Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - Hegseth’s Purges At The Pentagon Are A Five-Alarm Fire + Trump Is Making Governing Impossible For Republicans

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Chuck’s Commentary - Hegseth’s Purges At The Pentagon Are A Five-Alarm Fire + Trump Is Making Governing Impossible For Republicans · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: middle of the summer sometimes, so you know, figure it
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  Speaker 1: whether it's Chuck todcast, new sphere, dynastic, that just having
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  Speaker 1: one extra day just to essentially ingest is always helpful.
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  Speaker 1: In summer is a wonderful time to do that. LUs
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  Speaker 1: you know, a little confession. It gives me a little
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  Speaker 1: extra time with the fam. But look, it's not like
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  Speaker 1: things are going to be that slow this summer. One
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  Speaker 1: thing we've all learned in the Trump era, you never know,
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  Speaker 1: there's never really a slow news month, news week, or
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  Speaker 1: news day. It is all about not scheduling your life
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  Speaker 1: around the news, but essentially just scheduling this in a
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  Speaker 1: in an easier to digest format. So with that said,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I know why you're here. You're here to understand what
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: the hell is going on politically? Where are we going?
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  Speaker 1: We've had about forty eight hours to digest what is
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: a what I'm going to call a mild earthquake political earthquake.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I say mild political earthquake because it's not clear how
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  Speaker 1: big this is going to be Mom Donnie's success. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I've been sitting on this, obviously for twenty
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  Speaker 1: four hours, and I think a lot of political commentators,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: you know, have a bad habit. And I tried to
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  Speaker 1: say this last night, let's is this the beginning of
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  Speaker 1: a left wing tea party or is what happens in
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  Speaker 1: New York going to stay in New York? And look
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  Speaker 1: the extra twenty four hours, I have accumulated more evidence
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  Speaker 1: that says this stays in New York. And I've accumulated
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  Speaker 1: more evidence that indicates there's certainly going to be a
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: pretty a pretty big fight in the Democratic Party essentially
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  Speaker 1: for the soul of the party in twenty seven and
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  Speaker 1: twenty eight, between at least two factions and possibly three factions.
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  Speaker 1: And we'll get to that also a little bit. And
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  Speaker 1: I want to talk specifically first about the evidence that
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  Speaker 1: indicates this this is every chance of being a very
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  Speaker 1: New York City phenomenon and it may not go anywhere else.
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  Speaker 1: And why do I say that, Well, there's been some
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  Speaker 1: digging in, particularly the the the race with Esplot and
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Chevrolet Chevalier, who is quickly going to become I think,
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  Speaker 1: the the face of the mam Danni congressional movement, if
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: you will. What was interesting is Espaalot seemed to do
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: better in precincts that had more African American and Latino voters,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: and Chevalier did better in the precincts that had that
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: were less diverse, that had the younger, whier voters. So
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: it is a very frankly similar thing that we saw
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: that we've seen in previous primaries, where the progressive where
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: sort of the stereotype of who's the Democratic Party, The
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: more diverse parts of the electorate are more moderate or
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: more sort of sticking with the establishment wing of the party,
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  Speaker 1: and it is younger and whiter progressives that are powering
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  Speaker 1: this movement, particularly in New York City. One other thing
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: that's worth noting there's been some analysis that sort of
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: overlaid Mamdani versus Cuomo's performance on last night and essentially
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: the three congressional districts. I mean, Mamdani was very smart
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: about where he spent his political capital and where he didn't. Right,
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  Speaker 1: you know, he didn't endorse in every congressional race it
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  Speaker 1: was taking place in New York City, but the three
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  Speaker 1: he picked were parts of the parts of New York
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  Speaker 1: City he did best, So it was It's an important
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: point to note because it's not as if Mom Donnie
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  Speaker 1: has expanded his base or that the Democratic Socialists have
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  Speaker 1: expanded their influence in New York City. Uh, it's, you know,
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  Speaker 1: they've it's it's sort of they've concentrated on where they're already,
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  Speaker 1: where they already had the numbers and they already have
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  Speaker 1: the ability to win. So in that sense, he's being
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  Speaker 1: very shrewd obviously about what he's picking. He's not over
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: extending himself. He's not wish casting there there there, He's
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: he's being very strategic but where he's going. And so look, look,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: winning begets momentum and you can go from there. But
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: it is important to note there isn't. This is because
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: the question is are there more people that are suddenly
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  Speaker 1: open to socialism? And I don't think that's the case
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: at least that's I think a second day reading of
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  Speaker 1: this indicates that. But so I think that that's one
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  Speaker 1: big sort of piece of information that I've absorbed over
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: the last twenty four hours that at least puts me
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  Speaker 1: in the look this is going to be a faction
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  Speaker 1: of the party. The question is is it going to spread?
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  Speaker 1: Is it going to go beyond here? Now, when you
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: go back to circa twenty ten, twenty eleven, twenty twelve,
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  Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, sort of when the Tea Party movement was
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: getting more and more traction inside the Republican Party, there
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: were plenty of establishment Republicans who were saying, ah, this
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: is just a small faction of the party. Yes, there
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: are certain places that you're going to see that faction
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: overperform in Idaho and Wyoming and parts of Texas, but
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: this isn't going to spread more than that. Of course,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: that turned out to be. It turned out to me
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  Speaker 1: not true. And you know, the Maga coalition that began
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: with the Tea Party movement, it's still in some ways
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  Speaker 1: a minority faction even of the Republican Party, but it
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: is in charge of the Republican Party. And I think
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: that that's the open question here, But still I do
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: want to also make one more point that I kind
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: of made yesterday, but I want to reinforce it, and
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: that is sort of what got traction in twenty twenty five.
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  Speaker 1: In Mamdani's victory, it was clear it was his focus
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  Speaker 1: on affordability that truly was galvanizing. It did allow him
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: to build a very large coalition, and it is why
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: he won. As much as it continues to be he
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: wants to always be seen that he has focused on
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  Speaker 1: these issues. He certainly tries to lead with him. That
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  Speaker 1: was not the case with these congressional races. Okay, this
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: was not about affordability. These weren't campaigns that were run
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: on affordability, because affordability doesn't explain how the actions of
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: a small country halfway around the world became one of
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: the defining organizing principles for a political movement here at home,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't explain why Israel has become, for some
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: on the American left, a litmus test of belonging. And
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: that's where I want to get to here for a
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: few minutes, because that's something I've been personally wrestling with,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: something bigger than just one set of results. From a
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  Speaker 1: primary night. As you know you've been following this. This week,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: I had a terrific conversation with the mayor of Oklahoma City,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: David Hold on pluralism. I've been spending a lot of
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: time over the last few months talking about pluralism because frankly,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: I think I think essentially the Mega movement has no
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: idea what it means and doesn't care about it. And
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I'm increasingly believing that the progressive left does not accept
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  Speaker 1: the premise of pluralism either, which is going to just
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: have me talking more and more about it, right, because
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: isn't about agreement, It's the exact opposite. It's about accepting
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: that people with different histories, religions, identities, and worldviews all
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: belong in the same democracy. This is the fucking American experiment, people, Okay,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: this is what makes us different. It's this all right, America,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: and the American democracy hasn't lasted for two hundred and
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: fifty years because we agreed. America's worked because generation after
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: generation accepted the premise that we had to figure out
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: how to live with people that we profoundly disagreed with.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: It's been the genius of this experiment and It's also
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: why absolutism, whether it's on the left or the right,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: has made a lot of folks nervous, including myself, because
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: once every issue becomes a morality based litmus test, disagreements
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: stops being something to debate and it becomes something to punish.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: As you know, I don't spend I've I've never been
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: comfortable publicly saying, you know, here is my religious identity.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: But because I don't think you know, because it you know,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: for a long time in this in this world of
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: political analysis, I tried really hard to be as opaque
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: as possible about some of my personal politics, my identities,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: my the political identity identities of my parents and of
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: my spouse and all this stuff, because all of that
