,
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: This is you know, we're not we don't want to
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: get a welly in here, but you're you're The question
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: you're asking is also exposing that there is no right answer.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: I think what you're what you're what you're helping to though,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: explain is this is why? This is why a lot
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: of people don't want to run for office who might
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: make terrific public servants. It's not that they have things
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: in their life that they think are disqualifying. It's maybe
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: there are things in their life they just don't want
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: to see public. And whether we like it or not,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: this stuff always going to get public because we live
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: in a zero sum game when it comes to political campaigns,
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: and each side simply once they know there might be
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: at least one voter that that bothers, and hey, every
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: vote counts, right, So you know, there's no one rule
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: book for how reporters report things. The standards that I
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: have are different, frankly than the standards that that somebody
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: else has. They what what I would do versus what
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: someone you know? I I you know, do I think
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: I've do? I think I I could set some standards
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: that that should be broadly agreeable to seventy percent of
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: people in my business. I do. I think I I
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: think I could come with I think most of us
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: in this business could. But I don't think you're ever
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: going to get that. So it comes down. This is
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: why it ultimately comes down to. You know, you're when
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: you when you're in for public office, You're going to
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: have to be comfortable in your own skin because nothing's
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: ever going to stay a secret. All right. Next question
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: comes from on and Los Angeles. Sing writes, can you
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: help me understand something? If states like Florida have no
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: income tax and are exploring eliminating property taxes, where does
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: the revenue come from to fund government and services? With
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: population growth already straining resources, how does that model hold
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: up long term? Appreciate your insight Regards Andre in La PS.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: If you're reading this on the pod, I'm now a
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: member of the four time four x Timers Club, PSS.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: You nailed something many missed about the Spencer Pratt mayoral run.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: His reach doesn't seem to extend beyond certain areas or
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: into working class communities. Yeah, if it's if you haven't
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: figured it out now, it is. It's pretty clear who
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: Karen Bass would prefer to run against, and it is
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: not the mom Dannie Acolyte. Karen Bass's political base and
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: Spencer's Pratt's political base do not overlap at all. Karen
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: Bass's political base is about three x higher on a
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: bad debt then Spencer pratt political base in La So
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: I think I think, you know, do I think he'll do?
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: You know, he may get You know that you're looking
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: at a fifty four forty six, fifty five forty five
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: final between the two of them. If it does, for
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: sure come down to them. And then we had a
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: lot of ballots account literally as the time of this
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: question being asked, half the ballots there. Look, you just
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: asked your question about Florida. I can tell you how
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: they fund service is now right when you there are
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: certain things like registering a car in Florida is astronomically expensive. Right,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: so you get feed to death, You get feed over here,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: feed feed, feed, feed fees. You know, we don't in Florida.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: They don't raise taxes, they raise fees, and they say, hey,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: we don't raise taxes, right, but they raise fees. There's
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: quite a few Republican governors over the years who have
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: claimed they have not raised taxes, but if raised fees
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: through the roof registration fees. And because it doesn't apply
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: to everybody, isn't sort of force supply to everybody, but
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: it's sort of only if you choose to do certain
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: things do you pay this fee? Is it not considered
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: an overall tax? But to me, if you're paying money
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: to the government, it's a tax. You can call it
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: a fee, you can call it a tariff, you can
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: call it a tax. It's it's money out of your
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: pocket that goes into the coffers of the government. This
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: you're getting at the fundamental problem. And this is why
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: this is this is it's not feasible like at all.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: This is simply a pr stunt to desperately try to
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: motivate some voters in Florida to show up to the
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: polls in twenty six with this sort of you know
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: there is in it. This is where I think people
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: misunderstand the Santists. DeSantis comes from a certain strain of
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: the conservative movement there really wants small government and doesn't
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: believe that government should be involved in the services that
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: it's involved in, and would like to starve the beast,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: as the right used to call it. And so if
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: you get rid of property taxes, well then that is
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: going to put strain on local governments and you and
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: I I think look at it as bugs. And I
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: think DeSantis would argue this is a feature of this idea,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: and those that are the most fired up about that
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: or that, now, the campaign against this is really easy.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: Do you like trash pickup? Okay, then don't vote for this.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: Do you like this, well, then don't vote for this, right,
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: And I think that that's why I think this is
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: going nowhere. All right, last, let me do one more
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: question here and ask check. And then I got a
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: little something I'd like to share with you guys, longtime listener,
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: first time writer. This comes from audib Audi writes, with
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: recent large settlements by the government, what's to stop future
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: administrations from using similar tactics for their own policy goals?
