Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - How America Can Produce Another “Leader Of The Free World” + Republicans Risk Losing Latinos For Decades

Transcript

Chuck’s Commentary - How America Can Produce Another “Leader Of The Free World” + Republicans Risk Losing Latinos For Decades · The Chuck ToddCast

0:00
Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
0:02
Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
0:06
Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
0:11
Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
0:14
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now
0:17
Speaker 1: over exactly this. Companies that branded themselves as unbiased while
0:21
Speaker 1: allegedly pointing people toward whatever would pay them the most
0:25
Speaker 1: as some sort of broker. So if your default is
0:28
Speaker 1: to distrust everyone in this space, honestly, I get it.
0:31
Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
0:34
Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
0:37
Speaker 1: Medicare advisors whose entire model is that their advisors are
0:41
Speaker 1: not paid to push any one plan. They're just trying
0:45
Speaker 1: to help. Yes, there's compensation that goes with it. but
0:47
Speaker 1: it's across the board is what they're trying to do.
0:51
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, they're advocating for you.
0:52
Speaker 1: They're not the insurance companies themselves. They're an actual person
0:56
Speaker 1: who actually goes through your doctors, your prescriptions, your needs,
1:01
Speaker 1: and then compares them to every single plan available to
1:04
Speaker 1: find the best one that will work for you and
1:06
Speaker 1: hopefully save you a couple dollars too. And here's the
1:09
Speaker 1: part that sets chapter apart. They don't disappear once you've
1:14
Speaker 1: been in They will keep advocating for you. They're kind
1:17
Speaker 1: of like almost like a concierge service. You're just there.
1:19
Speaker 1: I need help. You're like customer service. You know, the plan,
1:22
Speaker 1: you know, help me navigate this again. So you ever
1:24
Speaker 1: get hit with a wrongful medical bill, they'll help you
1:28
Speaker 1: fight it. They want to stay an advocate for you
1:31
Speaker 1: even after you've done this. So look, I get it.
1:35
Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
1:38
Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
1:41
Speaker 1: What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time
1:44
Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is
1:48
Speaker 1: Medicare and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing.
1:53
Speaker 1: The whole point of this is to make this easier
1:56
Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
2:00
Speaker 1: already have in all of this, point it at your
2:02
Speaker 1: own plan for 20 minutes. It's free. There's no pressure.
2:06
Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4255. Hello there. Greetings
2:18
Speaker 1: from Tempe, Arizona. I just spent my Wednesday at Arizona
2:24
Speaker 1: State University. They have a new IOP, Institute of Politics,
2:28
Speaker 1: started by former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake. He was, of course,
2:31
Speaker 1: Republican senator from Arizona. He was Joe Biden's ambassador to Turkey.
2:35
Speaker 1: And we had a couple of great conversations. One of
2:39
Speaker 1: them you'll see on Newsphere over the weekend. And one
2:42
Speaker 1: of them, you just missed an opportunity, perhaps, if you
2:46
Speaker 1: live in the Phoenix area. We had a terrific crowd.
2:49
Speaker 1: And we talked a little midterms, a little future of
2:52
Speaker 1: the conservative movement, a little future of Republican politics, a
2:55
Speaker 1: little future of Democratic politics, some good stuff. And let
3:00
Speaker 1: me just tell you, I couldn't have picked a better week.
3:05
Speaker 1: I literally just missed the heat, just missed those 100-degree days.
3:10
Speaker 1: Came and landed. It wasn't quite 80. Getting that desert coolness.
3:15
Speaker 1: Me and the snowbirds have all made our way to
3:17
Speaker 1: Tempe here in October. I get it. It's the first
3:20
Speaker 1: time I've been here in October. I get it now.
3:23
Speaker 1: I've been here in July. What the heck? Is anybody
3:26
Speaker 1: thinking about settling anybody, any human civilization here? in the
3:30
Speaker 1: valley here. But when you're here in October, you're like, oh,
3:34
Speaker 1: this is why half the Midwest has moved here. So
3:38
Speaker 1: I am on the road. I will be back in
3:42
Speaker 1: the creature comforts of the East Coast soon enough. But
3:46
Speaker 1: here we are. We're 19 days until Election Day. Millions
3:49
Speaker 1: of Americans have already voted. We're learning a little something
3:53
Speaker 1: with the early vote, but not enough yet for me
3:55
Speaker 1: to share too many details. A fascinating little micro trends
4:03
Speaker 1: that certainly a bunch of people are focused on, including
4:06
Speaker 1: what appears to be a bit of a surge of
4:10
Speaker 1: Hispanic voters in the early vote. The debate, though, is
4:14
Speaker 1: are we seeing just more Latinos voting early because they
4:18
Speaker 1: don't want to go to the polls in person for
4:20
Speaker 1: fear of whatever the government might do? And I have
4:23
Speaker 1: an update about a very disturbing incident that took place
4:27
Speaker 1: during hurricane recovery efforts. down in Florida? Or is this
4:31
Speaker 1: simply enthusiasm about the election and you have a lot
4:36
Speaker 1: of Latino voters that are ready to get engaged? Either way,
4:40
Speaker 1: it is the early trend line that we're watching there.
4:42
Speaker 1: But there's something else I want to point out. And
4:45
Speaker 1: in fact, we're heading into what I think could be
4:48
