Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Trump’s Treasonous Capitulation To Putin + Rebuilding Newsrooms In The Deep South

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Full Episode - Trump’s Treasonous Capitulation To Putin + Rebuilding Newsrooms In The Deep South · The Chuck ToddCast

0:00
Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
0:02
Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
0:06
Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
0:11
Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
0:14
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now
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Speaker 1: over exactly this. Companies that branded themselves as unbiased while
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Speaker 1: allegedly pointing people toward whatever would pay them the most
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Speaker 1: as some sort of broker. So if your default is
0:28
Speaker 1: to distrust everyone in this space, honestly, I get it.
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Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
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Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
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Speaker 1: Medicare advisors whose entire model is that their advisors are
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Speaker 1: not paid to push any one plan. They're just trying
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Speaker 1: to help. Yes, there's compensation that goes with it. but
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Speaker 1: it's across the board is what they're trying to do.
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Speaker 1: At the end of the day, they're advocating for you.
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Speaker 1: They're not the insurance companies themselves. They're an actual person
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Speaker 1: who actually goes through your doctors, your prescriptions, your needs,
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Speaker 1: and then compares them to every single plan available to
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Speaker 1: find the best one that will work for you and
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Speaker 1: hopefully save you a couple dollars too. And here's the
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Speaker 1: part that sets chapter apart. They don't disappear once you've
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Speaker 1: been in They will keep advocating for you. They're kind
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1:19
Speaker 1: I need help. You're like customer service. The plan, help
1:23
Speaker 1: me navigate this again. So you ever get hit with
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Speaker 1: a wrongful medical bill, they'll help you fight it. They
1:29
Speaker 1: want to stay an advocate for you even after you've
1:32
Speaker 1: done this. So look, I get it. I think there's
1:36
Speaker 1: all sorts of space. You see a lot of people
1:39
Speaker 1: are throwing themselves in this health care space. What I
1:42
Speaker 1: like about these chapter folks, I've spent time with them.
1:44
Speaker 1: This is a very transparent organization. It is Medicare and
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Speaker 1: all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing. The
1:53
Speaker 1: whole point of this is to make this easier and
1:56
Speaker 1: less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you already
2:00
Speaker 1: have in all of this, point it at your own
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Speaker 1: plan for 20 minutes. It's free. There's no pressure. And
2:06
Speaker 1: then call chapter. today at 980-734-3985. Hello there, I'm Chuck Todd.
2:19
Speaker 1: Welcome to another edition of the Chuck Toddcast. I'm coming
2:22
Speaker 1: to you from Coral Gables, Florida. And I am specifically
2:26
Speaker 1: saying Coral Gables because my beloved University of Miami, Hurricanes,
2:31
Speaker 1: let's just say they survived on Saturday. And given what
2:35
Speaker 1: happened in college football yesterday, On October 17th, like a
2:40
Speaker 1: day that will live in this season's infamy. Five of
2:44
Speaker 1: the top seven teams losing. The ranks of the undefeated
2:48
Speaker 1: shrinking quite a bit. So I think as far as
2:52
Speaker 1: Miami's concerned, facing a rivalry game. Yes, I know Florida
2:57
Speaker 1: State's not the Florida State of old. They still have
3:00
Speaker 1: the athletes. We know this. When Florida State's good, Miami wasn't.
3:03
Speaker 1: They'd still give Florida State games. That just is what
3:06
Speaker 1: it is. I'm just relieved. That's for sure. Just relieved.
3:11
Speaker 1: I'll have a lot more to say on this, a
3:13
Speaker 1: lot more to say on the 2014 playoff, but I
3:15
Speaker 1: do want to leave you with this. Saturday was an
3:19
Speaker 1: amazing day in college football. And yet, because of the
3:25
Speaker 1: 12-team playoff, forget the 2014 playoff, because of the 12-team playoff,
3:30
Speaker 1: will any of these games matter that much? And then
3:35
Speaker 1: when we have the 2014 playoff, Will this just be a,
3:39
Speaker 1: you know, come across as one of those weird Sundays
3:43
Speaker 1: that we've seen in the NFL where, oh my God,
3:46
Speaker 1: every one lost, every one lost team lost and every
3:51
Speaker 1: one win team won, right? Type of mindset. Because we
3:54
Speaker 1: know the difference between one and 32 in the NFL
3:58
Speaker 1: is like this. And I think now in college football,
4:01
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to depth, where even the best
4:05
Speaker 1: team's depth gets tested and you're like, oof, especially when you're,
4:09
Speaker 1: you know, nobody has a quality backup quarterback that they
4:12
Speaker 1: feel really good about. Because if they did, that person
4:15
Speaker 1: would be starting for another program. Have we now, are
4:18
Speaker 1: we now going to go to a situation in college
4:21
Speaker 1: football where we can have an entertaining day like this,
4:25
Speaker 1: but it doesn't have the impact that we used to
4:30
Speaker 1: think these things had the impact. And is that, we're
4:34
Speaker 1: going to lose that. Look, I think there are things
4:36
Speaker 1: that we gain in the 2014 playoff. Sort of, I'm
4:40
Speaker 1: comparing it to Churchill's description of democracy. This is the
4:43
Speaker 1: worst of all forms of college football, of deciding who
4:47
Speaker 1: the college football national champion is, except for all the
4:49
Speaker 1: other ideas that have been put out there. So I
4:52
Speaker 1: think that's why we're here. But anyway, I'm gonna have
4:55
Speaker 1: a lot more to say about this because at the
4:56
Speaker 1: end of the day, we know that is not why
4:59
Speaker 1: you tuned in to the Chuck Todd cast. We are
5:02
Speaker 1: now a little bit more than two weeks from election day.
5:05
Speaker 1: So what I really want to start with is actually
5:08
Speaker 1: with the fact that nothing really has changed. And that
5:12
Speaker 1: in itself is a major development. A lot's happened. There's
5:16
Speaker 1: a lot of motion, but there's really not a lot
5:20
Speaker 1: of new movement. And in fact, if anything, everything is
5:23
Speaker 1: still moving in the same direction. There's very little evidence
5:27
Speaker 1: that the trajectory of this midterm has shifted. If anything,
5:30
Speaker 1: the evidence actually continues to pile up that it is
5:33
Speaker 1: moving in the same direction. The debate at this point
5:36
Speaker 1: isn't whether there's a Democratic wave coming. It's now how big.
5:40
Speaker 1: Is this a category one? Is this something that resembles
5:43
Speaker 1: 2018 or 2006, where Democrats have a good night? They
5:47
Speaker 1: win the House. They maybe, like 06, pick up Senate seats.
5:51
Speaker 1: Maybe they win, narrowly win control of the Senate. But
5:55
Speaker 1: they might run into a wall in some of the
5:57
Speaker 1: tougher places, just like in 06. They couldn't quite, the
6:01
Speaker 1: wave couldn't quite reach Arizona. The wave couldn't quite reach Tennessee.
6:05
Speaker 1: at that time. And what I'm describing here, this would
6:08
Speaker 1: be the wave not quite maybe reaching Iowa. Maybe Susan
6:12
Speaker 1: Collins survives. Now, is this a category three, right? A
6:17
Speaker 1: broader election where the national environment overwhelms some very good
6:20
Speaker 1: Republican campaigns and Democrats start winning races. They had no
6:23
Speaker 1: business winning six months ago. So this is winning Iowa,
6:27
Speaker 1: winning a Kansas, and then watching Republicans who have run
6:32
Speaker 1: pretty good campaigns this election cycle, Joe Lombardo in Nevada,
6:36
Speaker 1: Susan Collins in Maine, Rick Jackson, the Republican nominee for
6:39
Speaker 1: governor in Georgia, despite running good campaigns, they lose anyway.
6:44
Speaker 1: That's what a wave of a sort of what I'm
6:47
Speaker 1: calling a category three, that's what that would mean. And
6:50
Speaker 1: then of course, there's the disaster scenario for the Republicans,
6:54
Speaker 1: a cat five type of blue wave, something that looks
6:57
Speaker 1: more like 1994. that benefited the Republicans, where it was
7:02
Speaker 1: just a massive surge, massive realignment, sort of a, you know,
7:09
Speaker 1: you know, that one was partially, you know, finishing up
7:12
Speaker 1: a realignment that we were watching take place in the
7:14
Speaker 1: South over a 10 year period anyway, coupled with all sorts.
7:17
Speaker 1: So it is, you know, this is, I'm going to
7:19
Speaker 1: be honest. I think this scenario is very unlikely, but
7:23
Speaker 1: this one would include, you know, people like Mike rounds
7:26
Speaker 1: losing in South Dakota, uh, Pete Ricketts losing in Nebraska
7:30
Speaker 1: and things like that. Um, But then there's another possibility
7:35
Speaker 1: that I do keep trying to introduce. I call it,
7:38
Speaker 1: you know, this is what Charlie Cook referred to as
7:40
Speaker 1: the red undertow. But I have a different definition of it.
7:43
Speaker 1: And I think I'm refining this definition as I sort
7:48
Speaker 1: of process more data that's coming in. So it ends
7:52
Speaker 1: up not being a traditional wave, sort of one party
7:55
Speaker 1: wave at all, blue wave at all. Maybe voters are
7:58
Speaker 1: so unhappy with Republicans that they'll consider Democrats in some
8:02
Speaker 1: of the reddest places in America. like what we're watching
8:04
Speaker 1: in Texas and Kansas and in Iowa and in Ohio,
8:10
Speaker 1: even as some Republican incumbents in, say, purple states or
8:14
Speaker 1: even blue states managed to survive. So those are different
8:19
Speaker 1: kinds of elections. And I'm going to walk through the
8:20
Speaker 1: evidence on each of them. But I will say this.
8:23
Speaker 1: There is something I've noticed in the last 72 hours
8:25
Speaker 1: that I do think deserves some focus. Donald Trump has
8:30
Speaker 1: already decided he's going to have a bad night. Why
8:33
Speaker 1: do we know this? Because he's got a head start
8:35
Speaker 1: on the blame game. We haven't even had the election.
8:37
Speaker 1: Voters haven't rendered their verdict yet. We've seen a lot
8:40
Speaker 1: in the polls indicating where they're leaning. But the president
8:43
Speaker 1: is already building or manufacturing an explanation for why things
8:47
Speaker 1: might go badly and why, if they do, it will,
8:50
Speaker 1: of course, be somebody else's fault. not his, right? How?
8:54
Speaker 1: No way. It could be his fault, right? And what
8:57
Speaker 1: it does tell us, though, is how he sees the
9:00
Speaker 1: election that's coming. He knows what's coming, and he's just
9:04
Speaker 1: looking to prepare what a narcissist has to do, right?
9:09
Speaker 1: Sort of manufacture in their own head so they don't
9:12
Speaker 1: feel any pain or shame or whatever it is that
9:15
Speaker 1: he's trying to mask. But first, let's talk about some evidence.
9:18
Speaker 1: Third quarter fundraising reports were extraordinary. Those have come out
9:20
Speaker 1: since the last time we talked. If all you knew
9:23
Speaker 1: about this election was what the candidates have raised over
9:27
Speaker 1: the last three months, and you were using that to
9:29
Speaker 1: denote momentum, which is something used to be the thing
9:32
Speaker 1: we would denote the most, right? It used to matter
9:35
Speaker 1: the most before the age of super PACs, before the
9:38
Speaker 1: age where the major parties couldn't do fundraising on their own.
9:42
Speaker 1: You would conclude this environment is extremely favorable to the
9:45
Speaker 1: Democrats because it's not just one state. It's not just
9:48
Speaker 1: one charismatic candidate who's captured the imagination of small donors.
9:52
Speaker 1: This is across the board. Texas, Tallarico raises more than
9:55
Speaker 1: $ 60 million. In the third quarter, it's almost more than
9:58
Speaker 1: nearly double all-time. record of a one quarter of fundraising
10:02
Speaker 1: for a Democrat. What did Paxton raise in that same quarter?
10:04
Speaker 1: $ 10 million. So six to one advantage in the state
10:08
Speaker 1: of Texas for Tallarico. Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed reported more than
10:12
Speaker 1: $ 30 million. Rogers, less than $ 10 million. Ohio, Sherrod Brown
10:15
Speaker 1: raised $ 23 million. John Huston, about $ 5 million. In Maine,
10:19
Speaker 1: Troy Jackson reported more than $ 20 million raised. Susan Collins,
10:22
Speaker 1: roughly $ 5 million. And then North Carolina, Roy Cooper, $ 20 million.
10:26
Speaker 1: Michael Watley, $ 2 million.
10:29
Speaker 2: All right.
10:29
Speaker 1: And we've seen it. It happened in South Carolina. It
10:32
Speaker 1: happened in Kansas. Now, some of it, Republicans had banked
10:38
Speaker 1: some early money. Roger Marshall banked money early. Ashley Hinson
10:42
Speaker 1: banked money early. but you saw it in Florida. Angie Nixon,
10:46
Speaker 1: massively outraged. Ashley Moody. So this is happening, whether it's
10:51
Speaker 1: in the reddest of red states, the bluest of blue states,
10:53
Speaker 1: or anywhere in between. Pattern, unmistakable. Democrats are raising extraordinary sums,
11:00
Speaker 1: and they're doing it in places where they don't normally
11:01
Speaker 1: have this kind of financial evidence. And this does matter, right?
11:06
Speaker 1: And the the type of TV advertising you could spend,
11:09
Speaker 1: candidates get lower rates, super PACs don't. So, but there's
11:13
Speaker 1: something else. It's not just, it's not just the actual
11:16
Speaker 1: financial help that the fundraising gives you tactically. There is a,
11:22
Speaker 1: there is something else this is measuring. This measures enthusiasm.
11:25
Speaker 1: This measures engagement. And it, you know, again, when we've
11:28
Speaker 1: only had one or two, right, when you've had like
11:31
Speaker 1: what we saw with, you know, Mitch McConnell's Amy McGrath
11:34
Speaker 1: and I think it was in 2018 and you had,
11:37
Speaker 1: Jamie Harrison in 2020 are these sort of singular where
11:41
Speaker 1: the national donors all piled into one race. This is
11:47
Speaker 1: just spreading out all over. And I think it tells
11:50
Speaker 1: you that's why this feels a bit different and it
11:53
Speaker 1: feels a bit more significant than when we've seen these
11:56
Speaker 1: fundraising advantages in just a handful of places of just where, say,
12:01
Speaker 1: The base of the Democratic Party just gets so angry,
12:04
Speaker 1: you know, can't stand Mitch McConnell going to just, you know,
12:06
Speaker 1: vent my frustration that way. That's not the type of
12:09
Speaker 1: doesn't appear that this is the type of fundraising that
12:13
Speaker 1: we're seeing. And so when you see it, this spread out,
12:15
Speaker 1: you realize people are generally reaching into their pockets for candidates.
12:18
Speaker 1: They think they can't win.
12:19
Speaker 2: Right.
12:20
Speaker 1: So it is you have to ask, you know, just just,
12:26
Speaker 1: you know, is this I don't think it's a last.
12:28
Speaker 1: And the fact that it's not being matched on the right.
12:31
Speaker 1: That tells you something about the lack of enthusiasm, probably from,
12:36
Speaker 1: you know, especially from corners of the Republican Party that
12:39
Speaker 1: do have money, who I think are not as MAGA
12:42
Speaker 1: as parts of the Republican coalition that have money. They're
12:45
Speaker 1: not as MAGA. So the fact that that part of
12:48
Speaker 1: the party is the least enthusiastic, that should be a
12:52
Speaker 1: very worrying sign for Team GOP. But of course, there's
12:55
Speaker 1: a huge caveat on the supposed financial advantage that Democrats
12:58
Speaker 1: have candidate to candidate. The Republican Party does have something
13:02
Speaker 1: this cycle that the Democrats don't have anywhere near to
13:06
Speaker 1: the same degree. Elon Musk. And it's not just Elon Musk.
13:10
Speaker 1: It's Elon Musk and a handful of other extraordinarily wealthy
13:13
Speaker 1: donors who've decided to pour millions of dollars into Republican
13:16
Speaker 1: outside groups simply because they're trying to get something out
13:19
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump. It's a quid pro quo. Trump has
13:21
Speaker 1: made it very clear. All of this is a quid
13:23
Speaker 1: pro quo. They're all trying to do this. And so
13:26
Speaker 1: the price of getting favorable treatment from Trump means writing
13:29
Speaker 1: these big checks to these various groups. And it has
13:33
Speaker 1: a huge, it can matter. Take Texas, so Tallarico, right?
13:38
Speaker 1: Six to one fundraising advantage over Paxton, candidate to candidate, right?
13:42
Speaker 2: Massive.
13:44
Speaker 1: Paxton's not close to matching them, but Musk just gave
13:47
Speaker 1: $ 158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund in September. That
13:50
Speaker 1: money was then moved in matching installments to a Texas-based
13:53
Speaker 1: super PAC. It's extraordinary, and there's so much to dig
13:58
Speaker 1: into here, but one donor has supplied enough money, one donor,
14:02
Speaker 1: to fundamentally change the advertising environment in one of the
14:05
Speaker 1: largest states in America. Is this a system we want, folks?
14:11
Speaker 1: This is not what was imagined as free speech in
14:15
Speaker 1: Citizens United. There's no way this is what was imagined.
14:21
Speaker 1: So we do have two very different political economies operating
14:25
Speaker 1: in this election. On the Democratic side, candidates are raising
14:28
Speaker 1: enormous sums from a fairly broad donor network. On the
14:31
Speaker 1: Republican side, extraordinarily financial backstop from a very small number
14:37
Speaker 1: of very wealthy people. And the distinction, as I said,
14:40
Speaker 1: matters because of how far those dollars go in actual
14:45
Speaker 1: campaign spending. This is sort of There's a money ball
14:50
Speaker 1: approach to this. The democratic way of raising money gives
14:53
Speaker 1: them some tactical advantages, allows them essentially to let their
14:57
Speaker 1: dollar go farther in ad rates versus what the super
15:00
Speaker 1: PACs do. But when you have that amount of money,
15:04
Speaker 1: you could sort of overcome that wasted aspect there. And
15:10
Speaker 1: that's why it's one of the reasons I'm hesitant to
15:13
Speaker 1: declare what category of storm we're looking at yet. You know,
15:16
Speaker 1: it could be this wealthy money is sort of almost
15:21
Speaker 1: like you're building a barrier, right? A flood wall. As
15:25
Speaker 1: this storm approaches on the coast, do you have a
15:27
Speaker 1: high enough wall to protect you from the storm surge,
15:31
Speaker 1: if you will? And that's it, you know, to keep
15:34
Speaker 1: beating up my weather metaphor over and over again. Hey,
15:36
Speaker 1: I'm in South Florida. What would you expect me to do, right?
15:41
Speaker 1: That's the question here. And it's one of the reasons
15:43
Speaker 1: we don't know exactly how we know it's all moving
15:46
Speaker 1: in one direction. The trajectory of this election is going
15:49
Speaker 1: in one direction, but we don't know how effective this
15:52
Speaker 1: Republican backstop of huge big donor money is going to be.
15:56
Speaker 1: So another set of numbers I'm watching very carefully, thanks
16:00
Speaker 1: to one of the, Michael McDonald, who's one of the
16:03
Speaker 1: University of Florida professor. Yes, all roads lead back to
16:06
Speaker 1: the state of Florida with me, you know that. Anyway,
16:09
Speaker 1: Michael McDonald, one of the best academics and researchers when
16:12
Speaker 1: it comes to understanding the early vote and where it's going. Anyway,
16:16
Speaker 1: his sub stack is must read every single day, does
16:20
Speaker 1: updates as he gets the data in. It is worth
16:23
Speaker 1: the time. It is worth your money if you really
16:25
Speaker 1: want to get granular and get sort of a look
16:28
Speaker 1: at some of the raw data that he's looking at,
16:31
Speaker 1: some of his analysis. It's outstanding. But this stuff matters.
16:35
Speaker 1: But some of the comparisons that he's been doing. So
16:38
Speaker 1: he took a look at North Carolina after the first
16:39
Speaker 1: few days of the early vote. And of course, North
16:43
Speaker 1: Carolina is useful here and he's trying to use it.
16:46
Speaker 1: It's possible you can extrapolate some of this out, at
16:49
Speaker 1: least as trend spotting, but you got to be careful.
16:52
Speaker 1: But what makes North Carolina useful in his exercise is
16:55
Speaker 1: that North Carolina has party registration, has a relatively stable
16:59
Speaker 1: early voting voter setup from one midterm to the next.
17:03
Speaker 1: So the comparisons are worth looking at. And through the
17:07
Speaker 1: first day of early in-person voting, counting mail ballots already received,
17:12
Speaker 1: you have a quarter million people have already cast ballots, right? Well,
17:15
Speaker 1: at the same point in 22, it was under 200,000
17:17
Speaker 1: and in 2018, it was about 150,000. So we're seeing
17:21
Speaker 1: a substantial increase in the number of people voting early.
17:24
Speaker 1: And so that's one level of enthusiasm. Yes, it's usually
17:28
Speaker 1: people that vote early are the people that are probably
17:31
Speaker 1: the most sure of which way they're gonna vote. They're
17:32
Speaker 1: not swing voters, right? They're excited. They wanna make sure
17:36
Speaker 1: their vote counts and they wanna get it to the
17:38
Speaker 1: bank quickly, if you will, right? So the more people
17:42
Speaker 1: that wanna get it to the bank quickly, and the
17:43
Speaker 1: more it seems to favor one side over the other,
17:46
Speaker 1: that tells you something about who's willing to crawl on
17:48
Speaker 1: broken glass to vote and who may not be. The
17:53
Speaker 1: partisan makeup. Registered Democrats and unaffiliated voters are up compared
17:58
Speaker 1: with previous cycles. Registered Republicans are down compared with 2022.
18:03
Speaker 1: Black voter participation in North Carolina is also significant. Now,
18:07
Speaker 1: does this mean that for sure that you can extrapolate
18:11
Speaker 1: what's happening in North Carolina, apply it to South Carolina,
18:13
Speaker 1: apply it to Georgia, not fully, right? We don't know,
18:17
Speaker 1: for instance, even in North Carolina, how the unaffiliated voters
18:19
Speaker 1: are voting. But this trend is somewhat unmistakable and looking
18:23
Speaker 1: at this over a decade now where we've had early vote,
18:26
Speaker 1: where you've done analysis like this, Michael McDonald's been doing
18:28
Speaker 1: this for a long time, you know that this stuff,
18:32
Speaker 1: it's unlikely to be an outlier for North Carolina alone.
18:36
Speaker 1: And so, You know, we call it reading tea leaves
18:38
Speaker 1: for a reason, but this is a tea leaf worth
18:42
Speaker 1: reading in this front. Georgia, another one is showing increased
18:45
Speaker 1: early vote activity, higher engagement among Hispanic voters. And this is,
18:50
Speaker 1: we're seeing some evidence of just a bigger turnout among Latinos.
18:55
Speaker 1: It's still a little bit noisy in the early numbers.
18:58
Speaker 1: This is something as the week progresses, we'll get more
19:00
Speaker 1: data and we'll have a better sense, but... I think
19:07
Speaker 1: this this increase in Latino vote participation has the feel
19:13
Speaker 1: of what a lot of people anecdotally have been saying that, hey,
19:19
Speaker 1: you know, the aggressive immigration strategy, the ICE campaigns have
19:22
Speaker 1: really had a impact on Latino voters and their swing voters.
19:27
Speaker 1: And they're also pocketbook sensitive. And essentially, Donald Trump has
19:30
Speaker 1: hit him twice, right? He essentially put a target on
19:34
Speaker 1: the back of anybody who looks Latino with enforcement issues.
19:40
Speaker 1: And then, oh, by the way, this economy stinks, particularly
19:44
Speaker 1: for those that live, you know, smack dab in the
19:50
Speaker 1: middle class. Quite a few Latino voters live smack dab
19:53
Speaker 1: in the middle class. This episode of the Chuck Todd
19:59
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22:20
Speaker 1: it was the Chuck Todd cast. It's the best way
22:23
Speaker 1: to support the show and the best way to make
22:25
Speaker 1: sure you're getting every discount. So, look, we're accumulating, you know,
22:33
Speaker 1: we know this. So far, this is not a low
22:36
Speaker 1: turnout midterm. Now, that's something else you have to realize, right?
22:41
Speaker 1: There's sort of there's degrees of turnout. Midterm electorates in
22:45
Speaker 1: general these days favor the Democratic Party, favor the party
22:49
Speaker 1: that has more voters with higher levels of education attainment.
22:55
Speaker 1: That said, the higher turnout goes, there's a point where
22:59
Speaker 1: it stops benefiting Team Blue and actually starts benefiting Team Red.
23:02
Speaker 1: We know presidential level turnout absolutely now favors Republicans. So
23:08
Speaker 1: that's sort of this border. It's sort of like Democrats
23:11
Speaker 1: want a really high turnout. But if it starts to
23:14
Speaker 1: approach presidential levels, that's where things get really noisy. And
23:18
Speaker 1: it might not be signaling that this is all one.
23:21
Speaker 2: Right.
23:22
Speaker 1: It could signal that you've got a very close and
23:24
Speaker 1: competitive electorate. So we're approaching a higher turnout than 18.
23:30
Speaker 1: And 18 was one of the highest midterm turnouts we
23:32
Speaker 1: ever had. And that was mostly a repudiation of Trump.
23:39
Speaker 1: Another increase in that, and that's where you start to
23:41
Speaker 1: ask yourself, hey, is this something that's going to be
23:44
Speaker 1: semi-partial realignment, et cetera? But if it gets really high,
23:51
Speaker 1: that's when you have to ask yourself, oh, maybe Trump's
23:53
Speaker 1: strategy is starting to have an impact. So all of
23:59
Speaker 1: that matters. These are tea leaves I'm continuing to read
24:02
Speaker 1: with 15 days to go. So now I want to
24:06
Speaker 1: ask and answer the following question. What does a big
24:09
Speaker 1: Democratic majority look like? What are the raw numbers? And
24:12
Speaker 1: there's another way I've been thinking about this, thanks to
24:14
Speaker 1: my friend Kurt Beto at the hotline who tweeted this
24:17
Speaker 1: over the weekend. And he said, you know, be careful here.