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: Does this risk creating a race to the bottom and
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: how policy gets implemented? I know you often advocate for
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: taking the hi how does that apply in moments like this?
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: Thank you well. I think good news here is that
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: we finally found the line right. And this was sort
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: of the point that I was making in Wednesday's episode,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: and perhaps you wrote in this question before you heard
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: that we found the line on the weaponization fund right,
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: and it did it to me. It's proof if Republicans
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: that are uncomfortable with Trump's behavior want to push back,
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: they can. They can do it. We just saw it.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: They made them shut down this fund. Now they're still
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: trying to keep the settlement, with this ridiculous settlement that
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: somehow the IRS never gets to look into his taxes
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: going backward ever again, and he somehow settles some years
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: long audit dispute, the audit and dispute over his tax
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: filings that he's been having with the government for decades
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: somehow just goes away. I think we still have to
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: deal with that situation. And if you are following John
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: Cornan's Twitter feed, John Cornan is ready to stick a
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: knife into this idea, and meaning Congress can essentially proactively
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: kill this deal completely rather than let the deal. They're
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: trying to say, oh no, we're getting rid of the fund,
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: but they're trying to keep the one small part of
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: the deal on somehow giving him permanent immunity on every
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: tax on everything he's ever filed for his taxes. Not
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: immunity going forward for what it's worth, but immunity. But
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know how. I don't. I just don't know
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: how that's feasible there. So I guess what I'm saying
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: is is that I don't know if I have to
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: accept the premise of your question. And isn't that good
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: news that that in this case? I mean, I think
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: that that was the point. Like if somehow that became
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: legal and I don't know where the hell we're going, right,
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: if that became legal and we had more and more
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: presidents manipulate, you know, executive power this way and essentially,
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: you know, find the loophole to essentially steal money from
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: the tax payers, Yeah, this would be you know, what
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: I really hope we all do collectively. And I know
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: what I'm hope. What I'm trying to do here is
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has provided an incredible public service and we
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: ought to we ought to thank him for. And what
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: do I mean by that? He has been an MRI
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: for loopholes in the government, in our system, in the
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: executive versus the legislative. And you know, whether it's violation
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: of quote unquote norms which turned out to be just
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: accepted practices that I had no controlling legal authority to borrow.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: Phrase and so we're he is, to me, made it.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: He's helped us find the things that we need to
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: codify to essentially prevent future presidents from abusing the system
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: the way he abused the system, whether it's pardons, whether
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: it's how the Department of Justice works. You know, one
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: of the reforms no one talks about that I think
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: is one hundred percent necessary. Is I am Now, you know,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: I am never trusting another president to appoint attorney general.
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: And I know I say that, you know it's you know, Donald,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: you know, Donald Trump, But I mean, think about it.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: You know, we sort of look back fondly at the
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: idea that a president appointed his brother attorney general. Point
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: in hindsight, is one of the most ridiculous things that
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: we could have ever thought of. Like imagine if Donald
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: Trump tried to appoint his sister at the time, who
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: was alive, was a federal a federal judge to the
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: Attorney General. Now I know that after that was done,
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: I think we passed a law to try to prevent
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: something like that from happening again. But it's pretty clear
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: to me that the risk of putting the rule of
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: law in the hands of a president is a mistake.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: And because if they're going to if they can essentially
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: put their personal attorney there. I don't know who Todd Blanche.