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: can color analysis, and I didn't want it to. I
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: wanted my analysis to speak for itself. I wanted as
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: as few filters as possible. Look, this is not the
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: world we live in, and there's no doubt there is.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: You know, every there are political hacks, left wing political hacks,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: and right wing hacks that have consistently wanted to politicize
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: members of the press, politicize those people like myself that
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: are in this space, and so they've they've you know,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: wanted to force this and you're like, okay, and I'm
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: happy to discuss it. Right. So I'm Jewish and I've
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: you know, not hidden from it. But it's not something
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I've intended to wear on my sleeve because I you know,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: as I've I've shared this with others. I was raised
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: a quiet Jew. I was in a mixed family, and
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: one side of my family was Jewish and another side
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: of my family was not. And there are many members
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: of my non Jewish side of the family they didn't
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: know a lot about Judaism or Jews, and my mother
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: might have been among the first Jews they had ever met.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: So there was always a little bit of eggshell walking,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: you know. And my I was basically raised to, hey,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: walk around eggshells on religion a little bit, be careful,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: don't you know. It's not something to be done in public.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: I joke all the time. I was raised with that
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: advice that parents gave a lot in the fifties, sixties
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: and seventies that said, hey, you know, the two things
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: you don't talk about in public are politics and religion.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: That shall we say. That's a very methodist way of thinking.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Sometimes on that front. My father was raised a Methodist,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: which his joke was, it just meant we agreed, we
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: believed in God when you want to talk about anything
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: else type of thing. But I'm saying this because I'm
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: not going to sit here in bretend I experienced Tuesday
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: simply watching through the through the lens of a political analyst.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: It was hard not to experience it personally. And over
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: the last twenty four hours, I've heard from enough family
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: and friends who are Jewish to know that I'm not
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: alone and feeling just unsettled. And it's not because anti
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Semitism suddenly appeared on Tuesday. Please, I know it's existed
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: for a long time. But it's that many Jews woke
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: up asking themselves a different question, particularly many Jews in
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: New York City, how much larger is this? And is
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: this much larger than I thought? And that's a different feeling.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: It's the feeling that many Americans have had at different
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: moments over the last decade, in particular, the moment when
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: you realize an idea you considered to be on the
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: fringe may have more political support than you believe, and
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: you start to like, you know, it's like you move
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: your eyes, you shift your right, start looking around, you
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: start wondering, you look at people differently. I know there's
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: some you know. I know, Gay Americans have had moments
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: like this over the last decade. Latino Americans have had
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: moments like this. African Americans. You know, I'm not going
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: to sit here and pretend the Jews are the only
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: marginalized group. Trust me. In some ways, I feel like
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: we're the only the Jews are the only marginalized group
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: that is not fully embraced, sometimes on the victim side
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: of things. But whether you're right or wrong about the magnitude,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: the feeling itself does change how you see your country.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: And that's why I don't think Democrats should dismiss what
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: happened in New York as just another primary that just
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: took place in one city. You know, Republicans spent fifteen
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: years watching a faction become the center of gravity inside
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: their party, and at first each election looked like an
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: isolated event, and eventually it became clear that it wasn't.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that's what's happening to the Democrats
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: just yet. I think there's a few things and Matt
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Bennett and I get into it sort of. There's a
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: few ways this could be different for the Democrats than
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: it was for the Republicans as they dealt with Trump
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: and Mega. I'm just simply saying it's a question Democrats
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: have to ask themselves. Is this one city's moment or
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: is this the beginning of a broader ideological realignment, because
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: that the future of either political party depends less on
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: persuading people and accepting the premise of pluralism that you're
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: just looking to build a coalition of people that you
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: agree with sixty percent of the time, right, then on
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: deciding who no longer gets to belong in your party.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Then we're moving away from pluralism. We're moving away from
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: something that exists everywhere else on this earth, but not
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: here in America. And once pluralism starts to disappear in
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: this country, democracy will be incredibly hard to sustain here.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: And that's you know, there is a sense that the
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: DSA right, they want to take over the Democratic Party
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: and they're going to decide who gets to belong and
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: if you disagree on the issue of Israel, you don't belong. Right,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: It's like Donald Trump, you if you cannot look at
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: what he did to Derek Dooley. Right. If you don't
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: accept his reality about twenty twenty versus the actual reality
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: about twenty twenty, you don't belong in that movement. You
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: get purged from that movement. And if you really look
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: carefully with him, right, that's who he reserves his harshest
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: treatment for are the people that will not humor him
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: on the big lie of twenty twenty. And that's what's
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: dangerous here is that you have two factions now who
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: are are not only interested in taking over parties right
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: mega on the Republican side, the DSA essentially wants to
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: infiltrate the Democratic Party and take it over. But they're
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: you know, the two political parties you know, used to
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: be looking for more people to join. And in this case,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: you've got two factions that are on the march, that
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: are filled with litmus tests and purity tests, and anybody
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• 20:59
  Speaker 1: eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven. You
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: can also visit CCPG dot org slash chat. In Connecticut,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: you can visit the MD gamblinghelp dot org. In Maryland
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: for help, you can visit gambling Heelplinema dot org. You
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: can call eight hundred three two seven five zero five zero.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: In Massachusetts, you can call one eight seven seven eight
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  Speaker 1: Hope and Why, or you can simply text hope and
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  Speaker 1: Why New York in order to get some help with
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: any gambling concerns. Finally, you can also call one eight
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: seven seven seven seven zero seven eight six seven if
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: you're in Louisiana. This is I think especially problematic for
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: the Democrats, but it's potentially problematic for the Republicans, And
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: you could argue over the last one hundred years both
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: parties have traded places of when you know, one parties
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: had the bigger base in the had fewer swing voters,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: and the other party has had the small smaller base,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: And this goes back and forth. Right Republicans didn't have
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: a big enough base to sustain majorities in Congress, so
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: they were the party that tried to attack towards the
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: center over the last twenty five is basically since since
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: the debacle of seventy two, the McGovern revolution inside the party,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: where they went through this essentially a near twenty year
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: drought of political power. Yes, they had some legislative power,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: but that was it starting. So then you had the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Democrats start to attack to the center. And I do
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: think at the moment what many I think in the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: progressive left don't appreciate is that the success the Democrats
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: have had is because they've they've been able to appeal
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: to those voters sort of in the mushy middle that
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: don't like the Trump led Republican Party, and now the
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: DSSA is potentially going to essentially create a similar discomfort
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: for that same set of voters about the Democratic Party,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: and then there's a sense of this either party even
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: wants the support of these mushy voters in the middle
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: now they need it in order to attain power. But
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: how much do they want this support? How much does
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: that compromise worth? So, look, I think that's the question
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: you got to sit with here. Do we now have
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: two political parties who are moving away from pluralism, moving
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: away from the core premise of what the American experiment
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: was supposed to be? And I know I sound like
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: you know, old guy political sciencey, you know, historian type,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: trying to you. It's like, you know, it's it's it's
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: frustrating to watch something you know that isn't going to work.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: And then when it's when it ends, it's going to end,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: it's going to be as spectacular And I don't say
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: that as a positive word disaster. And the question is
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: what pieces are going to be left to pick up?