24:21
Speaker 1: A 20-seat pickup this cycle is the equivalent of a
24:24
Speaker 1: 40-seat pickup in 2018, simply because Democrats are starting with
24:28
Speaker 1: a higher floor in this midterm in 2026 with already
24:32
Speaker 1: having 215 House seats versus the floor they had going
24:36
Speaker 1: into 2018, where they were at a number that was
24:39
Speaker 1: substantially lower. So I do think rather than talking about
24:44
Speaker 1: raw pickups, can the Democrats pick up 20, 25, 30,
24:48
Speaker 1: 40 House seats, right? We're doing in there. The question is,
24:54
Speaker 1: are they gonna have more than 235 total House seats
24:55
Speaker 1: in the House, 240, right? So let me give you
24:58
Speaker 1: a little run. After 2006, Democrats had 233 total house seats.
25:08
Speaker 1: After 2008, their number grew to 257 house seats. That
25:13
Speaker 1: back-to-back Democratic wave, small wave in 06, bigger Obama-driven wave
25:17
Speaker 1: in 08, semi-realignment as well, 257. After the 2018 election,
25:23
Speaker 1: they had 235, right? So you see the difference there between, right, 235.
25:28
Speaker 1: After 2020, where they did lose some seats, they were
25:32
Speaker 1: sitting at 222. that majority, right? Barely over the Mendoza
25:36
Speaker 1: line there. And after 2024, they had a pretty high
25:41
Speaker 1: floor to be in the minority, 215 House seats. So
25:43
Speaker 1: if you start from 215 and Democrats gain 20 seats,
25:46
Speaker 1: they're at 235, basically right where they were after the
25:49
Speaker 1: 2018 wave. See, that's how, how does 20 equal 40?
25:53
Speaker 1: That's how 20 equals, a 20 House seat pickup in
25:55
Speaker 1: 2026 equals the 40 House seat pickup in 2018. Now,
26:00
Speaker 1: if they gain 25, they're sitting at 240. Second best
26:05
Speaker 1: number that they've had in 30 years. If they gain 30,
26:08
Speaker 1: they're sitting at 245, right? These are important distinctions and
26:13
Speaker 1: why I think the raw number on the House here
26:15
Speaker 1: is what you should be focused on, right? A 20-seat pickup,
26:19
Speaker 1: someone's gonna say, oh, that just fits the pattern. But
26:23
Speaker 1: if Democrats end up with 245 House seats and it's
26:25
Speaker 1: a 36 pickup, you'll say, oh, only 30 seats, that's
26:28
Speaker 1: no 1994. Yeah, but 245? That's a governing majority that
26:34
Speaker 1: only one other time did they have a majority higher
26:36
Speaker 1: than that this century. And that was after the 2008 election.
26:46
Speaker 1: And obviously, there's a huge difference between having a majority
26:50
Speaker 1: and having a governing majority. You sit in the 220
26:53
Speaker 1: to 225 total House seat range. Handful of members can
26:56
Speaker 1: hold the entire caucus hostage, right? Republicans have been living that.
27:00
Speaker 1: And Akeem Jeffries and the socialist wing of his party,
27:03
Speaker 1: if he only has between 220 and 225 seats, that's
27:05
Speaker 1: going to be a living nightmare. Akeem Jeffries is going
27:09
Speaker 1: to become Kevin McCarthy. He's going to understand and have
27:13
Speaker 1: empathy for the world Kevin McCarthy entered after 2022. At
27:19
Speaker 1: 235 House seats, well, then leadership has a little room
27:25
Speaker 1: to maneuver. At 240, 245? Well, you can absorb all
27:29
Speaker 1: sorts of defections. You can truly have a Big Ten
27:33
Speaker 1: majority without making every tough vote a crisis, if you will,
27:39
Speaker 1: a political crisis. And again, Democrats haven't held 240 House
27:43
Speaker 1: seats in an election since 2008. And in order to
27:48
Speaker 1: get 240, you're looking at a pickup of 35 seats in.
27:52
Speaker 2: Right.
27:52
Speaker 1: So I do think when you hear those ranges, we really,
27:55
Speaker 1: we really ought to change how we talk about this,
27:57
Speaker 1: which is, which is the target actual seats they'll, they'll have. Right.
28:02
Speaker 1: And if they're, you know, a 20 seat pickup puts
28:05
Speaker 1: them at 235, which has basically been where they were
28:08
Speaker 1: in 06 and where they were in 18. You know, it's,
28:12
Speaker 1: it's essentially where they were after those two midterms. Um,
28:17
Speaker 1: So when we debate category one, category three, category five,
28:20
Speaker 1: part of what we're really debating is whether Democrats merely
28:22
Speaker 1: take the House or come out of this with a
28:24
Speaker 1: majority that can actually govern. And that's before we even
28:27
Speaker 1: get to the Senate. Look, to me, it's the Senate
28:30
Speaker 1: map that tests these wave scenarios. I've spent much of
28:35
Speaker 1: this cycle talking about the unusual geography of this election.
28:38
Speaker 1: This is very much... a campaign being fought in red America, right?
28:43
Speaker 1: And this is why it is mostly, why it's both a,
28:47
Speaker 1: you know, let me give you a little hint about
28:49
Speaker 1: election night. It's very possible between the hours of 8 p.m.
28:52
Speaker 1: Eastern and 11 p.m. Eastern, we don't call a consequential race.
28:56
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean the democratic wave isn't happening. It actually
28:59
Speaker 1: could mean this democratic wave could be gigantic. But if
29:03
Speaker 1: it's gigantic, they're gonna win a whole lot of races
29:06
Speaker 1: in red states by nose hairs. And I promise you,
29:10
Speaker 1: All of us in the election projection business are going
29:13
Speaker 1: to be super careful and make sure we know our number,
29:15
Speaker 1: all of those things. This happened in 2018 where Democrats
29:19
Speaker 1: won 40 House seats. A lot of them were fairly close.
29:22
Speaker 1: Some of them couldn't be called until you had a
29:24
Speaker 1: lot of the vote in. And then all of a sudden,
29:27
Speaker 1: you know, there wasn't a lot between, say, 7 p.m.
29:29
Speaker 1: Eastern and 9.30 p.m. Eastern. And then all of a
29:32
Speaker 1: sudden everything came in and all those close races went
29:35
Speaker 1: in one direction. So I'll have more to say on
29:39
Speaker 1: how to watch. election night, but that's something, trust me,
29:42
Speaker 1: as we plan our live election night, I've got a
29:44
Speaker 1: lot more announcement on that, but this is going to be,
29:46
Speaker 1: I've got a big election night extravaganza promise for you.
29:50
Speaker 1: My partners at DDHQ, Chris Eliza, we're at We we've
29:54
Speaker 1: got both live and virtual stuff that's in the offing.
29:58
Speaker 1: That's going to be amazing. It's going to be fantastic.
30:02
Speaker 1: And it's it's going to be everything you've you've come
30:05
Speaker 1: to expect in our primary night live streams on steroids
30:09
Speaker 1: that I promise you. But the point is, it's I've
30:12
Speaker 1: discussed this issue that, hey, if, you know, let's paint
30:17
Speaker 1: the scenario that Democrats are going to somehow win Texas,
30:20
Speaker 1: Kansas and Iowa. We call on those races to pull close.
30:22
Speaker 1: Of course not. Those are races you're not calling until
30:25
Speaker 1: you have 90% of the vote in, 95% of the
30:28
Speaker 1: vote in. Point is, we could be hours where we're
30:32
Speaker 1: sitting there going, huh, when are we, are they ever
30:34
Speaker 1: gonna call Texas? What are we waiting for? Are they
30:36
Speaker 1: ever gonna, you know? And that's what we're gonna be
30:38
Speaker 1: there for, right? We're gonna be there to explain what
30:41
Speaker 1: we're looking for, what's missing, what's not, all those things.
30:45
Speaker 1: So the point is, is that especially with these Senate races, right?
30:50
Speaker 1: These states are considerably more Republican than traditional battlegrounds. But
30:55
Speaker 1: there does seem to be something happening in all of
30:57
Speaker 1: these places. The question, is it enough? Right. Is it
31:00
Speaker 1: enough to get Democrats pass a healthy 46, 47 percent
31:05
Speaker 1: to something that's actually a victory? Forty nine, 50, 51. So, look,
31:11
Speaker 1: we know they're pulling money out of North Carolina to
31:14
Speaker 1: try to save Roger Marshall in Kansas. They're seeing the
31:17
Speaker 1: same poll numbers the rest of us are seeing. That said.
31:22
Speaker 1: What's interesting for Democrats, and this gets it to a
31:25
Speaker 1: complication of how you judge this wave, is some of
31:27
Speaker 1: the toughest races for Democrats right now are not in
31:30
Speaker 1: the red states. They're in states that are less Republican.
31:33
Speaker 1: Take Maine. I've said for a while that Susan Collins,
31:38
Speaker 1: she's one of the most important tests of this election, right?
31:41
Speaker 1: Is there a point where you're just sort of exhausted
31:44
Speaker 1: from the Republican majority and you're just going to punish Republicans, period? Now,
31:49
Speaker 1: so far, I think when you look at her campaign
31:51
Speaker 1: compared to Troy Jackson's campaign, she's running the better campaign.
31:58
Speaker 1: Other than the true Jackson partisan here, I think she's
32:00
Speaker 1: running a better race than Jackson is. But you can
32:03
Speaker 1: win a campaign and still lose an election. It's clear.
32:07
Speaker 1: She knows her state. She's been good at it. She's
32:11
Speaker 1: had to separate herself from the image of the National
32:14
Speaker 1: Party most of her career, so she's comfortable doing it. Now,
32:19
Speaker 1: Troy Jackson has a different challenge, right? He's trying to
32:21
Speaker 1: build a coalition that includes a lot of people who
32:23
Speaker 1: are deeply unhappy with Trump, but also aren't necessarily sold
32:27
Speaker 1: on Troy Jackson. And he's got to win over people
32:29
Speaker 1: that have been voting for Collins for a long time.
32:32
Speaker 1: And I'll be honest with you, I think these debates
32:35
Speaker 1: haven't been, I don't know how impactful debates are anymore.
32:40
Speaker 1: But I will tell you this, I don't think Troy
32:41
Speaker 1: Jackson's debate performances have helped him. Maybe they don't matter.
32:45
Speaker 1: Maybe the environment overwhelms everything. But and it's possible. And
32:52
Speaker 1: that to me that you want a real test of
32:54
Speaker 1: this wave. It's not whether Democrats can carry Kansas. It's
32:58
Speaker 1: whether they can have they can overwhelm and win in
33:01
Speaker 1: places and say knock off the incumbent Republican governor of Nevada,
33:06
Speaker 1: whether they can win Georgia governor, whether they can win
33:09
Speaker 1: main Senate. So then you have Michigan. Abdul El-Sayed is
33:15
Speaker 1: running a very different Democratic campaign than Haley Stevens would
33:18
Speaker 1: have run, the person he knocked off in the Democratic primary.
33:22
Speaker 1: And he's betting that his progressive coalition, coupled with dissatisfaction
33:26
Speaker 1: over Trump and sort of skepticism of Mike Rogers being
33:29
Speaker 1: independent of Trump, will allow for a statewide win. Very
33:35
Speaker 1: notable to me, AOC. She's put her money where her
33:38
Speaker 1: mouth is. She put a million dollars. She transferred a
33:40
Speaker 1: million dollars from her campaign to him. She clearly sees
33:44
Speaker 1: him As a, as a, as, and it's interesting, you know, I,
33:49
Speaker 1: I had to go off on a little bit of
33:50
Speaker 1: an aside here on AOC. Let's assume her decision is
33:53
Speaker 1: to run for the Senate in 2028, but she is
33:57
Speaker 1: trying essentially to accept the premise that she's the leader
34:01
Speaker 1: of the movement, right? She's the heir apparent to Bernie Sanders.
34:06
Speaker 1: She's going to be doing town hall with Troy Jackson,
34:07
Speaker 1: by the way, in Maine later this week, she transferred
34:11
Speaker 1: this million dollars. she is certainly making a play as
34:14
Speaker 1: sort of being the leader of the movement, even if
34:17
Speaker 1: perhaps she's not the actual presidential candidate. And I think
34:22
Speaker 1: she thinks Abdul El-Sayed is the potential face of this movement.
34:27
Speaker 1: And she believes, and she said it before, if you
34:28
Speaker 1: can win in Michigan, then that means you can win
34:30
Speaker 1: perhaps anywhere. Something to keep in mind there. Remarkable amount
34:36
Speaker 1: of money for AOC to put into one campaign. Still,
34:41
Speaker 1: He's struggling with his coalition. Haley Stevens herself raised some
34:44
Speaker 1: concerns about how aggressively Republicans and Mike Rogers are competing
34:48
Speaker 1: for the black vote in Michigan. And while she's endorsed Al-Sayed,
34:52
Speaker 1: she hasn't been a fixture alongside him on the trail.
34:56
Speaker 1: How much does he want? There are days that I
34:59
Speaker 1: watch Abdul Al-Sayed and I wonder, is he making enough
35:04
Speaker 1: effort to assuage the skeptical Democrats enough? Should he be?
35:08
Speaker 1: And I know he's walking a line here. He wants
35:10
Speaker 1: to broaden his coalition, perhaps make folks that are uncomfortable
35:16
Speaker 1: with him a bit more comfortable without undermining the enthusiasm
35:22
Speaker 1: of the folks that have been with him through thick
35:23
Speaker 1: and thin. It requires a lot of political skill to
35:30
Speaker 1: pull that off. I think in the last, I'm not
35:34
Speaker 1: sure he's, he may win anyway. I when when you
35:40
Speaker 1: start to hear these things about what's happening with the
35:43
Speaker 1: black vote and look, that's Obama's coming in. We'll see
35:45
Speaker 1: how effective that is for Abdul El-Sayed. But I am
35:52
Speaker 1: guessing there are some Democrats at the DSCC that wished
35:57
Speaker 1: he would. It could make a few more efforts, a
36:02
Speaker 1: few more gestures to the skeptical side of the Democratic
36:05
Speaker 1: Party and reach out to the coalition. Two other races
36:09
Speaker 1: that I vaguely mentioned before, but I want to come
36:12
Speaker 1: back to that sort of get at this, we could
36:14
Speaker 1: have a strange sort of wave in the red states,
36:17
Speaker 1: but surprisingly not hitting the blue and purple states, right?
36:22
Speaker 1: And two other races I come back to that would
36:24
Speaker 1: help me clarify that are both governor's races. One is Nevada,
36:27
Speaker 1: one is Georgia. Lombardo has a huge financial advantage over
36:31
Speaker 1: the Democratic nominee, the sitting attorney general, Aaron Ford. Rick
36:34
Speaker 1: Jackson is has his own financial advantages. He sort of
36:37
Speaker 1: bought his way into that Republican nomination, kind of has
36:41
Speaker 1: both clean hands from Trump a little bit. He showed
36:48
Speaker 1: up at the rally that Trump had in Georgia, but boy,
36:50
Speaker 1: was he careful of the words that he said. I
36:53
Speaker 1: think he's been as effective doing that as you could.
36:56
Speaker 1: He defeated a Trump candidate in the primary, which I
36:58
Speaker 1: think gave him some level of credibility with some Trump
37:02
Speaker 1: skeptic voters. And he's just an enormous amount of his
37:08
Speaker 1: own money that he's poured into this race. Keisha Lance Bottoms,
37:10
Speaker 1: a Democratic nominee, she's run a good campaign, but financially
37:14
Speaker 1: keeping up. And there's a question, can an Atlanta Democrat,
37:18
Speaker 1: African-American Democrat, win a governor's race statewide? They've come close,
37:25
Speaker 1: but they haven't. And boy, this environment, but Jackson's money
37:29
Speaker 1: is big. That's why the question is, it's, you know,
37:33
Speaker 1: so let's say Democrats win the Senate, win the House,
37:38
Speaker 1: pull off some upsets in Kansas, Texas, Iowa, and Ohio,
37:41
Speaker 1: and Alaska. But Joe Lombardo survives. Susan Collins survives. Rick
37:47
Speaker 1: Jackson wins the Georgia governor seat. What do we call that?
37:52
Speaker 1: I think then that's when you're gonna start asking about
37:54
Speaker 1: the red undertow or blue wave in the red states, right?
37:58
Speaker 1: A repudiation of the National Republican Party that doesn't translate
38:01
Speaker 1: into uniform gains in bluer states. Now, if Democrats start
38:06
Speaker 1: winning those races too, Nevada governor, Georgia governor, Maine Senate, right?
38:11
Speaker 1: If the national environment overwhelms Republicans who have otherwise run
38:15
Speaker 1: good campaigns in this environment, then we're talking something about
38:19
Speaker 1: a wave that is, closer to a category three or five.
38:24
Speaker 1: And we have to have those conversations. And of course
38:27
Speaker 1: then one more set of candidates that I wanna discuss
38:29
Speaker 1: here before I move on to another topic I wanna
38:32
Speaker 1: get to. Our independent candidates that are sort of in
38:36
Speaker 1: some ways they're quasi sort of defacto Democratic challengers or
38:40
Speaker 1: out party challengers. Dan Osborne in Nebraska showed in 2024,
38:44
Speaker 1: he could attract voters who've never support an actual Democrat.
38:48
Speaker 1: He's got some new problems. but I wonder if his
38:52
Speaker 1: new problems also get at to the strength he has
38:55
Speaker 1: with just two weeks to go. So, boy, the oppo
38:58
Speaker 1: is being dropped on him. There was an audio recording
39:02
Speaker 1: of him using a pretty vulgar insult about Senator Deb Fischer,
39:07
Speaker 1: the senator he lost to last election, and it wasn't
39:09
Speaker 1: very helpful. Now, to his credit, he apologized, didn't try
39:13
Speaker 1: to deny it, just said he talks like a sailor sometimes.
39:16
Speaker 1: And I don't know if it changes the race, but
39:18
Speaker 1: there's clearly an attempt by the Ricketts campaign to paint
39:22
Speaker 1: Osborne as, look, he may be saying what you think,
39:24
Speaker 1: but do you really want him representing Nebraska in the Senate? Now,
39:28
Speaker 1: it's ironic that there's trying to hit Osborne for vulgarity
39:32
Speaker 1: and these sorts of issues. The party of Donald Trump's
39:36
Speaker 1: doing this, right? And I think that that's where you're
39:40
Speaker 1: not quite sure it hits the way it hits. So
39:44
Speaker 1: I look at this and there's a part of me
39:47
Speaker 1: that thinks Osborne's about to hit the same Same brick
39:50
Speaker 1: wall he hit against Fisher. Close, but he can't really
39:53
Speaker 1: break through. Or they're throwing more negatives at him this
39:59
Speaker 1: time because they're very nervous that he is going.
40:08
Speaker 2: To break through.
40:11
Speaker 1: One other note.
40:13
Speaker 2: Montana.
40:14
Speaker 1: Seth Bodnar's campaign released a poll showing himself narrowly ahead
40:17
Speaker 1: in an actual three-way race. I'm cautious about this because
40:21
Speaker 1: this is the only survey, and it happens to be
40:23
Speaker 1: a campaign-sponsored survey, that has shown Bodnar in the lead.
40:26
Speaker 1: Bodnar has been down anywhere from high single digits to
40:28
Speaker 1: low double digits this entire campaign in polling from a
40:32
Speaker 1: variety of sources. Kurt Almey, the Republican nominee, has polled
40:38
Speaker 1: anywhere from the low 40s to the mid 40s. Now,
40:43
Speaker 1: in theory, the Democratic nominee, who did not take a
40:46
Speaker 1: knee like the Democratic nominee did in Nebraska, Um, she's
40:51
Speaker 1: getting anywhere from 15 to 20% of the vote. Um,
40:55
Speaker 1: if the number goes down to 10 or even below 10,
40:59
Speaker 1: maybe there's a path to victory for Bodnar here, but
41:02
Speaker 1: it is, um, it does his path to victory. I
41:06
Speaker 1: think it is less about the democratic candidate and more
41:08
Speaker 1: about whether jet having nominees from both parties get some soft, um, right-leaning, uh,
41:20
Speaker 1: folks into the Bodnar camp. I think he released this
41:24
Speaker 1: poll to try to convince people that this race isn't
41:26
Speaker 1: over yet. We'll see. We shall see. Bottom line. Fundraising
41:35
Speaker 1: has been extraordinary. Early vote is worth watching. Senate map
41:38
Speaker 1: continues to broaden. It's not shrinking. And it's only shrinking
41:42
Speaker 1: in where Republicans are trying to target. It is broadening
41:46
Speaker 1: where Democrats are trying to play. Ditto in the House field.
41:49
Speaker 1: but we still don't know the size and shape of
41:51
Speaker 1: this wave. But there is no dispute about the direction
41:54
Speaker 1: of this. So with that backdrop, let's talk about the president.
42:00
Speaker 1: Let's start with Ken Paxton. Trump's already blaming John Cornyn
42:04
Speaker 1: and Karl Rove for the possibility that Paxton loses Texas.
42:08
Speaker 1: Think about that. Cornyn was the incumbent. He was the candidate.
42:10
Speaker 1: A lot of Republicans believe was better positioned to hold
42:12
Speaker 1: the seat. Paxton beat him in the primary because of
42:16
Speaker 1: Trump deciding to give Paxton, his support. And now if
42:19
Speaker 1: Paxton loses, it's John Cornyn's fault or Karl Rove's fault,
42:25
Speaker 1: who these days spends more time just being a commentator,
42:28
Speaker 1: a columnist. At some point, doesn't the candidate bear some responsibility?
42:34
Speaker 1: Doesn't the president who helped elevate that candidate bear responsibility?
42:39
Speaker 1: So it's interesting to me to watch Trump grasp for
42:43
Speaker 1: other people to blame, right? Because it's very revealing. Trump's
42:46
Speaker 1: always wanted credit for Republican victories, and he's been the
42:49
Speaker 1: dominant figure in his party for more than a decade.
42:53
Speaker 1: He's had enormous say over who gets nominated, what the
42:56
Speaker 1: party stands for, which politicians get rewarded, and which candidates
42:59
Speaker 1: get punished. And yet, heading into an election that could
43:02
Speaker 1: be a significant repudiation of his presidency and leadership, he's
43:07
Speaker 1: starting to sound like somebody who's just along for the ride.
43:10
Speaker 1: And it's not just in Texas. right? There are reports
43:13
Speaker 1: Trump's been asking allies about Susie Wiles and potential replacements
43:17
Speaker 1: for her as chief of staff. You know, at the
43:20
Speaker 1: same time, he's angry at political advisors who've been doing
43:24
Speaker 1: lucrative consulting work overseas, including people close to Susie Wiles. Now,
43:28
Speaker 1: is he angry that people are making money off of
43:31
Speaker 1: him or is he angry that he found that it
43:32
Speaker 1: went public that people are making money off of him?
43:35
Speaker 1: Those are two different things. Now, This is the caveat.
43:40
Speaker 1: This is the point I'm supposed to say. President's changing
43:42
Speaker 1: chief of staff after a midterm. That's hardly unusual. It's
43:44
Speaker 1: actually kind of normal. Sometimes you do need a new team,
43:48
Speaker 1: a new strategy, new voice in the room. Somebody might
43:50
Speaker 1: have a better relationship with the new majority from the
43:53
Speaker 1: other party. Trump's no conventional president. And Susie Wiles hasn't
43:57
Speaker 1: been a conventional chief of staff. Now, she's one of
44:00
Speaker 1: the few people who has shown some ability to keep
44:03
Speaker 1: Trump focused and disciplined for an extended period of time.
44:07
Speaker 1: In fact, it's interesting. I've long thought there are two
44:08
Speaker 1: people in Trump's orbit that deserve particular credit for keeping
44:11
Speaker 1: Trump on track during the last like 90 days of
44:16
Speaker 1: his two winning presidential campaigns. Kellyanne Conway in the closing
44:19
Speaker 1: weeks of 2016, that campaign was a mess. She took
44:22
Speaker 1: over and she, you know, especially October, starting on October 8th, 2016,
44:27
Speaker 1: the day after the Access Hollywood tape, she somehow reined
44:31
Speaker 1: him in, kept him somewhat boring at the end and
44:36
Speaker 1: it paid off. Susie Wiles in 2024. Now, the two
44:40
Speaker 1: of them had different styles and different relationships with Trump,
44:43
Speaker 1: but both found ways to keep on what mattered politically.
44:48
Speaker 1: But of course, as we know, eventually Trump tires of
44:52
Speaker 1: being managed, or more importantly, he doesn't like it when
44:55
Speaker 1: he finds out he's being managed. If he thinks he's
44:58
Speaker 1: not being managed, but he's being managed, he loves it.
45:01
Speaker 1: Loves Kellyanne, loves a Susie Wiles. When it becomes apparent
45:05
Speaker 1: and other people note how well managed she is, then
45:07
Speaker 1: he gets upset, right? Then he gets, then of course,
45:10
Speaker 1: especially if it's a woman, right? On one hand, it
45:12
Speaker 1: seems like only women effectively manage him. And yet when
45:16
Speaker 1: the chips are down, it's only women he seems to fire, right? Bondi, Guilfoyle, Noam.
45:23
Speaker 1: Now he's looking to scapegoat Wiles. You see where I'm
45:26
Speaker 1: going here. Which brings me to Katie Zachariah. Look, I
45:32
Speaker 1: think we know there is a new measurement of unit
45:35
Speaker 1: in American politics, right? We had the Scaramucci for years.
45:38
Speaker 1: That meant 11 days of public service. Did you, have
45:41
Speaker 1: you been in government for a Scaramucci? Well, I've been
45:43
Speaker 1: in government for three Scaramucci's. Oh, wow. A whole month, right? Now,
45:48
Speaker 1: Anthony Scaramucci's legendary tenure as White House communications director in
45:51
Speaker 1: Trump's first term was 11 days. So now we have
45:53
Speaker 1: a Zachariah and I've decided you can't just use five days.
45:57
Speaker 1: I've decided the unit of measurement has to be five
45:59
Speaker 1: and a half days. I want some symmetry here, right?
46:01
Speaker 1: I want to be able to say two Zacharias equals
46:03
Speaker 1: one Scaramucci. Or I was here for a Scaramucci plus
46:06
Speaker 1: a Zachariah, which would tell people you were there for
46:08
Speaker 1: 16 and a half days. So I do. We need
46:10
Speaker 1: to formally establish. And I think we'll have a debate
46:14
Speaker 1: in the measurements committee when we have this debate here.