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: I know Todd Blanche just draws a paycheck from the
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: United States taxpayers. He does not work for the United States.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: He works for Donald Trump. And he's made it almost
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: crystal clear that he works for Donald Trump. He should
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: he is somehow he should never have gotten to that position. Now,
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: we counted on norms to do that. We counted on
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: checks and balances and the legislative branch prevent something like this.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: He's the acting Attorney General. I do not think he
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: could get confirmed to the permanent job for what it's
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: worth at this point in time, given the relationship. You know,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: Trump has fully burned his relationship with the center Republicans,
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: so you know he's going to get ideological things that
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: he wants to get done. But of the some of
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: the ego stuff. He's going to have a much harder
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: time getting out of the Senate at this point for
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: the rest of his term, because it's not like the
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: Senate numbers are going to get better for Trump after
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, whether Republicans have control or not, it's
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: going to be a smaller majority. And so the point
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: is that's just another example. Trump has exposed a laundry
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: list of reforms we got to do to Essentially, it's
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: like it's like your house went through a storm and
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: you found out, oh, we have leaky windows here, we've
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: got a roof that we need new roof tiles over here,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: and we weren't. We didn't real the house couldn't handle
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: a heavy storm, right, And you now gotta You've got
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: to put in stronger reinforcements. And Donald Trump has provided
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: a roadmap for reform in all of the ways that
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: he has legally abused the system to his own personal benefit.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: And we've got a lot of work to do. And
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: it begins with dealing with, you know, with preventing things
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: like these personal lawsuits that get settled with the government,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: that whole business. But there's a lot of things and
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: like I said, this is I am. I am bullish
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: that we are that over the next fifteen years we
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: are going to do a lot of reform. I'm not
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: saying it's going to happen this year, over the next
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: two years, but I think we are. We are we
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: are nearing this breaking point where we're going to have
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: the Samuel L. Jackson reaction. Enough is enough. I'm sick
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: and tired of these gosh darn MF snakes on this
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: MF play right, We're gonna we're we're going to hit
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: that moment as voters. I've personally hit that moment. I'm
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: just enough is enough? Can we just you know, stop
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: this race to the bottom crap? And I think the
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: voters are going to get there. You know, it may
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: not be this cycle, maybe one more cycle, maybe it's
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: a cycle and a half, but you know, in the
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: decade of the thirties, we're going to start to really
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: have a major reform movement. Certainly if you if we
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: continue to track the way we're tracking with sort of
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: history rhyming of the early twentieth century in the in
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: the mid to late nineteenth century. So someday we may
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: thank Donald Trump for showing us all the ways that
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: we needed to repair this democracy. Before I go, I'm
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: going to tell you the story of a remarkable one,
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: Dorothy Burns. She happens to be my grandmother, and she
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: passed away this week at the age of ninety nine.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: She turned ninety nine this February. And she never she never,
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: She had her faculties to the very end. Her memory
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: was terrific. She never missed a birthday, whether it was
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: her great grandkids, her grandkids, her kids, friends, family. Her
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: physical infrastructure started was breaking down much faster than her
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: brain ever did. And I always felt that, you know,
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: it was she, you know, to know she couldn't she
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: couldn't really move anymore. Her osteoporosis made that very difficult.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: She couldn't see. She'd maclear degeneration and she'd become fully
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: blind over the last five years she was started the
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: Loser hearing. But she was a red book on tape listener.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: My friend Daniel Silva, the author used to be so
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: he She loved Daniel Silva books, and she used to
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: first read the large print editions as her vision was going.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: And then and God blessed Jamie, my friend Jamie Gengell
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: and Daniel Silva. They would always always make sure that
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: they had the right type of addition that my grandmother
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: could read. I just that always tickled me, and it
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: always tickled her as well. She lived in and I
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: just think about the life she lived. Born in nineteen
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: twenty seven and all the things she saw, she did.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: She went to one year of college in what is
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: now Illinois State, but back then it was a teap
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: the Illinois Teachers College, as she used to say, My
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: parents let me go there, but I was to get
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: my Mrs Degree as many people back then used to
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: call it. She met my grandmother, grandmother, my grandfather. He
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: came home from the war, went to essentially a Jewish
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: singles night at the temple, and met my grandmother and
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: the rest is history. I look, when you're a fifty
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: four year old man with a ninety nine year old grandmother.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: I've known her a long time, and I would say,
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: you know, we're selling celebrating America to fifty And it's
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: made me think about the first time I got to
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: participate in a big national celebration of a commemoration, and
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: it was the one hundredth anniversary of the Statue of
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: Liberty and this is the summer of nineteen eighty six,
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: and this is probably when my grandmother and I bonded
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: the most. My grandmother, like I said, so, you know,
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, I'm fourteen. Do the math. She's fifty
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: seven to fifty basically about my age right now. And
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: she was she was wanting to take some dishes and
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: some things to one of her children. Her my aunt
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: lives in New York City, and she wanted to drive
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: from Delray Beach, Florida, to New York City during the summer.