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: How many people have to get hurt in the process
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: before you know, basically the two parties sober up. And
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm not sure of that, But I want to
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: touch on a couple other things on this one is
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: I think the real test of whether the progressive left
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: does have you know, is on the march, does have
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: the momentum here is going to the next big test
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: is Michigan. And I'll do alsa yet right if he
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: wins that primary and not just wins the primary, but
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: wins the general election. I think you know those that
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: are I sort of did it myself right a little
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: bit last night. But I think when you look at
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: what the Democratic presidential primary, you know where the sort
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: of energy of the presidential primary would be. The left
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: is going to feel very emboldened and you will see
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of presidential candidates tack further to the left.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: If Platner and abdel Sayet are part, are both win
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: and it leads to a Democratic majority, Because if that happens,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: it erases the best talking point the establishment has over
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: the progressives, which is, hey, you can't win in swing
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: states and you're gonna have a hard time knocking off incumbents. Now,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the progressive movement also has a lot on the line
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: with Graham Platner and Abduel Sayet. If Democrats come up
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: short and don't win the Senate like the Tea Party
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: did to the Republicans in twenty ten, and in twenty
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: twelve two times where they had the numbers were on
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the Republican side to be able to pick up the Senate,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: and they came up short. It was Tea Party nominees
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: that were simply too extreme for those voters, and it
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: cost them some Senate seats that it never should have
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: cost the Republicans. That's the risk that the progressives have
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: here with Abduallsiat and Graham Platina, Right, if they both lose, well,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: then that becomes sort of a different way things are absorbed.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: So I put all that out there to just remind
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: folks we've got a lot, We've got a lot of
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: elections we haven't held yet in this midterm that will,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: I think paint the fuller picture. And as Matt Bennett
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: may point he made to me, he said, hey, early
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, there was the same AOC defeats Joe Crawley. Hey, look,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: this is a rise at the left. By the time
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: you get to November, the story is about, Hey, look
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: at all these center left candidates that won in red districts. Right,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: you're Abigail Spenberger Slotkins, you're Mikey Sheryl's. So that is
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: probably the best advice here if you're if you're trying
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: to figure out what does Tuesday mean? In short, Mam
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Donnie is smart and is an incredibly impressive leader of
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Socialist movement. He's careful about he knows how
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: to pick his spots. Uh. He went all in in
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: in three congressional races where he knew his political capital
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: was already uh worth the most. He didn't test his
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: political capital. For instance, in the Upper West slash East
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Side seat there that last Yer one, the one that
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: became all all about AI, the race that that that
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: was that many Washington d c. Folks wanted to make
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: about George Conway and Jack Slashburg. The voters themselves, of course,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: weren't that interested in that. It says a lot that
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Mam Donnie chose not to get involved in that one
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: and didn't try to recruit and find a candidate there,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: So you know it is I will say this, I
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: think that I've been I was extremely disappointed in how
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: he reacted to what happened to Dan Goldman and at
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: the coffee shop, and I do think how he handles
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: this growing anti Semitic rhetoric that is happening with some
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: of his supporters. Right, this is the uncomfortable question that
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: I remember Andrew Gillen once asked Ron de Santis. But
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I think the same question can be asked to both parties.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying you're a racist, was the famous Andrew
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Gillim debate quote to rand de Santis. I'm just saying
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: racists think you're a racist. That you know. And I
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: don't think every Democratic Socialist is an anti semi, but
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: they seem to be comfort if there are anti Semites
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: in their mist just like the MEGA movement seems to
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: be not interested in purging itself of racist elements inside
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: the movement. And that's where this is where I get
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: back to pluralism. The Republican Party chose not to fight Mega,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: they tried to co opt it, and instead Mega co
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: opted it. The Democratic Party's instinct is not going to
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: be to fight the Socialists. It is going to be
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: to try to bring them in and co opt them.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: You sort of heard Corey book. All I would say
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: is good luck that didn't work out well there. It
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: doesn't usually because I will I think that the DSA
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: is more organized, at least in New York they are,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: and I think you'll see in the same way. You know,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: MAGA was powered by the Ron Paul movement from twenty
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: twelve because Ron Paul was sort of the DSA of
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: the right, meaning Ron Paul was the organize one. Ron
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Paul's forces are the ones that took over the state party,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: and they basically got absorbed by the MAGA movement and
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: they quickly left the Pauls and went to Trump. I've
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: had this conversation with Ran Paul and he, I mean,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: he saw it himself. He had a big chunk of support.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Trump comes in. Literally first one to lose all of
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: his support in that Republican primary in twenty fifteen was
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Rand Paul. And the thing about that is the establishment didn't.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I remember Ben Ginsberg telling me this back in twenty
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: twelve how alarmed he was after Romney had basically already
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: won the nomination, they had to make sure they elected
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Romney delegates and all of these different state parties, and
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: he was telling me these stories about these Paul folks
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: were basically had out organized the establishment wings of these
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: state Republican parties and had basically orchestrated where they ran
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: as Romney delegates and the Romney folks were trying to
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: prevent them from being delegates, but basically they were trying
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: to embed themselves into the inner workings of the Republican parties,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: onto the state central committees and things like this. And
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: so by the time Trump comes along in fifteen and sixteen,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: he already he already has an infrastructure within the establishment
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: in sort of the the grassroots mechanics of the Republican Party. Well,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: that's what Bernie's been doing. And in some ways between
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: the DSA, which had its own organization on the outside,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: and what Bernie had been doing, he's got the sort
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: of grassroots mechanics on the left. So and if you
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: have a movement that really doesn't embrace pluralism, you can
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: see how quickly this becomes a purification test what we've
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: seen on the right, you either get co opted or
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: acquiesce where you become Liz Cheney and John You sort
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: of end up where Liz Cheney, John Kasik, Bob Gorker
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: are Jeff Flake. And perhaps that turns into a fledgling
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: third party and independent movement. We'll see, and we're going
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: to get to that in a few minutes. But I
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: think that's right now right, this is we're in the
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: middle of the chapter on twenty twenty six, and at
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: the moment it looks like the lefts on the march.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Let's finish the chapter. Let's see what happens in Michigan.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Let's see what happens in November in both Michigan in Maine,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: and then we can finish this story. Quick little note
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: on Donald Trump and his meeting with Senate Republicans. Talk
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: about a wasted political opportunity for Donald trum up in
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party. Here's a party that has just had
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: an near impossible time. Even though they have to the
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: majorities in both the House and the Senate, they don't
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: seem to get anything done beyond their tax cuts. Right.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: That was sort of the hallmark of the first term,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: and it was looking like the hallmark of this one.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: And lo and behold, there's this bipartisan housing bill. And
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: you know, it is a bill that frankly, probably should
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: have been a past five years ago, ten years ago,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: but it finally is. It's sort of like that infrastructure
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: bill that Biden finally got passed. You know, it was
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: a bill that should have been passed ten years earlier,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: but we know, Trump just completely failed at sort of
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: politicking there in that first term, and that's why we
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: didn't get it. So here we are, and the opportunity
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump and the Republican Party had on Wednesday morning
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: to be able to show them caring about affordability signing
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: this housing bill, Republicans were getting ready to take credit.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: He could have done a little bit of of dancing
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: on the socialist you know victory, you know, dancing on
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: the Democrats grave by promoting the socialist victories in New York.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: And I think a lot of Republicans at Capitol Hill
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: woke up on Wednesday morning thinking, hey, this is going
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: to be a good day for them politically. And what
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: does Trump do. He shows up to their lunch and
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: he turns it into a Festivus meeting. I got a
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: lot of problems with you people, and he does the
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: airing of grievances. I mean, I had to check the calendar.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: It's June twenty fourth, It's not December twenty third that
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: he chose to air his grievances. So I guess we
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: will we will call June twenty fourth Trump Festivus Day,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: because he decided to go into that meeting and just
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: talk about all of his problems. And then Bill Cassidy
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: admitted he got his own Irish up and the two
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: of them apparently had a screaming match about the Iran
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: MoU But apparently this lunch did nothing right. There was
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: no meaningful back and forth according to Thune about the
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Philip Buster, the save of it. It was just Trump ranting,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: and he decided not to do the signing ceremony in
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: the housing bill, saying until he gets the Save America Act.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: The irony to this housing bill is it's got a
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: veto proof majorities, meaning if he vetos it it could
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: get overridden, or if he doesn't do anything, it will
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: just become law in ten days. And maybe that's what
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: he's going to do. But what a just dumb political
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: move for his own party, right, And this tells you
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: it sort of almost reinforces this point that I'm trying
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: to make here is the leading movement inside the Republican
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Party is not interested in pluralism and is not interested
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: in setting up the Republican Party for success if it
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: is not a Trump success, and this is not what
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Trump wants. He thinks that's all a failure. He is
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: not a party leader. He is just out for himself politically,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: we know, financially, I mean, you know, I don't know.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you need me to tell you
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump's out for himself. I think he makes
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: it pretty obvious, and sometimes he says it out loud.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: But if you're a Republican who cares about the Republican
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Party having a future beyond Donald Trump, just like he
