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Transcript

Chuck’s Commentary - Democratic Primary Turnout Shows A Blue Wave Building + Trump’s Candidates Keep Losing · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: This episode of The Chuck Podcast is brought to you
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  Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
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  Speaker 1: three four three nine eight five. Hello, They're a happy Thursday,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and welcome to another episode of the Chuck Podcast. And
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: to pick up on where I left you on Monday, No,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I do not. I have not passed my kidney stone.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: For those that are asking and wondering, the good news
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: is I am passed the painful part of that part
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: of the conversation. But there's always two parts for any
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: of you that have ever experienced it, there's always two
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: parts to the lovely way that a kidney stone can
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: treat you. Part one is all the pain, and it
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: can be long, it can be tedious, it can come
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: in and out, it can last over a couple of days,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: in and out, which sadly is what is what I
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: was dealing with, what I've been dealing with with this one.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Then the other part is just the next level, and
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: that is the good news is that it's it's not
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: a it doesn't drag out, but it certainly is not
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: something you look forward to. So, with apologies for painting
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: that visual for you, do I do think and kind
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: of let me give you a rundown of what I've
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: got going on this episode. First of all, I really
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: hope you've had a chance to take a look at
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: my two part special report on sort of Mark Walter,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: The Lakers is the window and sort of this deep
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: dive trying to figure out what is going on here
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: and what you really see now, or certainly what I see,
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  Speaker 1: And I really thought it was importan enough to share
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: because the future of capitalism is on the line here
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: right over the next couple of election cycles. Trust in
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: the entire idea of capitalism is to me is going
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: to be on the ballot over the next couple of
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  Speaker 1: election cycles. And it's very possible that this Laker's sale
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: ends up providing the window into what could be the
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: main what could be an example of what leads to
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: problems in our economic in sort of the in the
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: structure of our economy, how our economy works. Because what
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: you what you end up figuring out now is a
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: couple of things that we're interesting that I think is
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: worth understanding, is that how important life insurance companies are
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: to hedge funds. Now, How in some ways a life
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  Speaker 1: insurance company has replaced a bank as a place to
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: borrow money and then borrow money against, as capital to
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: borrow money against. And a question I've come away with
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: after learning more about sort of how the private credit
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: markets work. Is do we believe any of these valuations?
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  Speaker 1: Are what these things worth? Are they really worth what
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: they say they're worth? Is there really twelve point five
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: billion dollars in value in the laker or is it
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  Speaker 1: just what somebody is willing to pay and the and
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the assets are kind of inflated behind it. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I don't I'm not going to sit here and say
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  Speaker 1: I know for sure, but this is These are the questions,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: and I think these are the concerns. And all I
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: will say is to take the metaphor of the canary
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: and the coal mine to its to its logical conclusion.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I think we found a dead canary, and I think
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  Speaker 1: we need to find out if there's something wrong with
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  Speaker 1: the air here. The good news is there is a
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  Speaker 1: regulatory structure that's trying to look into the private credit markets,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: trying to get a handle on them. But the fact
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  Speaker 1: is we you know, it's not a public market, it
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  Speaker 1: isn't out there, and what don't we know? What don't
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  Speaker 1: regulators see? How concerned should we be? Because I can
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  Speaker 1: tell you this, if the next financial crisis is ends
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  Speaker 1: up being triggered by essentially hedge funds using this opaque
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  Speaker 1: private credit world to do it, and suddenly life insurance
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  Speaker 1: annuity customers are asking the taxpayers to make them whole,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: which is, you know, the worst case scenario here. Then
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  Speaker 1: good luck making the case that capitalism is good for America. Right,
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  Speaker 1: you already have a population that has got some skepticism
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: out there, and now we have a system, and you
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  Speaker 1: already have a belief out there that this that there
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: seems to be two economies, right, the case shaped economy
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  Speaker 1: sort of two systems, and it's like the wealthy operates
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  Speaker 1: in one world, the rest of us operate somewhere else.
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  Speaker 1: And if these people who really don't operate in the
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  Speaker 1: same world, we do end up dragging that economy down. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: good luck selling capitalism. So you know too, to my
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  Speaker 1: friends in the elected office who's charged with protecting right
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  Speaker 1: Americans day to day from things like this, if you
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  Speaker 1: want to save capitalism, get more vigilant on what's happening
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  Speaker 1: here in the private credit markets. Like I said, it
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  Speaker 1: does seem as if regulators aren't asleep here, but it's
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  Speaker 1: possible that finance has surpassed the regulators. And you know, again,
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  Speaker 1: this is one of those things. I went looking for
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  Speaker 1: one story and found another, and it's the other story
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  Speaker 1: that scared the Jesus out of me. So anyway, please
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: take a look at that two part series on that.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: My newsphere and substock columns this week are on this topic.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Are on this topic as well. Also in the as
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: I'm in the promotional business, here most the newest episode
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: of Dynastic, my sports history podcast that I co host
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: with none other than ja Adande. We tackle Alabama football
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: and it is an amazing history. Bear Bryant, Nick Saban.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, there is no there is there's There's basically
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: two college football programs that are head and shoulders, at
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: least in that dynasty mode above everyone else. One is
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: from that has resides in that town called South Bend, Indiana,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: and the other one is Alabama. And we begin with
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Alabama's as there as their fans always want to tell us,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: it just means more right, But no, it's a I've
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: had a great time. I had a great time digging
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: into the history of Alabama football. Jay and I both did.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I think you'll enjoy this episode of Dynastic. And in
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: a couple of weeks we're going to break down more
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Alabama football with none other than Paul fine Bomb. I'm
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: looking forward to that conversation. But look, you come here
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: for politics, and we basically wrapped up the primary season.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: It's not over over right. The Germans haven't bomb Pearl
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Harbor yet, so we still got a little bit more
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: time to go. There's we do have a runoff in
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  Speaker 1: the South Carolina Senate primary next week. There's a runoff
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: in Oklahoma governor. We still have that Democratic Senate primary
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  Speaker 1: with Seth Moulten and Ed Markey. But in some ways,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: the big competitive states, the states that are going to
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  Speaker 1: tell us that gave us the nominees for the battle
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  Speaker 1: in November, we pretty much now know what's going to happen.
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  Speaker 1: And what's interesting about in a midterm election cycle is
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  Speaker 1: is is what you can take away from a primary
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  Speaker 1: season and what you can't take away from a primary season.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to get to that in a minute, but
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  Speaker 1: before I get to the sort of the the larger
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  Speaker 1: takeaways from the primary season as a whole, because I've
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  Speaker 1: done some analysis comparing primary turnout by party, and because
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: it is a it is a it is a directional
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  Speaker 1: you know, we talk about you hear the expression reading
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  Speaker 1: the tea leaves to try to figure out what's going
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  Speaker 1: to happen next. Well, a tea leaf that I like
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  Speaker 1: to read in a midterm year is raw primary turnout
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  Speaker 1: in both parties because there has been a pretty good guide.
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  Speaker 1: It doesn't tell you necessarily which party is going to
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  Speaker 1: win the mid terms, if you will, but you do
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  Speaker 1: have an idea of which party has a chance to
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  Speaker 1: underperform and which party is going to overperform. Primary turnout
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  Speaker 1: has been an incredibly good predictor in that right. It
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  Speaker 1: doesn't always tell you. A great primary turnout for a
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  Speaker 1: party doesn't mean they'll also win the general, but it
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  Speaker 1: does tell you enthusiasm. Because here's what you do know.
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  Speaker 1: Somebody that votes in a primary is definitely voting in
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  Speaker 1: a general. Somebody that didn't vote in a primary, you
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  Speaker 1: got to work harder to convince them to vote in
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  Speaker 1: a general. Right. So that's why higher primary turnout, that's
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  Speaker 1: you know, you've already got a bunch of voters more
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: invested in Look, I'm going to paint the picture here
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: in a minute as soon as we break down what
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: happened in Florida earlier this week. But it is there
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  Speaker 1: certainly are a lot of good signs. There's a reason
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  Speaker 1: why Democrats are favored in too. You know, our favorite
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  Speaker 1: to pick up the House and have a really pretty
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: much a fifty to fifty shot at picking up the Senate.
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  Speaker 1: We have seen it play out through the primary season
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  Speaker 1: and the advantage that essentially Democrats have had almost across
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  Speaker 1: the board, and I say almost, I'll get to a
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  Speaker 1: few exceptions there, but almost across the board, Democrats have
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  Speaker 1: have been more enthusiastic, have had the higher primary turnouts.