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: And she didn't want to and nobody wanted her to
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: drive alone. So I'm fourteen, and I uh, we do
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: this road trip and we decide and she, you know,
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: we take our time. She used to do the driving
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: the whole time, right, I'm fourteen, so she wasn't going
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: to do me I'm doing. I'd have done it in
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: one night, but you know, she we stopped. We stopped
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: in Savannah, and we spent a little extra time, and
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: we did Williamsburg and we did we did essentially what
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: I would call the American Revolution to her, all up
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: and down the East Coast and any major historical site
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: that was within within driving range of I ninety five,
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: we hit making our way, spent a lot of time
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. And back then I had a
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: cousin here who and that's for what it's worth, it
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: is when I really got the bug about politics. We
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: were visiting my cousin at the time, he was like
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: twenty five, and we stayed with him, and he had
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: this big old apartment in Adams Morgan, and he gave
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: me the sort of the tour of DC that a
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: twenty five year old would give. And man, I just
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: thought DC was amazing. And from then on I was
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: coming to school in Washington. I didn't know how I
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: was doing it, where I was going, but I was
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: coming there. And we did everything together. We did this
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: entire tour, all the Smithsonian stuff, and then then we
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: went to New York and we did the un and
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: we did, you know, all of the more historical stuff.
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not a bit, you know, fourteen year old fourteen
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: year old boys who loved baseball and football at the time.
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: Every time we stopped somewhere, I was buying a pack
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: of baseball carts. You know, this is eighty three, eighty four,
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: So I was obsessed, still obsessed with collecting it. Ohm,
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: I kidding, I'm obsessed with baseball cards today, right. So
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: we didn't she didn't, and we didn't do a lot
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: of the art museums, although my aunt did make me
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: go to the go to the go to the mat
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: and then we enjoyed the amazing it's the frankly, the
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: greatest fireworks display outside of Washington, d C. That I've
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: ever seen to this day was the Statue of Liberty
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: celebration in nineteen eighty six. And now we drove drove back,
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: but it was this was it was interesting. You know,
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: my memories of my grandmother as a little kid, she
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: was not the person to get on the floor and
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: do that type of stuff. But the second I was
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: reading books. She read all the time. She was somebody
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: that knew a little bit about a lot of things
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: because she was constantly reading. And after my grandfather died,
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: she was constantly traveling. She loved cruises and she did
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: all sorts of cruises and she was always trying to
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: not She didn't go on a cruise to relax. She
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: wanted a cruise to get to somewhere. She wanted to
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: see whether it was. She did a freighter cruise. She
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: didn't want to spend twenty hours on an airplane, so
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: she wanted to go see Australia. So she spent thirty
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: days on a freighter cruise with nine other senior citizens
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: and a crew and played bridge for thirty days and
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: read a bunch of books and literally sailed the seas
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: thirty days to Australia. Three weeks in the country thirty
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: days back when I think she left and came and
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: went out of Jacksonville, if I if I remember, and
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: she was just what I think what my grandmother passed
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: on to me was this sort of curiosity. She always
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: wanted to know more. She wanted to see the taj Mahall,
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: so she figured out a way to get to India
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: to see the tag Ma Hall. She wanted to see
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: the Pyramids. She is somebody she got to check off,
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: she did. You know, this is what's remarkable. At ninety nine,
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: you know she was, she said, she goes, I'm not
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: saving any money. I'm not here to pass on money.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: You know. She wanted to live these experiences and see
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: the world. And she did. And I used to always
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: get a T shirt from wherever she wherever she came
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: from that, and that's that was my grandmother through my
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: teenage years. So fast forward a little bit, and you know,
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: I'm starting to have a little bit of success in
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: the late nineties, and I want to I want to
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: get my grandmother a fun gift for her. I think
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: at the time it probably was her seventieth birthday. This
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: is twenty seven, Yeah, right around her seventieth birthday. Actually
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: probably it was probably it was probably for her seventy