46:18
Speaker 1: Two Zacharias, I think, should equal one Scaramucci. So we
46:21
Speaker 1: have to unequivocally accept the premise that she served for
46:25
Speaker 1: five and a half days, not just five days. All right. Because, hey,
46:28
Speaker 1: we don't want to deal with fractions that often, do we?
46:31
Speaker 1: And you start trying to figure out how five I
46:33
Speaker 1: saw somebody say it's a point four or five of
46:35
Speaker 1: a Scaramucci. No, no, no, no, no, no. Let's not
46:38
Speaker 1: do that. Let's make this a little simpler. But still
46:43
Speaker 1: joking aside here, how she left is more reveal revealing, though,
46:47
Speaker 1: than how long she lasted.
46:48
Speaker 2: Right.
46:49
Speaker 1: She was named press secretary despite questions about all of
46:51
Speaker 1: her qualifications. And despite reports, she was. didn't, had not
46:57
Speaker 1: really been vetted by Susie Wiles. Trump just sort of
46:59
Speaker 1: did this on his own. The first briefing went badly.
47:03
Speaker 1: Then she went on Sean Hannity's show. And normally Fox
47:06
Speaker 1: is where you play cleanup, right? But Hannity, out of nowhere,
47:10
Speaker 1: asked some surprisingly tough questions, right? And Sean, I've known
47:15
Speaker 1: you a long time. We know you're capable of asking
47:17
Speaker 1: tough questions, but you seem to believe you have to
47:19
Speaker 1: be on message for other people rather than play the
47:21
Speaker 1: role of journalists. I appreciate you do it every once
47:24
Speaker 1: in a while. Proves you can. You can be quite
47:27
Speaker 1: effective when you choose to do it. Anyway, but he
47:31
Speaker 1: hit her with legal credentials about why she'd identified herself
47:36
Speaker 1: as an attorney when she hadn't passed the bar, about
47:39
Speaker 1: why her first briefing lasted 14 minutes and took only
47:41
Speaker 1: three questions. And she struggled. Now, here's where it gets fascinating.
47:46
Speaker 1: According to Politico, Susie Wiles helped arrange the interview. And
47:49
Speaker 1: there are people inside the White House who believe Wiles
47:52
Speaker 1: essentially set her up to fail. In fact, one person
47:55
Speaker 1: told Politico it was a, quote, sanctioned hit. Everybody loves
47:59
Speaker 1: their mafia metaphors in Washington, D.C. Now, the White House
48:03
Speaker 1: denies it. Fox says Hannity decides his own questions. And
48:07
Speaker 1: there's a perfectly plausible alternative. Wiles was simply giving Zachariah
48:11
Speaker 1: a chance to clean up her own mess. I guess
48:14
Speaker 1: I could plausibly see it both ways. Maybe Wiles figured
48:17
Speaker 1: you want to be the public face of this administration,
48:19
Speaker 1: then you ought to be able to handle Sean Hannity, right?
48:23
Speaker 1: The spokesperson for Donald Trump ought to be able to
48:25
Speaker 1: handle a Sean Hannity interview. If you can't handle Sean
48:27
Speaker 1: Hannity as a Donald Trump spokesperson, then good luck handling
48:31
Speaker 1: any other interview you have, right? Welcome to the NFL.
48:34
Speaker 1: Or maybe Wiles knew exactly what was going to happen.
48:37
Speaker 1: Either way, Zachariah was gone within hours. And what it
48:41
Speaker 1: suggests is that the president and his chief of staff
48:44
Speaker 1: are not working from the same playbook anymore. Trump is
48:46
Speaker 1: now off on his own. This is why we're seeing,
48:49
Speaker 1: this is the worst parts of Trump 1.0 have shown
48:52
Speaker 1: up now in how he's managing. The one thing that
48:55
Speaker 1: hadn't happened was chaotic management. Well, the chaotic management is back,
49:00
Speaker 1: which means he knows he was being controlled and he
49:03
Speaker 1: doesn't like it anymore. So Trump made a personnel call,
49:08
Speaker 1: Wallace was left to manage the fallout, and now the
49:10
Speaker 1: White House is consumed by a drama that never should
49:14
Speaker 1: have been a national story. Now, Trump himself says, Susan
49:17
Speaker 1: Wallace is not going anywhere, right? that says the manager's
49:21
Speaker 1: not going anywhere. No, I vote, you know, anytime the
49:25
Speaker 1: president gives you a vote of confidence, you probably ought
49:27
Speaker 1: to get your resume, um, put together. But the fact,
49:32
Speaker 1: because the fact is we know is everybody who talks
49:35
Speaker 1: to Trump likes to tell people they talk to Trump. Um,
49:41
Speaker 1: He's doing his thing when he's nearing the end of
49:44
Speaker 1: time with somebody. He's asking about, well, who else do
49:47
Speaker 1: you think I should put in? And let me just say,
49:50
Speaker 1: if it's Jay Clayton at DNI, we probably should breathe
49:52
Speaker 1: a sigh of relief. If it's Bill Pulte, the sort
49:55
Speaker 1: of the goon that has been used to weaponize government
49:58
Speaker 1: against various people like Lisa Cook at Fed, and I
50:00
Speaker 1: think he's a part of this Elon Omar business, that
50:04
Speaker 1: should scare a lot of people. Pulte is, and none
50:06
Speaker 1: of this is, he can name who he wants. If
50:08
Speaker 1: Bill Pulte replaces Susie Wiles, This could turn into a
50:14
Speaker 1: full-on rogue administration. So here's hoping it's a Jay Clayton
50:19
Speaker 1: or even a Kevin McCarthy on that one, just simply
50:22
Speaker 1: to make sure we don't. It's one thing that we
50:24
Speaker 1: crash the car. It's another thing if we go off
50:26
Speaker 1: a cliff. And Bill Pulte is the type of guy
50:29
Speaker 1: who might take the country totally off a cliff. I mean,
50:32
Speaker 1: he and Trump together, that is Thelma and Louise all
50:35
Speaker 1: the wrong way around it. All right, I want to
50:38
Speaker 1: transition a little bit to the campaign trial. Republican candidates
50:41
Speaker 1: around the country are trying to figure out how much
50:43
Speaker 1: distance they can put between themselves and the president without
50:46
Speaker 1: alienating his voters. And as usual, Trump's making this incredibly
50:50
Speaker 1: difficult for these Republicans. Politico had an interesting fundraising number
50:54
Speaker 1: over the weekend. Democrats have spent $ 145 million in general
50:58
Speaker 1: election ads that mentioned Donald Trump. Republicans have spent $ 8
51:02
Speaker 1: million on ads that mentioned Donald Trump. 18 to 1. Hey,
51:06
Speaker 1: who wants to pretend Donald Trump's on the ballot? The
51:09
Speaker 1: Democrats or the Republicans? What does Donald Trump keep telling Republicans?
51:12
Speaker 1: Pretend he's on the ballot. What do Democrats say? Yes, please.
51:17
Speaker 2: Right.
51:18
Speaker 1: Now, I think it tells you we know what Republican
51:20
Speaker 1: campaigns don't want. Donald Trump on the trail and Donald
51:23
Speaker 1: Trump helping them out at this moment. This is a
51:25
Speaker 1: man whose endorsement had been a valuable commodity in Republican
51:28
Speaker 1: primaries and probably still is. But in a general election.
51:33
Speaker 1: He's not helpful most times and certainly not helpful in
51:35
Speaker 1: a cycle like this. In Ohio, John Huston has appeared
51:39
Speaker 1: with Trump, but the Republican Senate ads do not feature him.
51:43
Speaker 1: In Nebraska, Ricketts isn't exactly making the Trump endorsement the
51:47
Speaker 1: centerpiece of his campaign. In Michigan, Republican candidates were reportedly
51:52
Speaker 1: nervous about even showing up at a Trump rally, given
51:55
Speaker 1: the tariffs, the Canada trade war, and the Iran war. Look,
52:00
Speaker 1: they don't fully distance themselves from Trump because they want
52:02
Speaker 1: his voters, they want his turnout operation, and they want
52:05
Speaker 1: him exciting people who still love him. They just don't
52:09
Speaker 1: necessarily want to be standing next to him. The problem
52:12
Speaker 1: is Trump doesn't know how to deliver a message that
52:14
Speaker 1: helps these candidates, right? The New York Times today devoted
52:17
Speaker 1: an entire story to Trump's to what I pointed out
52:21
Speaker 1: a few days ago, Trump's fascination with the physical appearance
52:24
Speaker 1: of the men he's been campaigning for or against. He
52:27
Speaker 1: likes to talk about their shoulders, their jawlines, their physiques,
52:29
Speaker 1: even their asses. It's been really strange. If he said
52:34
Speaker 1: these things about a woman, you'd say, why is he
52:36
Speaker 1: objectifying this woman? He literally objectified John Husted's body. And
52:42
Speaker 1: shouldn't people be offended by it? He's offered assessments of
52:48
Speaker 1: the relative attractiveness of John Ossoff and Mike Collins. He's
52:51
Speaker 1: even talked about what parts of his makeup he likes
52:54
Speaker 1: to mess with and stuff. He's criticized Ken Paxton's looks
52:58
Speaker 1: while trying to get Texans to vote for him. Look,
53:02
Speaker 1: I certainly have plenty of theories that I've hinted at here.
53:04
Speaker 1: I think the older you get, the more your filters
53:08
Speaker 1: disappear and maybe the real you comes out. Mr. President,
53:14
Speaker 1: love is love. You be you, my friend. But the
53:18
Speaker 1: fact is, in all seriousness, he's a different public performer
53:23
Speaker 1: right now than he was 10 years ago or even
53:25
Speaker 1: four years ago. These appearances keep generating headlines that have
53:28
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the candidates he's supposed to be helping.
53:31
Speaker 1: Republicans need him talking about the economy, the cost of living,
53:36
Speaker 1: how he's about to end the war in Iran. And instead,
53:39
Speaker 1: he wants to talk about what he thinks of John
53:41
Speaker 1: Husted's backside. By the way, Maureen Dowd had a had
53:45
Speaker 1: a One of her classics over the weekend of a column,
53:50
Speaker 1: and she captured the moment, I think, pretty well using
53:52
Speaker 1: a photograph. She has a particular talent for writing about
53:56
Speaker 1: Trump's id, his need for attention, his fixation on loyalty
54:01
Speaker 1: and adulation. And she has her own long relationship with
54:05
Speaker 1: him over the years. He loves her. He hates her.
54:08
Speaker 1: He loves her. He hates her. Everything he has said
54:10
Speaker 1: about Maggie Haberman, before there was Maggie Haberman, there was
54:13
Speaker 1: Maureen Dow. And she built this column around my friend
54:18
Speaker 1: Doug Mills' photograph. Doug Mills is the New York Times
54:20
Speaker 1: chief photographer, probably our best living political campaign government photographer
54:26
Speaker 1: there is, news photographer there is here domestically. You know,
54:30
Speaker 1: he just is so good at capturing literally the pictures
54:34
Speaker 1: that are a thousand words. This is what he does.
54:37
Speaker 1: And he has this photograph that Maureen Dowd uses to
54:40
Speaker 1: write her old column about. Trump is aboard Marine One.
54:43
Speaker 1: This is a photograph from last week. leaning towards Katie Zachariah,
54:47
Speaker 1: you know, sometime in her five and a half day tenure.
54:51
Speaker 1: And Natalie Hart, the two aides who look absolutely delighted
54:55
Speaker 1: to be in his presence. Big smiles is in the photos, right?
55:00
Speaker 1: Susie Wiles is there too, but she's mostly outside the frame.
55:03
Speaker 1: You do see her legs in her bag. And Dowd
55:06
Speaker 1: sort of portrays, she reads it as a portrait of
55:09
Speaker 1: an increasingly insular world for Donald Trump, surrounded by people
55:13
Speaker 1: who tell him exactly what he wants to hear, Natalie Harp,
55:15
Speaker 1: Katie Zachariah, right? Who both have striking resemblance to his daughter. Well,
55:22
Speaker 1: the political environment outside that bubble gets more hostile. I
55:26
Speaker 1: think she's onto something because you look at what's happening
55:28
Speaker 1: outside the helicopter. Candidates are keeping their distance. His advisors
55:32
Speaker 1: are fighting amongst themselves. The public is increasingly skeptical of
55:34
Speaker 1: his motives, right? There's another new poll showing another new
55:38
Speaker 1: all-time low in his job rating. And then in this
55:42
Speaker 1: most recent, this Washington Post ABC poll, The one big
55:46
Speaker 1: new piece of information that I thought was interesting was
55:48
Speaker 1: nearly two-thirds of Americans believe Trump is using the presidency
55:51
Speaker 1: now to enrich himself. A year ago, it was 22%
55:55
Speaker 1: of Republicans and Republican-leading independents believed this. Now, 34% of
56:00
Speaker 1: Republicans and Republican-leading independents, a third of Republicans, essentially a
56:05
Speaker 1: third of Trump's voters themselves, think he's just enriching himself.
56:09
Speaker 1: It's a big jump, 12-point jump among people already disposed
56:13
Speaker 1: to support him. And this goes back to something I've
56:17
Speaker 1: been thinking about, about the size of this wave. Corruption
56:20
Speaker 1: is sort of the, and I've said this before, right?
56:23
Speaker 1: If corruption starts to make its way into the end
56:27
Speaker 1: part of the cycle, that's usually the last necessary ingredient
56:32
Speaker 1: for a successful political wave in your favor. And the
56:36
Speaker 1: corruption issue is percolating, right? It seems to be outside
56:43
Speaker 1: of just the cable news chambers or even the echo
56:45
Speaker 1: chamber of DC. And when corruption, it's not replacing concerns
56:52
Speaker 1: about cost of living. It gets connected to the issue
56:56
Speaker 1: of cost of living. You don't care about what's happening
56:58
Speaker 1: to us. You only care about enriching yourself, right? So
57:01
Speaker 1: if they're already frustrated about what they pay for gas, groceries,
57:03
Speaker 1: and electricity, they're wondering, huh, you're making a whole bunch
57:07
Speaker 1: of money. You're cashing in. What about me? So then
57:11
Speaker 1: it becomes more than economic frustration. It becomes a question
57:14
Speaker 1: of trust. So the fact that this concern is popping up,
57:20
Speaker 1: there's more headlines to prove it, right? Kimberly Guilfoyle, right?
57:24
Speaker 1: Just another, and it's funny about her, Guilfoyle, right? Who
57:27
Speaker 1: was once engaged to Donald Trump Jr. Got pushed out
57:31
Speaker 1: as ambassador of Greece, basically because she got caught being
57:35
Speaker 1: a grifter. Not because she's a grifter, right? If he
57:37
Speaker 1: fired everybody who got caught being a, but it was
57:40
Speaker 1: sort of in his own way. It was sort of,
57:42
Speaker 1: I guess maybe she didn't give him a piece. I mean,
57:44
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is. But this to me,
57:49
Speaker 1: the way he handled Guilfoyle tells me he really has
57:52
Speaker 1: lost a step here because now we're getting stories about
57:54
Speaker 1: a supposed burn book, collection of Trump family secrets. She
57:57
Speaker 1: might be ready to reveal. Now, when I first read it,
58:00
Speaker 1: my thought was somebody shopping a book deal. She wants
58:03
Speaker 1: to let publishers know she might have material and she
58:06
Speaker 1: needs money. So she's going to be looking for a
58:08
Speaker 1: big advance. So let's see if she actually has what
58:11
Speaker 1: she has. But, you know, that felt like the, hey,
58:14
Speaker 1: book publishers, give me a call. I've got something. I know,
58:18
Speaker 1: by the way, you know, could you help me pay
58:20
Speaker 1: my Amex bill? Oh, no. Did I say it that way?
58:22
Speaker 1: Did I connect those dots that directly?
58:24
Speaker 2: No.
58:24
Speaker 1: Look, we don't know. But and maybe it's leverage. Who knows?
58:29
Speaker 1: But I'm surprised that Trump Papa Trump here didn't find
58:32
Speaker 1: her a softer landing, a better face-saving explanation, quiet exit,
58:36
Speaker 1: because she's now somebody, you never know what she might say.
58:40
Speaker 1: You never know what she might do. And now it's
58:43
Speaker 1: a more public spectacle involving people already profiting off of
58:47
Speaker 1: their proximity to him. And I think that's another political
58:50
Speaker 1: danger for Republicans, right? You put all this together, and again,
58:55
Speaker 1: you're not doing enough to prevent Trump from doing this,
58:57
Speaker 1: so maybe you're part of the problem too. All of
59:00
Speaker 1: this wages one other question that I like to remind
59:03
Speaker 1: folks of. How much does Donald Trump actually care about
59:06
Speaker 1: the long-term future of the Republican Party? And I ask
59:08
Speaker 1: this question because I actually one of the reasons why
59:11
Speaker 1: I'm not concerned about him truly messing with the midterms
59:16
Speaker 1: or questioning the results, because I don't think he would,
59:18
Speaker 1: this isn't about himself. If this were about him in
59:22
Speaker 1: his own head, then maybe he would use his executive power.
59:27
Speaker 1: And I think that doesn't mean we shouldn't be vigilant
59:30
Speaker 1: about this and really concerned about his behavior going into 28.
59:34
Speaker 1: But for a weird reason, I think he doesn't care
59:37
Speaker 1: about the Republicans and would be fine if it's just him. Like,
59:43
Speaker 1: I don't think if he were the lone member of
59:46
Speaker 1: the Republican Party, but we're still in office, I don't
59:48
Speaker 1: think that would bother him one bit. So, look, would
59:53
Speaker 1: he prefer a Republican Congress over a Democratic one? Of
59:56
Speaker 1: course he would. Republican Congress protects him from investigations, lets
1:00:00
Speaker 1: him govern basically without any restraints. I mean, even when
1:00:03
Speaker 1: they vote for a Russian sanctions bill, he just signs
1:00:05
Speaker 1: an executive order and they just shrug their shoulders. But
1:00:10
Speaker 1: I don't think he cares whether the Republican Party is
1:00:12
Speaker 1: still a viable governing party after he leaves the stage.
1:00:14
Speaker 1: If anything, I think he'd love for it to disappear
1:00:16
Speaker 1: and say, I was the only one that kept it afloat. Again,
1:00:20
Speaker 1: if he cared about the future of the Republican Party,
1:00:22
Speaker 1: why would he have elevated Ken Paxton? If he cared
1:00:25
Speaker 1: about the future of the Republican Party, why would he
1:00:27
Speaker 1: have alienated Tom Tillis? Why would he spend so much
1:00:30
Speaker 1: energy settling scores inside the party with people who actually
1:00:34
Speaker 1: might have helped him keep power? And would he be
1:00:39
Speaker 1: making foreign policy decisions he's making right now? Decisions that
1:00:42
Speaker 1: force Republican candidates to answer questions they'd rather not be
1:00:45
Speaker 1: answering two weeks before an election. Like, why is the
1:00:48
Speaker 1: president favoring Putin, a war criminal, over Zelensky in New York?
1:01:03
Speaker 1: This brings me to the most consequential story of the week.
1:01:09
Speaker 1: Once again, Donald Trump has made a decision that benefits
1:01:11
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin at the expense of Ukraine. And this time
1:01:15
Speaker 1: it's about more than just rhetoric or his relationship with
1:01:18
Speaker 1: the Russian leader. It's the decision to let Russian diesel
1:01:21
Speaker 1: back into global markets. It's the reported throttling of the
1:01:25
Speaker 1: satellite system Ukraine relies on to defend itself. and the
1:01:28
Speaker 1: extraordinary influence of our big donor that we talked about
1:01:32
Speaker 1: at the start of this podcast, Mr. Elon Musk. Look,
1:01:38
Speaker 1: I am asked, these are questions, all right? This is
1:01:43
Speaker 1: Claire Danes putting index cards on a bulletin board and
1:01:49
Speaker 1: putting some yarn that might connect the pushpins. But I
1:01:53
Speaker 1: think we need to see what the picture looks like.
1:01:58
Speaker 1: There are things we know, and there are things that
1:02:01
Speaker 1: have been reported but are disputed. And there's some very
1:02:04
Speaker 1: serious questions that nobody's adequately answered. So how we got
1:02:08
Speaker 1: this diesel deal? Let's remember how we got here. The
1:02:10
Speaker 1: United States has been at war with Iran for nearly
1:02:13
Speaker 1: eight months. Whatever you think of the decision to go in,
1:02:17
Speaker 1: there's a growing body of evidence that the consequences have
1:02:20
Speaker 1: been a lot more complicated than this administration expected. Michael Froman,
1:02:25
Speaker 1: the current president of the Council on Foreign Relations, had
1:02:27
Speaker 1: a fascinating assessment of the war over the weekend. Because
1:02:32
Speaker 1: he noted that by the administration's own military objectives, the
1:02:35
Speaker 1: United States has actually accomplished quite a bit in Iran.
1:02:38
Speaker 1: Iran's conventional military has been significantly degraded. Its navy has
1:02:41
Speaker 1: taken enormous losses. Its ability to launch missiles and drones
1:02:44
Speaker 1: has been diminished. Real achievements. But Iran has been much
1:02:49
Speaker 1: better at the asymmetrical part of the war game, if
1:02:51
Speaker 1: you will. You don't need to be the world's best
1:02:55
Speaker 1: Navy when you can threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
1:02:58
Speaker 1: You don't need to win an air war when cheap
1:02:59
Speaker 1: drones and missiles force everybody else to spend fortunes defending themselves.
1:03:04
Speaker 1: And you don't need to wreck the American economy. You
1:03:06
Speaker 1: just need to rattle global energy markets enough that an
1:03:10
Speaker 1: American president starts looking for almost any way to bring
1:03:12
Speaker 1: prices down. And apparently that's how we ended up with
1:03:15
Speaker 1: Donald Trump cutting a diesel deal with Vladimir Putin. So
1:03:19
Speaker 1: let's follow this chain.
1:03:19
Speaker 2: The U.S.
1:03:20
Speaker 1: Goes to war with Iran in part to reduce the
1:03:22
Speaker 1: threat Iran poses to the region and American interest. Iran
1:03:24
Speaker 1: responds by exploiting its ability to disrupt energy supplies. Prices rise.
1:03:29
Speaker 1: Americans feel it. Political cost becomes obvious as the midterms approach.
1:03:33
Speaker 1: The president turns to Putin. He lets millions of barrels
1:03:37
Speaker 1: of Russian diesel back into the market, handing Russia another
1:03:40
Speaker 1: revenue stream while it's still raging a war in Ukraine.
1:03:44
Speaker 1: By the way, did I note that Russia is an
1:03:46
Speaker 1: ally of Iran? Oh, right, I left that out, didn't I? Anyway,
1:03:50
Speaker 1: the administration can say it's trying to relieve pressure on
1:03:52
Speaker 1: energy prices. It's a legitimate goal. Americans are paying more
1:03:56
Speaker 1: for fuel and it's been rippling through the whole economy.
1:04:00
Speaker 1: The question is whether this remedy makes any strategic sense
1:04:04
Speaker 1: because you're trying to solve one foreign policy problem by
1:04:07
Speaker 1: making another one worse. And there's no guarantee that the
1:04:11
Speaker 1: actual volume of Russian diesel involved even offsets what's happening
1:04:14
Speaker 1: in the Persian Gulf. Zelensky himself made that point, which
1:04:19
Speaker 1: is why he's skeptical that this was the motivation, right?
1:04:22
Speaker 1: The diesel deal will never make up for what isn't
1:04:25
Speaker 1: coming out of the Strait, Zelensky argued, but it will
1:04:29
Speaker 1: put more money in Putin's pocket so he can continue
1:04:32
Speaker 1: to conduct this war with Ukraine. And that's this fundamental contradiction.
1:04:36
Speaker 1: The United States has spent years trying to make Russia
1:04:38
Speaker 1: pay an economic price for invading a sovereign democracy. I
1:04:42
Speaker 1: say the United States has, because Congress has backed these sanctions.
1:04:46
Speaker 1: Republicans and Democrats voted to punish Moscow. Our European allies
1:04:50
Speaker 1: made painful economic choices to wean themselves off Russian energy
1:04:54
Speaker 1: at our behest, mind you. Everybody is aligned on this
1:04:57
Speaker 1: except for one person. The president himself decides that easing
1:05:03
Speaker 1: pressure on Russia is an acceptable way to deal with
1:05:06
Speaker 1: the consequences of his own war of choice with Iran.
1:05:12
Speaker 1: What message does this send? Putin is delighted. What does
1:05:17
Speaker 1: it tell Ukraine, European allies, every other country we've ever
1:05:20
Speaker 1: asked to trust an American commitment? And none of this
1:05:23
Speaker 1: is happening in a vacuum. And then there's this bizarre,
1:05:25
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I understand why people are going to
1:05:27
Speaker 1: their conspiratorial mindset on this one. Shoot, Trump himself almost
1:05:33
Speaker 1: introduced the conspiracy. He was sitting down with Rob Fenerty
1:05:36
Speaker 1: at Newsmax. And he, again, Trump sounded more frustrated with
1:05:41
Speaker 1: Zelensky than the president. the man behind all of the atrocity,
1:05:45
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin. He criticized Ukraine strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.
1:05:50
Speaker 1: He did not criticize Russia's strikes on civilian populations in
1:05:54
Speaker 1: Ukraine or on their energy infrastructure. He suggested that Zelensky
1:05:58
Speaker 1: doesn't really want to settle. No, he's not settling anything.
1:06:01
Speaker 1: He's not handing land back to the Russians. You're right.
1:06:05
Speaker 1: And of course, Putin wants to settle anything that gives
1:06:08
Speaker 1: him more, not less. And then he repeated his claim
1:06:11
Speaker 1: that the Ukrainian president It's harder to deal with than
1:06:14
Speaker 1: the Russian one. Is that just for you, buddy? Why
1:06:18
Speaker 1: is Putin so easy to deal with for you? Remember
1:06:23
Speaker 1: the circumstances. Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia keeps hitting Ukrainian cities
1:06:27
Speaker 1: and infrastructure. Ukraine is trying to defend its territory and
1:06:30
Speaker 1: impose costs on the country that invaded it. And our
1:06:33
Speaker 1: American president aims so much of his frustration at the
1:06:36
Speaker 1: leader of the country that was invaded. He's blaming the victim.
1:06:41
Speaker 1: It's deeply troubling. And then he offered a peculiar in
1:06:45
Speaker 1: that interview explanation for why Russia didn't take Ukraine quickly.