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: did in his twenty twenty temper tantrum that essentially handed
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: control of the United States Senate to the Democrats because
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: of those Georgia runoffs where he does a rally for them,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: he essentially says, I don't care if they lose. He's
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: not doing the same thing right now. I mean, he
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: is trying. He essentially did it. Look, it's one day
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: and Donald Trump's stepping on his own. You know what
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: on a given day politically is It's not news, it's
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: just a Wednesday. But my word, just a total debacle
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: for congressional Republicans. And it's like, you know, I don't
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: if the Democrats only get narrow, you know, narrow majorities here,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: that's it's they may end up having the same governing
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: challenges and problems that the Republicans had. But my word,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: does Trump make it almost possible for the congressional Republican
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: majorities to do anything that is at all remotely what
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: the public wants, or is at all politically in tune
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: with where the public is. It just isn't there. So
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: it is. If you're if you're the Democrats today, you're
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: kind of released in Washington, you're kind of relieved that,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: you know, Trump essentially said no, no, no, no, look at me,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: look at me. I'm gonna I'm going to prove, you know,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: instead of letting the Democrats look like they're dysfunctional and
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: can't and is the gang that can't get along, can't
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: shoot straight and all this stuff, Donald Trump wants to
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: basically say, hold my non alcoholic beer, let me show
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: you how it's really done. And that's what he pulled off.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: I have to tell you, I you know, John Cornyn
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: said it last week. It's going to be a miserable
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: couple of years for Donald Trump. And he only has
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: him self deployed. He has created all that. He went
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: in there to air his grievances at people that weren't
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: loyal to him, because again, he does not see the
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: party as a collection of people who may agree sixty
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: to seventy percent of the time but don't agree on
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: some stuff. But you know, for decades they accepted the premise.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump doesn't accept the premise. Donald Trump does not
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: believe in the American experiment. Donald Trump does not believe
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: in pluralism. And of course my fear is, I don't
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: know if the progressive left believes in any of that either.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todcast is brought to you
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  Speaker 1: story before we get to my interview with Matt Bennett,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: and wherever you fall in this fight inside the Democratic Party,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: all right, left center, mainstream liberal, wherever you fit, I
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: do think you're going to be intrigued by the conversation.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: I want to highlight one other important story that happened
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: this week, and it's about what's happening inside the Pentagon
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: and what's happening to our military and what Pete Haigseth
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: is attempting to do to the military and the overt
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: politicization of the military. I think it's one of the
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: harder stories that we in the press have to convey.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Without giving away any of my sources, I can tell
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: you there's quite a few soldiers that would be loving
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: to speak out, but it is just, you know, these
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: are people who are trained in not going outside the
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: chain of command by following protocol, and that many of
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: these soldiers don't want to behave like Donald Trump, Repete
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: hag Seth and do something and sort of gain them
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: an excuse to essentially shame them for trying to speak out,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: and so they've had a hard time and they've you know,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: I've I've talked to quite a few members of the
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: military who have given me a lot of troubling and
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: foe off the record, but it's been hard to verify.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: And it's also been it's you know, it's tough to
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: ask them to go public, and that's a you know,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: that's a that's a that's what hag Seth is taking
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: advantage of here. He's taking advantage of the fact that
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: these soldiers are loyal to the military, and he's almost
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: using it against them. But I like to I'm obsessed
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: with these folks he's purging because I'm convinced that one
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: of these generals that he is forced into retirement or fired,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: however you want to characterize it, might be our next
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: president of the United States. I think we are in a
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: moment like that, right. I think we are in a
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: moment where there's going to be a desire. But I
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: think the most effective anti you know, the most effective
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: person to sell pluralism and the American democracy could very
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: well be a retired three or four star. So let
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: me tell you this latest story, because the person that
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: he forced out here is quite the backstory. There's a
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: photograph from just before midnight August thirtieth, twenty twenty one,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: the night that Americans were withdrawing from Afghanistan. Not a
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: great night. And this photograph is a bit grainy, it's green,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: it's shot through a night vision lens, and it's a
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: soldier in full uniform walking up the ramp of the
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: last Sea seventeen on the tarmac at Cobble Airport. He
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: is literally the last American boot to leave Afghanistan twenty
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: years of war. And he was the man who essentially
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: turned out the lights eleven to fifty nine pm, one
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: minute before the deadline that Donald Trump agreed to that
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden executed. The soldier is Chris Darnihue c D.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: To the people who served under him, And if you
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: wanted it, if you wanted to design in a lab,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: the kind of officer Pete Hegseth says he wants. Donahue
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: is the prototype west Point, Pennsylvania kid career Army Ranger
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Delta Force. He led Delta Commandos commandos against Isis, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: two decades of some of the hardest counter terrorism fighting
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: that the military asked our soldiers to do. He commanded
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: the eighty second Airborne and most recently, he was in
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: charge of US Army forces in Europe and Africa. At
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: the exact moment that that job mattered, turning the lessons
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: of Ukraine into how the Army plans to fight the
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: next war. He was seen as a rising star. People
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: inside the building had penciled him as a future Chairman
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: of the Joint Chiefs, certainly a future Army Chief of Staff. Well,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Donahue was back in the news because he submitted his
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: retirement papers basically at gunpoint at the Pentagon's request. Yeah,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: I'm being dramatic here. Nobody actually put a gun to
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: his head, but he was forced into retirement. He's going
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: to relinquish a four star command ceremony in Germany, his
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: tour cut short in the middle of his assignment, and
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: his old job is being downgraded four stars, knocked down
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: to three. The warrior, the warrior ethos guy should have
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: wanted to keep. He decides to push out. And here's
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: the thing, Donahue's not the story. Dona Hugh is the
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: latest story. So I'm going to be fair here for
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: a minute before I get extra critical of Hegseth, who
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: I think is just right. The single biggest black eye
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: on Tom Tillis's Senate record is going to be this
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: into his credit. I think he knows it. Every Defense
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: Secretary reshuffles brass. Okay, that's not new, that's part of
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: the job. A new administration is entitled to having their
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: own commanders. Presidents fire generals. Truman fired MacArthur, Obama fired
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Stanley McCrystal. Firing an officer for causes not a scandal.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: It's a Tuesday, and the General Officer Corps is a
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: bit bloated. You can make an honest case for thinning it,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: which hagg Seth has been making less generals more gis.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: It's not insane, and if this were a normal trimming,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be doing this segment. But this isn't. And
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: this is how you can tell and the way to
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: understand this. This purge that hagg Seth is conducting of
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: the Pentagon isn't chronologically. It's by category. Because these officers
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: weren't removed for one reason. They were removed for a
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: multiple reasons. And it's the third reason is the one
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: that it should worry you the most. So reason one
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: that some of these officers were removed was for simply
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: for who they are. Right. The first big night was
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: February twenty first, twenty twenty five. Folks at the Pentagon
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: call it the Friday Night massacre. In a single evening,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: the Chairman of the Joint then Chairman of the Joint
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Chiefs C. Q. Brown, first African American Chairman of the
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Joint Chiefs, fired, pushed out, replaced by a retired three
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: star named Dan Kine, who had to be rushed back
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: to four stars to take the job. Same night he
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: had Admiral Lisa Franchetti, Chief of Naval Operations, first woman
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: ever to run the Navy, pushed out, gone, same night
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: General Jim Slife, the Air Force Vice chief gone. Then
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Admiral Linda Fagan coming down to the Coast Guard, first
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: woman to lead any branch of the US military, relieved
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: right after the inauguration. The reason all given was leadership deficiencies. Well,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: obviously there's kind of a pattern here, and who keeps
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: getting picked off? The Senate noticed there's a pattern. Jack Reid,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: who is not a partisan guy. Jack reads a Democrat.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, but he's not a partisan ahole. Okay.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: He pointed out that nearly sixty percent of the senior
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: officers haig Seth has fired are either women or black
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: in a corps where women and minorities are about twenty
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: percent of all the generals and admirals, that it's clear
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: none of those people were fired for costs. They were
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: fired simply because of who they were. Reason two, he's
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: been firing people for either what they knew or what
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: they'd take. General Timothy haw he ran the National Security
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Agency and Cyber Command. Lieutenant General Jeffrey Cruz the head
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He also was pushed out
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: after his agency's early assessment of the Iran nuclear strikes
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: leaked out and became politically inconvenient. He's the one that
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: said and hadn't been totally destroyed. Vice Admirals Shoshanna Chatfield,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: the US rep to NATO's Military Committee, removed for quote
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: loss of confidence. Again both of them serving and perhaps
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: just not sharing a set of beliefs that haig Seth has.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: And then, of course there's the third reason for how
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: he purses people out, and it's and this is the
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: one that should really alarm you. It's for when officers
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: push back on an order. On the same February night
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: that c Q. Brown and Franchetti, haig Seth also fired
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: the top uniformed lawyers of the Army and the Air Force,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: the people that give the council to the generals about
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: whether orders are illegal or not. The judge advocates general
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: right the jag Corps. Their entire job is to interpret
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: whether an order is legal. Now, haig Seth did an
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: allege misconduct. He just said on the record that he
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: didn't want lawyers to become roadblock that pesky constitution. We
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: don't want that to get in the way. A roadblock.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: Think about that. A roadblock is a thing in the
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: way of where you were already going. And then there's
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: the cleanest case of all, and it's the one I'd