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  Speaker 1: When when when you can compare apples to apples, which
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: is a sign of a of of the likelihood that
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  Speaker 1: there will be they will be the party that wins
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  Speaker 1: more in November. The question is is it a wave
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  Speaker 1: or is it just a thunderstorm that helps them narrowly
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  Speaker 1: win the House. Let me break down Florida, because there's
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: a few things right. The big the big surprise was
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: that alex vinman impeachment one point oh fame. Remember he
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: was the the whistle the famous whistleblower about that perfect
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: phone call. Uh. His brother rode alex Vinman's fame to
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: a congressional seat in Virginia. A couple of cycles ago,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: and so perhaps that being a blueprint. Alex Vinman relocated
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: to Florida back in twenty twenty three. He's been a
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: resident for about two and a half three years, maybe
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: a little over three years, and he was new to
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  Speaker 1: the state. He moved to Broward County, which is home
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  Speaker 1: to the largest chunk of Democrats in the state. If
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: you want to be a total cynic, it was almost like, Okay,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: if I'm going to move to Florida to run for office,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: where should I move. You know, I'm sure an outside
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: adviser would have said, oh, sure, pick Broward County. But
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: he was running one of these races where he presumed
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: he'd be the nominee, and there was a sort of
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: the little engine that could is one way to put
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: it right. You know, these stories, We've seen these stories
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  Speaker 1: so many times in politics. A state representative named Angie
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  Speaker 1: Nixon who has been a very vocal activist. She's shown
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: up at protests in the governor's office in Tallahassee. She
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: was pretty high profile activist. She's a sitting state rep
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: but a pretty high profile dissenter on trying to push
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: back at DeSantis with the re redistricting. She just outworked
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Vinman with Democratic primary voters. Vinman raised a ton of
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: national money, very similar. It's like a Jamie Harrison South
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Care line up. You could even Vinman. In some ways,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: this candidacy looked a little bit like you know, val Deming's,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: except Valdemings was a local elected official and didn't lose
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: her primary. You had Amy McGrath, if you remember her,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: who ran against Mitch McConnell lost by double digits, but
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: raised an enormous amount of money. Vinman had a There
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: was certainly a lot of national Democrats, national you know,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: who were just hopeful that he could make it a race,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: and he raised a bunch of money. He didn't really
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: spend it, right, he was kind of hoarding it for
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: the general, assuming that he was going to get by. Well, look,
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  Speaker 1: Angie Nixon had been running for a while, Yle had
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: been doing sort of the little things. Then she went
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: hardcore progressive, joined the DSA. So I know, from a
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: national perspective, some are going to look at this and say, well,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: look it's another progressive DSA affiliate, pizza an establishment figure.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: But I don't think that was why Nixon won and
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Vinman lost here because if there really was a progressive movement.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Jared Moskowitz sitting member of Congress in the sort of
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Broward Palm Beach area. He had a progressive challenger. That
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: progressive challenger didn't come very close. David Jolly actually had
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: somebody who tried to ride the progressive wave and the
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Democratic primary for governor. That candidate didn't get very close.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: So I think if somehow this were a movement, you
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: would have seen those other candidates I mentioned perform much
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: better than they did, you know, sort of writing with
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Nixon here, this was Nixon and now look she had
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: one other thing going for She was the highest profile
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: African American statewide candidate on the Democratic side. There was
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: a time where David Jolly had a pretty serious primary
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: opponent and Jerry Demings, the African American may of Orange County.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: That's the county then encompasses Orlando, so one of the
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: largest counties in the state. The African American vote is
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: always kind of under it's I don't want to call it,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: it's kind of underrated in Florida. Look, Florida is known
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: for having. When you think of diversity in Florida, the
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: first thing you think of is Hispanics right, whether it's
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Cubans in South Florida, Puerto Ricans and Central Florida Colombians, Venezuelans,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: you get my drift. But Florida is also a southern state,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: and just like Georgia, Alabama, Mississippy, South Carolina, there's large
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: population of African Americans Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, Tallahassee, Tampa. I mean,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: like in any major city in the South, Florida is
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: no exception. And there has been a recent battern in
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Democratic primaries. When there are African American candidates running in
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: these statewide primaries, African American turnout goes up and that
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: candidate benefits. Andrew gillump pulled the upset of for Gwen
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Graham in twenty eighteen, powered by a supercharged turnout in
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: the African American community as well, Angie Nixon won by
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: double digits. It's and we've seen, especially since the Supreme
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act, particularly in the South,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: African American turnout has surged and there's a lot of
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: evidence that that Angie Nixon in Florida here, she benefited
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: from this quite a bit. And it's why you know,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I was pretty I was a Vinmin skeptic going in
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: because you know, as I starkily said in one of
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: either this podcast or a previous one, you know, he
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: wasn't constitutionally eligible to run for governor, right like you
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: know that meaning he hadn't lived in the state long
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: enough to even meet the residency requirement for statewide for
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: running for a state office. But he did meet the
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: residence of requirement for running for federal office, which is
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: literally a day, right. That's true of any state in
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the Union. And I know Florida is usually home, you know,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: is certainly not you know, negative on people. I mean,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: you know, it's hard to find many Florida office holders
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: that were born in Florida. Most you know, most office
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: particularly if you over the age of fifty. Most of
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: most of Florida's office holders were born in another state.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: So it's not it's not that being a native is that,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: But you got to hang out for more than a
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: cup of coffee. And I think if you want to
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: see an overall lesson from Florida, I mean, you look
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: at the nineteenth the congressional district that Byron Donald's is vacating,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: and now that he's the nominee for governor. The race
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: to replace him featured I think four out of state carpetbackers,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: including two former members of Congress from other states, two
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: other former candidates from other states, and none of them won.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: The candidate that won was the one that ran as
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: the local Jim Schwartzell, like he was actually from the area.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: And it is so there's this, you know, Yes, Floridians
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: are going to be forgiving of transplants and open to transplants.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, that makes the Florida economy rev up. That's
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: not the issue. But are you of the community. Have
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: you made some contribution to the community, right? And I
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: think that there's or you just sort of literally just
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: like coming in and you know, just trying to look
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: for work, if you will. I'm going to be very
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: curious to see what Vinman does with his war chest.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: He has raised a decent amount of money, didn't spend
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: much of it in the primary. Does he give it
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: to the state party? Right? If if Vinman would like
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: to essentially you know, the if he is interested in
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: political office long term, it's an easy call, right. The
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: easy call is he gives all the money to the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: state party, not to Chuck Schumer and the Democrats, but
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: he gives it to the state party to help the
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: statewide Democratic ticket, which has had a lot of struggles
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: raising money collectively. And there certainly is a lot of
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: opportunities for Democrats to win down ballot races, whether it's
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: nonpartisan mayors races or congressional you know, these targeted congressional seats.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: So I'll be very curious what Vinman does. Does he
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: keep the money because he wants to run for office
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: himself in another two years. But I might argue, if
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: you would like to ingratiate himself with party leadership, if
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: you would want to maybe even have an opportunity to
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: work his way into the leadership of the Florida Democratic Party,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: giving all of that money to the state wide the
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: state party is probably as good of a way to
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: ingratiate yourself. But we'll see, right, We'll see there. But
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: he got walloped, And I think it's a reminder, you
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: know you, I mean, as somebody who lionizes the small
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: d democratic process, I'm glad to see Angie Nixon and
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Jim Schwartzel be able to knock off people who sort
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: of just thought they could just you know, waltz in
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: from out of state and just walk away with a nomination.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: And it is it is heartening to see that at
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, voters do care if you
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: know a little bit something about the community. Right, are
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: you from the community? Are you of the community? And
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: I think in that sense, right, Vinman just didn't feel
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: like a Floridian yet, doesn't mean he can't become one.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Doesn't mean that that won't grow over time, but you
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: could feel it. And one thing about Angie Nixon, she
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: just outworked. I mean it goes to what you've seen.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: You know, at the end of the day, ninety percent
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: of politics is you know, working your tail off. Do
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: you go to did you show up to a bunch
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: of events? Did you in a large state like Florida.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: You know, if you don't have the cash, you better
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: be an energizer bunny and not take a day off.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: And Angie Nixon was an energizer bunny. I mean, look,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I will never give up my status as a Floridian.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I'm not a resident anymore, but I still own property
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: in the state. My daughter's a resident of the state,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: my daughter's a voter in the state, my mother's a
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: voter in the state. I still consider it, you know,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: I will always tell you I'm from Florida. No matter
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: how long I've lived here in Arlington, Virginia, I still
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: feel like a guy from Miami, Florida. So yeah, the
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: point being is I consume all sorts of Florida content,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: political content, local news content all around the state. And
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: the man she worked old school media stuff, new school
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: media stuff, you know, community to community. It wasn't until
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: about two or three weeks ago did you see Vinman's
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: campaign try to ramp things up a little bit. I
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: think somebody gave him some bad advice. He mistakenly thought
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: he could run as a national candidate sort of anti Trump.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: But as the team pointed out in our election night
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: live stream back on Tuesday night, I think it was
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Grace Panetta that made this point, you know, or it
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: may have been Jeffrey s Kelley who said he felt
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: very Trump one point zero, like that was that was
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: like that was that was first term resistance, right. He
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: felt like he felt like Lady wasn't wasn't that show canceled?
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Aren't we doing something different over here? And you know,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: maybe that's maybe maybe that's a that's a too broad,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: too too broad of a of a way to look
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: at it. But I do think it's a it. The
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: lesson to take away this, this is not left center.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: The lesson to take away this is somebody worked really
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: hard in the primary and somebody didn't. Uh. And that
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: is a tale as old as campaign politics has been
• 22:54
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• 24:46
  Speaker 1: let's talk about a couple of the marquee races there. First,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: it's Florida, and you know this gets it to the
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: turnout I want to talk about. I think the way
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: I was watching the state wide race was, look, we
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: knew David Jolly was going to win. Wh knew Byron
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Donald's was going to win. I had been pretty much
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: a skept up on that Senate race for some time,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: for all the reasons I had said before. But here's
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: what I didn't see in why I would say Donald's
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: is going to be considered a It's not impossible for
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Jolly to win, but it would be improbable. And it's
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: not that this won't be a close race. I actually
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: happened to think it will be. I think it will
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: be a mid single digit race. Somewhere in the four
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: to seven point range would be my best guess. At