1:06:49
Speaker 1: He claimed that Russian generals took a wrong turn and
1:06:51
Speaker 1: otherwise the war might have been over in a day
1:06:52
Speaker 1: or two. And I'll tell you what made me scratch
1:06:57
Speaker 1: my head on that one. Where did he get that information?
1:07:00
Speaker 1: Who gave him that talking point? Trump doesn't invent talking points.
1:07:04
Speaker 1: People plant shit in his head. Is it something Putin
1:07:06
Speaker 1: told him? Did he actually pick this up elsewhere? It's
1:07:11
Speaker 1: an account, though, that blames Russia's failure on bad execution
1:07:14
Speaker 1: rather than on the resistance of the Ukrainian people or
1:07:17
Speaker 1: that maybe doing it was wrong in the first place.
1:07:22
Speaker 2: Right.
1:07:22
Speaker 1: Trump just says, ah, Russia blew it. You know, it's like, yeah,
1:07:26
Speaker 1: you turned the ball over in the first quarter. How
1:07:30
Speaker 1: about it was wrong for them to ever do it, period.
1:07:35
Speaker 1: And it really raises a bigger question of how Trump
1:07:37
Speaker 1: understands this war. Does he see Ukraine as a sovereign country?
1:07:40
Speaker 1: defending itself against aggression? Or did he simply see Ukraine
1:07:44
Speaker 1: as an obstacle to a deal he wants to have
1:07:47
Speaker 1: himself with Putin? And then we get to Elon Musk,
1:07:53
Speaker 1: and the story somehow gets more disturbing. According to the Telegraph,
1:07:58
Speaker 1: the London Telegraph, Musk approached Trump with a proposal to
1:08:00
Speaker 1: slow down the satellite communications being used by Ukrainian forces.
1:08:03
Speaker 1: More precisely, it's called Starshield, the military-grade version of Starlink
1:08:08
Speaker 1: that SpaceX built. Now, the Telegraph reported that Trump agreed,
1:08:11
Speaker 1: clearing the way for the Pentagon to impose restrictions that
1:08:13
Speaker 1: affected Ukraine's drone defenses. By the way, this is where
1:08:16
Speaker 1: I'd like to know, at what point in this conversation
1:08:19
Speaker 1: did the Ken Paxton $ 158 million donation come to? But anyway,
1:08:24
Speaker 1: but I digress. Now, Reuters reported that the order to
1:08:33
Speaker 1: slow down Starlink or Starshield actually originating inside the White House. Now,
1:08:39
Speaker 1: the White House disputes that account. Musk says Starshield is
1:08:42
Speaker 1: controlled by the U.S. government and that decisions about speed
1:08:45
Speaker 1: and usage ultimately rest with the military and the president.
1:08:50
Speaker 1: Musk not denying this happened, by the way, just trying
1:08:53
Speaker 1: to say, wasn't my decision. Well, he can't order it.
1:09:00
Speaker 1: He can influence it. He can write a check to
1:09:03
Speaker 1: Ken Paxton for $ 158 million, and maybe that opens the
1:09:06
Speaker 1: eyes of Trump to do something Musk would like him
1:09:08
Speaker 1: to do. Now, here's what we know. We know this happened.
1:09:13
Speaker 1: We just don't know who ordered the code red here,
1:09:16
Speaker 1: if you will. Zelensky says the system wasn't shut off,
1:09:22
Speaker 1: but its speed was cut and it interfered with Ukraine's
1:09:24
Speaker 1: ability to intercept certain Russian drops. It's not a minor
1:09:29
Speaker 1: technical inconvenience, mind you. We're talking about a communication system
1:09:32
Speaker 1: being used to protect civilians from Russian attacks, technology that
1:09:35
Speaker 1: can be the difference between intercepting an incoming weapon and
1:09:38
Speaker 1: letting it reach its target. And what's interesting is according
1:09:42
Speaker 1: to reporting, the restrictions came during a stretch of really
1:09:45
Speaker 1: intense Russian strikes. Coordination, folks. Nine United States senators, Republicans
1:09:54
Speaker 1: and Democrats have asked the Pentagon inspector general to investigate
1:09:57
Speaker 1: this incident. The concern goes beyond Ukraine. They say American
1:10:01
Speaker 1: diplomatic and security personnel were also put at risk. We
1:10:03
Speaker 1: have Americans on the ground helping Ukrainians. And this president
1:10:06
Speaker 1: of the United States has allowed Putin unfettered access like this?
1:10:11
Speaker 1: Whatever the explanation, we're talking about a reported disruption that
1:10:14
Speaker 1: may have endangered Americans as well as Ukrainians. Now, You
1:10:19
Speaker 1: may wonder, where's the Secretary of State been? I wonder
1:10:21
Speaker 1: this all the time whenever there's crazy Trump stuff. Well,
1:10:24
Speaker 1: he's back. He showed back up Sunday night. Secretary of
1:10:26
Speaker 1: State Marco Rubio was asked about it, and his answer
1:10:28
Speaker 1: was remarkable. He said he wasn't sure Zelensky knew what
1:10:31
Speaker 1: he was talking about. And then he insisted nobody deliberately
1:10:35
Speaker 1: ordered a slowdown. Didn't deny there was a slowdown. He
1:10:38
Speaker 1: suggested the problem just sort of happened. And as far
1:10:40
Speaker 1: as he understood, service has been restored. It sort of happened.
1:10:45
Speaker 1: That's essentially the explanation, right? This is Rubio This is
1:10:49
Speaker 1: Homer Simpson. This is Marco Simpson, Rubio, right? He sort
1:10:52
Speaker 1: of does, you know, when things go really nut job
1:10:54
Speaker 1: with Trump, he does the Homer Simpson into the Bushes.
1:10:57
Speaker 1: And then when allies and Republican senators start getting cranky
1:11:01
Speaker 1: about something and they know the only person in that
1:11:04
Speaker 1: administration that remotely has credibility with them is Marco Rubio,
1:11:07
Speaker 1: he suddenly reappears from the Bushes, comes up with a
1:11:09
Speaker 1: convoluted explanation and doesn't denounce Trump at all, doesn't, and
1:11:14
Speaker 1: just tries to say, nothing to see here. Can't we
1:11:17
Speaker 1: move on? but none of this is beginning to answer
1:11:21
Speaker 1: the question. What happened? Who authorized it? Who gave the
1:11:24
Speaker 1: instructions to the Pentagon? What was SpaceX's role? What did
1:11:27
Speaker 1: the White House know and when did they know it?
1:11:29
Speaker 1: And why was the system Ukrainian forces depend on suddenly
1:11:32
Speaker 1: running at reduced capacity right in the middle of a
1:11:34
Speaker 1: bunch of Russian attacks? None of these are unreasonable questions.
1:11:39
Speaker 1: They're the most basic questions Congress should ask whenever a
1:11:44
Speaker 1: government decision may have endangered American lives and an ally's civilians. So,
1:11:50
Speaker 1: which gets us to the larger issue. How much influence
1:11:52
Speaker 1: does Elon Musk actually have over the foreign policy of
1:11:54
Speaker 1: the United States? Musk isn't a businessman with a government contract.
1:11:59
Speaker 1: He's become one of the most important financial figures in
1:12:01
Speaker 1: Republican politics. Remember the $ 158 million to the Senate Leadership
1:12:06
Speaker 1: Fund that was transferred in whole to a super PAC
1:12:10
Speaker 1: in Texas, right? It's clear, Jonathan, none of other Republican
1:12:15
Speaker 1: donors want to help Paxton. So somehow Trump By the way,
1:12:18
Speaker 1: in the same week, he complained about Cornyn and Rove
1:12:21
Speaker 1: and about Paxton. He's complaining about this. Paxton doesn't have
1:12:24
Speaker 1: any money. All of this happens in a compressed timetable.
1:12:29
Speaker 1: The massive Musk contribution shows up. Slowing down of Starlink happens.
1:12:34
Speaker 1: Helps out Putin. This diesel deal. What's going on? Look,
1:12:40
Speaker 1: I don't have evidence establishing anything beyond. Again, I go
1:12:43
Speaker 1: back to my Claire Daines wall here from Homeland. A
1:12:47
Speaker 1: lot of cards on the, I mean, you're like, really?
1:12:51
Speaker 1: All of these things are, what's weirder? If they're connected
1:12:54
Speaker 1: or if they're unconnected? It'd be stranger if they're unconnected
1:12:57
Speaker 1: at this point, right? But like I said, the sequence
1:13:03
Speaker 1: of events raises questions that deserve answers. Musk makes an
1:13:08
Speaker 1: extraordinarily large political contribution. Republicans are increasingly dependent on his money,
1:13:13
Speaker 1: particularly in Texas. Musk reportedly approaches the president about restricting
1:13:17
Speaker 1: a system in Ukraine is using. The system is subsequently restricted.
1:13:23
Speaker 1: Serious consequences for Ukrainians defenses. We need the chronology of this.
1:13:30
Speaker 1: When exactly did Musk talk to Trump about Starshield? When
1:13:34
Speaker 1: did the Pentagon get its instructions and from whom? What
1:13:37
Speaker 1: conversations took place between SpaceX and the administration? What else
1:13:41
Speaker 1: were Musk and the White House talking about during that period?
1:13:44
Speaker 1: And just for, you know, for shits and giggles, I'd
1:13:48
Speaker 1: like to understand why at a period of time, Donald
1:13:52
Speaker 1: Trump unilaterally waived the Lindsey Graham Russian sanctions bill in
1:13:57
Speaker 1: an executive order that essentially kept Russia out of it.
1:14:02
Speaker 1: You want to really put on a tinfoil hat? If
1:14:06
Speaker 1: you really believe all the conspiracies with Trump and Putin,
1:14:11
Speaker 1: you would have a Putin looking at this political situation
1:14:14
Speaker 1: in America and realizing Trump's effectiveness as an asset is
1:14:19
Speaker 1: going to get curtailed big time in about three weeks.
1:14:22
Speaker 1: So you need everything you can get out of Trump
1:14:25
Speaker 1: in the next few weeks before the gig is up. Again,
1:14:30
Speaker 1: a lot of coincidences here. I think we need some answers.
1:14:33
Speaker 1: And this is what actual congressional oversight would look like.
1:14:38
Speaker 1: This is about whether or not Americans are being put
1:14:42
Speaker 1: in danger by Elon Musk, Donald Trump. We don't know
1:14:46
Speaker 1: the motivations, but this is a lot of smoke, a
1:14:50
Speaker 1: ton of smoke. And again, I think at this point,
1:14:55
Speaker 1: it's weirder if all of this is simply a coincidence.
1:14:58
Speaker 1: What's more likely that this stuff's not connected or that
1:15:02
Speaker 1: a lot more of it is connected than we realize.
1:15:06
Speaker 1: Now let's get back to politics. Two weeks out, Republican
1:15:09
Speaker 1: candidates are wrestling with the Iran war. Energy prices, voters
1:15:12
Speaker 1: are furious about affordability. And now the president has made
1:15:15
Speaker 1: a decision that helps Russia economically while his administration faces
1:15:19
Speaker 1: questions about whether deliberately degraded technology Ukraine uses to defend itself.
1:15:27
Speaker 1: The timing of this is also strange. How does any
1:15:29
Speaker 1: of this help A Republican running for Senate in Alaska, Ohio, Maine,
1:15:34
Speaker 1: South Carolina. How does it help Republicans who've spent years
1:15:38
Speaker 1: arguing that America has to stand up to Putin? It's
1:15:40
Speaker 1: one of the few things many of the Republicans on
1:15:42
Speaker 1: the ballot this cycle have actually never agreed with Trump on. And,
1:15:48
Speaker 1: you know, Ted Cruz was campaigning with Dan Sullivan and
1:15:51
Speaker 1: they were put in the position of having to say
1:15:53
Speaker 1: they don't support what the president is doing, but they
1:15:55
Speaker 1: weren't comfortable doing that in their Fox interview over the weekend.
1:15:58
Speaker 1: And I understand their mind.
1:16:01
Speaker 2: Right.
1:16:01
Speaker 1: Sullivan needs Trump's voters. They don't want to alienate the
1:16:03
Speaker 1: people who are still intensely loyal to him. But they
1:16:06
Speaker 1: know that some of these decisions are terrible for America,
1:16:08
Speaker 1: terrible for Ukrainians. And bordering on treasonous, they won't say treason.
1:16:14
Speaker 2: I did.
1:16:17
Speaker 1: Trump never makes it easy to disagree with him. Sometimes
1:16:19
Speaker 1: he tolerates a little independence. Other times, the moment he
1:16:22
Speaker 1: sees somebody trying to walk that line, he makes an
1:16:24
Speaker 1: example of them. And that's the problem with a party
1:16:28
Speaker 1: organized so completely around one person. Very little room for
1:16:32
Speaker 1: independent judgment when the president decides disagreement is disloyalty. But
1:16:36
Speaker 1: here's what really troubles me about this episode. It's not
1:16:38
Speaker 1: that Trump is making decisions that are politically inconvenient for Republicans.
1:16:43
Speaker 1: It's that the decisions themselves appear to undermine longstanding American interests.
1:16:47
Speaker 1: And how about the interest in small d democracy? And
1:16:50
Speaker 1: that's all I'm asking. Why does Trump so consistently look
1:16:53
Speaker 1: for ways to accommodate Putin? Why does his anger go
1:16:56
Speaker 1: to Zelensky rather than the man who invaded Ukraine? Why
1:16:59
Speaker 1: does he seem more interested in relieving economic pressure on
1:17:02
Speaker 1: Russia than keeping the pressure that might get Putin to
1:17:04
Speaker 1: end the war. There have been all sorts of theories
1:17:07
Speaker 1: about Trump and Putin. And I'm not going to pretend
1:17:10
Speaker 1: I have all the answers, but man, I'm sorry, the
1:17:13
Speaker 1: smoke is really hard to see through at this point.
1:17:18
Speaker 1: And look, just judge the policy. The policy is insane.
1:17:22
Speaker 1: Does it serve American interests? Does this policy strengthen our
1:17:26
Speaker 1: allies or weaken them? Does this reward aggression or discourage it?
1:17:31
Speaker 1: Does it make the world safer or more dangerous? I
1:17:33
Speaker 1: don't care if it's about a PP tape or something else.
1:17:37
Speaker 1: Does his actions put us in harm's way? Asking those
1:17:43
Speaker 1: questions and getting those answers, they don't require a conspiracy theory.
1:17:48
Speaker 1: They just simply require an honest assessment of what this
1:17:50
Speaker 1: administration is doing. Maybe we'll never get the motive of why,
1:17:54
Speaker 1: but the what is bad enough. Because if the United
1:17:57
Speaker 1: States is prepared to ease economic pressure on Russia while
1:18:00
Speaker 1: restricting technology that helps Ukraine defend itself. It's a profound
1:18:04
Speaker 1: shift in American policy. And it certainly deserves more than
1:18:08
Speaker 1: a shrug from the Secretary of State, more than a
1:18:11
Speaker 1: vague denial from the White House, and certainly more than
1:18:14
Speaker 1: just uncomfortable silence from members of Congress who do no better.
1:18:19
Speaker 1: So let's end where I began. Two weeks out, evidence
1:18:21
Speaker 1: keeps pointing to a difficult election for Republicans. Is it
1:18:24
Speaker 1: a cat one, cat three, or cat five? I've given
1:18:27
Speaker 1: you my scenarios. We don't know if it's a traditional
1:18:29
Speaker 1: blue wave or something closer to a red undertow. But
1:18:32
Speaker 1: we do know the president's looking for people to blame.
1:18:36
Speaker 1: And he doesn't have a mirror, apparently, because he wants
1:18:39
Speaker 1: to blame his chief of staff, his advisors, John Cornyn,
1:18:42
Speaker 1: Karl Rove, Volodymyr Zelensky. And yet, when you look at
1:18:46
Speaker 1: the decisions that created so many of the problems Republicans
1:18:49
Speaker 1: are facing, at the moment, there's only one person he
1:18:52
Speaker 1: needs to name, Donald John Trump. He made the decision
1:18:56
Speaker 1: on the Iran war. He made the decision about which
1:18:59
Speaker 1: Republicans are back. He made the decision to ease pressure
1:19:01
Speaker 1: on Russia. Whenever investigation ultimately establishes about Starshield, he's the president.
1:19:06
Speaker 1: It's his foreign policy. He wants all this power. The
1:19:12
Speaker 1: idea he gets to blame someone else for his misuse
1:19:15
Speaker 1: of it, sorry. All right, we're gonna sneak in a break.
1:19:20
Speaker 1: When we come back, a good friend of mine who's
1:19:23
Speaker 1: been doing some extraordinary work this last decade. It's Andy Lack,
1:19:26
Speaker 1: my former boss at NBC. One of the greats that
1:19:30
Speaker 1: ran NBC both in the 90s and again in the
1:19:34
Speaker 1: late teens, last decade. Well, he spent the last 10
1:19:37
Speaker 1: years basically trying to revive local news in the deep South.
1:19:42
Speaker 1: His ancestral home state of Mississippi is where he threw
1:19:45
Speaker 1: his time and energy in first. Mississippi today is celebrating
1:19:48
Speaker 1: 10 years. I wanted to spend some time with him
1:19:51
Speaker 1: to talk about what they've done, but we talk about everything.
1:19:53
Speaker 1: We talk about a little Mississippi politics. He's on the
1:19:54
Speaker 1: ground in Mississippi all the time. We talk about the
1:19:57
Speaker 1: future of local media, the future of media in the South,
1:20:00
Speaker 1: network television, what's happening, all of those things. So the
1:20:04
Speaker 1: nexus of our conversation, if you're into politics, you're into media,
1:20:07
Speaker 1: you're into local news, We touch it all. But most importantly,
1:20:10
Speaker 1: he's such a good friend of mine. And it was
1:20:11
Speaker 1: just great to great to catch up with Andy. So
1:20:15
Speaker 1: sneak at a break. We'll get that. And then when
1:20:16
Speaker 1: we come after that, it's time machine day questions and
1:20:21
Speaker 1: my rants about college football.
1:20:29
Speaker 2: So.
1:20:32
Speaker 1: Well, joining me now is a longtime friend of mine,
1:20:35
Speaker 1: an old boss, technically, not more than technically. You know,
1:20:39
Speaker 1: the joke I always had is whoever signs your expense
1:20:41
Speaker 1: form is your boss. Andy was more than that. It's
1:20:45
Speaker 1: Andy Lack, twice the chairman of NBC News. But I'm
1:20:51
Speaker 1: having him on today because he's been a pioneer in
1:20:54
Speaker 1: local journalism, particularly his his I guess you would call
1:20:58
Speaker 1: it your your It's not a home state in Mississippi,
1:21:02
Speaker 1: but it's a home state for the original lax that
1:21:09
Speaker 1: made their way into America. And Mississippi Today, which is
1:21:12
Speaker 1: a nonprofit local news powerhouse in the state of Mississippi
1:21:17
Speaker 1: these days, winning a Pulitzer in its 10th year. And
1:21:21
Speaker 1: here you are. And look, we've talked about this before,
1:21:24
Speaker 1: but what were you trying to do? when you started this,
1:21:32
Speaker 1: and is it better than you expected?
1:21:37
Speaker 2: It is better than I expected. It was all that
1:21:40
Speaker 2: I hoped for. But backing up, I started because, and
1:21:45
Speaker 2: you know this approach well, I wanted to give back
1:21:48
Speaker 2: to my home state. It was where my grandparents immigrated
1:21:53
Speaker 2: to from Eastern Europe. It's a familiar story for many Americans.
1:21:58
Speaker 2: at the turn of the last century or the 19th century.
1:22:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, but many of our Jewish ancestors didn't end up
1:22:04
Speaker 1: in Mississippi.
1:22:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, they were peddlers starting there, and they peddled,
1:22:12
Speaker 2: as many Jewish families did, little bits of cloth and
1:22:17
Speaker 2: shards of cotton and And as you know, you go
1:22:21
Speaker 2: down the Mississippi and you'll find a lot of cotton.
1:22:25
Speaker 2: And back in, well, my great grandfather arrived in Greenville,
1:22:28
Speaker 2: Mississippi in 1878 and passed away in the early part
1:22:30
Speaker 2: of the 1870s. 1905, something like that. So my family
1:22:40
Speaker 2: roots are deep in Mississippi. And I grew up with
1:22:43
Speaker 2: cousins and aunts and uncles saying, you know, you're not
1:22:47
Speaker 2: from New York. You're, you're not from there, boy. You're
1:22:50
Speaker 2: from the South. You go back and give back to
1:22:53
Speaker 2: your people in the South. Yeah. And I, I, You
1:22:57
Speaker 2: know how it works. At a certain point in your career,
1:22:59
Speaker 2: you have the flexibility and a little money to do it.
1:23:02
Speaker 2: And so I went back, well, literally 12 years ago
1:23:06
Speaker 2: to try to raise money. I had always gone back
1:23:09
Speaker 2: there once every year or two because I loved it.
1:23:12
Speaker 2: The culture, the politics, the Delta, which is where my
1:23:17
Speaker 2: hometown is. You can't beat those places. They're historic and beautiful.
1:23:23
Speaker 1: What's your theory as to why Mississippi produces some of
1:23:26
Speaker 1: our best writers? I mean, even to this day, right? Like,
1:23:31
Speaker 1: you know, in the sports world or in the cultural world.
1:23:35
Speaker 1: I mean, what is it about Mississippi, the experience of
1:23:39
Speaker 1: growing up there and visiting that produces this sort of
1:23:44
Speaker 1: intellectual firepower that comes out of Mississippi?
1:23:48
Speaker 2: It is a cultural thing. Writing. poetry, and music. I mean,
1:23:56
Speaker 2: the Delta blues, it's in the dirt. It's in the
1:24:02
Speaker 2: soil of the place. It has a very complicated history
1:24:09
Speaker 2: with civil rights, as we know, really sad patches of
1:24:14
Speaker 2: horrible violence in the state. And it still struggles with
1:24:20
Speaker 2: who it is, how it operates. When I say struggles,
1:24:25
Speaker 2: that is to say politically on some levels it struggles. Culturally, no.
1:24:31
Speaker 2: It's still the Mississippi you'd know and will know 50
1:24:38
Speaker 2: years from now. Musically, and as I say, culturally, politically,
1:24:44
Speaker 2: it's a deep red state. But there are there are openings.
1:24:51
Speaker 2: But the Democratic Party has been gone for about 20,
1:24:54
Speaker 2: 25 years in Mississippi.
1:24:56
Speaker 1: So, you know, it's what's interesting to me about Mississippi politically.
1:25:01
Speaker 1: And I have a to a lesser extent, I lump
1:25:03
Speaker 1: South Carolina into there. Because when you look at the
1:25:06
Speaker 1: South and you look at African-American populations in the South,
1:25:11
Speaker 1: Both South Carolina and Mississippi, you know, you describe Mississippi
1:25:13
Speaker 1: as deep red and South Carolina is described by many
1:25:16
Speaker 1: of us as deep red. And yet when you actually
1:25:18
Speaker 1: look at the census, you're like, well, demographically, neither of
1:25:23
Speaker 1: these states should be deep red. But there is the disconnect,
1:25:29
Speaker 1: particularly in Mississippi. And I think you can probably speak
1:25:32
Speaker 1: to this really well, really is in with I always
1:25:36
Speaker 1: I described it as a rural problem for Democrats. And
1:25:40
Speaker 1: the same problem they have with rural whites, they actually
1:25:42
Speaker 1: have with rural blacks. That it really is a, the
1:25:46
Speaker 1: Democratic Party just doesn't know how to talk to rural America,
1:25:50
Speaker 1: whether the voter's white or black. Is that your experience
1:25:53
Speaker 1: in Mississippi?
1:25:54
Speaker 2: That's fair to say. Oh, gosh. Jackson, the capital city,
1:26:01
Speaker 2: most people don't know the capital of Mississippi is Jackson.
1:26:04
Speaker 2: And Jackson has the densest black population in the country,
1:26:08
Speaker 2: the city of Jackson. And the state is very much
1:26:12
Speaker 2: as it has been for the last 50 years. Not
1:26:19
Speaker 2: much has changed in terms of the rural complexity of
1:26:25
Speaker 2: the area. It's still dirt poor in the Delta. And
1:26:32
Speaker 2: I guess I'd say that folks are starting to break
1:26:38
Speaker 2: out of it. The one thing that Mississippi has improved in,
1:26:42
Speaker 2: and it's at the bottom in most categories in health care,
1:26:49
Speaker 2: but in education, particularly in early education, it has made
1:26:54
Speaker 2: some big moves and is improving. And a lot of
1:26:58
Speaker 2: private money. I'm fortunate enough to have partners who helped
1:27:02
Speaker 2: me start Mississippi Today, the Barksdale family, Jim and Donna Barksdale.
1:27:07
Speaker 1: They're like- He's been a big part of this reading
1:27:09
Speaker 1: improvement too, hasn't he? Huge.
1:27:11
Speaker 2: He created something called, in fact, the Reading Institute in Mississippi.
1:27:15
Speaker 2: And that's made a difference. So it is education. We
1:27:19
Speaker 2: still have what they call the brain drain. So we
1:27:23
Speaker 2: lose a lot of the good people that come out
1:27:27
Speaker 2: of Jackson, Jackson State, Ole Miss. There's a fine business school,
1:27:33
Speaker 2: the Trent Lott, you know that name well, school of
1:27:36
Speaker 2: business in Oxford. Education is improving. The Barksdales actually have
1:27:44
Speaker 2: contributed $ 100 million to education, public education in the state.
1:27:50
Speaker 2: So that's a bright spot. And I'm hopeful on that
1:27:54
Speaker 2: basis that generationally, Mississippi is coming of age now in
1:28:00
Speaker 2: a way that's stronger than it has been the last 30,
1:28:06
Speaker 2: 40 years. That's a big story for the state. Education
1:28:10
Speaker 2: is stronger. But the brain drain, we're losing young people
1:28:13
Speaker 2: in the state. And the politics is still a locked in,
1:28:17
Speaker 2: has a locked in grip.
1:28:20
Speaker 1: It still feels like a state that's stuck in its past. Yeah.
1:28:23
Speaker 1: And doesn't want to, right. And that's well said. No
1:28:28
Speaker 1: governor would say that. They all want to believe that
1:28:31
Speaker 1: they're not stuck in the past. And yet that's how
1:28:34
Speaker 1: they campaign.
1:28:36
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, that is, it. I think you nailed it.