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: fifth birthday. I got her computer and one program, a
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: genealogy program. Well, I'm not sure if the rest of
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: my family loves that I did this or hates that
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: I did this, but my grandmother for the next ten
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: years became essentially an expert at genealogy, and she threw
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: herself into it, and she made family trees for all
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: every every aspect of my family, of my family lines
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: on my father's side, on my mother's side, she did
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: it for my wife on her father's side and on
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: her mother's side, and she did it for her in
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: laws and anybody that asked. Frankly, and she she got
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: so into it. She would show up and do research
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: at the Mormon temples because the Mormons, as you know,
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: have some of the best uh uh research centers when
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: it comes to genealogy records that you can find. And
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: you know, she just she learned the you know, I
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: knew that I had a grandmother that would figure it
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: would would sort of take to the Internet, and she
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: really she was a great Web one point zero user. Unfortunately,
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: as her vision went, you know, she she the technology
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: that would allow for a lot more verbal to be
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: able to do a lot more of this communication just
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: straight verbally and even like texted type and all this
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: stuff really didn't didn't quite come into time for her
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: to take the best advantage of it. But even in
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: these last few years where she couldn't see it all,
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: we had set up her iPhone so that it would
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: be essentially automatically answer always on speak her phone and
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: put it this way to allow her and she would
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: just say, call Chuck or call Sherry, or call Janet,
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: and she was able to communicate like I'll get out.
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: And the other thing that she was incredibly good at
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: is just she was always finding family with this genealogy.
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you're like, you know, hey, I'm going to Charleston,
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: South Carolina for some work, Grandma, and she goes well,
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: you know, we have a cousin that lives so and
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: so I found this cousin. I didn't know them, but
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: I've since called them. They helped me fill out this
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: part of the family tree of an in law that
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: was like and you're just like, okay, I'm not going
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: to go look up that relative. Grandma. Sorry. What she
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: always did she was incredibly good at making friends with
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: people she didn't know. She just had a couple and
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: so look, this all just happened recently, meaning in the
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: last few hours, so I'm not on a lot of sleep,
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: but I wanted to be able to share something about her.
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: I think her great gifts was her curiosity. Her was
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: her openness to how quickly she would make somebody a
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: close friend. She'd loved getting to know new people, and
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: it was part of that curiosity in her. There's a
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: part of me that's always lamented. Was she born thirty
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: years too soon? You know, she she was stroves. You know,
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: she she loved the fact that she was able to
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: do job work when she was younger, but not everybody,
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: and at that time that was not seen as acceptable
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: that she would work outside the home. And there was
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: I've always gotten the sense there was some tension there,
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: and it was always a part of me. I was lucky.
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: I've had two grandmothers who, in my heart of hearts,
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: you think, you know, they didn't get to live the
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: life they deserve to have simply because of the way
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: society treated women as second class citizens in their jair
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: in most of their life span. But I just wanted
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: to share that with you guys. She was a force
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: of nature. And you know, when you make it to
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: ninety nine, you never think you're going to lose them.
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: And yet at the same time, you know her body
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: was breaking down. Her brain was all there, but her
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: body was breaking down. And so I think she's at peace.
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: I think she is no more pain. And I just
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: thank her for giving me that curiosity, giving me that
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: setting an example that hey, you can always make new friends,
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: and she did it almost all the way to the
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: end of her life. One of the great gifts. So
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: thanks for humoring me here and listening to me sharing
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: my memories of my grandmother, Dorothy Bernstein ninety nine years old.
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: And with that, don't forget to call your grandmother. If
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: your grandmother's stolen around and your grandfather and your mom
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: and your dad all right, and i'll see in about
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: seventy two hours