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: this point, he has to win the unaffiliated party voters
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: by the big double digits. Right, He's got to probably
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: win him by twenty five points. Because there are a
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: lot of former Democrats sitting in that column. You can
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: kind of tell when you analyze primary turnout. Right in
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, which was the last time Democrats had primary
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: turnout over one and a half million, they came within
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: a zero point twenty five percent of winning that governor's race.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: They haven't been able to break one point three million
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: total vote since. They've been about one point two in
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, and they were about one point two
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: this cycle, which tells you they've lost some vote. What's
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: interesting is the Republican number sits at one point six.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: That was about the the Republican primary turnout in eighteen.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: One point six was the Republican primary turnout in twenty two,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: and one point six was about the Republican primary turnout
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six. Now you could say, well, Republicans
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: didn't match the growth that they have. Yeah, that's true,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: you can say that, but Democrats still start off at
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: this significant disadvantage. And you just see it in this
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: primary turnout again. In twenty eighteen, when the Democrats came
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: within a quarter point of winning both the governor's race
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: the Senate race, right that clean sweep, they outpolled the
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Republicans in overall turnout, not by much, but they did.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: It was basically fifty to fifty. The deficit's been nearly
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: a half a million in twenty twenty two, and nearly
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: a half a million again in twenty twenty six when
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: and again I'm going to get to this larger national
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: picture in a second. This is why you're going to
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: see a lot of folks bearish on all things Florida
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: because you see this missing ingredient. Right, That is not
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: what happened in Texas. That is not what we've seen
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: in Wisconsin. That is not what we've seen in Michigan.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Literally in just every other competitive state, Democrats have outpolled
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: the Republicans, or Democrats have increased their share of primary
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: turnout by a much larger margin than Republicans did. Right,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: the enthusiasm gap had showed up an actual voter turnout.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: There is no enthusiasm gap in this in this Florida turnout.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: A few other things of note w Washerman Sultz, she
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: won with less than fifty percent in a district that's
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: majority African American. She's going to she'll has she's in
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: a glide path the reelection, not quite sure she's going
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: to win if there is only one African American challenger
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: to her, kind of like what we saw in Detroit.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: You know, at some point when the African American vote
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: consolidated behind one candidate, Shree Tander wasn't going to be
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: able to continue to win that race thanks to splintered
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Thanks to splintered primary opposition, w Washerman Sults won that
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: primary because of splintered primary opposition. On that front, If
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: you're the Democrats, you're kind of disappointed that Corey Mills
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: didn't survive. You would have had quite a one two
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: punch for a narrative that Democrats would love to paint
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: of Democrat of Republicans. You know, scandal plague Republicans. There's
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: this awful story about the Palm Beach County clerk that
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: broke literally on primary day last Tuesday, and at Corey
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Mills hung on right. Had Republican voters not rejected him,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: pronomination that I think you might have seen a narrative
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: that could have stuck and it was going to throw
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: another house seed him play for the Democrats. But I
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: think you have to give Rond de Santis credit here
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: for this one. Rond de Santis came out and said
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: I'm not he didn't know who to support, and he
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: didn't come out for any other primary candidate. He just
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: simply said I don't support Corey Mills, and it got
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: a lot of attention, probably at a very crucial moment.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: And it was a narrow loss by Mills, but it
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: was a loss. Nonetheless, Trump stuck by him. Decantis did not,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: And so I think you have to give Desantas some
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: credit there for speaking out. Speaking of Donald Trump. He
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: had a particularly bad He just really had a bad August.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Right he is he is, and it may explain why
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: he suddenly decided to physically campaign for Darlene Graham before
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: the runoff next week, because he is on quite the Runnie.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: He jumped in and endorsed the candidate that did not
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: win in that crazy clown car of a congressional race
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: I told you about, with all the carpetbagers, the one
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: with a one lone guy, Jim Schwartzel won it was he.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he's going to claim that he wasn't that
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: his Corey Mills endorsement was old and he didn't reaffirm
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: that endorsement. But this is now multiple primaries in a row.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: I think we're up to six primary nights in a
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: row where a Trump endorsed candidate has come up short
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: and his endorsement. He gave a last minute endorsement in
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: that the clown car race in the nineteenth there, and
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: it got our second place, a distant second place. It
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: got her over Madison Cawthorne, and over Chris Collins and
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: over Jim Oberized, but it wasn't enough to win. I mean,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: it used to be that a Trump endorsement was worth
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: thirty something percent of the primary vote. It wasn't worth
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: thirty something percent of the primary vote in one of
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: the most traditionally wealthy Republican congressional districts in the state
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: of Florida, which is that one there that's in the
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: southwest part of the state. So I think that when
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: you're it, if you're trying to figure out is the
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: national environment going against Trump? Is Trump losing his grip
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: on Republican primary voters. There's a lot of data points
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: to support it. Right, this is you know, Tennessee primary,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: he's on the wrong side. He had a candidate losing
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: the Michigan primary. He had a candidate losing the I mean,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: this is this is a been a quite the losing
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: streak he has found himself on. And let's be honest,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: it's it coincides with a continued drop in his approval
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: rating overall. I mean, a week doesn't go by where
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: another poll doesn't come out and he's at or near
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: an all time low in job approval or an all
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: time high in job disapproval. So these trend lines are
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: not good. And then his behavior at the moment is
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: just atrocious. Like he is not he is almost going
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: out of his way to make it harder for elected Republicans.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: You know, he is not going to let anybody run
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: away from him, and he's made looking it hard to
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: run with them. The things he said about the crew
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: and the USS, Abraham Lincoln, the things he has said
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: about the issue of affordability. He is just never mind
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: his sort of rants and raves about any reporter that
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: asks a remotely tough question. He is I think he
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: is quickly, you know, I look at this as he
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: knows that his you know, his grip on it all
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: is coming to an end. It's probably why he's clinging
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: to keeping his name in the Kennedy Center and why
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: he's so angry about the ballroom, because he can see
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: his relevance is literally melting away. Poll by pole, Primary
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: by primary, and there's no doubt even though he tried
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: to say in an interview that you know, he knows
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: voters are mad at Republicans, just not him. That is
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: not what many people are going to view an election
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: result that has Democrats winning both the House and the Senate.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: If Democrats win both the House and the Senate, there
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: is one person Democrats are going to credit with their success.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: It's Donald John Trump. And every elected Republican is going
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: to know those that are out of a job or
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: those that are out of the majority whose fault it is.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean they're all going to say it, but
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: they're all gonna know it. But let's talk a little
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: bit about the tea leaves. I've been reading a little
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: bit and why I think overall, despite like Florida is
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: an outlier to what we've seen in the rest of
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: the country, and it is a focus on all things
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: primary turnout. So we now have hard numbers on both
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: sides of the aisles in fourteen states that are in
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: this sort of that are hosting some competitive races, and
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: what I found is that they don't quite sort into
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: two categories. They kind of sort into three. There are
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: states where the Democratic electorate is expanding. That's most of them,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: and it's pretty dramatic. Really. There is only one state
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: where it's contracting, and that was Florida, and I've already
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: told you that story a little bit. Then there is
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: a state where it did absolutely nothing, not up or
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: not down, and it was kind of flat. That's Kansas.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: And I think Kansas is obviously one of the more
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: interesting races in the general election. We can't wait to
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: see what's going on. But before I go, quick primary caveat,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: quick little caveat about this analysis primary turnout is just
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: that it is a tea leaf to read. It is
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: a bit of a thermometer, right. It is not necessarily
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: a crystal ball. Right. It tells you more about enthusiasm
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: of your political base than it does anything else. Right,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: how excited are they about voting? How excited are they
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: going to go? And so this will say nothing about
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: the voter in the middle who maybe didn't decided not
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: to show up for an August primary. So you can't
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: you don't want to necessarily overread it. But it does
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: something else, and I think this is underrated. It actually
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: tells you where your party floor is. And that's something
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: that's important to know when you're less than eighty days
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: to go before the election. So just to give you
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: a little sense of how predictive primary turnout is if
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: you go back, I went over five midterm cycles twenty
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: oh six, twenty ten, twenty fourteen, twenty eighteen, twenty twenty two,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: and in every one, the party that led primary turnout
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: won the House popular vote. Five for five, Okay, twenty
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: oh six, Democrats cast about fifty seven percent of primary ballots,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: and they won the House by about eight and a
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: half points in the total in the total votes once
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: all and said and done, they picked up about forty seats.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: In twenty ten, Republicans cast fifty eight percent of the
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: overall primary vote that cycle, and they won the national
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: House ballot by about seven points. Twenty eighteen, Democrats cast
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: fifty three percent of the overall primary turnout and they
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: won by about eight and a half million. And in
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, Republicans one fifty three percent of the
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: turnout of the vote. You know, I had fifty three
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: percent of primary turnout and they won by just under
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: three So in each time, right, this is directionally incredibly
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: accurate at telling you and Democrats are on track to
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: essentially win the primary turnout. Now, I don't think the
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: size of the gap isn't necessarily you know, it doesn't
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: translate one to one, and it doesn't translate symmetrically. Republican
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: primary advantages shrink by forty to sixty percent by November.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: A sixteen point Republican primary edge in twenty ten became
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: a seven point win, right, a five point edge, and
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two became a two point win. So it's
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: not it's it's sort of it's directionally correct. You can't
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: sit here and say that it's going to numerically give
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: you a specific number. The Democratic advantages, for instance, haven't
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: shrunk in the same way. In twenty eighteen, that six
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: point Democratic primary edge became an eight and a half
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: point when it grew right ended up. They ended up.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: So what does that mean? They won more independence? Maybe
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: they won more Republican crossovers. But some of that is
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: structural that that cycle. Enormous share Republican primary votes end
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: up getting cast in states where the primary is the
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: election Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee. So real votes worth nothing at
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: the margin in November. Right, So and those seats were
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: never in place, So that's why it's not a perfect
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: way to do this, but it is directionally very telling.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Mirror image happened for Democrats and O six huge primary
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: numbers and places like California, Maryland, Massachusetts, so they had
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: these huge Democratic primary turnouts that shrunk dramatically by November
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: because voters knew those races were already over. So again,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: directionally reliable, but trying to get specific with what one means,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: you know, how many seats will that translate to, hey,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: that it's different, that's mushy. You're still going to get