1:28:40
Speaker 2: And when Barack Obama, the president, said in his latest
1:28:46
Speaker 2: 30-second commercial, come on, Mississippi, you can do it. We
1:28:50
Speaker 2: can get things done there. Because there are signs that
1:28:53
Speaker 2: things can get done there in education, in health care,
1:28:56
Speaker 2: in social services. But it was interesting to me, you
1:29:00
Speaker 2: would have a view of this, that politically, he took
1:29:03
Speaker 2: the time to even do that.
1:29:07
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's funny. The Mississippi is one of
1:29:11
Speaker 1: those states that needs a little bit of TLC year round.
1:29:15
Speaker 1: And the problem is every time they you know, it's
1:29:17
Speaker 1: like what happened with Presley in the governor's race. Scott,
1:29:21
Speaker 1: call him here. You see a poll and you're like, hey,
1:29:23
Speaker 1: this race is winnable. It's too bad we haven't invested
1:29:27
Speaker 1: time and energy in a get out the vote or
1:29:30
Speaker 1: voter registration, et cetera, et cetera. And then every two
1:29:33
Speaker 1: years they're going, boy, if we had just started sooner,
1:29:36
Speaker 1: maybe this could have been, you know, and they just
1:29:38
Speaker 1: keep repeating the pattern. Now, eventually it'll break.
1:29:41
Speaker 2: Right.
1:29:42
Speaker 1: We're watching that, I think, in Texas for the first time.
1:29:44
Speaker 1: There is this different now you have candidates are meeting
1:29:48
Speaker 1: voters where they are. They're not begging voters to come
1:29:50
Speaker 1: to them. I still think part of the problem in
1:29:53
Speaker 1: Mississippi is Democrats keep asking voters to come to their
1:29:55
Speaker 1: side rather than necessarily meet voters where they're at.
1:30:00
Speaker 2: I think that's right.
1:30:02
Speaker 1: Right. We know that the better, the most successful Southern
1:30:05
Speaker 1: Democratic politicians have been populist in their in their core,
1:30:11
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton being a big one to that, frankly, Ray
1:30:14
Speaker 1: Mabus in Mississippi. They didn't lose sign of that. They
1:30:20
Speaker 1: didn't lose track of that. I think out of losing
1:30:24
Speaker 1: so often, you see some Democrats now getting that message,
1:30:28
Speaker 1: but I don't know if it's a permanent change in
1:30:29
Speaker 1: their mindset.
1:30:32
Speaker 2: Well, I'm hopeful, as black folks say, not necessarily optimistic,
1:30:37
Speaker 2: but I'm hopeful, but I'm hopeful for good reasons. And
1:30:41
Speaker 2: I see it in the region. You know, Mississippi today
1:30:43
Speaker 2: now has expanded into Louisiana. We're in New Orleans. We're
1:30:47
Speaker 2: in Lafayette, Louisiana. We're going into Arkansas. We're going to
1:30:52
Speaker 2: Little Rock. We're going to- Are you sticking.
1:30:54
Speaker 1: To the Delta, basically, wherever the Delta is? Is that
1:30:56
Speaker 1: the premise or a little outside? We're going to the
1:30:59
Speaker 1: capital cities. Okay.
1:31:01
Speaker 2: First and foremost... But we always choose one other city.
1:31:05
Speaker 2: For example, in Tennessee, we're going into Tennessee in 27.
1:31:10
Speaker 2: We're opening up shop. We've already begun in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
1:31:14
Speaker 2: And Chattanooga and Nashville will be our pair. In Mississippi,
1:31:19
Speaker 2: it's Jackson. And for my money, still Oxford and the
1:31:24
Speaker 2: Delta on the sidelines. In New Orleans, as I said,
1:31:28
Speaker 2: it's very, again, two places. And we're going into Baton Rouge.
1:31:33
Speaker 2: at the beginning of 27. And we're going to do
1:31:35
Speaker 2: the famous road from Jackson to Montgomery and open up Alabama,
1:31:39
Speaker 2: all part of a network of newsrooms called Deep South Today.
1:31:44
Speaker 2: So that is where I think for the first time,
1:31:47
Speaker 2: and I'm seeing this in the states that you've talked
1:31:50
Speaker 2: about more naturally in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia. Information
1:31:57
Speaker 2: is power and young folks are getting better educations, getting
1:32:00
Speaker 2: more involved in the politics and a sense of community.
1:32:05
Speaker 2: That's so important to local news, which, you know, that
1:32:09
Speaker 2: that love of place, that understanding we need you to
1:32:13
Speaker 2: come home again and we need you to invest here
1:32:17
Speaker 2: in this place, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama. That's the heart
1:32:23
Speaker 2: of it for me in Tennessee. If we can get
1:32:25
Speaker 2: that into a virtuous circle and journalism is really at
1:32:30
Speaker 2: the heart of it, holding power to account in the
1:32:34
Speaker 2: state legislatures, in the healthcare areas, and all across the board,
1:32:38
Speaker 2: that I think you're going to see real improvement in
1:32:40
Speaker 2: the next decade.
1:32:42
Speaker 1: You know, you were sort of on the early side
1:32:46
Speaker 1: of this, right? You know, we were in this sort
1:32:48
Speaker 1: of There's a lot of lamenting that goes on. I'm
1:32:51
Speaker 1: sort of I'm over lamenting. I mean, like, look, oh,
1:32:54
Speaker 1: it's oh, the network says, oh, the good old days.
1:32:57
Speaker 1: I'm teaching a class on the history of media and
1:32:59
Speaker 1: political polarization.
1:33:01
Speaker 2: And right.
1:33:02
Speaker 1: And essentially, Andy, I'm, you know, I'm reminding them that
1:33:07
Speaker 1: the good old days that your parents and grandparents talk
1:33:09
Speaker 1: about in the media was actually an era of of
1:33:13
Speaker 1: American governance where we did more censorship of media than
1:33:17
Speaker 1: we ever had. You know, government did decide who got
1:33:21
Speaker 1: access to the airwaves. And I promise you, if you
1:33:24
Speaker 1: tried to bring that back, there'd be a full-on revolt, right?
1:33:28
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, I actually think Ben Franklin, if
1:33:31
Speaker 1: he was reincarnated and came back, he would find the
1:33:34
Speaker 1: current era of our crazy fragmented information ecosystem to actually
1:33:40
Speaker 1: look familiar. The technology may be different. but it would
1:33:43
Speaker 1: look like the penny press. It would look like, you know,
1:33:45
Speaker 1: what's happening. And yes, it would be ideological. And yes,
1:33:49
Speaker 1: there would be terrible news organizations that would do character assassination.
1:33:55
Speaker 1: What do you think the New York post was founded on? Right. Like,
1:33:58
Speaker 1: you know, it was, it's founded. And it's like the
1:34:01
Speaker 1: New York post is home to character assassination. Why it
1:34:03
Speaker 1: was founded on character assassination, right? Like it was, and
1:34:07
Speaker 1: it is sort of part of what it is. And yeah,
1:34:11
Speaker 1: You know, I sort of see this as a golden
1:34:14
Speaker 1: age to restart and we're rebuilding a new mainstream media,
1:34:17
Speaker 1: as I like to say. Hey, Life Magazine used to
1:34:19
Speaker 1: be mainstream media and then our technology changed and we
1:34:23
Speaker 1: wanted moving pictures. That doesn't mean life, we shouldn't lament
1:34:28
Speaker 1: the good old days of when Life Magazine could unite
1:34:31
Speaker 1: the country. We always, we're actually always changing and the
1:34:38
Speaker 1: story's always the same. I feel like we're still in
1:34:42
Speaker 1: a growth period in local and there's simultaneously a skepticism
1:34:47
Speaker 1: about whether local can succeed. You've been on the nonprofit
1:34:50
Speaker 1: side of things. What is your formula for success and
1:34:55
Speaker 1: what's replicatable and what isn't, do you think?
1:34:58
Speaker 2: Well, you've covered a lot of ground in that in
1:35:01
Speaker 2: the last few moments, but you really did frame it well.
1:35:06
Speaker 2: And in nonprofit journalism, Where I'm looking at investing and
1:35:11
Speaker 2: we're building something we call Deep South Today Studios is
1:35:16
Speaker 2: around video. We are in the age of video. We
1:35:20
Speaker 2: are in the age of podcasts like this one that
1:35:23
Speaker 2: have real influence, particularly with young folks. And so that
1:35:28
Speaker 2: age of video, when you think of it in terms of, okay,
1:35:31
Speaker 2: a TikTok video, what's that? 14 seconds, 21 seconds less,
1:35:37
Speaker 2: or you talk about what I call my new favorite program,
1:35:40
Speaker 2: not 60 minutes, but let's do 20 minutes. Let's do
1:35:43
Speaker 2: three stories in 20 minutes. for an audience that gets
1:35:48
Speaker 2: a 12-minute profile, a three-minute TikTok, a four-minute cultural musical
1:35:55
Speaker 2: assessment of the hot musician in town, and look towards
1:36:02
Speaker 2: a digital world with video as the base law. YouTube
1:36:08
Speaker 2: is the biggest platform in the world, Chuck. YouTube. You know,
1:36:12
Speaker 2: not NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox News. It's YouTube. And everybody
1:36:18
Speaker 2: can be a star on YouTube. Hold on. That maybe
1:36:22
Speaker 2: doesn't sound like a great idea to be lost on YouTube.
1:36:26
Speaker 2: But the reality is you can find audiences. And the
1:36:31
Speaker 2: networks are using YouTube and platforms like that, Threads, Reddit.
1:36:37
Speaker 2: You go through, that's the new age that we're in.
1:36:39
Speaker 2: And that's a level of reaching audiences for what you
1:36:43
Speaker 2: and I do as journalists, and particularly video journalists. Very exciting.
1:36:51
Speaker 1: We're in that age. You're very platform. I mean, it
1:36:55
Speaker 1: sounds to me, I mean, as people say, what's the
1:36:57
Speaker 1: best platform? I'm like, there isn't one. You have to
1:36:59
Speaker 1: be everywhere.
1:37:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, you do. But it's not hard to be everywhere.
1:37:04
Speaker 1: No, I agree.
1:37:06
Speaker 2: You know, everybody can get a microphone and get into
1:37:11
Speaker 2: a conversation like we're in.
1:37:19
Speaker 1: Andy, the other day, when I was getting on a plane,
1:37:23
Speaker 1: I had a woman say, oh, I just was watching
1:37:25
Speaker 1: you on TikTok.
1:37:26
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:37:26
Speaker 1: And I'm like, you know, and... I only have my
1:37:31
Speaker 1: podcast as a TikTok account. I still haven't done a
1:37:34
Speaker 1: personal one. I have my own concerns about it, but
1:37:38
Speaker 1: I'm also know a lot of people are going there.
1:37:40
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, I'm not going
1:37:42
Speaker 1: to be a platform snob. And you don't know where
1:37:44
Speaker 1: you're going to reach people. And the other thing that
1:37:47
Speaker 1: I've learned is don't assume just because you've said something
1:37:53
Speaker 1: once or reported something once that it's broken through. And
1:37:56
Speaker 1: I think that This is the hardest thing for journalists to,
1:38:00
Speaker 1: I think, overcome is this idea that you have to
1:38:04
Speaker 1: repeat yourself. It is like, I mean, we used to
1:38:10
Speaker 1: be that way. Well, we had that first and we
1:38:12
Speaker 1: used to think there was something to that. Does it
1:38:14
Speaker 1: matter whether you had it first or does it matter
1:38:17
Speaker 1: that you're the most trusted person somebody founded at first?
1:38:20
Speaker 2: Okay, you just said the key word, trust. How do
1:38:23
Speaker 2: you build trust in communities? And again, local news, right?
1:38:30
Speaker 2: You can lay that foundation in your community, city to city,
1:38:35
Speaker 2: state to state, that you're to be trusted, that the
1:38:39
Speaker 2: facts matter, opinions are clearly stated and offered as such,
1:38:45
Speaker 2: an opinion, a viewpoint. Right. Therein, I think, lies the
1:38:50
Speaker 2: tale of how we're recruiting at least young journalists into
1:38:55
Speaker 2: the spaces we're talking about, onto the platforms that we're
1:38:58
Speaker 2: talking about. We're almost up to 100 journalists now in
1:39:02
Speaker 2: those four states. 100 reporters. I love the word reporter.
1:39:08
Speaker 1: How important is it that the ownership structure is not
1:39:12
Speaker 1: part of some corporation, right? How important is it that
1:39:16
Speaker 1: you're not another Gannett organization?
1:39:20
Speaker 2: Exactly.
1:39:20
Speaker 1: I don't mean that to trash Gannett. I mean, I
1:39:22
Speaker 1: just think we're in an era where there's skepticism of
1:39:25
Speaker 1: corporate America, hard stop. Doesn't matter whether it's corporate America
1:39:29
Speaker 1: for AI and tech data centers or whatever, right?
1:39:32
Speaker 2: That's such an important point you're making. And that's why
1:39:34
Speaker 2: we're a nonprofit. We're not reliant on advertisers and corporations
1:39:41
Speaker 2: to support the good work we're trying to do. We're
1:39:45
Speaker 2: relying on nonprofit funders. So, yeah, you're right. we'd like
1:39:52
Speaker 2: you to belong to the member circle, and that'll cost
1:39:57
Speaker 2: you $ 500, $ 1, 000 a year, the golden circle. But that money,
1:40:02
Speaker 2: for us, it's deductible for the donor, 30%, you're a nonprofit.
1:40:07
Speaker 2: And for us, it's our lifeline. That's how we build
1:40:09
Speaker 2: community as honest brokers of information, because they don't think
1:40:14
Speaker 2: we're beholden to anyone other than the work we're doing,
1:40:18
Speaker 2: to tell it the way we see it. And I'm
1:40:22
Speaker 2: having some success, particularly recording, excuse me, recruiting people out
1:40:28
Speaker 2: of universities now, like Arkansas, like West Virginia, like Maryland.
1:40:33
Speaker 2: I'm going around to those schools and I'm getting people.
1:40:36
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I'm sure you found, I didn't know
1:40:38
Speaker 1: this until I went there. that the University of Arkansas
1:40:41
Speaker 1: is one of the largest journalism schools in America.
1:40:43
Speaker 2: That's right.
1:40:44
Speaker 1: And a stunning amount. And how many of these kids, frankly,
1:40:48
Speaker 1: are going into sports journalism because they're not sure there's
1:40:51
Speaker 1: jobs over here. And I keep saying, hey, no, no, no, no.
1:40:54
Speaker 1: The best time to get involved is right now because
1:40:56
Speaker 1: there's disruption.
1:40:57
Speaker 2: You're at USC, aren't you, in Washington? I'm doing USC, yeah.
1:41:00
Speaker 2: I was just out at USC in L.A., Looking for
1:41:06
Speaker 2: recruits to go down south. In fact, you know Jeffrey Cowan,
1:41:11
Speaker 2: who was at the Annenberg School out there. He came
1:41:17
Speaker 2: down south to the Mississippi 10th celebration. The point is,
1:41:22
Speaker 2: the story is in every state. What I love in
1:41:26
Speaker 2: terms of our background and sensibility around politics and culture
1:41:30
Speaker 2: is There are so many states that have underserved markets
1:41:34
Speaker 2: for news and information, and they want it. They're hungry
1:41:37
Speaker 2: for it. Please, I say this.
1:41:41
Speaker 1: You know how I know local news is something we desire?
1:41:44
Speaker 1: Because we share everything that's happening around us anyway. We
1:41:48
Speaker 1: clearly care about what's happening around us. We're all a
1:41:51
Speaker 1: little bit narcissistic. That's OK. Lean into it. We'll call
1:41:55
Speaker 1: it local news. Let's shift gears here. What would you
1:41:58
Speaker 1: be doing if you were running a network now in
1:42:00
Speaker 1: the face of skepticism about network ownership, skepticism about big institutions?
1:42:09
Speaker 1: There are plenty of good brands worth saving, whether it's
1:42:12
Speaker 1: Meet the Press, 60 Minutes, Good Morning America, Today Show.
1:42:15
Speaker 1: you know, I have my own theory of that the
1:42:17
Speaker 1: brands will survive. I don't know if they'll be owned
1:42:20
Speaker 1: by the same entities 10 years from now. I think,
1:42:23
Speaker 1: I think we could see a variety of things. I
1:42:25
Speaker 1: like to remind people, meet the press started as a
1:42:27
Speaker 1: advertisement for American Mercury magazine. That doesn't mean it won't
1:42:31
Speaker 1: someday be owned by another publisher of some sort. Like,
1:42:34
Speaker 1: you know, brands are sometimes bigger and can last longer
1:42:39
Speaker 1: than their owners. Um, But, you know, it's not easy.
1:42:44
Speaker 1: I have a lot of more empathy. People like to
1:42:47
Speaker 1: trash Barry Weiss or trash Rebecca or trash. And I'm like, hey, man,
1:42:51
Speaker 1: this is not an easy there. You know, we were
1:42:55
Speaker 1: there for tough periods. This is an even harder one
1:42:58
Speaker 1: different because of you've got bosses that don't want you
1:43:02
Speaker 1: to be. Don't get too much attention.
1:43:04
Speaker 2: Right.
1:43:05
Speaker 1: Don't bring the spotlight on us. I think it's a
1:43:08
Speaker 1: challenging environment. What would you be doing?
1:43:11
Speaker 2: Well, it is a challenging environment, but I have to
1:43:14
Speaker 2: say it was ever thus. I tend to be lucky
1:43:17
Speaker 2: in media because I get my jobs because of some
1:43:19
Speaker 2: screw up before I showed up.
1:43:22
Speaker 1: Well, isn't that how we all get the jobs? We
1:43:24
Speaker 1: get the big jobs. Somebody messed it up before us.
1:43:28
Speaker 2: I think you said it well. I think There are,
1:43:32
Speaker 2: Meet the Press is a great example. It's the oldest
1:43:34
Speaker 2: show on television, right? The literally the oldest program on television.
1:43:40
Speaker 2: And while I miss Chuck Todd at Meet the Press,
1:43:43
Speaker 2: our friend Kristen Welker is doing a great job. And
1:43:47
Speaker 2: it lives. It lives on.
1:43:49
Speaker 1: It is going to live. I really believe that now.
1:43:53
Speaker 1: Everything has to evolve and you have to make sure
1:43:55
Speaker 1: you don't allow it to atrophy and die. But it
1:43:58
Speaker 1: is a brand. I feel that way about the Today Show.
1:44:00
Speaker 1: I feel that way about Good Morning America. I just
1:44:03
Speaker 1: don't know what's going to happen to these larger entities.
1:44:05
Speaker 1: What happens to NBCUniversal? What happens to Disney and ABC?
1:44:10
Speaker 2: I think they're not going away in the short term.
1:44:13
Speaker 2: That's for sure. They're not going away in the next
1:44:15
Speaker 2: five years. They're not from where I'm sitting because they're
1:44:20
Speaker 2: still getting strong audiences.
1:44:24
Speaker 1: Does it not remind you of 90s radio? You know
1:44:29
Speaker 1: where I'm going there. There's a lot of audience. Yeah.
1:44:32
Speaker 1: You're like, there's still a lot of money to be made.
1:44:35
Speaker 1: And there's still a big audience in radio. But you
1:44:37
Speaker 1: know where the trend line is. Yes.
1:44:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so what's the new trend line? I think
1:44:43
Speaker 2: the word is streaming. that networks will become streaming services.
1:44:50
Speaker 2: We won't call them necessarily networks anymore, but there'll be
1:44:53
Speaker 2: brands on those streaming services. There'll be all kinds of
1:44:58
Speaker 2: variations on new language in a digital world. But video
1:45:05
Speaker 2: is still.
1:45:06
Speaker 1: Do you envision, I've said this, I think there'll be
1:45:10
Speaker 1: a big three or a big four, but it might
1:45:12
Speaker 1: be Netflix, Amazon- YouTube, you know, Paramount Discovery. I don't
1:45:21
Speaker 1: know what they're going to call their, you know, big thing.
1:45:23
Speaker 1: You know, that it's that. And within those platforms might
1:45:27
Speaker 1: be fast channels and all sorts of other ways that
1:45:32
Speaker 1: brands organize themselves.
1:45:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The tech bros, as they're called, the
1:45:39
Speaker 2: big seven, the Facebooks, the meta.
1:45:43
Speaker 1: The magnificent seven.
1:45:44
Speaker 2: Jeff Bezos. They give me pause as owners of the
1:45:52
Speaker 2: world we love so much, news and information, journalism. They...
1:45:58
Speaker 2: I just did an interview for the 10th anniversary in
1:46:01
Speaker 2: Jackson with Tara Swisher, a great tech journalist. And she's
1:46:09
Speaker 2: optimistic about just what you said. We'll find the platforms.
1:46:14
Speaker 2: We'll have the brands. We're going to move forward. But
1:46:18
Speaker 2: don't trust those tech bros. They are a new corporate.
1:46:24
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, we.
1:46:27
Speaker 1: Do you feel like we all misread Bezos or did we,
1:46:32
Speaker 1: was he a Rorschach test for people?
1:46:37
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't really know.
1:46:42
Speaker 1: He went from savior to villain pretty fast. I don't
1:46:47
Speaker 1: know if he's either. And I say this with like,
1:46:49
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't, you know, I don't know fully
1:46:52
Speaker 1: what motivates him. We all, people have ideas and I'm
1:46:55
Speaker 1: always careful of motive.
1:46:57
Speaker 2: I think the big three are still hanging in there,
1:47:01
Speaker 2: strongly hanging in there. I think the Washington Post is
1:47:04
Speaker 2: doing good work.
1:47:06
Speaker 1: They are. That newsroom, right, they're smaller. They're nibbler. They
1:47:10
Speaker 1: gave up on local, but they're doing good stuff.
1:47:12
Speaker 2: They're doing good work. Obviously, the New York Times is. Obviously,
1:47:15
Speaker 2: the Wall Street Journal is. Those were the three major
1:47:18
Speaker 2: newspapers I grew up with in life. Are there Deep
1:47:22
Speaker 2: South Todays? Are there Chuck Todd's podcasts? Are there so
1:47:27
Speaker 2: many different new outlets that are reimagining the work that
1:47:35
Speaker 2: was what we called local newspapers? Local newspapers, that platform,
1:47:42
Speaker 2: It gets smaller and smaller. But it's replaced by as
1:47:47
Speaker 2: many journalists, I think, working on new platforms. That's what
1:47:51
Speaker 2: I see. I haven't had trouble or hard time raising
1:47:59
Speaker 2: money in the nonprofit space. And I think at any
1:48:04
Speaker 2: given point with what you're doing, What we see at
1:48:07
Speaker 2: the local station level in television markets, there's good journalism
1:48:16
Speaker 2: going on. And I'm excited about that. I think for me,
1:48:20
Speaker 2: it was easier to do it in the non-profit space
1:48:22
Speaker 2: than in the for-profit space.
1:48:25
Speaker 1: Well, look, I believe there's not one answer. And I
1:48:27
Speaker 1: kind of think we have to, you know, there are pieces.
1:48:30
Speaker 1: I think different communities have the ability to support for-profits
1:48:37
Speaker 1: versus non-profits, right? Sometimes it just, it depends. You know,
1:48:41
Speaker 1: if you ask me what's the ideal ownership structure of
1:48:44
Speaker 1: a news organization, I always point to the Green Bay Packers, right?
1:48:48
Speaker 1: In theory, I want a community owned where it's impossible
1:48:53
Speaker 1: to sell. The brilliance of the Packers, they weren't the
1:48:57
Speaker 1: first sports franchise to issue shares of stock in order
1:49:00
Speaker 1: to raise money in a community. They were the first
1:49:02
Speaker 1: ones to make it impossible for you to sell your shares.
1:49:06
Speaker 1: And so they prevented, what they did is, and it is,
1:49:10
Speaker 1: and so Green Bay is saved. The irony is the
1:49:12
Speaker 1: NFL won't ever allow another Green Bay to happen. They
1:49:15
Speaker 1: have actually banned that, like Green Bay is grandfathered in
1:49:18
Speaker 1: as an ownership structure. They don't want that ever again.
1:49:21
Speaker 1: And yet, what did it do? It protected a community.
1:49:25
Speaker 1: It allowed a community to thrive. And so I do
1:49:27
Speaker 1: think it's the ideal. Now, I think we're a long
1:49:30
Speaker 1: way from that, right? I think different communities can get
1:49:33
Speaker 1: there on different ways. But I am curious what you think,
1:49:38
Speaker 1: you really understand the local news market and you understand
1:49:41
Speaker 1: television affiliates. I think the next great shakeup in local
1:49:46
Speaker 1: news is on the television affiliate side. And we're gonna
1:49:49
Speaker 1: see this massive amount of churn. Some are gonna disappear
1:49:53
Speaker 1: and some are gonna become huge local regional brands on
1:49:57
Speaker 1: their own when they're allowed to, right? Right now, a
1:50:00
Speaker 1: lot of them are part of larger enterprises. What do
1:50:05
Speaker 1: you expect to happen in these medium-sized markets in particular?
1:50:10
Speaker 1: I'm thinking your Kansas City, your New Orleans, your Little Rocks.
1:50:16
Speaker 1: Will it be three affiliates? Will it be one affiliate?
1:50:19
Speaker 1: Will it be five affiliates? What's your sense of what
1:50:21
Speaker 1: happens when this affiliate structure begins to collapse from the
1:50:26
Speaker 1: network structure we grew up with?
1:50:30
Speaker 2: Well, they may be affiliated in different entities and in
1:50:33
Speaker 2: different structures, but the content of what they're producing will
1:50:37
Speaker 2: be what we know it today. And really, you know,
1:50:40
Speaker 2: in the local station world, sports and weather, that's what
1:50:43
Speaker 2: moves it. That's the way it works. In our world,
1:50:49
Speaker 2: the serious journalism will have some sports, some weather, some culture,
1:50:54
Speaker 2: but it will really be focused on holding power to account,
1:50:58
Speaker 2: hard reporting. And that's a skill set that local television stations,
1:51:06
Speaker 2: by and large, have moved away from more than I
1:51:12
Speaker 2: would like.
1:51:12
Speaker 1: Do you see yourself almost in partner? It's interesting. There's
1:51:15
Speaker 1: a part of me that says competition is great. And
1:51:18
Speaker 1: when you're competing for scoops, you're competing. There's something to it.