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: build the whole segment around if I had to pick one.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: Dadmirll Alvin Holsey, and I've I've talked about him before.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: He was the head of the US Southern Command, Southcombe
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: and that's the command that's been running the boat strikes
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: in the Caribbean. Well Holsey raised concerns about whether these
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: strikes were legal. He went to his JAG officer to
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: ask there were some questions strikes that many war of
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: law experts say may amount to war crimes. Well, haig Seth,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: according to reporting, thought he wasn't being aggressive enough. The
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: relationship came apart in a Pentagon meeting late last year.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Two months later, Holsey retired two plus years early combatant
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: commanders normally serve three years. He got one. Holsey didn't fail.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Holsey objected, and that was his firing offense. He questioned
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: an order that his own lawyer JAG officer wasn't sure
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: could pass legal muster. And that's the biggest category that
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: scare you here, not the culture war firings, the conscious firings.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: A military where the price of saying I'm not sure
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: that's legal is your career. Is a military that will
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: eventually stop worrying about whether something is legal and will
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: simply follow orders whatever order is given. And then, of
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: course you've had a wartime wave of officers relieved of
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: duty this past spring. Country's at warworth Iran. And what
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: does haig Seth do? He fires the Army stop officer
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: General Randy George. George apparently had balked at an order
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: to strike four officers, two black men, and two women
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: off of a promotion list. Same day, he took out
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: General David Hodney, running the Army's Modernization Command, and the
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Army's Chief of Chaplain's Major General William Green. Hexas has
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: some weird religious beliefs, and he's trying to force those
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: beliefs on an entire military. George's deputy General James Mingus
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: had already taken a sudden retirement. It sounds like I'm
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: describing the Kremlin, doesn't it. One official's reaction to firing
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: a four star during a shooting war was one word
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: insane and to keep the tally running. While I say
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: all this because the number is the argument by the
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: guardians count to roughly two dozen generals and senior commanders
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: that have been fired or forced out since January of
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. A retired four star, the kind of
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: person who'd normally never say a word, put it like this,
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: This isn't a war on woke, It's a war on warriors.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: So I've been digging in to see have we ever
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: had a comparable moment like this? As the Secretary of
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Defense ever rearranged the top of the US military dramatically, Well,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: hag saith, they answered in himself. Under Oath, right in April,
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: in front of the House Armed Services Committee, he got
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: pressed on exactly this question, and he had a comeback ready.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: He said, under Barack Obama, one hundred ninety seven general
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: officers were removed. So this is nothing new. One hundred
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: ninety seven specific number. It sounds authoritative, right, It's fake.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: It's been traced. The number comes from a twenty eighteen
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: newspaper editorial which got it from a Facebook page. There's
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: no real list. He made the case for precedent by
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: inventing a precedent. By the way, the Pentagon would have
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: had the facts if he chose to actually use Pentagon resources. Instead,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: he did some Google search looking for some bullshit crap
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: ass editorial who didn't do any fact checking, which tells
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: you something, because if there were a real example the
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: Secretary of Defense under Oath, with that huge research staff Pentagon,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: they would have used it. They didn't have it. So
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: in my own research here, the closest thing history offers
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: is nineteen forty nine, The Revolt of the Admirals, Truman's
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: Defense secretary cancels the Navy new supercarrier to fund the
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: Air Force's bombers. The admirals go to war publicly in
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: front of Congress, and the chief of Naval Operations, an
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: Admiral Lewis Denfield, got up and testified against his own
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: civilian bosses. For that, Denfield was removed as the chief
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Naval officer. The re applisal was plain and simple. Congress
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: said so in writing, called it a challenge to representative government.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: And that's the great precedent. That's the one the history
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: books we'd reach for and look at how small it
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: is next to what Haig Seth has done. What Haig
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: Seth has done spans every single service it is. It
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: has no single issue, its identity, in some cases intelligence,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: in some cases lawyers who might stand in his way
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: of illegal orders, and commanders who might have raised their
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: hand because they actually care about the Constitution. Two dozen.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: It's been done quietly on Friday nights by social media
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: post no explanation offered, no hearing held. That's why they
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: got rid of a of a press corps at the Pentagon, right.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: They don't want any reporters nosing around on this. They
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: don't want staff at the Pentagon talking to the press.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: So instead, right, they've they've got their sort of propaganda
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: propagandas that they've that they call their press corps. This
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: is this is. This should be as big of a
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: scandal as any that has happened in this administration. This
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: should be extraordinarily alarming. And I'm really interested in meeting C. D. Donahue.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: I think one of these twenty four people, I don't
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: know who. I don't know which one it is, one, two, three,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: But I think I know all I know when you
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: have spent multiple decades and you've worked your way up
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: for these promotions, you love this country, and you love
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: public service, and you certainly believe in the Constitution. If
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: I were looking for the next leaders of America, I'd
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: be looking at the folks that whoever Pete Hegseth has
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: decided shouldn't be in his Pentagon is who I'd be
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: interested in seeing elected the public office in my country.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: All right. I just I really get frustrated with what
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: we're seeing at the Pentagon because I think this is
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: a this is a five alarm fire, and this is
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: a case where the systematic purging of the press, systematic
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: purging of the officer Corps. Everything that has been done
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: inside the Pentagon could leave us. Imagine two terms of this,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: and the military could get turned into some sort of
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: political force that should scare the Jesus out of every
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: single American. Our military is the best, it's the least
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: political of any major military in the world. And what
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth is doing is right out of the authoritarian playbook,
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: trying to purge the military of anybody that puts the
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: country ahead of politics and replacing those folks with the
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: most partisan or the most pliant people that he can find.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: This dish between what's happening at the Pentagon and what's
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: happening at the Justice Department are the two biggest things
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: that have that are that that Trump is damaged that
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: will not get fixed in one term, and the after
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: action report in both places is going to be necessary
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: if we're going to get them both back on track.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Ass Chuck Matt from Florida writes, Hey, I really enjoyed
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: your recent episode on the baby fee Boomer generation. My dad,
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: a boomer, watches Fox News every night and often acknowledges
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: Trump's flaws but still see them as less significant than
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: those of the Democrats. How much do you think outlets
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: like Fox News have shaped political attitudes among boomers versus
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: broader generational or cultural factors. Thanks Matt and Florida. Well, look,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: I think that honestly. You know, I've got family members who,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of over index on MS and I've
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: got family members that over index on Fox. And I
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: can tell that they both over index, you know, over
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: indexing on political content is what I would argue in
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: them and and what it is, it's it's you know,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: this gets it to this, the larger point I was
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: making about how OJ created the conditions for Donald Trump,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: and I think, let we will say for Zoon, Mom,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: Donnie and Donald Trump in that it you know it,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: it's sort of made the algorithm. You know, the algorithms
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: of today were sort of created by cable news in
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: the nineties in the serialization of the news business. Way
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: do you come back tomorrow? We're going to see what
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: happens tomorrow on the Lewinsky scandal, What happened tomorrow on
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: the Florida vote, Watch what happens tomorrow on the war
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: in Iraq? Right when as we took this sort of
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: taking what was the daytime soap opera mindset and layering
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: it over the information consumption world. I guess you know,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: it's like, first it was just what keeps you interested,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: you know, and then you know, what the Internet was
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: able to do was refine it even further than cable
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: news did. Right. It took what cable news was doing
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: and refined it further. So then you got sort of
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: political agreement, but you also got other cultural agreement. You
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: had these different sort of silos, right, some of the
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: silos overlap. But we see this and so look, I
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: think both MS and Fox and CNN, frankly, I think
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: it is certainly they both have this habit of but
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: let me tell you how bad the other side is.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: You know, there's always an acknowledgement that the that that
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: the side that they may have more sympathy for is flawed. Right,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: Fox is regularly you know, Brett Behar will be real
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: defensive about this, and he's not wrong. Brett Behar will
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, do the to be sure paragraph.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: But then it'll also you know, spend five minutes on
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: the Save America Act claiming it's just a voter ID
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: bill when it's not a voter ide bill. Right, it's
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: something much more dramatic, drastic than that. It's essentially make
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: make it nearly impossible for married women to vote bill,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: you know, with with sort of it's not a voter ID,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: it's a it goes to another level that that frankly
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: is intentionally disruptive to the voting system. And and it's
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: sort of the point being is that it's it's not
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: it's not a nobody's the rights not selling this honestly,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: and and you know Fox isn't going to portray that honestly.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: But then they'll acknowledge, yes, there is some support, for instance,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: for regular actual voter ID. Right, if this were, for instance,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: voter idea, it would it would pass. But it's not
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: a voter ide though, you know, even though it's being
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: portrayed as that, it is not that. And so but
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: that's how you know this is. And then you'll have
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: an MS. They'll you know, acknowledge the flaws you know,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: maybe of a Biden or something like this, but then say,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: but look at how awful and outrageousness is on the
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: other side, which is why you get the conversation that
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: you get with your father, And it's a conversation I
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: get with whether it's I'm talking with my MS relatives
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: or my Fox relatives, which they will, and some of
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: this I always feel like, and you, I would ask
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: you to ask yourself this question. Maybe your father understands
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: where your politics is and certainly doesn't want who alienate you,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: and so is a bit more common, and you're being