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: the range. So let's start with the states that ran
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: competitive statewide primaries on both sides in each of the
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: last three minut terms. So this is as apples to
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: apples as I could put together. Democrats have cast about
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: fifty seven percent of primary ballots this year in those
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: same states. In twenty eighteen, Democrats had fifty four percent.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: That was a good year for Democrats. So right now
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: they're running ahead on this score of where they were
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen. By the way, in twenty twenty two
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: it was just forty seven percent, so they're running ten
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: points higher than they were in twenty twenty two and
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: about three points higher than they were. Right, So the
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Democratic primary electorate running larger relative to the Republican one
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: than it did in the year they picked up forty
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: House seats. Now again that doesn't mean they're on the
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: way to forty house seats. Right, we have all the remaps,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: et cetera. But here's to go specific. Here's the biggest
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: shifts in Democratic share of primary ballots this cycle against
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: the two on twenty two cycle. You'll never guess the
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: state that had the biggest jump. It's Alabama up twenty
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: one points. Right. That's the power of Doug Jones. He
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: is candidacy. And you throw in African American voters very
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: angry about what happened with that redistricting, and we have
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: seen it translate into a surge of turnout. You've really
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: seen it in a place like Alabama. And the Jones
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: campaign has been making this case to me that this
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: the last time Democrats had any kind of primary turnout
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: like they got for Jones. And remember it wasn't even
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: really a contested state wide primary. But the last time
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Democrats did that, well, it did translate into them actually
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: winning the governor's mansion some twenty plus years ago, So
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Alabama them the biggest leap for Democrats this cycle was
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: in Alabama. Up next is Wisconsin twenty points. Nothing like
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: a super competitive gubernatorial primary to surge there. Right open primary.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: The interest shifted that. The question is how many of
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: those voters have voted in the Democratic primary stay voting
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: for Democrats? Right Pennsylvania up nineteen points. That's significant in
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: those house races there. Texas up sixteen points for the Democrats,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Ohio up fourteen, North Carolina up twelve, Arkansas up eleven.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: There is one semi competitive house seat in Arkansas, in
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: the Little Rock area. It's Frenchhill's I'm french Hills District.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: I think french Shill probably wins, but it's probably going
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: to be the most competitive race he's had in sometimes.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Maine Democrats up eight points on turnout, Georgia up six,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Iowa up four, And then there's Colorado and Michigan where
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Democrats cast roughly, you know, sixty two percent of primary ballots.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: But the problem with both of those states is there
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: isn't a good historical baseline to compare it to. It's
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: not clean enough. So I kind of I kind of
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: want to be careful, be careful there on that one.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: Ohio though, is fascinating because it wasn't just a shift
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: upward for Democrats forty seven percent right and turnout participation.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Republicans were also down in Ohio eighteen points. Right. North Carolina,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: same situation. Not only did Democrats go up thirty Republicans
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: went down eighteen. And that's in a place where Republicans
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: had just become the largest registration block, they had the
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: plurality over both no party and the Democrats. Democrats were
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: up nineteen points and Arkansas Republicans were down thirty four.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Now there wasn't a ton of statewide competition on the
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Republican side of the aisle. Still in a state that
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Democrats are been told to write off, that's a that's
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: not a that ain't nothing. Alabama I've just told you about.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: They were actually up one hundred and five percent, Republicans
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: down twenty five It turnout falling in sixty of sixty
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: seven counties. And remember they had a competitive Senate open
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: seat primary for Senate. So it's a I'm you know, now,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: this is a significant yellow flag. It is why I
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: am I believe Alabama is a much more competitive governor's
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: race than many folks nationally believe. Now, the obvious objection
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: with any of this, it's the one Republicans have made
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: all cycle that Democrats have had more marquee primaries and Republicans.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: But I'm eighty million dollars in the Michigan Senate race. Okay,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: a real fight for governor Wisconsin. And yes, competitive primaries
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: manufacture more turnout. But again I go back to count
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: to Alabama, the total primary turnout was flat, but so
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: you had the same turnout, but this time more people
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: showed up to cast a Democratic ballot than they did
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: four years ago. So here you had basically turnout kind
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: of even than it was four years ago overall, but
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: a huge lead forward for the Democrats. That is, apples
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: to apples. And then Pennsylvania is a great little experiment
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: here because both gubernatorial primaries were uncontested. Shapiro had no opponent,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: neither did the Republican nominee Garrity no opponent, so there
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: was no statewide race to really drive turnout, and yet
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Democrats dominated Republicans sixty four thirty six, as far as
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: two to one basically in primary participation. So I don't
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: think you can just chalk this up to Democrats had more.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: That's what you do when you're trying to convince donors
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: that you're not going to lose yet. And I think
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: we're in a different place now. I would use this
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: analysis not to necessarily presume that there is going to
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: be victories for Democrats in places like Alabama and Arkansas.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: But what this analysis is really good at telling you
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: is where is there going to be where is there
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: going to be problems? Where are things going to be
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: more competitive? It tells you where a party's base is
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: not very enthusiastic, and this is where there are signs
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: all over the country that Republicans have an enthusiasm problem,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: and all of this primary turnout has shown that. And
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: it's a much stronger signal than that. So this really
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: is a better negative screen than a positive one when
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: you're doing these apples to apples. And perhaps the best
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: way to showcase this is to do Texas versus Florida.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: So Texas our first primary of the year. Democratic primary
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: ballots went from one point one million in twenty twenty
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: two to two point three million this cycle, and you
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: could say, well, they had a really competitive primary right,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: Jasmind Crockett, James tollerco. Yes, they did. They more than
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: doubled it. It was the first time this century that
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: I believe Democrats had topped Republicans in overall turnout. And
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: it is it is. That is a significant shift. Yes,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: it may be won election cycle. But again, remember both
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: parties had competitive primaries. Cornin Paxton, is that not a
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: marque primary. I think you could call it a marque primary, right,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: So that's a big deal. Now take a look at Florida,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: same kind of state, big sun belt Republican trending open
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: governor seat. Opposite result. Florida Democrats in twenty eighteen cast
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: over one and a half million ballots, it was, and
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: then it ends up falling down closer to one point
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: tow to one point one. So it is this is
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: not a There is not evidence in Florida that there
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: is an extra enthusiasm. There's not evidence in Florida of
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: more people wanting to participate in the primary system. Now look,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: somebody in Florida may argue, hey, it's close primaries in Florida,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: it's open primaries in Texas. Yeah, this is all the
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: more you know it. I do think that both parties
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: would benefit if they would have and let the unaffiliated's
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: in Florida the No Party people, which is a growing
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: chunk of voters. And clearly, when you look at Democratic
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: primary performance, all the voters that they had that voted
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen that have left the party have clearly
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: gone to No Party because the Republican increase in registration
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: has been in some ways it has been the loss
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: of Democratic registration as much as been a gain, and
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: it's been almost a gain in the No Party or
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: the independent registration that has been the accelerant here for
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: the advantage that the Republicans Republicans have. So look, I
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: think it's I think when you look at the turnout
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: differences of Texas Democrats versus Florida Democrats, this is why
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: if you're investing there's some evidence that something's happening in Texas,
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: I can't tell you that I see that same evidence
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: that something's happening in Florida. Now let me go to
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: the one more state that I sort of teased at earlier,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: the Sunflower State. Kansas, of course, held its primary a
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago open governor's seat, single best opportunity
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Republicans have to pick up a gubernatorial seat this year,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: and they had a genuinely contested primary if you will,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: with Trump's endorsement, but it was a big, big, you know,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: long list of serious candidates. Every ingredient was there for
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: to help Kansas Republicans surge turnout, both sides engaged open
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: seat national attention. Here's what happened in twenty twenty two.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: The highest turnout Democratic state wide primary in Kansas drew
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: about two hundred and eighty nine thousand voters, and the
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: highest turnout Republican one drew about four hundred and forty
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: five thousand voters thirty thirty nine point three percent Democratic right,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: so at sixty one thirty nine there. This year, Democrats
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: drew about two hundred and twenty thousand votes, their most
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: contested race. They had both a contested gubernatorial primary and
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: a contested center primary, but Republican turnout was down almost
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: one hundred thousand. Republicans only had about three hundred and
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: forty thousand, so Democratic turnout kind of you know, in
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: the same place, thirty nine point three percent Democratic. Nothing
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: really moved. Both parties fell about twenty four percent in
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: raw votes. Democrats were down twenty four, Republicans are down
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: twenty four, perfectly proportional decline. Well, you have to be
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: honest about why the raw numbers dropped, because the explanation
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: is important and it isn't disengagement. The August twenty twenty
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: two primary in Kansas had that abortion referendum, and so
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of people that came in and
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: voted heavily and ended up voting in a Republican primary,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: but voted in favor of or against the refe I
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: think it was like the no was the S, the
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: S was the no, but essentially to prevent the state
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: from banning abortion. It clearly had a huge inflation in
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: the turnout and certainly means that you had to decline.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: But it is the ratio that I'm interested in, right
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: and the fact that essentially the Democratic number only dropped
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: a little, but the Republican number dropped a lot. You know, Look,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: it is why there is a glimmer of hope for
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Democrats to make that senen See competitive, but it's also
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: why there's some built in skepticism. Right in Iowa, the
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: raw Democratic primary turnout top you know, they actually had
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: more people show up than the Republican side. You're not
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: having that yet in Kansas. And perhaps that might be
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: the canary in the coal mine. It could mean that
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: maybe as bullish as some Democrats want to be about Kansas,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: maybe there's a little bit more work to do right.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: Maybe there's a little bit more, Maybe there's a little
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: bit more party building that needs to be done. But
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: the bottom line is this the primary turnout this primary
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: season his favorite Democrats. In just about every competitive state
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: where both parties had a competitive primary, Democratic turnout was up.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Republican turnout was either flat or down. What that translates
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: into is Democrats are favored to win more seats in
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: November than Republicans are. The question is is that gap
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: enough to flip both the House and the Senate. Did
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: the remaps allow for sort of a higher floodwall for
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: Republicans to prevent sort of a massive shift of House
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: seats Even if Democrats win, say the national House vote
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: by five or six points, does it only translate to
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: say ten House seats or twelve House seats right? That
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: part of the November equation is unknown. But the one
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: thing we do know here there were more Democrats interested
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: in this primary season than Republicans. Is that about Trump?