1:51:23
Speaker 1: I'm a free market guy. I get it. I think
1:51:25
Speaker 1: competition matters. But then there are certain things that, hey,
1:51:29
Speaker 1: maybe you guys are better at covering Jackson than any
1:51:33
Speaker 1: affiliate in Biloxi is ever going to be. But Biloxi
1:51:36
Speaker 1: is really good at covering Biloxi. Maybe they're really good
1:51:39
Speaker 1: at covering the casino industry. And maybe there's– do you
1:51:44
Speaker 1: see a world that's better in partnership or in competition
1:51:49
Speaker 1: in the local marketplace these days? Yeah.
1:51:54
Speaker 2: I think technology is changing how these partnerships work with
1:51:58
Speaker 2: each other. Everybody's got a camera in their pocket. Everybody's
1:52:02
Speaker 2: got video in their pocket. How station affiliates for networks
1:52:10
Speaker 2: as we've known them reorganize themselves around Journalism, sports, culture,
1:52:19
Speaker 2: you're buying the rights. Don't forget, that's what really is
1:52:22
Speaker 2: the underpinning of the Disneys and the big five that
1:52:28
Speaker 2: we've known in network television and in the entertainment world,
1:52:32
Speaker 2: now with Paramount. They own rights to sports, to professional sports,
1:52:38
Speaker 2: to televise them. They own rights to artists and music
1:52:43
Speaker 2: and entertainment and producing that. In the news business, that's
1:52:48
Speaker 2: where I think you're seeing the changes we're talking about.
1:52:51
Speaker 2: In the news business, I don't know where CNN goes
1:52:55
Speaker 2: in a larger formation of assets.
1:52:59
Speaker 1: I assume that CBS and, look, the cynic in me,
1:53:03
Speaker 1: and I'm not even being that cynical about this, I
1:53:06
Speaker 1: assume that when Trump leaves the stage and 2029 comes around, Skydance,
1:53:12
Speaker 1: whatever it's called, is going to decide, hmm, These news
1:53:15
Speaker 1: assets aren't growth assets. I've got a lot of debt.
1:53:18
Speaker 1: I need to pay down my debt. I'm going to
1:53:20
Speaker 1: sell CBS News and CNN as one package to some
1:53:23
Speaker 1: vanity billionaire. If that happens by 2030, I wouldn't be surprised.
1:53:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, listen, our big boss at one point, Brian Roberts,
1:53:34
Speaker 2: when we were at NBC together and podcast, news was
1:53:39
Speaker 2: not a priority on his agenda. He respected NBC news.
1:53:45
Speaker 2: He was proud of it. By the way, I joke.
1:53:47
Speaker 2: It wasn't as a business matter.
1:53:49
Speaker 1: Andy, I will tell you a lesson I took away
1:53:52
Speaker 1: from both Jeff Immelt and Brian Roberts.
1:53:55
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:53:56
Speaker 1: If I ever hear the words crown jewel, I know
1:53:58
Speaker 1: I'm being buried in the basement or stuck in the attic.
1:54:02
Speaker 1: You only use crown jewel to describe something that you're
1:54:06
Speaker 1: nostalgic about and you want to protect. You don't describe
1:54:10
Speaker 1: crown jewel to something you want to grow and innovate with.
1:54:14
Speaker 1: And the irony is that that is what Brian Roberts
1:54:17
Speaker 1: once described NBC News at. And in hindsight, that should
1:54:20
Speaker 1: have been a warning to us, not a reassurance.
1:54:22
Speaker 2: You know, things change. And we particularly, we journalists know that.
1:54:28
Speaker 2: What I love about what we're doing here today that
1:54:31
Speaker 2: doesn't change is actually this platform that we're on, the
1:54:38
Speaker 2: technology around that, is empowering. And I do believe that
1:54:45
Speaker 2: we will see new companies, new organizations emerge in ways
1:54:52
Speaker 2: that we're still doing the basic, you know, I got
1:54:58
Speaker 2: a reporter's notebook here.
1:55:00
Speaker 1: That's right.
1:55:01
Speaker 2: And I'm still writing it.
1:55:03
Speaker 1: That never changes. It never changes.
1:55:05
Speaker 2: This is it, bro.
1:55:06
Speaker 1: Exactly. One of the things that people don't fully appreciate
1:55:19
Speaker 1: about you is that you really, you think about how
1:55:23
Speaker 1: to create an event that can convene people, whether it's
1:55:25
Speaker 1: to put on a substantive debate, do the specials you've
1:55:28
Speaker 1: done at PBS, where you got a couple of Supreme
1:55:31
Speaker 1: Court justices to participate, which in and of itself is amazing.
1:55:36
Speaker 1: I think about political debate, right? This cycle, we have
1:55:39
Speaker 1: fewer debates than we had last cycle, and we're going
1:55:41
Speaker 1: to have fewer debates probably in the foreseeable future. Some
1:55:44
Speaker 1: of this is media distrust. Some of this is political polarization.
1:55:48
Speaker 1: Some of this is, frankly, I think our own arrogance
1:55:52
Speaker 1: in the media space, meaning if they don't do it,
1:55:54
Speaker 1: if we don't do the debate the way we've always
1:55:57
Speaker 1: done the debate, then we can't be bothered. And I
1:56:00
Speaker 1: understand why campaigns don't want to take five days off
1:56:03
Speaker 1: the trail to prepare for a debate because they've got
1:56:06
Speaker 1: to do this. I've been trying to think of new
1:56:09
Speaker 1: ways to create a modern debate that isn't, that isn't,
1:56:15
Speaker 1: you know, whether it's, that frankly accomplishes what you want
1:56:19
Speaker 1: to accomplish for the voter, which is give the voter
1:56:22
Speaker 1: a side-by-side, right? The voter wants to see the side-by-side.
1:56:27
Speaker 1: I've got some proposals about creating a social media sort of,
1:56:32
Speaker 1: ongoing debate, three minutes a day, 90 seconds on each side,
1:56:36
Speaker 1: and they just go back and forth, and it's a
1:56:38
Speaker 1: new video every day. And you, the local news organizer,
1:56:43
Speaker 1: you're the convener, you're the ones picking the issues, you're
1:56:45
Speaker 1: the ones asking the question. So it's the same, but ultimately,
1:56:48
Speaker 1: who are you serving? If you're trying to serve the voter,
1:56:51
Speaker 1: then you need to figure out how to make the
1:56:53
Speaker 1: debate consumable for them, not force everybody to come on
1:56:57
Speaker 1: your turf. So I enter... with a little bit of
1:57:01
Speaker 1: humility here of figuring out, I do think we have
1:57:04
Speaker 1: to reimagine political debate for the 21st century, but it's
1:57:08
Speaker 1: no less important. When I want to know, I want
1:57:12
Speaker 1: to know the school board, I don't know these candidates,
1:57:14
Speaker 1: I'd love to just hear them in 90 seconds answer
1:57:18
Speaker 1: this one question. That should be quickly available for everybody.
1:57:21
Speaker 1: That should be available. That's what local news should be
1:57:24
Speaker 1: among the things that they should be doing. I know
1:57:27
Speaker 1: you think about How do we get more political debate,
1:57:31
Speaker 1: not less? What do you think needs to be tried
1:57:34
Speaker 1: that hasn't? What are some ideas you've thought of? What
1:57:37
Speaker 1: are you pursuing these days?
1:57:40
Speaker 2: Well, I gave you a small preview of it. We're
1:57:44
Speaker 2: creating something called Deep South Today Studios. That is just
1:57:49
Speaker 2: about creating the kind of video that you were describing. Mm-hmm.
1:57:54
Speaker 2: You'll remember from 60 Minutes days, one of the most
1:57:57
Speaker 2: popular segments was Point Counterpoint.
1:58:01
Speaker 1: And they got rid of it. They got rid of
1:58:02
Speaker 1: it by the time, yeah. Well, you were there when
1:58:04
Speaker 1: they got rid of it. Why'd they get rid of it?
1:58:06
Speaker 2: Uh everything gets a little tired i think the i
1:58:09
Speaker 2: forget their names i can't believe i am who were
1:58:13
Speaker 2: the point counterpoint.
1:58:15
Speaker 1: Man they had aged out a bit uh yeah um
1:58:19
Speaker 1: is this when it became andy rooney Yes, a few
1:58:22
Speaker 1: minutes with Andy Rooney, followed point-counterpoint.
1:58:26
Speaker 2: And then lovingly to Andy, he aged out. So the
1:58:33
Speaker 2: reality is that video is the word, and news is
1:58:39
Speaker 2: the word, information, journalism, and the component are... Who are
1:58:46
Speaker 2: you casting? It's really all about who's the moderator, who
1:58:51
Speaker 2: is the moderator interviewing, who are the two people who
1:58:54
Speaker 2: are talking to each other. Can you ensure for the
1:58:58
Speaker 2: viewer that this is going to be worth their time?
1:59:03
Speaker 2: We know how to do this. We will not allow
1:59:07
Speaker 2: this exchange, this debate, this disagreement be a false narrative
1:59:15
Speaker 2: for your experience. Because the choices we're making and the
1:59:20
Speaker 2: reason you're coming to us is because you believe we're
1:59:23
Speaker 2: doing that good work first. And it comes back to
1:59:26
Speaker 2: that word trust. Oh, yeah, I know who Chuck Todd is.
1:59:30
Speaker 2: I've known Chuck for quite a while, going back to
1:59:33
Speaker 2: meet the press days. I trust him. So this is
1:59:37
Speaker 2: a production brought to you by Chuck Todd.
1:59:39
Speaker 1: Oh, OK.
1:59:40
Speaker 2: This is where in a state he knows or a
1:59:42
Speaker 2: place he knows or on a platform that he's created
1:59:45
Speaker 2: or that he's sharing with other colleagues, Substack, that whole,
1:59:51
Speaker 2: those distribution points. There's audience there. There's value for everybody involved.
1:59:58
Speaker 2: And it's affordable for everybody involved. You can make it
2:00:03
Speaker 2: work for all the right reasons. I think they will evolve.
2:00:11
Speaker 2: And the word streaming will own these new brands that
2:00:18
Speaker 2: are coming forward. And I don't know whether they'll still
2:00:21
Speaker 2: be the peacock and the eye. I don't know those
2:00:26
Speaker 2: famous logos.
2:00:27
Speaker 1: I don't know.
2:00:28
Speaker 2: And I honestly, who can tell at this point? Because
2:00:33
Speaker 2: we've reached a new wave of technology and media.
2:00:40
Speaker 1: That my 19-year-old, if you say the words Channel 4
2:00:44
Speaker 1: to my 19-year-old, he'd be like, what the hell does
2:00:46
Speaker 1: that mean?
2:00:46
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
2:00:48
Speaker 1: So, you know, and he's well aware he's heard of NBC.
2:00:52
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:00:52
Speaker 1: But the idea that these are channels, he's never experienced
2:00:56
Speaker 1: a world where channels existed. That's right. It's such an
2:01:01
Speaker 1: arcane word if you've never heard of it.
2:01:04
Speaker 2: Yeah. And he knows video, and he knows his iPad
2:01:09
Speaker 2: or whatever he's using. And we know that as TV
2:01:16
Speaker 2: or television or whatever you want to call it. But
2:01:22
Speaker 2: I don't think the ingredients that make it so appealing–
2:01:27
Speaker 2: And ease of use is changing. I lost you. Yes.
2:01:34
Speaker 1: Give me one second. Sorry. I had a quick disruption.
2:01:37
Speaker 1: Five minutes.
2:01:39
Speaker 2: Yes.
2:01:40
Speaker 1: And then are you coming back here? Oh, you guys
2:01:42
Speaker 1: are coming back, right?
2:01:43
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:01:44
Speaker 1: Sorry about that, Lauren. My son's been visiting and he
2:01:47
Speaker 1: was about to leave and I didn't know if he
2:01:48
Speaker 1: was coming back before.
2:01:49
Speaker 2: He went to school. No worries.
2:01:51
Speaker 1: That's the beauty about it. Sorry.
2:01:52
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:01:54
Speaker 1: When you have a studio in your house, Andy, right?
2:01:55
Speaker 1: Anybody can walk in.
2:01:57
Speaker 2: It's a good, I'm telling you, it's a good looking studio.
2:01:59
Speaker 2: I'm very impressed.
2:02:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate it. Let me get you out of
2:02:03
Speaker 1: here on this.
2:02:05
Speaker 2: AI.
2:02:08
Speaker 1: I think the way the consumer's going to behave is
2:02:13
Speaker 1: they're going to gravitate towards live. They're going to gravitate towards,
2:02:17
Speaker 1: because that's harder to manipulate and all this stuff. But
2:02:21
Speaker 1: I don't know that for sure. I know that that's
2:02:23
Speaker 1: in my head, I think, live, in person, that ultimately
2:02:28
Speaker 1: that that's going to have a premium, that the written
2:02:32
Speaker 1: word won't have a premium the way it used to
2:02:34
Speaker 1: and things like that. I am concerned about those things,
2:02:36
Speaker 1: but it's just going to happen. We know this in
2:02:39
Speaker 1: some form. That's right. What are you not lamenting about
2:02:45
Speaker 1: AI and just marching forward? And what concerns you the
2:02:48
Speaker 1: most about AI in journalism?
2:02:52
Speaker 2: Well, this conversation that I just did with Kara Swisher
2:02:54
Speaker 2: was called AI and the Search for Truth. And that's
2:03:01
Speaker 2: a work in progress. I think most people don't know that,
2:03:06
Speaker 2: in fact, AI, all of the tech giants have known
2:03:12
Speaker 2: about AI 10, 15 years ago. It's finally arrived in
2:03:19
Speaker 2: the way that we've now discovered it last year. It
2:03:22
Speaker 2: is super intelligence. It's not artificial intelligence. And it was
2:03:26
Speaker 2: named that years ago. But regardless of how you want
2:03:29
Speaker 2: to describe it, I think it is dangerous. We don't
2:03:35
Speaker 2: know what we don't know about how AI agents get released.
2:03:41
Speaker 2: these digital bits, how our children are relating to chatbots
2:03:49
Speaker 2: in a world that AI can export these relationships that,
2:03:55
Speaker 2: as Bill Gates said in this essay he wrote, maybe
2:03:57
Speaker 2: you saw it, I think it was like a 6,000-word essay,
2:04:01
Speaker 2: that can kill millions. That's what danger really means with AI.
2:04:07
Speaker 2: It's that threat. I look at it understanding that we
2:04:14
Speaker 2: are on the brink of something really new that we
2:04:20
Speaker 2: have to grapple with, and it needs to be, I
2:04:25
Speaker 2: dare say, I hate using this word, regulated.
2:04:28
Speaker 1: We need.
2:04:32
Speaker 2: whether it's community to community, local government to local government,
2:04:37
Speaker 2: state to state, state capitals and on up to the
2:04:40
Speaker 2: food chain. We need to regulate it. And obviously, senators
2:04:44
Speaker 2: and congressmen, they're going to get into that game.
2:04:47
Speaker 1: But AI is- And didn't you, did you think they
2:04:50
Speaker 1: were going to regulate social media? And they never did.
2:04:53
Speaker 2: No, but this is exponentially a real punch in the face. It's-
2:05:00
Speaker 2: It's bigger than we knew it. But algorithms, all these
2:05:04
Speaker 2: words we've all come to be comfortable with. Algorithmically, what
2:05:08
Speaker 2: AI is going to produce is something we had no
2:05:12
Speaker 2: idea when we were talking about social media back in
2:05:16
Speaker 2: the 90s. So I think it is the biggest story
2:05:21
Speaker 2: in the country, and it ought to be.
2:05:25
Speaker 1: The data centers, you've seen the anger on the local level.
2:05:27
Speaker 2: They're all over Mississippi, Louisiana, the South. Right.
2:05:33
Speaker 1: What do you say to the communities that say, well,
2:05:35
Speaker 1: you know what? It's brought a ton of investment, and
2:05:38
Speaker 1: this part of it is good. When you go to
2:05:40
Speaker 1: the local level, it isn't the most unpopular thing, and
2:05:45
Speaker 1: all the polling is being in favor of a data
2:05:48
Speaker 1: center in your local community. I know the polling, but
2:05:51
Speaker 1: there is more nuance to it than folks realize. You're
2:05:57
Speaker 1: on the ground level there. What's the best way you've
2:06:03
Speaker 1: seen tech interact with local communities and what's some of
2:06:06
Speaker 1: the worst examples?
2:06:08
Speaker 2: Well, there's this tough number out there that 73% of
2:06:13
Speaker 2: Americans are fearful of data centers and AI. and what
2:06:20
Speaker 2: it means to their families and their livelihoods. They're losing jobs.
2:06:26
Speaker 2: So what I'm seeing is that fear. I'm seeing anxiety.
2:06:34
Speaker 2: I'm seeing concern. I'm seeing a search for, well, what
2:06:39
Speaker 2: do you know about it? What do you think about it?
2:06:42
Speaker 2: Help me understand this. In the South, those data centers
2:06:48
Speaker 2: are exploding, really. I don't mean literally, but they are
2:06:53
Speaker 2: changing the landscape, shall we say. And folks are rallying around,
2:06:59
Speaker 2: wait a second, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So you
2:07:02
Speaker 2: see in a state like New York, which is a
2:07:05
Speaker 2: big state, as you know, Kathy Hochul, the governor, is saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
2:07:09
Speaker 2: we're stopping. Time out. We're pausing that. And I think
2:07:14
Speaker 2: We need a pause, really nationally, to understand over the
2:07:21
Speaker 2: next year, what is AI? How is it affecting my community?
2:07:27
Speaker 2: What's the impact of it financially? There are positives and
2:07:32
Speaker 2: there are negatives. Yeah, we know it's going to be
2:07:34
Speaker 2: great for curing cancer at some point. But we don't
2:07:38
Speaker 2: know about, to your point, what it means to me
2:07:41
Speaker 2: in my community right now and the data center that
2:07:45
Speaker 2: they're building and how it's going to affect my life.
2:07:49
Speaker 1: One of my most impactful, I was in Dothan, Alabama
2:07:52
Speaker 1: about a month or so ago interviewing Doug Jones. in
2:07:58
Speaker 1: data centers with a number one concern in Dothan, Alabama.
2:08:01
Speaker 1: This is a little bit north of Tallahassee if you're
2:08:04
Speaker 1: looking where folks want to visualize where I was. And
2:08:10
Speaker 1: it was interesting. The concern was this, and this I
2:08:14
Speaker 1: think you'll appreciate. we already have a bunch of empty
2:08:17
Speaker 1: strip malls after the mall business went underneath. And now,
2:08:22
Speaker 1: you know, and you look and some of these empty
2:08:24
Speaker 1: storefronts have become churches. Some of them have been turned
2:08:27
Speaker 1: into high, you know, there's been some reusing, you know,
2:08:30
Speaker 1: I think now if you take an empty strip center
2:08:33
Speaker 1: and turn it into a data center, right. But I
2:08:36
Speaker 1: thought the, this was the wisdom of the voter. I
2:08:38
Speaker 1: always say the voters are much wiser than, than we
2:08:41
Speaker 1: ever give them credit for. The voter is going, I
2:08:44
Speaker 1: get it. You need a data center now. But I
2:08:46
Speaker 1: know in five or 10 years, when you figure out
2:08:50
Speaker 1: how to put it in space or you need, you know,
2:08:53
Speaker 1: the massive computer becomes this big and you don't need
2:08:57
Speaker 1: this space. What are you going to do with this land?
2:08:59
Speaker 1: Are you just going to abandon it? Are we going
2:09:01
Speaker 1: to have all these empty strip mall data centers all
2:09:04
Speaker 1: of a sudden? And we're just going to be this
2:09:07
Speaker 1: pocket of decaying data center infrastructure. And I thought, That's
2:09:12
Speaker 1: a fair point, because what's the history of technology? How
2:09:15
Speaker 1: quickly we shrink everything. Server rooms become server closets. Server
2:09:21
Speaker 1: closets become little... Boxes. Thumb drives, right. And we know
2:09:30
Speaker 1: that's inevitable with these data centers. Or we're going to
2:09:32
Speaker 1: put them in space, or we're going to put them
2:09:34
Speaker 1: on the moon. And you know what? We may think, oh,
2:09:37
Speaker 1: no big deal if we abandon Altoona, Pennsylvania. But the
2:09:41
Speaker 1: people on Altoona are like, what the hell are we
2:09:43
Speaker 1: going to do with this remnant here?
2:09:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So it's emerging as the biggest story in
2:09:50
Speaker 2: people's lives. If it hasn't hit them yet, it will.
2:09:54
Speaker 2: And I do go back to that word. at the
2:09:57
Speaker 2: state level, at the local level, it needs to be regulated.
2:10:01
Speaker 2: People need to be included in the conversation about what
2:10:05
Speaker 2: does this mean to us as a community? Who is
2:10:09
Speaker 2: my neighbor and what do we owe each other? And
2:10:13
Speaker 2: that's the fundamental. And the answer is going to emerge.
2:10:18
Speaker 2: But we know the consequences if we don't tackle it now.
2:10:22
Speaker 2: The consequences are dire. Well, look, you are.
2:10:27
Speaker 1: Expanding into some states that are considered news deserts, Arkansas,
2:10:32
Speaker 1: parts of Tennessee, parts of Louisiana. Obviously, you've been you've
2:10:38
Speaker 1: been doing that in Mississippi. When do we when should
2:10:42
Speaker 1: we expect? Give us a tour. When should we expect
2:10:45
Speaker 1: you to open the doors in Arkansas? And in Tennessee,
2:10:47
Speaker 1: we're going to open the doors in Arkansas.
2:10:49
Speaker 2: Definitely next year. We're we're we're hiring people now. So
2:10:54
Speaker 2: as I mentioned earlier, we're going to we're going to
2:10:58
Speaker 2: be a little rock and we're going to be in Bentonville.
2:11:00
Speaker 2: We've already gotten space in Bentonville. The Walton Foundation is.
2:11:04
Speaker 1: For Northwest Arkansas. I can't I cannot.
2:11:07
Speaker 2: It is.
2:11:09
Speaker 1: That is I always say it's good. It's good when
2:11:13
Speaker 1: your governor becomes president because he will care about your
2:11:15
Speaker 1: home state. If Bill Clinton doesn't designate an airport for
2:11:20
Speaker 1: that community in Northwest Arkansas, Walmart and Tyson chicken moved
2:11:24
Speaker 1: their headquarters to another state and that area is abandoned.
2:11:28
Speaker 1: And instead, I mean, I just think it's, I mean,
2:11:32
Speaker 1: Northwest Arkansas is amazing.
2:11:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:11:33
Speaker 1: It's an incredible community.
2:11:35
Speaker 2: Uh, you do have to, at least last I did,
2:11:38
Speaker 2: you kind of fly into Fayetteville and drive, uh, Yeah,
2:11:43
Speaker 2: all that's changing. All that landscape is changing. And there
2:11:48
Speaker 2: are successful companies in these states. Arkansas is a good example.
2:11:52
Speaker 2: Tyson Foods and Walmart. I think, actually, Northwest Arkansas is
2:12:02
Speaker 2: going to be interesting to watch in that regard. But
2:12:05
Speaker 2: all of these states- are on the front lines of
2:12:09
Speaker 2: it now with data centers. And as I say, I
2:12:13
Speaker 2: think it's an exciting time, but everybody needs to get involved.
2:12:20
Speaker 2: It's got to be on the ballot. It's got to
2:12:22
Speaker 2: be in the community centers. It's got to be voted on.
2:12:25
Speaker 2: It's got to be regulated. People need to know what's
2:12:27
Speaker 2: coming their way. And they get to control it. They
2:12:30
Speaker 2: get to be a part of those choices. That's what
2:12:34
Speaker 2: democracy requires.
2:12:35
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting. The data center story, I think,
2:12:38
Speaker 1: is helping to remind people why local news is so necessary.
2:12:42
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Absolutely.
2:12:43
Speaker 1: Because it is in these local stories that we're finding
2:12:46
Speaker 1: out about these sweetheart deals or these hidden provisions. And,
2:12:53
Speaker 1: you know, it has taken local journalists whose own communities
2:12:59
Speaker 1: have been impacted to, frankly, have the dedication to go
2:13:04
Speaker 1: figure it out.
2:13:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, the word that we haven't gotten to as journalists
2:13:08
Speaker 2: in this conversation, I don't want to end on it,
2:13:11
Speaker 2: but corruption. Where there's a lot of money, there's corruption.
2:13:15
Speaker 2: Where there's no visibility into it, there's corruption.
2:13:20
Speaker 1: One of the things I say, the least corrupt legislature
2:13:22
Speaker 1: in America is Congress because we have a lot of
2:13:25
Speaker 1: journalists walking the halls. The more local you go, the
2:13:28
Speaker 1: more corruptible, I'm not saying they're all corrupt, but the
2:13:31
Speaker 1: more corruptible it is because we're lacking the watchdogs, whether
2:13:35
Speaker 1: it's in the state capital bureaus or in the local
2:13:38
Speaker 1: city halls. And this is where these tech companies have
2:13:42
Speaker 1: taken advantage of that darkness. And I think that this
2:13:45
Speaker 1: is where I think this might be the public doesn't
2:13:51
Speaker 1: realize this, but they're begging for more local news. So
2:13:54
Speaker 1: we got you covered. Andy, congratulations. It's great to catch up.
2:13:57
Speaker 2: Thank you, Chuck. Great to talk to you.
2:14:05
Speaker 1: All right, we're going to jump into the time machine.
2:14:13
Speaker 1: Try to get in and out about 10 or 12 minutes,
2:14:15
Speaker 1: so stick with me here. And this week, we're going
2:14:18
Speaker 1: back 39 years. Monday, October 19th, 1987. It's a day
2:14:23
Speaker 1: that Wall Street still refers to as Black Monday. And
2:14:27
Speaker 1: before you decide whether this is going to be 20
2:14:31
Speaker 1: minutes about the stock market, let me assure you, this
2:14:33
Speaker 1: is not about the stock market. This is a story
2:14:35
Speaker 1: about technology, about our confidence in technology, and about what
2:14:39
Speaker 1: happens when we build systems that are supposed to protect us,
2:14:42
Speaker 1: only to discover that those very systems can make a
2:14:45
Speaker 1: bad situation much worse. And it's particularly relevant right now
2:14:49
Speaker 1: as we're trying to figure out how much authority we're
2:14:52
Speaker 1: prepared to hand over to artificial intelligence. We're already hearing
2:14:55
Speaker 1: about AI models behaving in ways their creators never anticipated.