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: a bit more ac comminating of him, and vice versa.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: I think you know, some of my loved ones, you
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: know no where, know where I come down on this
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: because they see it all the time. And I certainly
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: don't want to be alienated from any wing of my family.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: I love my left wing relatives and my right wing relatives.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: And so the good news is we've all figured out
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: how to talk about the things that we have in
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: common about what we don't like about politics, like yeah,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: this is you know, and and you know what I'll
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: get from a Fox relative watching relative will say, look,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: I'm no fan of Trump's behavior. I think that guy's
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: got terrible character, but my god, look at what they're
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: doing over here. And then I'll hear, you know, on
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: the mside, I know the Democrats aren't very good at this,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: but my god, you've got to stand up to this
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: crazy man in the oval office. And so I just
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: think it's the way it's the way the incentive structure
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: works in media that has created this formula for broadcasting
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: because it's all about just keeping your core viewer coming back. Right,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: If this were a political campaign, it's like all they're
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: doing is tending to the base voter. And if they
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: can get the base voter to come back, then there's
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: always money in the banana stan, right, there's enough money
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: to be made. And I do fear that what cable
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: news figured out, what OJ taught cable news in the
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: nineties got sort of perfected by the Internet algorithms of
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: the early oughts and then social media, and then this
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: is how we've got this broken information ecosystem where where
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: even though there really is individually and we see it
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: all the time, we have a lot of agreement that, yeah,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: characters should be you know, emphasized again in politics, and
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: you know, we have these agreements, but we don't really
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: have a shared information eco where we can acknowledge you know,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, trust me. I'd like to and you know
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: some of you may disagree with this. I'd like to
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: think I did my best to try to like point
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: out the flaws left and right, and I got simultaneously
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: accused of both ciderisms and for being either a closet
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: liberal or a closet conservative and because that. But now
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: that was an intentional attack, because what what the wings
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: don't with these professional sort of activist media people. They
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: don't want to screw up their audience, right, and so
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: anybody that is telling them, hey, those businesses are misleading
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: you the voter, well, you know, people like me and
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: anybody else that's sort of in this sort of rational
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: I don't like even calling it the middle. It's just
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: sort of the rational. But where most of us live,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: we're a threat to that business model a little bit.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: And certainly, you know it is it is not you know,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: this style of political content is not something the algorithms
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: have been programmed to celebrate. And I think that that's
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: sort of a bit chicken and egg here that I
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: did there. And I know I went off a bit
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: on a tangent there, but I think some of this is,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: you know, we want to simply say, oh, this is Murdoch,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: or this is MS, or you know, this is the comcat.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: This is a business model that was learned from oj
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: that was not done through a political lens. It is
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: ended up doing serious damage to our politics, but it
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: didn't begin intentionally as a way to polarize us politically.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: But it has all right, Ben right spend from Colorado's
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: fourth district. Thank you for giving me your fourth district
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: tells me generally where you are, which I believe means Greeley, Colorado.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken. Appreciate all the work you put
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: into the podcast. I'm curious, do you think there's a
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: future where large pack spending could burn itself out due
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: to voter backlash? Could outside spending from big groups actually
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: becoming negative for candidates, reducing the incentive to invest. So
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: heavily appreciate the show. Thanks Ben Boy. I was very
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: curious if that would happen on Tuesday, And in fact,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: I have a friend in New York who told me
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: that the more the AI folks were doing attack ads
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: on Boris, the ores the candidate that came in second
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: in the in the Upper west Side Upper east Side
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: Congressional District, the west Side, I guess we call it
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: now just the west Side, the Upper Upper Manhattan Congressional District.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: That's both Upper West and Upper East, the old Jerry
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: Nadler district. She told me that's what drove her into
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: voting for the guy that was being attacked, which I
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: thought was was interesting. I do think there's a point
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: where you're too associated, and this is where you know,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: we're not there yet. As I've said multiple times, it's
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: hard to find a campaign where the issue of money
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: was what was used to defeat somebody. But there's now
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: a growing mountain of evidence this cycle that candidates with
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: the most financial backing aren't automatic. Right. It's making some
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: voters ask more questions. Whether it's Tom Steyer trying to
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: buy a place and he couldn't buy a place in
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: that fractured gubernatorial feel no matter how much money he
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: threw at it. And it almost was like the more
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: money he threw at it, there was a point where
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: it became actually a non you know, that became more
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: of a non starter for people. I think locally in DC,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: we had a congressional race with the founder of Total Beverage,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: David Tron and he just threw an enormous amount of
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: money at trying to win his old Congression seatback and
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: he gets rejected. So I think that there is a growing,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: at least in primaries, a voter skepticism. I think it's
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: more likely to show up in a primary than it
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: is a general. Right general, you have more casual voters
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: who are not paying attention to who's funding one primary voters,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: you have a better shot at having an elector that's
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: paying a slightly bit more attention and might be a
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: little bit more. But I don't think we're quite there.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: But like I said, there's there's some green shoots of
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: evidence that say that, you know, as we become more
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: skeptical of the wealthy in this country collectively as a
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: political electorate, well that will translate itself into anybody that's
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: financially associating with them in politics. So I think this
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: is the cycle where we're seeing put it this way,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: APAC is learning to diversify its investments and not put
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: it all in one superpack. And I think that the
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: smarter entities that are trying to certainly use their ability
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: to influence on pieces of legislation are going to be
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: more are going to be smarter to diversify their investments
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: in political persuasion rather than pilot into one big super pac.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: It is you know, the super pacification of campaigns has
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: really sort of warped. You know, if you wonder why,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: you know what, why take the conversation I had with
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: David Holt about how he said that the gubernatorial race.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: He said, the actual issues that face the next Oklahoma
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: governor were not discussed once in the Republican primary for governor. Instead,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: they were arguing over things that are not really part
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: of the job, whether it's trands that Oklahoma governor is
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: not really going to have anything about. And so, you know,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: I do think you see these super PACs can hijack
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: the conversation in a campaign, which then can steer it
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: in directions that that are pretty anti voter. But I
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: don't think we're fully at the backlash there. But I
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: think you're starting to see in certain places, and it's
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: where you have the most you know, sort of attentive
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: electorate if you will. Hey, Eric from Austin, Right, I
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: hope you're having a good week. Could you talk a
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: bit about Keir Starmer and Labour's recent struggles. Are they
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: more of a result of his decisions or broader global
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: conditions and are there any lessons here for the Democratic Party.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: Thanks for your work. Well, that's interesting. I mean, look,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: I view what's been happening in the UK is less
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: about one party or the other, although right like you know,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: I then what you have is a frustration with the
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: the larger political establishment. Well, in the UK, the political
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: establishment were both the Tories and Labor right, both Tony
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: Blair and David Cameron, you know, to be to just
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: pick two former prime ministers as avatars here, right one
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: a Tory one or Gordon Brown, you know, another Labor
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: prime minister. But the fact is that Tony Blair wing
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: of the Labor Party, which also produced Gordon Brown and
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: arguably kir Starmer is more probably is more and more
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: more in line with the Tony Blair than say Jeremy Corbyn,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: who could not win by the way right when he
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: was the standard bear for labor. Is Jeremy Corbyn the
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders of the UK labor movement. You can there's
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: certainly some parallels there. And then you see what's happening
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: with the Nigel Farage and the Reform Party, which is
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: essentially on the verge of replacing the Tories as the
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: Conservative party, uh or the right wing party of the UK.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: So I look I've been obsessed with this because I I,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: you know, it feels like the UK has been slightly
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: ahead of where but you know, is Starmar Biden and
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: unlike and unlike Biden because there actually was a special
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: election for the person and for Burnham who actually ended
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: up replacing him, you know, but he actually had to
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: win a seat in Parliament first, So there was summat
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: some vetting that happened. It was almost like they had
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: a bit of a you know, a primary and one
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: one district. But you know, and so you know, I
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: think that's a that's an open question. But I do
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: think what is similar. I think there are more things
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: that we have in common with what's been happening in
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: the UK. They just have a political system that can
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: express it the outr age easier. Right, We've had two impeachments,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: they've had seven prime ministers. Right, They've had these these
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: essentially no confidence votes within their party. You could argue
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: we've kind of have the same thing. We just didn't
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: have the system to allow for the easy replacement of
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: the party leaders, right, be it Trump, be it Pelosi,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: be it McCarthy, be it you know, but look, I
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: mean we had we've had multiple speakers, it took all
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: the you know, so in our system we've had the
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: same level of disruption that their system just simply allows
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: for more. Now, you could argue that our system is
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: designed in such a way that it actually prevents total
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: disruption from like paralyzing the government versus the UK has
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: these paralysis moments from their disruption. But there's no doubt
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: this is the same large forces are sort of creating this.