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Is that about the current political climate? And what I
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: can tell you is that in the last five midterm cycles,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: the party that drew more voters to the primary polls
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: then the other party one won the midterms. Doesn't mean
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: they picked up both the House and the Senate, right,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: you know, and six Democrats picked them up both. In ten,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Democrats were able to hold the Senate even as they
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: lost the House. In fourteen, it moved it. Republicans held
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: the House and picked up the Senate. In eighteen, Democrats
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: actually lost Senate seats but flipped the House. So it
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: is directionally an important tea leaf to read. But at
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: this point, all it's setting up is that expectations for
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Democrats to win this thing are higher today than they
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: were at the start of primary season. All are with
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: that sneaking a break. When we come back my fascinating
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: conversation with my friend Greg Mitchell, we had a couple
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: of audio disruptions. You know, he may have been coming
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: to me from parts unknown. I'm teasing on that, so
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: bear with us with a small audio hiccup here and there.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: But after that, my time machine top five lists and
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: some questions Thanks for listening. Enjoy the conversation. Well, I
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: left out the time Machine in last week's episode, and
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: part of that was intentional. When I dropped the special
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: two part episode on the Lakers and Mark Walter and
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: what and whether this is a window into the next
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: financial crisis that we may face as a country, I
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: figured I wouldn't overload you with all of my regular
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: content with it as well in space this out well,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: but I you know, I really love my time Machine segments,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: and this is a good one this week, and so
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: I figured I would share it here on this Thursday episode.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Don't worry, we still have a top five list. That's
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: that's going to happen as well. But I want to
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: go back to where I went back in time. It
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: went back seventy two years sort of, but keep that
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: number in mind, seventy two years. As I told you
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: in the last episode, I spent some time in Indiana
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: last week talking with a group of people who are
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: trying to do something that I think is both necessary
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: and really hard reform American democracy. You know, not through
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: a partisan lens, but through an American lens, right, through
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: a citizenship lens, through a civis lens, change some of
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: the incentives that reward polarization, modernized institutions that were designed
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: for a different country in a different century. Figure out
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: how we leave behind a political system that works a
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: little bit better than the one we inherited. And whenever
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: I have these conversations, I know how quickly we start
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: talking in election cycles twenty twenty six, twenty twenty eight,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: maybe twenty thirty six. Right, it's understandable, that's how politics
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: trains us all to think. Right. But this week's time machine,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: I hope, is a useful corrective because it's this week
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty that we're going back to an important
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: moment in time. And it was this week that the
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: state of Tennessee became the state that finally put the
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: Nineteenth Amendment over the top and guaranteed that voting rights
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: could not be denied on the basis of sex. And
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: the movement that got it there had begun seventy two
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: years earlier. Seventy two years. So let's go back to
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: the beginning July eighteen forty eight, Seneca Falls, New York.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: And don't picture some enormous national convention with bunting all
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: over the place, right, that it was not. It was
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: a few hundred people gathered in a Wesleyan chapel in
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: a small town in upstate New York. Elizabeth Katie Stanton
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: is there, Lucretia Mott, Frederick Douglass is there. They produced
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: something called the Declaration of Sentiments, and they consciously borrow
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: the language to the Declaration of Independence. We owe these
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: truths to be self evident, that all men and women
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: are created equal. Then they begin listing the ways America
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: is not living up to that proposition. Women can't vote.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Married women have extremely limited property rights. Their wages at
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: the time can legally belong to their husbands. They have
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: limited access to higher education and many professions. They have
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: almost no independent political power. This is eighteen forty eight, folks,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: not fifteen forty eight. One hundred people eventually signed that declaration.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: Sixty eight women and thirty two men. And here's something
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: that's easy to forget. Even at Seneca Falls, voting rights
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: were controversial. Elizabeth Katie Stanton wanted the convention to demand
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: women's suffrage. Some of the people who had come to
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: a women's rights convention thought that was going too far. No, no, no,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: let's not ask for voting rights. Yet, let's just talk
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: about property rights some of that stuff. Think about that.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: You're already radical enough to show up in Seneca Falls
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: in eighteen forty eight, and this idea sounds too radical
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: giving women the right to vote, But it just gives
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: you an idea of where the culture was in eighteen
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: forty eight. Frederick Douglas strongly supports stan. The resolution passes,
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: and one of the women who signs the declaration is
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: a teenager. Her name's Charlotte Woodward. She's eighteen or nineteen
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: at the time. She works making gloves in the area.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: Later she would remember being furious that she could work
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: for wages and still have almost no legal control over
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: the money she earned. That's what drove her. So she
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: signs her name, and the clock begins, and then nothing
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: happens quite some time. Well, all right, that's not fair.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: A lot happens, it just doesn't happen very quickly. Right,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: the country goes through a civil war, slavery ends. The
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Fourteenth Amendment establishes birthright, citizenship, and the idea of equal protection,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: an extraordinarily important part of the Constitution these days. The
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: Fifteenth Amendment says voting rights can't be denied because of race,
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: and that creates an enormous fight inside the Wind's suffrage movement.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: Some suffragists support the fifteenth Amendment as an essential step forward,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: sort of an incremental step. Others, including Stanton and Susan B. Anthony,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: bitterly oppose enfranchising black men while all women remain excluded,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: black and white. The movement then fractures over this issue,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: And this is worth remembering. Successful political movements don't necessarily
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: move in straight lines. They split, they splinter, they argue,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: mistakes get made, they occasionally make arguments that don't age
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: very well, and then they regroup. Right. I like to
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: use the example when I defend incrementalism of civil unions
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: before same sex marriages, some similarity. You could just see
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: every one of these right. When you're demanding rights. You
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: have this tension between the incrementalists and those that are impatient,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: and you kind of have some impatience, but how much
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: of it right? And that's sort of the push pull.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Susan B. Anthony decides to vote illegally in eighteen seventy two,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: she's arrested and prosecuted. Meanwhile, some Western states begin moving
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: much faster than the federal government does. Wyoming gives voting
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: rights to women while it's still a territory. Part of
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: that was out of necessity they needed more. They excluded
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: women of other would have many voters. Other Western states follow,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: and the national movement keeps trying and losing. State referendums lose,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: federal efforts fail, constitutional amendments fail. Then, in eighteen seventy eight,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: Senator Aaron Sergent of New York introduces a women's suffrage
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: amendment in Congress at the urging of Susan B. Anthony.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: It doesn't pass, so they introduce it again, and then
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: they introduce it again, and then they do it again. Essentially,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: the same amendment is introduced in every session of Congress
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: for more than forty four zero years. Forty years. Think
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: about how many time someone had to say, well, we
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: lost again, see you next year. And generations begin changing.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: Lucretia Mott, who was there in Seneca Falls, She dies
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty. Elizabeth Katie Stan dies in nineteen o two,
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: again both before the nineteenth amendment. Susan B. Anthony dies
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: in nineteen oh six. The people who started this movement
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: are disappearing, but the movement didn't disappear. New leaders arrived.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: He had Kerrie Chapman kat Alice Paul, new organizations, new strategies.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: Some focus on winning a state by state. Others decide
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: that's taking too long, and they concentrate on a federal
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: constitutional amendment. Alice Paul and the National Women's Party begin
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: picketing outside Woodrow Wilson's White House in the eighteen teens
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: and esue me in the nineteen teens. The Silent Sentinels
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: women standing outside the gates holding banners day after day.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: They get arrested, some go on hunger strike, some are
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: force fed. Then World War One changes the political environment again.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: Women are working in factories supporting the war effort, serving
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: as nurses, still no right to vote, doing jobs the
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: country suddenly needs them to do, so New York approves
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: women's suffrage. In nineteen seventeen, Woodrow Wilson finally endorses a
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: constitutional amendment. The US House passes it, the Senate doesn't,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: so they try again, and finally, in nineteen nineteen, Congress
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: passes what becomes the nineteenth Amendment. The House vote is
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: three oh four to ninety, the Senate vote is fifty
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: six to twenty five. Now comes the next problem thirty
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: six states. Remember we weren't at fifty then thirty six states,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: not thirty eight, which is what it needs now have
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: to ratify it. By the summer of nineteen twenty, we're
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: up to thirty five. They need one more, and most
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: of the remaining possibilities don't look very promising. So suddenly
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: everybody shows up in Nashville, suffragists, anti suffragists, lobbyists, reporters,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: Kerry Chapman Katt. The Tennessee Senate approves ratification, but the
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: Tennessee House is another matter. The fight becomes so intense
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: that people begin calling it the War of the Roses.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: Yellow roses for suffrage, red roses against. And one of
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: the legislators wearing a red rose is Harry Burn. He's
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: a Republican, he's twenty four years old, he's from McMinn
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: County in eastern Tennessee. He's considered an anti suffrage vote,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: and on the morning of August eighteenth, there's no particular
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: reason for the suffragists to think otherwise. In fact, the
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: opponents of ratification try to kill the amendment by tabling it.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: The vote is forty eight forty eight. So they try again,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: and again the vote is forty eight to forty eight.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Harry Burn votes with the anti suffrage forces both times,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: so everybody thinks they know where harry Burn stands. Except
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: harry Burn has something in his pocket. It's a letter
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: from his mom, fed Burn. She'd been following the suffrage fight,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: and she has some advice for her twenty four year
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: old son. She tells them to vote for suffrage. She
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: tells them to go help Carrie Chapman Cat, and then
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: she writes the line that would survive for the history books. Hurrah,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: and vote for suffrage and don't keep them in down,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: and then don't forget to be a good boy and
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: help missus Kat put the rat in ratification. Man, you
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: really can't improve on a mother's political advice. Huh. Then
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: comes the actual ratification vote. Burn's name is called, and
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: the twenty four year old legislator wearing the red rose,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: which stood for anti suffrage, votes I the room erupts.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: Ratification passes the Tennessee House fifty to forty six. It's
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: always funny, and once something people know is going to pass,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: a few other people suddenly want to jump on board,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: right so Tennessee became the thirty sixth state, the Nineteenth
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: Amendment becomes part of the institution. And this is the
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: number I want you to focus on again. Seventy two
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: years after Seneca Falls, change is heard in America. But
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: change is not impossible. And sometimes I love how the
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: absurdity of history can work. Sometimes took a lot of organizing, petitions, speeches, elections, defeats, arrests,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: hunger strikes, in between a civil war and our First
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: World War, and in the end constitutional history. He turns
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: on a twenty four year old Republican state legislator from
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: the Union side of Tennessee by the way Eastern Tennessee,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: with a letter from his mother in his pocket. Now, look,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: nothing's ever clean in history. We know that the Nineteenth
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: Amendments is the right to vote cannot be denied by
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: a kind of sex. It didn't mean that every American
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: woman suddenly was able to walk into a polling place
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: and vote in November nineteen twenty. Black women throughout much
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: of the South still faced the machinery of Jim Crow.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: Like black men did, poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, violence,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: Native American women there they weren't even recognized as US
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: citizens until nineteen twenty four, and citizenship still doesn't guarantee
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: voting access everywhere. You know. One of the funny things
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: is I like to do this. Go tell me where
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: the right to vote is in the US Constitution. Right,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: it doesn't exist. We don't put one in the US Constitution,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: but quite a few state constitutions have it. By the way,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: Asian American women faced citizenship restrictions that also impacted voting rights. So,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: of course August nineteen twenty was in the end, but
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: it was another important piece of democratic infrastructure. It was
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: an enormous one. But then another generation has to make
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: that promise real. That's how this stuff works. Which brings
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: me back to Charlotte Woodward. Do you remember I brought
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: her up at the beginning of this little story, the
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: teenager that was making gloves, who walked into the Wesleyan
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: Chapel at Seneca Falls and forty eight eighteen forty eight
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: because she was irritated that the money she was earning
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: she didn't necessarily control. This is what's remarkable about history.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: Sometimes At the sixty eight women who signed the Declaration
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: of Sentiments, Charlotte Woodward was the only one known to
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: have lived long enough to actually see the Nineteenth Amendment ratified.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: So think about that. Sixty eight women put their names
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: on that document, and one lived to see the constitutional