2:14:59
Speaker 1: We're debating whether those systems need kill switches, how much
2:15:02
Speaker 1: independent oversight is necessary, and whether governments are moving fast
2:15:05
Speaker 1: enough to understand the technology they're supposedly going to regulate. Well,
2:15:11
Speaker 1: nearly 40 years ago, Wall Street had an experience that
2:15:14
Speaker 1: ought to sound familiar. It discovered that when you automate decision-making,
2:15:18
Speaker 1: You can create consequences nobody intended, even when the technology
2:15:22
Speaker 1: is doing precisely what it was designed to do. And
2:15:25
Speaker 1: then the government had to figure out how to protect
2:15:27
Speaker 1: the financial system from said technology that was supposed to
2:15:30
Speaker 1: make the system more efficient. But the government's response raised
2:15:34
Speaker 1: a different kind of question, and I want to spend
2:15:35
Speaker 1: some time on that as well. If you promise to
2:15:38
Speaker 1: protect a system from catastrophic failure, do the people operating
2:15:42
Speaker 1: that system become more willing to take risks? Economists have
2:15:46
Speaker 1: been arguing about that since Black Monday. And it's one
2:15:50
Speaker 1: we ought to be asking about AI before we get
2:15:52
Speaker 1: too far down the road. But let's go back to
2:15:54
Speaker 1: that day in October. It's 1987. Ronald Reagan is president.
2:16:00
Speaker 1: It's not a great autumn for him. Iran-Contra is still
2:16:02
Speaker 1: hanging over the White House. The Senate is days away
2:16:05
Speaker 1: from rejecting Robert Bork for the Supreme Court. The economy, though,
2:16:09
Speaker 1: has been expanding for nearly five years. Inflation has come
2:16:12
Speaker 1: way down from the terrible levels of the late 70s
2:16:14
Speaker 1: and early 80s. Wall Street is in the middle of
2:16:16
Speaker 1: an extraordinary bull market. By late August, the Dow had
2:16:21
Speaker 1: been up roughly 44% for the year. Now, for those
2:16:25
Speaker 1: who don't follow the markets, the Dow simply tracks the
2:16:27
Speaker 1: stock prices, 30 major American companies. It's always been one
2:16:31
Speaker 1: of the ways we measure whether investors believe in American
2:16:33
Speaker 1: businesses and are they getting more valuable or less valuable.
2:16:37
Speaker 1: And yes, the composition of the 30 biggest American companies
2:16:41
Speaker 1: changes quite a bit. But they're the 30 biggest at
2:16:45
Speaker 1: the time, 30 most important. So by the summer of 87,
2:16:47
Speaker 1: investors have gotten used to watching it just go up, up, up,
2:16:50
Speaker 1: and up. There's enormous confidence in the American economy at
2:16:53
Speaker 1: this point in time, growing confidence in something else too, computers.
2:16:57
Speaker 1: Wall Street is becoming increasingly computerized at this moment in time.
2:17:00
Speaker 1: Trading is getting faster. Financial institutions are building more sophisticated
2:17:04
Speaker 1: mathematical models. A growing number of investors believe technology can
2:17:08
Speaker 1: help them manage risk that previous generations simply had to
2:17:13
Speaker 1: live with. One of the most popular innovations at that
2:17:16
Speaker 1: time is something called portfolio insurance. It was developed by
2:17:20
Speaker 1: two Berkeley finance professors, Hayne Leland and Mark Rubenstein, who
2:17:24
Speaker 1: went into business selling it to some of the biggest
2:17:26
Speaker 1: pension funds in the country. Now, don't let the phrase
2:17:29
Speaker 1: scare you off because the basic idea is actually pretty simple.
2:17:32
Speaker 1: Imagine somebody tells you they've developed an automatic braking system
2:17:36
Speaker 1: for your investments. What do I mean? If the markets
2:17:38
Speaker 1: start falling, the system automatically reduces your exposure before the
2:17:43
Speaker 1: losses become catastrophic. Well, that sounds pretty good. Some people
2:17:48
Speaker 1: might call that a hedge fund, but I'll but I digress.
2:17:51
Speaker 1: But there's an important difference between this and the brakes
2:17:53
Speaker 1: on your car. When you hit the brakes, you're slowing
2:17:56
Speaker 1: down your own vehicle. In the stock market, reducing your
2:18:00
Speaker 1: exposure means selling something, and somebody else has to be
2:18:03
Speaker 1: willing to buy it. Well, portfolio insurance wasn't insurance in
2:18:07
Speaker 1: the traditional sense. where you pay a premium to an
2:18:10
Speaker 1: insurance company that has agreed to cover your loss. This
2:18:14
Speaker 1: was a trading strategy. As the market fell, the strategy
2:18:17
Speaker 1: called for selling stock index futures contracts or otherwise reducing
2:18:21
Speaker 1: stock exposure. Well, the more the market fell, the more
2:18:26
Speaker 1: it called for selling. In theory, you're protecting yourself from
2:18:29
Speaker 1: catastrophic decline. But by October of 87, somewhere between $ 60
2:18:33
Speaker 1: and $ 90 billion in stock was being managed with this
2:18:38
Speaker 1: way of so-called portfolio insurance. And so these strategies looked
2:18:44
Speaker 1: pretty similar. So think about what happens when everybody tries
2:18:47
Speaker 1: to protect themselves at the same time using the same strategy.
2:18:51
Speaker 1: The market starts falling and the strategies call for selling.
2:18:55
Speaker 1: That selling puts additional pressure on prices, which does what?
2:18:58
Speaker 1: Triggers more selling. And pretty soon, the very mechanism that
2:19:02
Speaker 1: was supposed to protect investors is contributing to the thing
2:19:05
Speaker 1: investors are trying to protect themselves against. Now, portfolio insurance
2:19:11
Speaker 1: wasn't the only reason Black Monday happened. Economists have spent
2:19:13
Speaker 1: nearly 40 years arguing about the causes, and there were
2:19:16
Speaker 1: plenty of other problems building in the market. Interest rates
2:19:18
Speaker 1: were rising. Long-term treasury yields inclined towards 10%. There were
2:19:22
Speaker 1: worries about the federal budget deficit then, which they dealt
2:19:26
Speaker 1: with in the 1990 budget deal and again in the
2:19:28
Speaker 1: 1993 budget. Boy, the good old days of when Congress
2:19:32
Speaker 1: gave a shit about that, right? But stock prices had
2:19:36
Speaker 1: run up so far that some investors were starting to
2:19:38
Speaker 1: wonder whether the market had gotten ahead of itself. So
2:19:40
Speaker 1: there was fears of bubble too, right? Well, then came
2:19:43
Speaker 1: the week before. On Wednesday, October 14th, the government reports
2:19:46
Speaker 1: a trade deficit that was much worse than expected. That
2:19:49
Speaker 1: same week, the House Ways and Means Committee moves a
2:19:51
Speaker 1: tax proposal that would make it harder to finance corporate takeovers.
2:19:54
Speaker 1: And takeover speculation had been one of the things that
2:19:56
Speaker 1: was pushing up stock prices. The Dow fell 95 points
2:20:00
Speaker 1: on Wednesday, another 58 on Thursday, and on Friday, October 16th,
2:20:04
Speaker 1: it dropped about 100 points or nearly 5% on what
2:20:08
Speaker 1: was then record volume. Now, here's a detail I find remarkable.
2:20:14
Speaker 1: The portfolio insurers had been selling all week, but by
2:20:17
Speaker 1: the math in their own model, some were still billions
2:20:20
Speaker 1: of dollars behind on what they were supposed to have sold.
2:20:23
Speaker 1: So on Friday afternoon, there's additional selling pressure potentially waiting
2:20:27
Speaker 1: for Monday. Then comes the weekend. Treasury Secretary Jim Baker
2:20:31
Speaker 1: publicly signals that the U.S. may allow the dollar to
2:20:35
Speaker 1: fall further in its dispute with West Germany over interest rates.
2:20:39
Speaker 1: Investors are already worried about the dollar, and now the
2:20:42
Speaker 1: Treasury Secretary appears willing to let it weaken. It only
2:20:45
Speaker 1: adds another layer of uncertainty to a market that had
2:20:48
Speaker 1: already been falling for three days. Monday arrives, overseas markets
2:20:52
Speaker 1: are under pressure, Hong Kong falls sharply, and eventually they
2:20:55
Speaker 1: have to close their exchange for the rest of the week.
2:20:58
Speaker 1: It's so bad. That same day, the US Navy is
2:21:00
Speaker 1: shelling Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf. Retaliation for
2:21:04
Speaker 1: a missile strike on an American flag tanker. Trading opens
2:21:07
Speaker 1: in New York, things start falling apart. Sell orders, overwhelmed
2:21:11
Speaker 1: buy orders. Some of the biggest stocks in America can't
2:21:14
Speaker 1: even open for the first hour. because the specialists on
2:21:16
Speaker 1: the floor can't find enough buyers to establish a price.
2:21:19
Speaker 1: It is literally out of the movie Trading Places where
2:21:21
Speaker 1: you see these guys, oh, so, oh, bye. You know,
2:21:25
Speaker 1: it's like you're watching, you know, you're watching, it was
2:21:28
Speaker 1: the Dukes, Don Amici, all those guys, the guys that
2:21:30
Speaker 1: were working for Don Amici, right? It is literally this picture.
2:21:35
Speaker 1: And this is 1987. We don't have the full electronic
2:21:37
Speaker 1: trading system we have today. So we still had physical
2:21:40
Speaker 1: people on the exchange floor. The volume is unlike anything
2:21:44
Speaker 1: the system had ever seen. 600 million shares traded on
2:21:47
Speaker 1: the New York Stock Exchange that day was nearly double
2:21:49
Speaker 1: the all-time previous record. Ticker tape falls more than an
2:21:53
Speaker 1: hour behind. Different markets are showing different prices. Investors are
2:21:57
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what the hell was happening. There
2:21:59
Speaker 1: was no instant communication. It was near instant, but not instant.
2:22:03
Speaker 1: And that's a big distinction. All the while, these portfolio
2:22:07
Speaker 1: insurance strategies are contributing to additional selling pressure. So according
2:22:12
Speaker 1: to the federal investigation afterwards, just three major portfolio insurers
2:22:16
Speaker 1: sold nearly $ 2 billion of stocks that day, plus the
2:22:19
Speaker 1: equivalent of another $ 2. 8 billion in futures. Portfolio insurance accounted
2:22:25
Speaker 1: for more than 40% of the trading in the main
2:22:28
Speaker 1: stock index futures market, not counting the floor traders' own trading.
2:22:33
Speaker 1: The computers weren't necessarily broken, by the way. They were
2:22:35
Speaker 1: infected with some virus. They weren't infected with some virus
2:22:39
Speaker 1: or making calculations. They were doing exactly what they were
2:22:42
Speaker 1: programmed to do. But the people who designed and used
2:22:45
Speaker 1: these strategies hadn't adequately accounted for what would happen when
2:22:49
Speaker 1: so many investors tried to follow the same instructions under
2:22:53
Speaker 1: extreme conditions. By the closing bell, the Dow fell about
2:22:56
Speaker 1: 500 points. Now, these days, that doesn't sound like a lot,
2:22:59
Speaker 1: but back then, that was a 23% point drop in
2:23:03
Speaker 1: one day. Roughly half a trillion dollars in the stock
2:23:08
Speaker 1: market value wiped out. So imagine waking up today, tomorrow,
2:23:16
Speaker 1: and discovering that the stock market had fallen by nearly
2:23:18
Speaker 1: a quarter before you went to bed. It still remains
2:23:22
Speaker 1: one of the largest one-day percentage declines in the Dow's
2:23:25
Speaker 1: modern history. It's nearly twice the worst single-day percentage loss
2:23:28
Speaker 1: during the 1929 crash. Today, Reagan tells reporters he's puzzled
2:23:34
Speaker 1: because the economic indicators he's looking at don't suggest anything
2:23:37
Speaker 1: like this kind of collapse. And that's an important distinction.
2:23:40
Speaker 1: The underlying American economy at the time hadn't suddenly lost
2:23:44
Speaker 1: a quarter of productive capacity. It was the financial machinery
2:23:47
Speaker 1: was behaving as though something catastrophic did happen. And it
2:23:51
Speaker 1: creates a very different problem for government. Because a stock
2:23:54
Speaker 1: market crash doesn't necessarily stay in the stock market. If
2:23:57
Speaker 1: the financial system starts seizing up, well, banks become reluctant
2:24:00
Speaker 1: to lend businesses that need credit to operate, i.e. to
2:24:04
Speaker 1: make payroll. They can't borrow. And then you know what happens.
2:24:07
Speaker 1: Employees start being laid off, yada, yada, yada. And that
2:24:10
Speaker 1: actually brings me to Alan Greenspan. Greenspan has been chair
2:24:13
Speaker 1: of the Federal Reserve for about 10 weeks when this happens.
2:24:15
Speaker 1: He had succeeded Paul Volcker. On Black Monday, he's actually
2:24:19
Speaker 1: on his way to Dallas for a banker's convention. when
2:24:22
Speaker 1: the financial system he's just inherited starts coming apart. And
2:24:25
Speaker 1: suddenly this brand new Fed chair is facing a crisis
2:24:27
Speaker 1: that looks very different from the financial panics the institution
2:24:31
Speaker 1: was originally created to handle. Remember, it was established in
2:24:35
Speaker 1: 1913 in part because the country kept experiencing financial panics,
2:24:40
Speaker 1: including one in 1907. So Greenspan wasn't inventing the idea
2:24:45
Speaker 1: of government stepping into a financial crisis, but 1987 is
2:24:48
Speaker 1: a traditional banking panic. This isn't people lining up outside
2:24:53
Speaker 1: of banks just trying to get their money. This was
2:24:55
Speaker 1: in the markets itself, amplified by technology, and then by
2:24:59
Speaker 1: growing connections among financial institutions around the world, right? This
2:25:03
Speaker 1: is what happens when you have this global market. And
2:25:06
Speaker 1: there was concern whether this could spread to the rest
2:25:08
Speaker 1: of the economy. Overnight, there's serious discussions about whether the
2:25:12
Speaker 1: exchanges would even open on Tuesday. They would. And before
2:25:16
Speaker 1: trading begins on Tuesday morning, the Fed issues a statement
2:25:19
Speaker 1: that is exactly one sentence long. The Federal Reserve, it says,
2:25:23
Speaker 1: stands ready to serve as a source of liquidity to
2:25:25
Speaker 1: support the economic and financial system. Let me translate that
2:25:29
Speaker 1: out of Greenspan speech. The Fed is telling the financial
2:25:32
Speaker 1: system that it will make sure enough money and credit
2:25:34
Speaker 1: remain available to keep things functioning. It's not promising to
2:25:38
Speaker 1: reimburse investors for their losses, and it's not promising that
2:25:41
Speaker 1: stock prices will go back up. It's simply saying the
2:25:44
Speaker 1: government isn't going to stand by while a financial panic
2:25:46
Speaker 1: causes the machinery of the American economy to stop working.
2:25:50
Speaker 1: And the Fed backs that up. It supplies reserves to
2:25:52
Speaker 1: the banking system. It encourages major banks to keep lending
2:25:56
Speaker 1: to brokerage firms. And that matters because those firms face
2:25:59
Speaker 1: enormous demands for cash on an individual day. Banks were
2:26:03
Speaker 1: nervous about lending to anybody connected to the stock market
2:26:06
Speaker 1: at that point. But if the banks stopped all lending,
2:26:09
Speaker 1: the crisis would get worse. So the Fed was trying
2:26:12
Speaker 1: to prevent a financial version of the same problem we
2:26:14
Speaker 1: saw with portfolio insurance. Everybody trying to protect themselves individually
2:26:19
Speaker 1: ends up making the entire system more dangerous. Now, there
2:26:25
Speaker 1: was one more problem. Stocks, futures, and options are increasingly connected,
2:26:28
Speaker 1: but the markets have different systems for settling trades and
2:26:31
Speaker 1: moving money. So a firm might be waiting to receive
2:26:34
Speaker 1: money from one transaction while already being required to pay
2:26:37
Speaker 1: money on another. Normal circumstances, that's manageable. But in a
2:26:43
Speaker 1: panic where everybody suddenly needs cash at the same time,
2:26:45
Speaker 1: it can bring the system to a standstill. And so Tuesday,
2:26:49
Speaker 1: Black Tuesday after Black Monday, was even more frightening inside
2:26:53
Speaker 1: the system. Around midday, parts of the markets are barely functioning.
2:26:57
Speaker 1: Then finally, things begin to turn. The Dow closes up
2:27:00
Speaker 1: on Tuesday and it closes up again on Wednesday. Market
2:27:03
Speaker 1: remains volatile, but it doesn't regain its August peak until
2:27:05
Speaker 1: the summer of 89. Took two years. But the broader
2:27:08
Speaker 1: financial collapse doesn't happen. And that's a good thing, right?
2:27:13
Speaker 1: There's no banking panic like the 1930s. Now, we can't
2:27:16
Speaker 1: prove the Fed's intervention alone prevented all that. Economists still
2:27:19
Speaker 1: debate the causes of the crash and the recovery. But
2:27:22
Speaker 1: the Fed's willingness to is widely regarded as an important
2:27:26
Speaker 1: part of why the crisis didn't get worse. That's one
2:27:30
Speaker 1: lesson Washington took from 1987, but it wasn't the only one.
2:27:34
Speaker 1: Because once the immediate panic subsided, the government started asking
2:27:37
Speaker 1: how a financial system that was supposed to be getting
2:27:39
Speaker 1: more sophisticated had managed to behave so chaotically. So Reagan
2:27:44
Speaker 1: established a task force headed by a Wall Street banker
2:27:47
Speaker 1: named Nicholas Brady, who would later become Treasury Secretary. And
2:27:50
Speaker 1: they reached a conclusion that I think deserves more attention.
2:27:53
Speaker 1: They said stocks, stocks futures, and stock options had effectively
2:27:56
Speaker 1: become one interconnected market. The computers and the traders had
2:28:00
Speaker 1: tied them together, but they were still regulated by separate
2:28:03
Speaker 1: markets and by separate agencies, stocks by the SEC, futures
2:28:07
Speaker 1: by the Commodity Futures and Trade Commission. Each agency was
2:28:10
Speaker 1: watching its own piece while the risks were increasingly developing
2:28:14
Speaker 1: across the entire system. The technology connected the markets. The
2:28:18
Speaker 1: government was still overseeing them separately. So Brady recommended that
2:28:22
Speaker 1: one agency, most likely the Fed, coordinate oversight across all
2:28:25
Speaker 1: of them. That part never happened. We never did it.
2:28:29
Speaker 1: Congress never did consolidate. And to this day, this distinction
2:28:32
Speaker 1: between the SEC and the Commodities and Futures Trade Commission
2:28:36
Speaker 1: is a huge problem. We have two different regulators. We
2:28:39
Speaker 1: have people gaining which regulator they want to deal with.
2:28:42
Speaker 1: See the crypto folks. And it's very destructive. Washington identified
2:28:48
Speaker 1: a structural fall, agreed it was a flaw, and then
2:28:51
Speaker 1: they didn't fix it. They just built a work rule.
2:28:54
Speaker 1: Not good. Not good at all. Still, in 1988, the
2:29:00
Speaker 1: exchanges introduced what became known as circuit breakers. Well, you
2:29:03
Speaker 1: can think about what a circuit breaker is in your house.
2:29:05
Speaker 1: If there's an electrical overload, the breaker trips and interrupts
2:29:08
Speaker 1: the flow of electricity before something worse happens. That was
2:29:12
Speaker 1: the idea behind this. If prices fall too far, too fast,
2:29:15
Speaker 1: they just halt trading. We've seen it a few times.
2:29:18
Speaker 1: Market ride circuit breakers first tripped in October of 1997.
2:29:21
Speaker 1: It was almost exactly 10 years after Black Monday. Happened
2:29:25
Speaker 1: again in March of 2020 as the COVID pandemic happened.
2:29:29
Speaker 1: But they don't prevent markets from falling. They aren't supposed to.
2:29:32
Speaker 1: There are legitimate arguments about whether trading halts can actually
2:29:35
Speaker 1: sometimes create more problems of their own. But the idea
2:29:39
Speaker 1: is that there ought to be a way to slow
2:29:41
Speaker 1: things down when a system starts behaving in a way
2:29:44
Speaker 1: that threatens its ability to function. And think about how
2:29:47
Speaker 1: interesting that is. The financial industry has spent years developing
2:29:51
Speaker 1: technology to make trading faster. One of the main reforms
2:29:54
Speaker 1: after the crash was a mechanism designed to make trading stop.
2:29:59
Speaker 1: to restore order. The government didn't ban computerized trading. It
2:30:02
Speaker 1: didn't decide financial innovation had gone too far. Instead, regulators
2:30:06
Speaker 1: and exchanges began adapting the rules to the technology. But
2:30:10
Speaker 1: there's another part of this response that deserves some attention.
2:30:14
Speaker 1: Remember that phrase we started with, portfolio insurance? Wall Street
2:30:18
Speaker 1: had built a strategy that was supposed to protect investors
2:30:21
Speaker 1: against large losses. When the market really collapsed, the strategy
2:30:24
Speaker 1: itself contributed to the chaos and more losses. The ultimate
2:30:29
Speaker 1: insurance policy for the functioning of the financial system turned
2:30:31
Speaker 1: out to be the Federal Reserve. The same industry that
2:30:35
Speaker 1: celebrates free markets, competition, and the discipline of risk increasingly
2:30:39
Speaker 1: came to operate with the expectation that if the entire
2:30:42
Speaker 1: system got into enough trouble, the central bank would step in.
2:30:47
Speaker 1: And there's plenty of good reasons for that. But there's
2:30:51
Speaker 1: also a legitimate question about what that expectation does to behavior,
2:30:54
Speaker 1: the unintended consequence. Does it make financial institutions more willing
2:30:58
Speaker 1: to take risks? Eh, the government will bail us out.
2:31:01
Speaker 1: Does it encourage the belief that profits belong to investors
2:31:03
Speaker 1: while the worst consequences of failure become somebody else's problem?
2:31:08
Speaker 1: Economists have a phrase for that. It's called moral hazard.
2:31:11
Speaker 1: It's what happens when somebody becomes more willing to take
2:31:13
Speaker 1: a risk because they believe somebody else will absorb some
2:31:17
Speaker 1: of the consequences that things go badly. And after 1987,
2:31:23
Speaker 1: investors increasingly came to talk about something called the Greenspan put.
2:31:28
Speaker 1: In plain English, if markets get into serious trouble, Greenspan
2:31:31
Speaker 1: and the Fed would step in. It became prominent in 1988.
2:31:35
Speaker 1: Then during the financial crisis in 2008, the Fed would
2:31:38
Speaker 1: go much further under Ben Bernanke using emergency lending programs,
2:31:42
Speaker 1: massive purchases of financial assets, became known as quantitative easing.
2:31:47
Speaker 1: Those weren't tools Greenspan used in 87. And I don't
2:31:49
Speaker 1: know if you draw a straight line to it. but
2:31:51
Speaker 1: you certainly can trace the evolution of an expectation that
2:31:55
Speaker 1: the Fed will always save us from our own stupidity.
2:32:00
Speaker 1: The line is blurry, which raises one more question about
2:32:04
Speaker 1: how we regulate a free market. How much freedom do
2:32:06
Speaker 1: we give private companies to take risks when the consequences
2:32:09
Speaker 1: to those risks can become a public responsibility? Talked about
2:32:12
Speaker 1: this in the whole Mark Walters, using life insurance as
2:32:16
Speaker 1: a way to purchase sports teams. and gaming regulatory markets.
2:32:25
Speaker 1: And that brings me to artificial intelligence. Obviously, AI is
2:32:27
Speaker 1: not portfolio insurance, and we shouldn't assume that the same
2:32:30
Speaker 1: safeguards will work, but we're looking for circuit breakers, aren't we?
2:32:33
Speaker 1: We're worried about something that would amplify a systemic risk.
2:32:38
Speaker 1: So we're building AI systems capable of much more complicated tasks,
2:32:41
Speaker 1: increasingly able to act autonomously and operate in environments where
2:32:45
Speaker 1: their developers can't predict every possible behavior. But those systems
2:32:49
Speaker 1: aren't going to operate in isolation. They're going to interact
2:32:52
Speaker 1: with other AI systems. They're going to make decisions that
2:32:54
Speaker 1: impact businesses. The danger isn't necessarily that one AI model
2:32:57
Speaker 1: suddenly decides to do something malicious. What if it's something
2:33:01
Speaker 1: much more mundane and everybody's operating rationally and logically and
2:33:05
Speaker 1: the AI systems are actually acting the way they're supposed
2:33:09
Speaker 1: to be programmed? Wall Street didn't simply need better computers
2:33:16
Speaker 1: in 1987. It needed better rules for a world in
2:33:18
Speaker 1: which computers have become central to how the financial system operated.
2:33:24
Speaker 1: So if you look at how we're approaching AI right
2:33:26
Speaker 1: now with different agencies, different states, different countries, each trying
2:33:29
Speaker 1: to oversee their own piece of the technology, boy, there's
2:33:31
Speaker 1: something awfully familiar about this. Because if 1987 is any guide,
2:33:35
Speaker 1: recognizing the problem isn't the same as fixing it. We
2:33:38
Speaker 1: saw the problem. We just never fixed it. We're already
2:33:41
Speaker 1: debating whether powerful AI models need a kill switch. Well,
2:33:44
Speaker 1: what does that mean? Who decides when we need to
2:33:46
Speaker 1: use the kill switch? Is it the company that built it?
2:33:49
Speaker 1: Is it the government? Is it some independent body? What
2:33:51
Speaker 1: happens if the system has already become essential to institutions
2:33:54
Speaker 1: that depend on it? If you shut down an AI model,
2:33:57
Speaker 1: that's one thing. Keeping a hospital, a power grid, or
2:34:01
Speaker 1: a communications network operating, if that model has become part
2:34:03
Speaker 1: of how those systems function, that's a whole other issue, right?
2:34:09
Speaker 1: The circuit breaker with stocks is designed to interrupt dangerous behavior.
2:34:13
Speaker 1: The Federal Reserve backstop is designed to keep the larger
2:34:15
Speaker 1: system functioning when a crisis threatens to spread. Those are
2:34:19
Speaker 1: different responsibilities. What are the equivalents for artificial intelligence? Who's
2:34:23
Speaker 1: responsible for building them? We can't assume the companies developing
2:34:27
Speaker 1: these systems can anticipate every problem themselves. They have their
2:34:31
Speaker 1: own incentives. They have competitive pressures. They have limited knowledge
2:34:36
Speaker 1: of how their technology will behave once it becomes widely used.