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: You know, they had massive migration, We had massive migration.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: This is fear of globalization. They've had fear of globalization.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: So in that sense, the larger sort of you know,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: identity crisis that both political parties in this country have had.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: So of the two major parties of the UK who
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: are no longer argued might not be the two major
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: parties a year from now after their next election. So
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: I think there's a ton to learn here. You know,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: David Cameron, I was recently with him and we had
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: this discussion and he thinks that the number one thing Democrats,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: and you know, he sort of politically is probably closer
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: to being Bill Clinton, a Bill Clinton Democrat, than he
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: essay a Mett Romney Republican. That's kind of the politics
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: of the UK. You know, I think Cameron was definitely
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: Cameron and Obama were really tight, and I think their
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: politics are actually pretty similar, even though one was from
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: the Conservative Party of their country and one was from
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: the Liberal Party of the other country. But Cameron, you know,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: the one thing he will say is, you know, tighten
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: up your borders. Just tighten up your borders. This is universal.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: Do that first, and then everything else is persuadable after that.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: But that, the migration, the fear of the other ing
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: and all of that is really that's what he would say,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: has been the sort of the tipping point of this.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: And so he's been a big advot of getting Democrats
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: to be a bit more conscious of the border, a
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: bit tougher on the border. And you've seen there are
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: more Democrats opening open to having a you know, they're saying, no, no, no, no,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: we got to have a we got to have a
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: functioning border here, and we've got to manage immigration better.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean you don't have to be an anti
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: immigrant party, but you've got to be a sort of
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: you got to be a law and order party, reasonable
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: law and order mindset on that. So but look and
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: then there's then there's the charisma part. Right. You know
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: Corbin was kind of mealy mouth. Starmer wasn't great at this.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: You know, would Labor have been in better? I mean
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: they won this huge victory, right, it's very similar to
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: Starmer feels like Biden. Right, Biden has this huge victory,
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: most votes that any Democratic president ever got. You know,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: it starts out and even swings the Senate, which nobody
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: expected and so he had a huge opportunity in it.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: But it was a reminder that you know, Biden won
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: because of who he was, it not because of who
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: he was, And Labor Party won because of who they weren't,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: not because of who they were, And Labor's discovering that
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: the hard way right now. And it's it's likely. I
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: think if you see a UK election that has Reform
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: and Green as the top two vote getters over the
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: Tories and Labor, I would read that as a tea
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: leaf that says take a third party or independent candidacy
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: in this country more seriously than folks want to take it,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: because I do think in that sense, the frustration is
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: similar the and we don't have another part, right. I
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: think that's why some on the left are gravitating towards
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: this DSA. Well, they're fighting, they're doing something, and that's
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: why I think the establishment wings of both parties, I
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: think they need to get pressure from the outside before
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: they sort of get religion on this. But we'll say,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, look, David Hole is the official mayor of
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: the Czech podcast. You know he went to GW Big
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: Revolutionaries guy, so you know we're going to I will
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: give him that title. But the next is probably the
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: official mayor of Aschuk. It's our friend John IPII Ali.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: Here Harvey Seedars, the mayor of Harvey Seedars, New Jersey.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: He has his third question that he has asked me.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: So he's not he's getting closer to the five timers club.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: And and here's this question. I enjoyed your take on
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: presidential blunders, but I'm more curious about the opposite. What
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: would you consider the top five presidential actions? It simply
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: worked moments where leadership decisions paid off in a big way.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: And so you know it's a this is not I
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: spent a little bit of research time on this. So
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: the first things that came to mind, you know, I
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: was thinking of decisions that weren't easy for their own
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: political party. Bill Clinton and NAFTA. Now we can debate
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: whether that was a success or not. Right, I think
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: NAFTA financially was an enormous success. What it did for
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: Mexico's economy was incredible, and it really did financially benefit
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of Americans. But it really blew up our
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: politics and arguably is still blown up our politics. So
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I but you know, there is
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: a case for NAFTA in Bill Clinton. I'll give you
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: another one, George HW. Bush's decision to back the nineteen
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: ninety budget agreement that essentially was the beginning of the
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: sort of the Bush Clinton era of getting our fiscal
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: house in order. We got to a balanced budget by
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: the late nineties thanks to a decision by a Republican
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: president to accept raising taxes with the Democratic Congress. Then
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: a Democratic president with a Republican Congress did a bit
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: more tightening, a little bit on spending and a little
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: bit more in taxes, and lo and behold, we had
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: a budget surplus going into the turn of the century. So,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: you know, I think that whether it was Bill Clinton's
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: decision to back another tax hike in nineteen ninety three,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: George HW. Bushes. So both of those turned out to
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: be really good for the American economy and really supercharged
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: the economy arguably going in and certainly put us on
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: a path. Now, those were positive decisions that some of
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: the decisions on China less. So I'll give you another
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: one in the Reagan era, Reagan's decision to sign the
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: amnesty for the undocumented immigrants that were in this country
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: in eighty six. That also was not the easiest bill
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: for a Republican to sign, and it worked. It was
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: Now there will be some on the right that say
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: it is why the next wave of immigrants still kept
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: coming because they knew that we had a history of
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: amnesty in this country. Yes, we're a nation of immigrants.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: Every immigrant knows that eventually there is room for them here.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: That just may take a generation. But that at the
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: time was a brave decision and it certainly helped solve
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: an immigration problem that sort of was created in the sixties,
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: and we can I'm not going to go deep into that,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: but that was trying to right or wrong there. I
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: think Harry Truman recognizing Israel wasn't an easy call that
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: he was getting a lot of pushback to saying if
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: you do this, it could it could be a permanent
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: split with the Arab world have a huge impact. We
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: were at the time really relying on Middle East oil
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: in the late forties, and it wasn't an easy political decision.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: It turned out that those fears we were wrong now
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: on that in the air world was going to learn
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: to live with a Jewish state in their neighborhood, and
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: that turned out the Keiban missile crisis. It was a
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: huge test for Kennedy. It was a huge gamble and
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: it paid off. You know, you could argue that we
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: were able to you know, basically from there we create
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: the Red Phone and we start some arms negotiations that essentially,
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: over time allows us to win the spending fight of
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: the Cold War and sort of sucker the Soviets into
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: bankrupting themselves. But I think Kennedy's decision to sort of
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: call the bluff of the Soviets there in Cuba and
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: doing the quarantine or the blockade, however you want to
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: describe it was a big one too. So it is
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: right Nixon to China. Was that good or bad. It
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: was a good strategy at the time, it made a
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: lot of sense. It was risky, probably has been a
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: net benefit for the globe, even if it hasn't been
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: a net you know, and even arguably for the financial
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: power of the United States. But that was so that's
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: how I defined it, So Mayor I'm curious whether you
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: see those So that that's how I was trying to
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: find it what I would call political close calls that
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: aged really well. But I love the question and I
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: want to keep I want to keep diving in on that.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: I think there's more more to do there, and who knows,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: we may It's possible the Iran nuclear deal will suddenly
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: age really well for Barack Obama and we may someday
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: put that on the list. All right. Bill s in Newburg,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: Oregon a frequent emailer. I wonder Bill, if you've made
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: it to five yet. I've heard you to refer to
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: some voters as being trumpy. What characteristics to find a
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: Trumpet voter? In your view, it's not what I mean.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: Trumpy is basically being supportive of not just Donald Trump
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: because he's the Republican nominee, but supportive of the cause,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: supportive of the you know, sort of the isolationists policy,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: supportive of a little bit of it, is supporting the
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: culture of maga sort of almost it's my shorthand for
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: being this person isn't just a Trump supporter. They're culturally
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: mega you know. This is where they're comfortable type of thing,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: you know. And I think of Trumpy, right, I think
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: of Eric Schmidt, the senator from Missouri, or I think
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: of Jim Banks of Indiana, Bernie Marino, Right, I think
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: that they Rick Scott. I don't think they got into
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: politics being but they have become comfortably. I think they're
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: more comfortable there. Mike Lee, right, based I guess you
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: would say based Mike Lee, not twenty sixteen Mike Lee,
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: which I guess he himself by creating an account that
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: says based Mike Lee sort of admits that he's was
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: politically bipolar there for a time. I guess so. But
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: that's what I mean, right, that it's that uh that
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of a true believer versus where i'd
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: put your John Thunees, your David McCormick's, which are Look,
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: he's the president, he's the leader. That they're not comfortable
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: in that wing of the party, but they're not going
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: to fight it right. I wouldn't refer McCormick as trumpy,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: but I would refer to like an richmid ass. I
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: hope that helps uh in telling you sort of how
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: I distinc how the shorthand I've created here, but that
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: that's that's the that's how I'm defining that short. Ye.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: My last question for the Hey Scott from p A
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: ten again. All right again, man, I got two of you.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: Keep them coming. Tell me your congressional district. Right, this
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: is how how we how we all want to learn
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: where everybody's coming from. I love this Pennsylvania ten. I
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: love York County. Had a good friend from college from York,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: and it always blew me away that they said it
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: was closer to flat out of Baltimore than it was
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: to flat to Philadelphia. I'm curious how often you choose
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: Baltimore versus Philadelphia. I guess if you're on the Harrisburg
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: side of things, that may that may be the case.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: But anyway, Scott, let me get your question. You said,
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: after a recent discussion on Democratic party divisions, I'm wondering,
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: do you think there's a simple messaging strategy establishment Democrats
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: could use to align more closely with the left without
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: fully embracing the label. Is framing it around shared policy
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: goals an effective way to walk that line. Thanks as always, Scott.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know anymore. I think that has been what
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: has worked. I do think the credibility of the establishment
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: is in tatters because of Joe Biden and the return
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump. I go back to the conversation you
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: just heard me have with Matt Bennett, where I've got
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: a bit animated about. You know, I think why Joe
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: Biden's presidency to me will always be a failed presidency
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: is he had one job. His job wasn't just to
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: defeat Donald Trump. It was to lead the country away
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: from Donald Trump his presidency. A better leader would have
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: made the lot the idea of returning to Donald Trump
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: and anapatha and an amatha sorry. And that for me
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: is you know that. I that that's the prison with
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: which I judge. I think his his the campaign promise
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: he was essentially making to the skeptical voter that may
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: have decided to vote for Biden because they saw Trump
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: is you know, a health threat because of COVID or whatever.