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: change they were asking for. One got to see it
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: from beginning to end. Charlotte was by then in her nineties.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Katie Stanton didn't get to see it, neither did
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: Susan B. Anthony, neither did Lucretia mop But Charlotte did barely.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: And as far as historians can determine, Charlotte Woodward never
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: actually did get to vote. For what it's worth, she
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: was ill on election day in nineteen twenty, her eyesight
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: and health deteriorated afterward, and she didn't make it past
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenty one. So she spent seventy two years waiting
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: for the right to vote, lived long enough to win it,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: but never got to cast a ballot. But I keep
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: thinking about that. After spending last week talking about political
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: reform to a group of civic minded people in Indiana,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: we talk about fixing American democracy as if reform belongs
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: on a calendar. Now I happen to think it should.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: I think we should do small D democratic maintenance, infrastructure maintenance.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: Every probably generation, things modernize. You know, we don't put
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: it on a schedule. I wish we did, but we don't,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: and we think, well, maybe we can fix it with
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: the next Congress. But some things belong in a constitution.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: So Seneca Falls the Tennessee took seventy two years. The
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: amendment itself was introduced in Congress for more than forty
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: years before even Congress finally passed it. Most of the
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: people who started the fight never saw the finish. So
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: I'm not trying to make an argument for patients. That's
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: not the point of this. It's actually an argument for urgency,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: because political infrastructure is something one generation often has to
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: build for the next one. And what makes the American
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: experiment so amazing is that we have actually done this.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: We have tried to make the more perfect union, and
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: we have accepted the premise that about once every other
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: generation we actually do something in our constitution. We don't
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: quite do it every generation. I think we should, but
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: about every other generation we realize this, and the urgency
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: is there, but it is kind of a baton. And
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: I guess what I'm hoping for is that we know
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: we have the baton in our hands. We have got
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: if we do, if we stare at this last fifteen
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: years of obvious of sort of obvious flaws that have
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: been exposed. Right, I look at the Trump eras as
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: oddly a gift. Right he is like the black light
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: that shines itself inside a supposedly clean hotel room. And
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: the black lights if Donald Trump has exposed all sorts
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: of I'll just say, horrible loopholes. These are things we
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: can fix. They're structural things we can fix. We can
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: try to shortcuts, you can rant about abolishing this or
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: expanding that. But in here, in the United States of America,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: in a constitutional republic, real change is in the constitution.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: And we don't make it easy, but we don't make
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: it impossible. But it takes a bit of perseverance, urgency,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: and oddly, I don't want to say patience, but an
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: impatience that knows that eventually we're going to get this right.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: It's why I love to misquote Churchill. And I say
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: misquote because I've I said it a million times here
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: and I realized it's I went onto one of these
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: Churchill sites. It's the It's among the most misquoted quotes right. Supposedly,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: Churchill said, you can always count on the Americans to
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: be there after they've exhausted every other path. He never
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: said it, it made it, but boy, it made us
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: all feel better that we thought he might have because
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: he was so wise, and he obviously did have the
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: experience of watch waiting for the Americans to show up
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: for World War One, waiting for the Americans to show
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: up for World War Two, and in both cases, once
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: the Americans showed up, we were able to get Europe
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: in a better place. So I'm sure he agrees with
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: the sentiment. I can tell you this, that's the best
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: I've always thought it's the best way to describe America.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: We eventually get it right after we exhaust a lot
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: of other paths. And so it means don't give up
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: on reform, but realize, if you want reform to stick,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: it has to be structural. To me, the lesson from
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: Watergate was, you know reform, You know, legislation comes and goes,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: a constitutional amendment stick and I think that that's where
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: the effort should be. That's where the reform should be,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: and that's that's probably the best place to start. And
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: I thought, of all weeks to do this, What a
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: great example of something that took way too long. It
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: is not something to be proud of of how long
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: it took, but it's a reminder that it did take
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: a more perfect union. That's always what we're striving for.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: There's your time machine for the week. Jest Top five
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: top top Jest. All right, it's time forday top five
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: lists for the week, and so looks it's been a
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: thematic week. I did my conversation about twenty twenty eight
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: with j mart I did another one with Solisa on
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: Super Tuesday, So why not do so of my top five?
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to give you two top fives here, right,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: there's the there's the top five that I understand where
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: it's sort of like who's working the hardest at the moment,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: who's trying to make sure everybody knows and it's sort
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: of like the hardest workers that are that are well
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: even that it's those that are working the hardest, and
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: then there's those that have the most interesting potential that
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: I'm curious about. So let me start with with Aosa
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna put her at number one because it's
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: the same point I made with both Chris and Jonathan.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: If she runs her the share of the attention economy
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: that she's going to grab out of the presidential race.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: While I would have said pre Trump is always overrated,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here and over and say
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: it's overrated. The attention economy used to be. You know,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: if the attention economy mattered, Howard Dean would have been
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: the nominee O for right. If the attention economy mattered,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: John McCain would have defeated George W. Bush in two thousand.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: So I don't you know a lot of times, you know,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: presidential primaries in sort of this in the seventies, eighties,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: and nineties, which confession were the most formative sort of
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: on me and what my analysis used to always shake
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: down to be. Presidential primaries were always about you know,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: who was going You know, there was always a tortoise
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: and hair and there was always somebody that leaped out
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: in front who inevitably wouldn't be able to hold on.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: Whether it's Trump changed the equation, or social media changed
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: the equation, or our decision to sort of there's no
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: more local media and all media is thrown into one.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: You know ecosystem and the attention economy is everything. If
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: you assume this is the media environment we live in
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: very much an intention economy. Well, then AOC has to
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: be seen as the front run. Now I've said that
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: and I've had people go but I don't think she
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: can win. Well, I'm skeptical that she can win a
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: general election. I'm not telling you who I think should
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: I'm just telling you who I think. Would you know,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: I guess is a better way to put it. So
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: right now, you have to put AOC as the front runner.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: I think if you take what's interesting is if you
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: take if she decides not to run. I don't think
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: there's a big front runner. And I know that there's
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: high name id and you know, so number two on
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: the list I'm gonna I'm actually going to put and
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: I think I would put this because he's the next
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: three people, the next four people i'm rating on my
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: top five list, and I'm going to put it all here.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: Pete Pootagig's number two, Kamala Harris at number three. And
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: you may say, why are you putting Pete ahead of Kamalo, Well,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: the last time Pete and Kamala ran in the same primary,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: Pete lasted longer than Kamala. So I think you know,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: scoreboard number four, I'm gonna put Mark Kelly in number five.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: I gonna put Gavin Newsom. And some of you may say,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: why do you have Gavin Newsim in there? And all?
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: And others may say why is he down at number five?
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: I don't want to underestimate his desire for this. He's
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: he wants it. Gavin Newsom wants it. And if you're
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: willing to do whatever it takes to win, that matters.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: That's worth something. Is it worth five points in a poll?
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what it is, but you know,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: he's a guy that isn't going to decide to hang
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: out in Hawaii for two weeks when he should be
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: raising money in Chicago or New York or whatever. Right.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: I say this because, infamously, you know, it was one
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: of the stories of the nineteen ninety two Democratic primary.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: In December of nineteen ninety one, tom Arkin, who for
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: a small period of time was had more an inside
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: track for getting a majority of the key labor endorsements
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: and was going to win Iowa by default because he
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: was an Iowa senator. He decided to go to the
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: Mahamas for a couple of weeks instead of raising money.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton doubled down and raised more money in Chicago
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: and in LA And he simply just outworked him. And
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: Tom Harkin didn't work hard enough during his presidential race.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: And you always have candidates to do that. John Glenn
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: in eighty four, a guy who started out HI, I
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: just didn't work hard enough, versus a Gary Hart who
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: started at one percent and worked his you know what off.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: Pete Bootage is working hard. Gavin Newsom is working hard.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: Mark Kelly appears to be much more aggressive about running
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: than ever. And Mark Kelly, of all the people on
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: my top five list, AOC, Pete Bootage, Kamala Harris, Mark Kelly,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom, there's only two are getting invites to Red states,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: and really of this top five list, and really only one,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: and it's Mark Kelly. Everybody loves standing next to an astronaut,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: and so Kelly is seen as And I remember six
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, Barack Obama was the Democrat
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: red state Democrats were bringing into their state. They did
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: not bring in Hillary Clinton. And you saw Mary Patola
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: what she did when she found out her campaign had
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: done a fundraising email with Kamala Airis. She's like, no,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: I don't want that. That's a tea lea for worth reading.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: It's why I'm a little bit skeptical of Harris. I
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: ultimately believe she doesn't run, but the fact that she is,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: she is, she is working hard here. Right, There's certain
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: candidates that I'm not yet ready to say or are
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: actively campaigning for this. Wes Moore is not actively campaigning.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: John Ossop is not actively campaigning. I get that the
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: prediction markets. And in fact, I think Asoff made his
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: first sort of bad call the little Natalie Harp shot.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: It just sort of he didn't need it. You know,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: you know we already have And I think this is
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: what Democrats need to be careful of here. I don't
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: there's some voters out there that want to know, aren't
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: looking for somebody to behave like Trump. I think the
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: next president, if the Democrats win the presidency next time,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: it's going to because they promise not to do that.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: And you know what what's interesting to me is that
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: when you watch Asoff sort of play clean up a
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: little bit later, you get the impression that maybe this
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: was a line and a speech to test out, and
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: maybe he thought, you know what, that isn't what I
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: want to be known as. I don't know if I
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: want to do that. I have a feeling we're not
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: going to. Now. Does anti Trump Twitter go crazy with
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: it because the White House went insane and how they
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: reacted with it. Sure, and it becomes yet another distraction
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: that Trump can't get out of. So you could say
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: it was certainly a clever OPO hit, if you will,
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: but I don't think it was good for the ASoft
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: brand on that front. But it also tells me he's
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: not yet thinking about and he shouldn't. He's got a
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: reelection to run. Andy Basheer is the one on here
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: who's right now traveling the country dying to help democratic governors.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: He's probably the only other major Democrat, and to a
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: lesser extent, Ram Emmanuel who red state Democrats are not
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: afraid to be seen with, you know, in part because
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: of the messaging, in part because of how they put themselves.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: A Sheer, an actual red state Democrat himself being governor
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: of Kentucky. And that's not nothing here. But you know,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: I'd be shocked if Josh Turick wants Gavin Newsom hanging
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: out with him, I'd be you know, maybe I'll be
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: curious to see if Gavin goes back to Michigan for
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: Abduel sied do just Jocelyn Benson wont him out there?
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know, right it's the California brand seen as
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: too liberal in some of these swing states. I'm going
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: to be watching the campaign invitations that Gavin Newsom gets
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: and accepts just to see to see that. But I don't.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: I'm keeping him in fifth on my life just because
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: the guy wants it, and that, you know, being willing
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: to put in the one hundred hour weeks to do
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: this is worth something, and he will. So that's where
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: I have things stand right now. Do I think the
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: actual Democratic nominee is in my top five list at
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: the moment, Actually I don't. But I think it's the
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: problem is it's not you know, whether it's Wesmore, whether
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: it's a ro Kana because AOC decides not to run,
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: whether it's a Warnock because ASoft decides not to run,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: whether it's a Pritzker because AOC doesn't run, and he
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: becomes the sort of the well funded progress the sort
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: of Tom Steyer with a smile, right the self funder
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: who might be more likable. That's why I think this
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: is one very you know, these top five lists. I
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: enjoyed doing them. I'm always obsessed with potential. Right get
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: wes Moore as perhaps the best pure, sort of on
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: paper candidate that is sitting there with Warnock and Kelly
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: a close second and third. But do they have the desire?