2:34:39
Speaker 1: We don't know yet. We all thought social media would
2:34:43
Speaker 1: be a net positive. It's turned out to be a
2:34:44
Speaker 1: net negative, right? But the problem is, what scares me
2:34:53
Speaker 1: is that if we behave the way we behaved with stocks,
2:34:56
Speaker 1: first came the crisis, then the investigation, then the safeguards.
2:35:00
Speaker 1: Do we wanna repeat that sequence with AI? If AI
2:35:05
Speaker 1: companies believe the government will, and then here's this, what
2:35:08
Speaker 1: if AI companies ultimately believe the government's going to bail
2:35:11
Speaker 1: them out if things go really catastrophically wrong? Does that
2:35:16
Speaker 1: change how they risk manage? I don't know the answer,
2:35:21
Speaker 1: but the experience of Wall Street gives us a reason
2:35:23
Speaker 1: to ask. Because there's a difference between protecting the public
2:35:26
Speaker 1: from technological failure and protecting the company responsible for that
2:35:29
Speaker 1: failure from the consequences of its own decisions. That's something
2:35:34
Speaker 1: we ought to think about. Nearly 40 years ago, the
2:35:36
Speaker 1: government confronted a financial system whose technology had evolved faster
2:35:40
Speaker 1: than the institutions responsible for overseeing it. We didn't ban
2:35:45
Speaker 1: computerized trading. We developed new safeguards and used the Federal
2:35:48
Speaker 1: Reserve's existing authority to be the ultimate backstop. Didn't eliminate
2:35:54
Speaker 1: financial crises, and it certainly didn't settle the argument over
2:35:57
Speaker 1: how much government intervention belongs in a free market. But
2:36:01
Speaker 1: it did force us to think differently about the relationship
2:36:06
Speaker 1: between private risk and public responsibility. And now we're facing
2:36:10
Speaker 1: another technological transformation. The lesson of Black Monday isn't that
2:36:15
Speaker 1: technology is dangerous. It's that making decisions faster doesn't necessarily
2:36:20
Speaker 1: make the system making those decisions any wiser. And if
2:36:24
Speaker 1: we're going to give increasingly powerful machines more authority over
2:36:29
Speaker 1: our lives, we'd better figure out who has the responsibility
2:36:33
Speaker 1: and the ability to intervene when something goes wrong. And
2:36:37
Speaker 1: hopefully we can do it before there's a crisis. That's unlikely.
2:36:42
Speaker 1: Let's just hope the crisis doesn't kill a whole bunch
2:36:45
Speaker 1: of us. On that upbeat note, there's your time machine.
2:36:58
Speaker 1: First question comes from Graham from New Orleans. Hey Chuck,
2:37:01
Speaker 1: big fan of the podcast. always appreciated your political insight.
2:37:04
Speaker 1: Several years ago, I used to be more partisan, but
2:37:06
Speaker 1: listening to your podcast has really encouraged me to think
2:37:08
Speaker 1: more independently. Anyway, I know from listening that you're a
2:37:10
Speaker 1: big fan of alternative history, so I have one for you.
2:37:13
Speaker 1: I just finished watching an insane day of college football.
2:37:15
Speaker 1: I was rooting for your Hurricanes and was glad to
2:37:17
Speaker 1: see them pull it out. My alternative history question is,
2:37:19
Speaker 1: what if Miami had joined the SEC? I'd love to
2:37:21
Speaker 1: hear your analysis of how that might have changed the
2:37:24
Speaker 1: trajectory of Miami football, the SEC, and college football as
2:37:26
Speaker 1: a whole. Keep up the great work. Um, Miami's never
2:37:30
Speaker 1: been invited the sec. There's never remotely been any interest
2:37:33
Speaker 1: from the sec. Florida state had some opportunities to be
2:37:36
Speaker 1: in the sec. Um, no, the university of Florida has
2:37:38
Speaker 1: always stood in the way of any hopes of Miami
2:37:41
Speaker 1: joining that conference. Um, It's too bad. I think at
2:37:46
Speaker 1: some point the SEC probably wishes it had Miami in
2:37:49
Speaker 1: there a little bit. But it was, you know, I
2:37:54
Speaker 1: can't really tell you it was all that close. I'll
2:37:57
Speaker 1: be doing a deeper dive on Miami football with Dynastic
2:38:00
Speaker 1: pretty soon. We're going to be doing that. But, you know,
2:38:06
Speaker 1: I certainly, you know, Miami's advantage has always been location, location, location.
2:38:12
Speaker 2: Right.
2:38:13
Speaker 1: And as High school football became better and better in Florida.
2:38:19
Speaker 1: The opportunity for, you know, two things helped Miami football
2:38:24
Speaker 1: that were going to happen regardless of whether they were
2:38:26
Speaker 1: members of the SEC, the ACC, the Big Ten or whatever.
2:38:29
Speaker 1: And it was all their geographic location and the integration
2:38:34
Speaker 1: in the college football of of more and more African Americans.
2:38:38
Speaker 1: And I think Miami was on the forefront, particularly in
2:38:41
Speaker 1: urban America, of bringing more urban African American kids into
2:38:44
Speaker 1: college football than what happened before. It was sort of
2:38:48
Speaker 1: step two of integration of college football, right? If step
2:38:51
Speaker 1: one was the 60s and 70s, step two was the
2:38:54
Speaker 1: 80s and 90s. And it was that second integration of
2:38:58
Speaker 1: urban African Americans into college football that really fueled the
2:39:01
Speaker 1: rise of both Miami and Florida State, arguably. But You know,
2:39:07
Speaker 1: I think I'm pretty cocky. I think if Miami joins
2:39:12
Speaker 1: the SEC, it's a power in the SEC. Now some
2:39:16
Speaker 1: would argue, hey, Miami joined the ACC and look what
2:39:18
Speaker 1: happened there. I don't think it had to do with
2:39:20
Speaker 1: being in a conference. It had to do with, you know,
2:39:22
Speaker 1: its moment in time. You know, if Miami had always
2:39:25
Speaker 1: been a member of the SEC, probably its rise would
2:39:29
Speaker 1: be similar to what happened with Florida. Florida has never
2:39:32
Speaker 1: been a very effective SEC. They don't have a great
2:39:37
Speaker 1: record in the SEC, but as the urbanization of college
2:39:41
Speaker 1: football grew, even Florida was able to have success come
2:39:45
Speaker 1: the late 80s, early 90s, and then more so in
2:39:47
Speaker 1: the mid 90s and stuff. So I could argue that
2:39:51
Speaker 1: what you saw in the increasing success and prominence of
2:39:55
Speaker 1: Florida football in the SEC probably Miami would have mirrored that.
2:39:59
Speaker 1: And if anything, Miami probably would have suppressed the ability
2:40:02
Speaker 1: of Florida to be as successful in the SEC because
2:40:05
Speaker 1: then Miami would have probably had that first. But, you know,
2:40:09
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's another argument to be made that
2:40:11
Speaker 1: what helped Miami was its independence. It allowed it to
2:40:14
Speaker 1: be a national program. The SEC forces you to be
2:40:17
Speaker 1: a regional program. Miami's always had more of a national brand.
2:40:20
Speaker 1: So I think that matters as well. Hey, Nick from
2:40:26
Speaker 1: Michigan's 2nd Congressional District writes, hey, let's fast forward a
2:40:28
Speaker 1: decade to 2036. What will have happened to anti-Trump Republicans
2:40:32
Speaker 1: like Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney? Are they seen as redeemed?
2:40:35
Speaker 1: Do they return to politics either as Republicans or as
2:40:38
Speaker 1: leaders of a new conservative movement or will they have
2:40:39
Speaker 1: started to fade into history? You know, it's interesting. I
2:40:43
Speaker 1: suspect that those that are most prominent in the anti-Trump
2:40:46
Speaker 1: world will end up in the first center-right presidency that
2:40:50
Speaker 1: is anti-Trump. They'll be hugely prominent members. Maybe they'll be
2:40:54
Speaker 1: cabinet secretaries. Maybe they'll be ambassadors. Maybe they'll simply be endorsers.
2:40:59
Speaker 1: Maybe they go come back and run for office. Not
2:41:01
Speaker 1: fully convinced of that. I think everybody has their moment.
2:41:04
Speaker 1: But I think generally, if you're wondering, some of the
2:41:07
Speaker 1: more prominent ones I could see being symbols, Liz Cheney
2:41:11
Speaker 1: would be a symbol. Liz Cheney getting on board the
2:41:15
Speaker 1: first center-right candidate that could win. You know, and she
2:41:19
Speaker 1: becomes ambassador to Japan or ambassador, you know, one of
2:41:22
Speaker 1: the really key strategic ambassadorships or something like that. But
2:41:25
Speaker 1: that would be my guess is that in, you know,
2:41:28
Speaker 1: in about 10 years that that would be the virtue
2:41:30
Speaker 1: signal on that front. You know, I think they're in exile.
2:41:36
Speaker 1: I don't think they are extinct for what it's worth.
2:41:41
Speaker 1: All right. Last question. And then I want to jump
2:41:43
Speaker 1: quickly to college football. And then I got to let
2:41:46
Speaker 1: you have the rest of your Monday back. Greetings from
2:41:49
Speaker 1: Colorado's first district in Denver, longtime listener since the MTP
2:41:53
Speaker 1: days and a progressive-leaning Democrat who, after Trump's 2024 victory,
2:41:57
Speaker 1: looked to the midterms as an opportunity to push back
2:41:59
Speaker 1: against this administration. While I've grown cautiously optimistic about Democrats' chances,
2:42:03
Speaker 1: my anxiety is shifting from whether they'll win to whether
2:42:05
Speaker 1: even a massive blue wave will be enough to constrain
2:42:08
Speaker 1: this administration. If Democrats win 240-plus House seats and gain
2:42:11
Speaker 1: six to seven Senate seats— How do you think Congress
2:42:13
Speaker 1: will govern? How will Trump respond? And what might the
2:42:16
Speaker 1: next two years look like heading into 28, assuming we
2:42:18
Speaker 1: have an election? I know you don't have a crystal ball,
2:42:20
Speaker 1: but a little insight might help me survive the next
2:42:22
Speaker 1: few years. Thanks, Steve W. You're asking the hardest question
2:42:25
Speaker 1: I have to answer. I talk about this all the time.
2:42:27
Speaker 1: I have an easier chance. I have a better idea
2:42:29
Speaker 1: of what's going to happen in November than I do
2:42:32
Speaker 1: of what happens after I, you know. there's so many
2:42:35
Speaker 1: contradictions that may happen even in a big blue wave, right?
2:42:39
Speaker 1: You're going to have a slew of Democratic senators. Let's
2:42:42
Speaker 1: assume there's a big wave. Then you'll have a slew
2:42:45
Speaker 1: of Democratic senators that were elected as, quote, different types
2:42:47
Speaker 1: of Democrats, that were promising not to, you know, sort
2:42:50
Speaker 1: of turn the page on the polarization. They were going
2:42:52
Speaker 1: to be different. They're going to reach out, right? You're
2:42:54
Speaker 1: going to have others that, one, primarily, two, hold Trump
2:42:58
Speaker 1: more accountable. So you're going to have this half that
2:43:01
Speaker 1: are going to be pushing on accountability and half they're
2:43:03
Speaker 1: going to be pushing to try to, hey, govern more.
2:43:05
Speaker 1: All right. And then let's take the governing side of things.
2:43:09
Speaker 1: Do you try to pass bills that Trump will sign
2:43:12
Speaker 1: or do you try to pass bills that he'll veto
2:43:15
Speaker 1: so that you can make 2028, you can start to
2:43:18
Speaker 1: set a potential and showcase an agenda that a Democratic
2:43:22
Speaker 1: president might be able to support in 2028? How broad
2:43:28
Speaker 1: is the win, right? And I think that that's And
2:43:32
Speaker 1: where does the center of the party gravitate? Does the
2:43:37
Speaker 1: center gravitate more to the progressive left? Does the center
2:43:41
Speaker 1: gravitate more to the center left? You know, is an
2:43:46
Speaker 1: Adam Hamilton seen as, you know, you can't pass legislation
2:43:51
Speaker 1: until you have an Adam Hamilton that feels comfortable in
2:43:53
Speaker 1: a Kansas doing this versus is the center of gravity, say,
2:43:58
Speaker 1: a Troy Jackson or an Abdul El-Sayed, right? Like, so
2:44:01
Speaker 1: I think that this is I say this is the
2:44:03
Speaker 1: hardest because I don't know what is going to be.
2:44:06
Speaker 1: You also then have the presidential primary campaigns, which will
2:44:10
Speaker 1: have an impact like some Democrats who may want to
2:44:13
Speaker 1: do some compromising presidential primary candidates might be mocking those
2:44:18
Speaker 1: who choose to compromise and who choose to enable.
2:44:20
Speaker 2: Right.
2:44:22
Speaker 1: So I don't mean to you know, I think that
2:44:25
Speaker 1: it will still restrain this administration somewhat. But here's another one.
2:44:33
Speaker 1: Who are the Republicans that are left? Do the Democratic
2:44:37
Speaker 1: victories wipe out the rest of the normal Republicans? And
2:44:41
Speaker 1: suddenly those that are left are more radical and the
2:44:45
Speaker 1: heart of the Republican minority is more MAGA than ever?
2:44:49
Speaker 1: Or do those Republicans who survive realize that Trump and
2:44:55
Speaker 1: MAGA put them here and they start to moderate and
2:44:58
Speaker 1: they start to find, and then suddenly there's a different
2:45:00
Speaker 1: center of gravity. I know I'm just introducing more questions
2:45:04
Speaker 1: to your question to me, but this is why I
2:45:07
Speaker 1: have found this question to be the most difficult I
2:45:09
Speaker 1: have to answer is that all I can do is
2:45:14
Speaker 1: I can see a scenario where it's all accountability all
2:45:17
Speaker 1: the time. Start impeaching these guys. Start doing these investigations.
2:45:21
Speaker 1: I could see a scenario where it's, let's pass some
2:45:25
Speaker 1: pieces of legislation. If he signs it, great. If he
2:45:27
Speaker 1: vetoes it, even better. I could see a scenario where Trump,
2:45:32
Speaker 1: the guy who loves hanging out with Mom Donnie, says, hey,
2:45:35
Speaker 1: I hated the Republican Party too. That's why I ran
2:45:37
Speaker 1: for president. Let's do some deals. And I could see
2:45:43
Speaker 1: the Republican Party either going full on MAGA because that's
2:45:46
Speaker 1: all that's left, or those that are left want to
2:45:51
Speaker 1: retake their party back from Trump. I don't think any
2:45:55
Speaker 1: of those are 1% chances. I think those are sort
2:45:58
Speaker 1: of And I think this is the uncertainty. I think
2:46:03
Speaker 1: there is, no matter what, there is a lot of
2:46:05
Speaker 1: uncertainty going into the next two years, nevermind the impact
2:46:08
Speaker 1: of the presidential campaign. All right, with that, let me
2:46:14
Speaker 1: do a few quick thoughts on college football. First quickly,
2:46:18
Speaker 1: Miami surviving. Look, they should have lost the game. Florida
2:46:23
Speaker 1: State got inside the 10 twice and got no points
2:46:27
Speaker 1: in the first half. They lost the game in the
2:46:29
Speaker 1: first half. They didn't lose the game on whether or
2:46:31
Speaker 1: not there was a holding call in the second overtime.
2:46:36
Speaker 1: They did not lose this game in the second half.
2:46:37
Speaker 1: They did not lose this game in the first overtime
2:46:39
Speaker 1: or the second overtime. Florida State lost this game. The
2:46:43
Speaker 1: glasses half full side of me as a Canes diehard
2:46:46
Speaker 1: is this. Anytime Miami's won a national title, the five
2:46:51
Speaker 1: that they've won, there's always been a game like this
2:46:54
Speaker 1: that they've won. A game they shouldn't have won, that
2:46:57
Speaker 1: they somehow won. that they somehow literally snatched victory from
2:47:01
Speaker 1: the jaws of defeat. And that's what championship teams do.
2:47:06
Speaker 1: So that's one way I can reassure myself. Darian Mensah
2:47:14
Speaker 1: threw his first interception. Two things make me nervous going forward.
2:47:20
Speaker 1: about how you can how you can shake Miami up.
2:47:23
Speaker 1: Number one, obviously, if you can pressure Mensah, you can
2:47:26
Speaker 1: might pressure him into some mistakes. He still makes a
2:47:28
Speaker 1: lot of great throws. He made a couple of spectacular
2:47:30
Speaker 1: plays while scrambling at the same time. You know, he
2:47:34
Speaker 1: hasn't had to scramble a lot. He seemed to he
2:47:36
Speaker 1: got a little indecisive. Should he run? Should he pass?
2:47:38
Speaker 1: Should he slide? Should he not? So it was a
2:47:41
Speaker 1: little bit of that. He could get rattled. Second, our secondary,
2:47:43
Speaker 1: you can throw on us, especially if you're a running quarterback.
2:47:48
Speaker 1: I don't think there are enough running quarterbacks that Miami
2:47:52
Speaker 1: faces going forward that can stop them this year. But
2:47:56
Speaker 1: if they do in the playoff, that becomes a huge situation.
2:48:01
Speaker 1: I do think I saw certainly what Miami needs to
2:48:04
Speaker 1: improve on. But again, surviving matters here. It's a rivalry game.
2:48:08
Speaker 1: um to say i was tense by the way the
2:48:10
Speaker 1: most uh fun little interaction i had was with uncle
2:48:13
Speaker 1: luke luther campbell was sitting right in front of me
2:48:16
Speaker 1: uh those of you if you know you know um
2:48:19
Speaker 1: you know at first he turned around he goes i
2:48:20
Speaker 1: think i know you and i was like you look
2:48:22
Speaker 1: familiar but i wasn't sure and you know and then
2:48:24
Speaker 1: all of a sudden at the end of the game
2:48:25
Speaker 1: he goes you know we follow each other on twitter
2:48:27
Speaker 1: i went uncle luke and anyway we had a fun
2:48:31
Speaker 1: little moment he was there with his son i was
2:48:32
Speaker 1: obviously there with my daughter uh and and uh and
2:48:36
Speaker 1: my wife and so it was a Needless to say,
2:48:39
Speaker 1: he was happy. If you really want to see where
2:48:41
Speaker 1: I was sitting, if you go to his videos, he
2:48:43
Speaker 1: did a few videos. I noticed I'm in the background
2:48:47
Speaker 1: and my wife wearing her Florida State gear also in
2:48:50
Speaker 1: the background, too. As for the rest of the day, look,
2:48:55
Speaker 1: I'm prepared. I know this. When there are upsets and
2:49:01
Speaker 1: close calls in the ACC and the Big 12, it's
2:49:04
Speaker 1: proof that those conferences are weak. When there are close
2:49:07
Speaker 1: calls or upsets in the SEC, it's proof that it's
2:49:09
Speaker 1: a gauntlet. Look, I know what the SEC partisans are
2:49:12
Speaker 1: going to say, and you know what the rest of
2:49:14
Speaker 1: us are going to say about the bottom line is,
2:49:16
Speaker 1: guess what? Conference football games are hard, whether they're in,
2:49:20
Speaker 1: you know, yes. Is the SEC hard? Yes. Are other
2:49:24
Speaker 1: conferences hard?
2:49:25
Speaker 2: Yes.
2:49:26
Speaker 1: Are winning on the road hard wherever you are? Yes.
2:49:29
Speaker 1: Do the SEC have nice stadiums? Yes. Okay. So, Yes,
2:49:34
Speaker 1: you guys are a more competitive conference. It doesn't necessarily
2:49:37
Speaker 1: make you a better conference. And last time I checked,
2:49:40
Speaker 1: I don't think Miami's lost to an SEC team in
2:49:41
Speaker 1: about three years. I look forward to playing some more
2:49:44
Speaker 1: SEC teams. We're happy to become members of the SEC.
2:49:50
Speaker 1: But which of the games that matter and which didn't,
2:49:53
Speaker 1: I think Georgia doesn't really matter. That's one of the
2:49:55
Speaker 1: oldest rivalries in the South. I warned you, if you
2:49:58
Speaker 1: guys listen to the podcast on Thursday, I warned you
2:50:00
Speaker 1: about that Auburn game. It just had the feel, right,
2:50:03
Speaker 1: both But Alabama's in trouble. And Texas is in trouble.
2:50:07
Speaker 1: Can 9-3 Alabama and Texas teams make it? I mean,
2:50:11
Speaker 1: Texas has a resume that Ohio State win is going
2:50:14
Speaker 1: to age well, although the Texas loss doesn't. I'll say
2:50:18
Speaker 1: it's lucky they beat Indiana by that. Boy, how about that?
2:50:21
Speaker 1: By a little. So many games decided by a couple
2:50:24
Speaker 1: inches here and a couple inches there, right? The foot
2:50:27
Speaker 1: on the line there. But let's say Indiana wins that game.
2:50:30
Speaker 1: The Texas loss is not aging very well for Ohio State, right?
2:50:33
Speaker 1: No way. I'm not sure. I'm not sure a nine
2:50:36
Speaker 1: and three big 10 team gets in the playoffs. We
2:50:37
Speaker 1: do know the nine and three, right? The ESPN, it's
2:50:41
Speaker 1: still the ESPN invitational, right? They're going to be in
2:50:43
Speaker 1: charge of the 2014 playoff. And by the way, my
2:50:46
Speaker 1: thoughts on that is simply, I'm glad there's no automatic
2:50:49
Speaker 1: births for by conference. Like that was creating an unfair situation.
2:50:54
Speaker 1: This is sort of the best of all the bad ideas.
2:50:57
Speaker 1: It does open up access. And at the end of
2:50:59
Speaker 1: the day, I'd like to widen the access that college
2:51:02
Speaker 1: football programs have to success than to narrow the access. Um,
2:51:08
Speaker 1: I think there are better ways to do a 2014 playoff.
2:51:10
Speaker 1: I'd still keep a 16 national playoff. I'd love to
2:51:13
Speaker 1: see sort of the other eight teams decided by individual
2:51:16
Speaker 1: conference playoffs, individual, maybe in the group of six, some
2:51:19
Speaker 1: sort of like sub play. You know, you could do
2:51:21
Speaker 1: this in more interesting ways that also would generate more
2:51:25
Speaker 1: revenue for everybody involved. This just sort of feels haphazard
2:51:30
Speaker 1: and lazy the way they did it. But again, I
2:51:33
Speaker 1: go back to what I tweeted. I kind of looked
2:51:37
Speaker 1: at this version of the 2014 playoff as I look
2:51:40
Speaker 1: at democracy. It's the worst of all forms of government.
2:51:43
Speaker 1: It's the worst form of government except for all the others.
2:51:46
Speaker 1: This was about as bad of an idea as you
2:51:48
Speaker 1: can have except for all the other ideas that were
2:51:50
Speaker 1: floating out there. And so at the end of the day,
2:51:52
Speaker 1: this preserves access. And you know what this does do?
2:51:55
Speaker 1: The biggest thing it does? It probably means that the
2:51:59
Speaker 1: ACC and the Big 12 don't get poached one more time.
2:52:04
Speaker 1: because now there's really no need to. Access to this.
2:52:07
Speaker 1: You win nine games in one of the Power Four
2:52:10
Speaker 1: conferences you're going to get in. You win eight games
2:52:13
Speaker 1: in one of the Power Four conferences, and you have
2:52:15
Speaker 1: a chance. My only request after this is, please, we
2:52:19
Speaker 1: need some more matchups. No more matchups against FCS teams
2:52:25
Speaker 1: at all, and more matchups. I'd like to see an
2:52:29
Speaker 1: annual you know, every, you know, it's basically a rotation
2:52:33
Speaker 1: just in the same way as you rotate divisions. So this,
2:52:35
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to have a SEC versus ACC where,
2:52:39
Speaker 1: you know, everybody plays at least one from that conference
2:52:41
Speaker 1: that season. Then do it again with the Big 10
2:52:44
Speaker 1: and the Big 12. Then it's the Big 12 and
2:52:46
Speaker 1: the ACC. And then it's the SEC and the Big 10.
2:52:48
Speaker 1: You know, you just go around where every year, every season,
2:52:52
Speaker 1: there's a rotation that way so that we're constantly having
2:52:56
Speaker 1: matchups in between teams from different conferences. And I think
2:53:00
Speaker 1: it would give us a better way to assess just
2:53:03
Speaker 1: how tough these conferences are compared to next to each other.
2:53:07
Speaker 1: One quick thought on baseball. Dodgers, old and slow, always
2:53:13
Speaker 1: loses to young and fast. The Brewers were young and fast.
2:53:16
Speaker 1: The Dodgers were old and slow. The biggest, more immediate
2:53:19
Speaker 1: issue is, does this screw up Major League Baseball's attempt
2:53:24
Speaker 1: to get a salary cap? Because you're now going to
2:53:26
Speaker 1: have two Moneyball teams fighting for the World Series. Brewers
2:53:29
Speaker 1: versus either the Guardians or the Rays. All three of
2:53:33
Speaker 1: those franchises moneyball themselves. The Dodgers are a different story.
2:53:42
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how the owners are gonna be able
2:53:46
Speaker 1: to make the effective argument that they could have made
2:53:50
Speaker 1: had the Dodgers three-peated and sort of rolled over everybody,
2:53:55
Speaker 1: but they didn't. And one of the interesting things is
2:53:59
Speaker 1: if you stay young and you're smart about how you
2:54:01
Speaker 1: build your team, you end up outmaneuvering the big, well-funded,
2:54:09
Speaker 1: and sometimes semi-bloated franchises, which does feel like what the
2:54:13
Speaker 1: Brewers did there.
2:54:15
Speaker 2: All right.
2:54:16
Speaker 1: With that, I'm going to put a pin in it.
2:54:18
Speaker 1: I will see you in 24 hours on Super Tuesday
2:54:20
Speaker 1: with Chris Silliza. And do check out my interview on
2:54:24
Speaker 1: Newsphere with Jeff Flake, former Republican Senator from Arizona. Spend
2:54:28
Speaker 1: a little bit of time. We talk about the future
2:54:31
Speaker 1: of the conservative movement and of the Republican Party post-Trump.
2:54:35
Speaker 1: I'll see you then until we upload it.