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: I think the deal the voter thought they were getting
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: is this guy is a transitional guy. He's just going
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: to manage us out of this Trump math so we
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: can get to the next generation of politicians to lead
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: this country. And he failed that. Okay, so so you're
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: the and the establishment let him fail, right, They didn't
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: fight him hard enough. They sort of let it be
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: because again it was always turned into well if you
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: you know, you're you're only helping Trump if you somehow
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: push back at what Biden was up to. And of
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: course Biden made this what I think was a bad
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: attempt at co opting the left, allowing the left to
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: sort of give them a little power, and it really
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: shifted him to the left. So I guess what I
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: would say is, I think that strategy was the twenty
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: twenty strategy and the twenty twenty four strategy, and I
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: think it's I don't think the left's going to accept
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: the strategy. If if I were advising a more you know,
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: the Corey Bookers of the world, I think I think
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: I would take on you know, I would sort of
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: borrow what Chris Murphy's been saying without becoming a progressive
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: like Chris Murphy has been speaking. Hey, the Democratic Party
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: failed at the job. It said it was going to do,
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: which was to turn the page on the Trump rad
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: I think until the establishment accepts that they failed here,
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: I think it's been a mistake that it's the left
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: that's leading the charge to get rid of Schumer, that
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: it hasn't come from the center left, when ultimately you
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: know they should be acknowledging the failure and want new leadership.
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: And yet it's the left that is the one that
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: has more credibility on this. So I feel like that's
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: the issue, is that the establishment had its chance to
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: co opt the left with that kind of messaging. It
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: worked in twenty it didn't work in twenty four. And
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: I certainly don't think the left is going to allow
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: capitulate to the quote electable ability wing of the party again,
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: because they view it as it's sort of not dissimilar
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: to what turned into the Maga movement. How they were like,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: we're not compromising again like we did with Mitt Romney.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: We're not looking for the most electable conservative, We're just
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: looking for the craziest so bit. And I think the
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: left is going we're not looking for the most electable democrat,
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: We're looking for the most activist movement lefty progressive, and
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: so I don't know if just if this is a
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: messaging thing. I know, if I were Corey Booker, I
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: wouldn't I wouldn't be just trying to can't we all
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: just get a long message? You know, I'd be fighting
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: a bit harder here or the main the quote unquote mainstream,
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: and I'd fight harder for it, and I'd be angrier
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: about it. I'd become the angry moderate, if you know,
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: I'm mad as hell and I am I going to
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: take it anymore. Get these I'm tired of these MF
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: snakes on this MF plane. And you don't see that
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: coming from that wing of the party. You see the
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: emotion and anger coming from the base. And I think
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: sometimes the temperament, the moderate in temperament, which is something
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: that a person like me is looking for. But I'm
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: not here to move people right that in some ways
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: that's the wrong You know, you need to make a
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: better case for why this is the right way and
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: a proactive case for what democratic pluralism is without how
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: and to use the political sciences science y term like that,
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: why this is? You know, essentially the Democratic Party is
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: a coalition, right, it is not a litmus test party.
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: And yet the irony is that the rise of the
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: left is turning it into a litmus test party. And
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: somehow Donald Trump became the non litmus test even though
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: there's a huge litmus test on the on the Republican
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: side too. Just ask John Corn or Bill Cassick. I'm waiting.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: I'm waiting for the for the angry, the angry pragmatist
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: to show up on the center left. You kind of
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: see it showing up on the center right, but it's
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: in the form of Tom Tillis, right, or a John Kasik.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: Who have who have you know who have bowed out
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: or who sort of lost the battle? I think some.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: But he needs to get caught fighting before a battle's
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: been lost. All right, I'm really excited for AJ Debonsa.
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: This is going to be interesting. I am hopeful on
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: the tray Young signing. I am willing to let's see,
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: you know, if a more mature Tray Young surrounded by
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: more talent than he's ever been surrounded by in Atlanta,
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: if it's a healthy Anthony Davis, AJ Debonsa, you got
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: an interesting young team there. The best thing I heard,
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: you know, the sicko and me after our Election night
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: live stream. You know what I did, I went back
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: to watch this is the best ESPN sort of. I
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: watched a replay of the draft, at least the first
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: thirty minutes, because I wanted to get my fill of
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: Wizards conversations. Here. It's rare that the Wizards ever get
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: national attention. Then to pick the We're going to get
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: some And one of the experts on the ESPN panel
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: said something that I think was quite fair, which is,
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: the Wizards have all this talent, do they know how
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: to win? And that's the hardest thing for a team
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: that's been a loser team for a long time, right
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: when you're in, when you're it's and I remember feeling
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: that with the Wizards in twenty eighteen when they forced
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: a game seven on Boston and then they just got
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: blown out. It was like, do they know how to win?
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: And it's funny how a culture there's never been a
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: winning culture in two generations of basketball here in DC.
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: Who's going to be that culture changer? You know, for
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: a brief period at Gilbert Arenas was that guy for
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: a brief period. We thought John Wall was that guy
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: for a brief period there was hope that Michael Jordan's
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: owner could be that guy really hasn't been there since
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: west Unsel and most of you are going, who's west
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: Unseld And that's part of the problem. But there hasn't
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: been this much. I mean, this is the amount of
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: hoping that DC sports fans are smoking right now. Right
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: there's hoping them about the Commanders, there's hopingum about the Wizards.
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: There's hoping im always about the Caps, but they've actually
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: been the best performer of the major sports franchises over
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: the last decade. And boy is there is some hopium
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: right now with the Nats. You know. It's Ah, I'm
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: very nervous that the Nats are not are not going
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: to be buyers at the trade to I understand. I
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: hope they just aren't heavy sellers. I'd rather see more
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: youth be brought up, Don't get me wrong, but hey,
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: let's get a little play you know, so what, let's
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: make the make the run. A young team needs to
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: get some playoff experience before it has a chance to
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: actually win. You don't want to, uh, you kind of
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: you know, if you've got a shot, getting a little
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: bit of experience for a bunch of these twenty two
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: and twenty three year olds, it's worth the effort just
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: to get there, so they get a taste and they
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: again learn how to win. To my friends at the Wizards,
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: go make the winning the NBA Cup your priority next year,
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: early on. Get this young team, get them to win something.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: I think it mattered for the nixt I know it's
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: a silly little the NBA Cup, not you know. I
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: think it's sort of like it gave them confidence, and
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: it gave them something and it made them helped form
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: that team. I hope the Wizards take the NBA Cup stuff. Seriously.
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: I think it's a chance for a young team with
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: a couple of veterans to sort of clamp down and
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: do those Tuesday Friday games and build something here. But man,
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: I have to tell you the hope me I've Three
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: years ago, the sports world in DC was just the dumps,
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: the Wizards, dumps, the Commanders, Dan Snyder's Commanders, the Dumps.
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: The Gnats were continuing to sell off and sell off
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: and sell off, and we were waiting to see if
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: James Wood was going to be worth it all. How
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: things have changed in about eighteen months, which is the
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: beauty of sports. Right. It's also the same thing why
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: we love and hate politics right. A lot can change
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: in a short period of time, but it's fun to
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: smoke the sports opium of the DMV these days. So
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: with that, I hope you enjoy your weekend. Please check
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: out what I got. I've got fascinating interview on newsphere
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: this week, so be sure to check it out on Sunday.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: Susan delby the head of the D Triple C. We
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: have seen. How hard will the D Triple C fight
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: the left in these primaries or are they going to
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: try to co opt the left? This is a taste
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: of how leadership plans to respond to the rise of
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: the Mamdami lefts In with that, I'll see in seventy
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: two apps