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: Are they willing to put in that time? Do they
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: have you know that whole fire in the belly matters? Here?
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: A little bit is does wes Moore see that for
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: this cycle? Or is he willing to bide his time
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: for one more cycle? He's got younger kids. It might
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: be that he decides that he wants to wait a cycle.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: Maybe he's been saying that, you know, he's been saying
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: he's not a candidate for twenty eight and a bunch
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: of us haven't believed him. Maybe we should believe him
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: because I haven't. He hasn't gone out of his way
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: to insert himself in some of these national conversations the
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: way Raw Emmanuel has, Andy Basher, et cetera. So that's
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: why the you know, this is my top five for
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: now aoc Pete Pooter, JIDJ Kamala, Harris Mark, Kelly, Gavin Newsom.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: But if I'm being honest, the likelihood that the nominee
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: is in that top five is probably like fifty two
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: percent chance, where there's almost as good of a chance
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: of somebody else not name those five who ends up
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: the eventual Democratic nominade. This episode of the Check podcast
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  Speaker 1: you're in Louise, ask Chuck. I'm going to pledge for
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it now, Labor Day weekend is going
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: to be the blowout. Ask Chuck weekend, So I'm gonna
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do a marathon Q and a session there
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: because I'm letting this stuff pile up a little bit,
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: and I hate letting it pile up. You've guys got
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: some fun questions in here. Some of them I got
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: to do a little research on. But I am going
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: to do a massive you know, that'll be some combination
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: of of me wanting to talk too much about the
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: college football season and cleaning up the August Ask Chuck mailbox.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: So if you haven't heard me answer your question, it
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean I'm not going to. It just means I
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: ran out a little bit of time. Now, all right,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: We're gonna start from Michael t in Chicago, and he
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: writes he Democrats all over the country are claiming they'll
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: bring a ability to the Trump administration if they win
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: Congress in November. But can they really, Well, what happened
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: if Trump and company simply ignore the subpoenas? Isn't it
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: up to the Justice Department, which is now run by
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: Trump's personal attorney, to enforce them and prosecute those who
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: ignore them? And wouldn't Trump just pardon anyone who is prosecuted. Well,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: first of all, you are your cynicism is well earned.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: I am not going to sit here and say that
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: your scenarios are not completely out of left field. And
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: in fact, the most important development that took place over
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: the last two weeks is this is this emergence of
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: an OLC memo, which is essentially a way for the
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: administration to essentially delay a subpoena. What do I mean, So,
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the Department of Justice wanted to
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: let us know there was a new interpretation of executive
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: privilege that the Office of Legal Counsel has decided to
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: try to argue. And there's significance when you put it
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: as a memo before, when you do this, when you
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: when you offer up a finding before somebody's asked, it
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: does provide an excuse for the courts to sort of
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: delay the enforcement of a subpoena. So let me walk
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: you through this. What Trump is, what the Trump White
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: House is trying to get the Department of Justice to
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: argue is that this idea of executive privilege, which which
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: is allowed for presidents to shield west wing staff from
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: being having to testify in Capital Hill. And the theory
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: is that you know, hey, presidents should be able to
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: have conversations with their you know, they're not elected officials.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: They are they are they are, they are staffers. That
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: they should be able to allow, that that council shouldn't
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: be subject to subpoena. That they should be able to,
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: you know, not have to testify to what the President
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: was thinking or saying at the moment. And a lot
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: of times you'll see, you know, Congress will try to
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: subpoena a chief of staff, a general counsel, a national
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: security officer, something like that. And you know, every once
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: in a while a White House might waive executive privilege.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: It's extraordinarily rare that they do it. It's a big
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: deal when a White House does it. It has happened
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: a handful of times. But most of the time, here's
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: the thing, nobody wants to testify before Congress out of
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: fear that they're going to somehow be accused of lying
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden if they get you know,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: if you lie before Congress, you can end up in
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: jail right for perjury. So a lot of people would
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: like to have the shield of executive privilege. Well, it's
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: perfectly reasonable for staff to fall under that Cabinet secretary's
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: passador's executives all that stuff. But what the Trump administration
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: wants to argue is that private citizens members, you know,
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: CEOs that come in and have meetings with the president,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: perhaps wealthy individuals from organizations, Oh, I don't know, like
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: SpaceX or open AI make a deal with the president.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: Well what was the transaction? Maybe it's the crypto guys.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: They want to try to take the executive privileged shield
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: and have it apply to private citizens who have meetings
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: with the president. And you know what they're up to,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: right because Democrats know they're not going to be able
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: to find out, well, how did this investment in World
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: Liberty financial work that sort of enriched the Trump family.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: They're not going to be able to subpoena Howard Lutneck
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: to have this conversation the Commerce Secretary or Steve Whitkoff
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: or Jared Kushner. They have, you know, just enough standing
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: that they have the shield of executive privilege and it
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: sort of meets the letter of the of the of
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: the law on that one. But to have this extent
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: to just any private citizen that goes in and speaks
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: to the president, it would be quite the expansion of that.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: But by simply putting out this OLLC memo. What the
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: White House is guaranteed is that any subpoena that the
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: House puts out there against any company that is rumored
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: to have made a deal, or maybe maybe they want
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: a subpoena everybody who contributed to the building fund, or
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: maybe they want a subpoena anybody that contributed to the
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: inaugural fund that you know, it all felt like it
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: was some sort of pay for you know, you got
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: this in exchange for this regulatory situation to go down.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: We've seen some evidence it looks like of sort of
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: financial transactions right around the time that the FDA pulled
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: back on some of these issues with vape, with vaping
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: flavors and things like that. There is genuinely a place
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: to go for Democrats to find out the full story
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: if they want to find out was this done? You know,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: is essentially a regulation sold to the highest bidder type
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: of thing. The place you would go is you would
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: subpoena you know, perhaps the CEOs of these companies, you know,
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: maybe it's the CEO of Altria or whatever it is.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: And now when that subpoena gets issued, it's then going
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: to go before it's then going to go immediately to
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: court to see if they qualify under this interpretation of
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: executive privilege. So I know that was a long and
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: windy and windy answer, but what it does is I
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: do think it's going to be quite difficult for Democrats
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: to have show hearings of private folks in the private
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: sector who may have participated in this paid a play
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: scheme that Trump is essentially put together for his presidency.
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: You know, at a minimum, it will slow down the
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: opportunity to find out what happened, and at a maximum,
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: it might shield it completely until he's fully out of
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: office in twenty nine. So you know, now you as
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: for the enforcement of subpoenas, Congress could enforce their own
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: subpoenas if they chose to. They could change the rule
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: that would you know, they have their own police force
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: if they chose to. They've always just referred to the
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: Justice Department. Well, you can't whatever it gets referred to
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: this Justice department. Todd Blanche is going to do whatever
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: his personal client, Donald Trump wants him to do. He
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: himself has all but said it. I mean, at least
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: Todd Blanche is not pretending he's going to do anything
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: other than the bidding of Trump at the Justice Department.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: I guess he gets points for honesty, but he's also
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: going to be the last person to enforce a congressional
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: subpoena that somebody decides to ignore. So the but Congress
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: can decide on its own to use its own They
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: have their own police force if they choose to use
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: it and empower them to enforce a subpoena. The question
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: is will they? And that's going to be I think
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: if Democrats win both the House and the Senate, that
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: is a rule change that they make and that they because,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: especially if you have a Justice Department that has no
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: interest in enforcing congressional subpoenas. Next question comes from andre
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: in La. Here's a topic I'm curious to get your
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: thoughts on. Why were two outsider candidates with little political experience,
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: who are badly outspent and opposed by the Democratic establishment
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: able to be so competitive in the Michigan Senate and
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin governor's race. Isn't it the more important story than
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: polling errors cards? Andre in La, Sure, but I don't
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: think that's this is not a new development, right There's
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: I don't I think in you know, I think Wisconsin
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: it's less interesting because you've sort of had you just
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: had a mess of a primary among the so called establishment.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: I think Michigan, you could argue, is a better example,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: except you know, yes, abdul as i ed was badly outspent,
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: but he was incredibly well sourced for an insurgent candidate,
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: and he had also already run statewide before, which in
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: itself is it's almost like your own in kind contribution.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: Haley Stevens had never run statewide before. So I hear
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: you on that. I take your point, and I certainly
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: think it shows you that there is a huge divide
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party. The question is is this divide
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: on policy or emotion? I think it's a I think
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: this is the divide between is the Democratic Party about
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: governing or the Democratic Party need to re calibrate itself
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: as fighters. And I think you do have about half
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: the electorate that feels like, hey, this is a moment
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: to fight what's happening on the right, versus a chunk
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: of Democrats who think, you know, if we just if
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: we just get power and govern better, we can win
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: the argument that way. I think that's the true animating
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: distinction inside the party, you know that sort of sorts
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: itself between left versus center left, I guess, but I
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: really think it is more. Here's what I would tell you.
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: I'd encourage you to listen to my conversation with Andre
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: Carson in my Newsphere interview this week. That's out. Andre
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: Carson was one of the first Muslim Americans elected to
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: Congress out of Indianapolis. He's been serving almost nine terms.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: He is probably the definition of pragmatic progressive. And there's
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: easily some people who ran against him at a primary
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: who argued he wasn't you know, he wasn't fighting hard enough.
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: He's ideologically closer to where most progressives are today, but
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: it's really entile. It's really in tone and temperament that
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: I think the distinction comes. Right, Haley Stevens was not
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: arguing to upend the Democratic establishment a dull elsa it was,
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: and I think that was the distinction that powered him
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: a little bit. That it was less an ideology and
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: more on sort of who's going to punch them in
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: the nose? And so I think that's why that's the
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: divide that's there. But I mean, I could argue we've
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: seen very competitive primaries in the past too, So that's
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: why I'm not sure. I'm not sure your premise. Again,
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: I take your point, but I don't know if in
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: that sense we learned anything new that Hey, look, there
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: was insurgent candidates. Both states are places where it is
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: easier for insurgents to catch fire for what it's worth,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: particularly insurgents on the left, and there's a history of
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: it in both states. Marcus writes in he goes, why
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: does it feel like Trump can basically do whatever he
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: wants unchecked. Maybe he's not a true authoritarian, but he's
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: getting pretty close, especially with a Congress and a Justice
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: Department that refuses to stand in his way. I just
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: look at this vaccine decisions, his military direction, education, and
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: now what he's doing with the USDA, just to name
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: a few, and I very much fear the state of
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: things in the future. It's not even about owning the
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: Libs anymore. Some of his decisions make no sense. What
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: are your thoughts some of two minds in this? I
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: hear what you're saying. On he seems to just do
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: whatever he wants and nobody even when it's obviously ridiculous,
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: Like what he's you know, his love affair with Kim
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: Jong un, right, that is just this is not idea, like,
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: what is wrong with this guy? What are you doing
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: to our alliances in Asia, of all countries, south Korea. Really,
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: we're doing it. We're going to punish them, and now
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: you're going to push South Korea into the arms of China.
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: This is I mean, I am alarmed at the lack
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: of alarm by whatever's left of the normal Republicans in Congress.
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: Now it's August and they're not here, and there's not
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: microphones being shoved in their face. But look the fact
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: that Todd Blanchcott confirmed shows you, I mean, the people
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: who have surrendered is the governing wing of the Republican Party.
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: The governing wing of the Republican Party whispers to all
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: of US reporters that they think what he's doing is crazy,
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: whispers to all of US reporters, well, you know, we'll
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: be able to stop the worst excesses of him. They
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: don't try to stop any of the words. The only
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: good news in all of this stuff is that most
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: of the stuff he's done as executive orders, and most
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: of it can be undone. But the problem take the
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: vaccine executive order, so it can be undone and literally
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: January from my god, whoever's the next president may not be,
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: but it's going to take them two days to recind
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: some of these executive orders. They're going to get a
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: cramp in their hand, right, I don't because I don't
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: think you use the auto pen on day one, right,
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: So I uh, But the perception damage, I mean, we've
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: already seen it, right, Fewer people or they're more. More
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: parents are are asking for exemptions for their kids. I mean,
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: it's it's uh. I think it's unsafe for some families
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: to send their kids to school. If you get to
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: a point where you have so many kids trying to
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: get exemptions from from vaccines, this is dangerous for society.
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: I find this vaccine stuff to be literally the most
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: ludicrous of all of the own the LIB disc visions
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: what the right is doing to its own people, What
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: Trump and Kennedy are doing to their own voters, intentionally
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: getting them sick, intentionally making them more vulnerable to disease.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: It's offensive that they intentionally want to see harm done
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: to Americans, and in their own perverted way, they don't.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: I guess they really believe that this isn't harmful, but
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, the science is the science. This is extraordinarily harmful.
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: So yeah, you know, I all I'll say is you
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: say he's going unchecked. Well, I think the voters are speaking,
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: and the voters only have one way to express their
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: concern about this. It's voting. And you see more Democrats
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: and more independents where they can vote in democratic primaries,
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: and you see fewer Republicans showing up to voting primaries.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: And you see his approval rating going down in quality polls,
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: and you see his disapproval rating going up every day,
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: his constituency shrinks every day, his grip on power lessons.
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean that the damage from his tenure
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: over US in American politics isn't extensive and isn't going
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: to take probably year, probably decades, hopefully just years. I
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: hope it's not decades plural. But the damage is some
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: of the damage he's done, particularly in public health. And
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: I would argue what he's done in the Middle East.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is again a generational mistake that he's
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: made in the Middle East with Iran, and it's going
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: to set back American alliances American prestige for a party
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: that used to care about American exceptionalism. He is literally
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: doing what it takes to make America the least exceptional
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: it can be. And it's it's a gut punch if
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: you love this country. It's a gut punch if you
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: think America values in general should be. You know that
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: a country with our with our values pre Trump had
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: sort of earned its place to be the world superpower,
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: and he's doing his best to destroy everything that has
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: been built over the last seventy years. All right, I'm
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: going to get two quick more questions here. This comes
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: from Jake. He's an unaffiliated voter in Colorado's first district.
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: This is the one Diana to get just lost. Hey, Chuck,
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: with John Asoff now openly referring to Natalie Harp's unusually
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: close relationship with the president, how do mainstream media newsrooms
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: decide whether and how to cover this story? Why do
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: you think there has not been more investigative reporting in
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: mainstream media so far? Do you believe independent media should
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: play in the same set of standards here or a
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: different standard? I you know, this is one of those where,
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: for what it's worth, mainstream media has always been a
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: bit more cautious on this and always will. And there's it,
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: and you know, these things get thrown into the ether,
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: always by outsiders in some forms. Sometimes it's a gossam columnist.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's a politician. I shared earlier where I don't
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: think it was a good look for us off it's
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: now as a piece of op. If your whole goal
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: is to make Trump distracted and agitated, well apparently this
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: White House, you know, methinks you doth protest too much.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: So if the goal is to make him nuts and
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: make him make mistakes, that's a pretty good topic to
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: do it. What do you do with it? Right? The
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: New York Times reported on these letters, U, H, it
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: is there's no It's sort of like, is it news
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: that Trump and Millennia are not really close? Right? Like?
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: We all kind of what is news here? And at
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: what point is it relevant to how he conducts his business?
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: So I find myself, Look, I I have more questions
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: about Natalie Harp than I do Donald Trump. Donald Trump
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: has always looked for sycophants. Donald Trump has always surrounded himself,
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: and anybody who pays him the most attention is the
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: person he wants around him. So the news here isn't
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump has a has somebody who's obsessed with
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: him and he loves having this person around. The real
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: sort of, you know, the real question is what is now.
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: Maybe the White House got all angry about it because
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: Milania finds this Natalie Harp thing humiliating, especially when those
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: letters leaked. But you know, I know, in a weird way,
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: while I have I have some you know, I'm there's
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: a part of me that says, I don't know if
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: there's a story here. At the same time, Donald Trump
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: trafficks in every garbage gossip he can about any other politician,
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: and so I don't feel any I don't feel sorry
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: for him at all, but I will tell you that
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: I'm not. I don't know if. I don't know if
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: this really matters to the electorate at large. But like
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: I said, I think the effectiveness of this hit, if
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: you will, and bringing a little bit more attention to
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: this person who's who even some of his staffers thinks
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: she's a bit too obsessed over him, which, by the way,
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: is not new We've had There's plenty of people that
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: have done this with presidents in the past. Presidents love
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: the attention. Staffers get nervous when somebody gives that kind
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: of attention to somebody, because it you know how Trump
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: seems like he doesn't really have the energy or the
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: ability to do anything other than ask Natalie for printouts.
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: And that's about as far as I'm going to go
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: on this topic, if I'll let your guys minds wander
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: any further. But it is clear to me that it
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: gets under his skin, and the White House is super
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: sensitive about it, which tells me Malania did not like
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: that story about these letters and does not like the
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: idea that whether she cares that much more anymore about
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: her personal relationship with the president that none of us can. Oh,
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: but I'm certain she isn't going to like that. She
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: somehow has got some woman who is that this has
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: become sort of in the ether. And to me, the
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: overreaction by the White House to the story, you know,
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: sometimes right, if they just let it go, they might
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: might have it might have gone away. But in some ways,
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: the overreaction, Oh, they're really sensitive here. I know what
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: Trump would do. If Trump were on the other side,
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: he'd poke even harder. Oh, they don't like this story.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go even further, Right, how do I
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: know this? Look at what Donald Trump did with Bill
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: Clinton's with the women that were rumored to be with
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, who all showed up at a debate when
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: he had a debate with Hillary Clinton. Right, he has
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: no shame, there's no line he won't cross. So you know,
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: it's hard to have any empathy for him on this one.
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: All right, last question for the e for this episode.
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: It's Mark h and Allent Texas, Texas three. He tells me,
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: I'm struggling to reconcile what's happening in Texas. On one hand,
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: some Republican leaders oppose accommodations for Muslims in the name
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: of the First Amendment, while at the same time supporting
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: measures like displaying the Ten Commandments in public schools. How
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: do we hold elected officials accountable for upholding the Constitution
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: consistently even if it conflicts with their own religious beliefs. Thanks, Look,
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: you know, I love to remind people if there's only
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: one mention of religion in the Constitution, and it's a prohibition, right,
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: it's a prohibition of that there is no religious test
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: to hold elective office, period. In this country. I think
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: everything that they're attempting to do with Muslims and all
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: this rhetoric is Unamerican. It's unconstitutional for what it's worth,
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: which to me makes it un America. If something's unconstitutional,
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: also an American. But in this case, like it's complete
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: opposite of what we were founded on, right, which was
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: religious for a lot a lot of a lot of
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: people came to this country for religious freedom, not to
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: become some religious state. So no, I think all of
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: these things, and I as much as our courts have
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: shifted a little bit. Look, I'm surprised that Ten Commandments
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: are still up in Louisiana on this, But yeah, I
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: think we definitely. I mean this, it's these bizarre statements
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: that elected officials make about Muslims in American life, and
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: this idea of having a religious test tells me we
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: really have a civics problem in this country. There are
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: quite a few people in elective office who apparently have
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: never read the Constitution. And you know, maybe it's the
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: fault of all of us in media that we don't
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: remind people enough that, you know, while we have our
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: elected officials constantly try to bring religion into the political Square,
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: that the entire point of this country was to not
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: have a religious test, no state religion, no national religion.
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: And so but look, there's a there's a concerted effort.
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: There's a movement out there trying to sort of change
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: that narrative, change the perception, to try to sort of
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: re educate people about the Founders. Right, there's this whole
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: movement claiming that the Founders, you know, that it was
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: all we were meant to be a Christian nation. Again,
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: zero evidence of this, zero scholarship on this that supports
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: these things. But it doesn't mean the movement hasn't hasn't
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: grown a little bit there. I guess I still have
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: confidence at the courts are not going to reinterpret the
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: First Amendment so badly that somehow a state like Texas
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: is able to prevent Muslims from holding office. I still
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: have some hope that our judiciary isn't as warped as
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: our Department of Justice. All right, with that, I am
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna file this away for seventy two hours, and
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: with that, I will see you in seventy two hours
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: with another episode of the Check podcast. So check out Dynastic,
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: check out Newsphere, check out all the good stuff my
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: friends Crystaliza and DDHQ are doing. And with that, I'll
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: see you when we upload again.