Speaker 1: one of the more consequential weekends of the entire midterm campaign.
4:52
Speaker 1: Because I want to start with something that's going to
4:53
Speaker 1: be happening on Saturday that probably deserves a bit more
4:57
Speaker 1: attention than it's been getting Though I imagine, as you're
5:00
Speaker 1: listening to this on Thursday and on Friday, you'll start
5:04
Speaker 1: to realize coverage of this is going to ramp up.
5:06
Speaker 1: The fourth of these so-called No Kings rallies is taking
5:09
Speaker 1: place this weekend. They're calling it a day of action,
5:12
Speaker 1: and it's set for October 17th, this Saturday. And this
5:16
Speaker 1: one's going to look a lot different from the previous one,
5:18
Speaker 1: because the organizers themselves are very aware of what's taking
5:23
Speaker 1: place on November 3rd. In fact, they're calling this one
5:26
Speaker 1: No Kings Vote Early. And that tells you just about
5:29
Speaker 1: everything you need to know about what they're trying to accomplish.
5:32
Speaker 1: This isn't simply another day of mass demonstrations against Donald
5:35
Speaker 1: Trump and his administration. This is an attempt to turn
5:38
Speaker 1: what has become one of the largest protest movements in
5:41
Speaker 1: American history into an actual voter turnout operation. You got
5:46
Speaker 1: more than 2,000 events planned across all 50 states, plus
5:50
Speaker 1: the District of Columbian. but they're not focused on marches.
5:53
Speaker 1: The organizers are all encouraging block parties, cookouts, voter registration activities,
6:00
Speaker 1: and even organized walks to the polls. So it's quite
6:03
Speaker 1: the evolution for this movement, right? The first three No
6:06
Speaker 1: Kings demonstrations were largely about showing the country, showing the
6:10
Speaker 1: White House that there was a large group of Americans
6:14
Speaker 1: so upset they were willing to use their Saturday to
6:19
Speaker 1: demonstrate their anger at the administrations. And those numbers were enormous.
6:23
Speaker 1: You know, we kind of gloss over them in the,
6:25
Speaker 1: you know, by the time the second and third, well, look,
6:27
Speaker 1: another big protest, but they kept coming, right? Folks kept
6:31
Speaker 1: showing up. You know, we don't have official numbers that
6:35
Speaker 1: aren't from the organizers, but the organizers have claimed millions
6:38
Speaker 1: of participants and My own eyes don't deceive me, and
6:41
Speaker 1: I know I'm in the nation's capital, and there's a
6:43
Speaker 1: tad more enthusiasm to protesting Trump at times because he
6:48
Speaker 1: has literally come after residents of the district and of
6:56
Speaker 1: Northern Virginia and of Maryland. there's, you know, I've always said,
6:59
Speaker 1: you know, the closer you are to Washington, the more
7:02
Speaker 1: acute your TDS is, um, and the anger at Trump
7:06
Speaker 1: because he's been disruptive to your local life, to your
7:08
Speaker 1: local art centers, all these sorts of things. Um, but
7:12
Speaker 1: the fact is we've seen these numbers have been enormous everywhere. Uh,
7:16
Speaker 1: and now if you're turning this mobilization into a, an
7:19
Speaker 1: early vote, this is something that the democratic party couldn't
7:23
Speaker 1: have put together had they tried. Um, And it's gonna
7:27
Speaker 1: be fascinating to see if they can convert protest energy
7:30
Speaker 1: into electoral participation, and it's some voters that don't normally participate.
7:35
Speaker 1: That's what we don't know in here. But look, the
7:39
Speaker 1: organizers all claim these are nonpartisan, and they aren't supposed
7:42
Speaker 1: to be campaign rallies for Democratic candidates. But look, politically,
7:46
Speaker 1: these are anti-Trump rallies. Now, and you look at some
7:50
Speaker 1: of the organizations involved, and many of them have been
7:54
Speaker 1: associated more with the left. You know, you've got Indivisible, MoveOn,
7:58
Speaker 1: the ACLU, AFT. But there are other groups, Black Votes,
8:03
Speaker 1: Voters Matter, State Voices, Voto Latino. So this is sort
8:08
Speaker 1: of a protest movement that has become, it appears to
8:11
Speaker 1: have been turned into a get out the vote operation. And,
8:18
Speaker 1: you know, it may have more credibility than a get
8:21
Speaker 1: out the vote operation run by the actual Democratic Party. Right.
8:26
Speaker 1: You know, being anti-Trump doesn't mean you're pro-democratic party. There
8:32
Speaker 1: are plenty of people who oppose Trump who don't consider
8:34
Speaker 1: themselves Democrats, who aren't particularly enthusiastic about the National Democratic Party.
8:40
Speaker 1: And they may have very different ideas on what should
8:42
Speaker 1: come after Trump. But this is a group of people
8:45
Speaker 1: united in our opposition to this administration. And perhaps conventional
8:51
Speaker 1: Democratic Party politics couldn't figure out how to talk to
8:54
Speaker 1: those people. while this protest movement can. So look, we'll
8:58
Speaker 1: see what happens. But this could really, I'm very curious
9:03
Speaker 1: to see if we see a surge in new vote,
9:09
Speaker 1: or if essentially the protests earlies up voters that would
9:13
Speaker 1: have already participated down the road, something we really won't
9:16
Speaker 1: be able to measure until after election day, to be honest,
9:18
Speaker 1: to find out how effective this weekend is going to be.
9:21
Speaker 1: But I have a feeling this is going to be
9:24
Speaker 1: a pretty big weekend for the blue team in organizing
9:29
Speaker 1: and getting people participating in the early vote. And it's
9:32
Speaker 1: going to be something. But first, I've got a few
9:34
Speaker 1: other things I want to get to. I've got a
9:36
Speaker 1: bit of an eclectic campaign notebook, including that confrontation with
9:41
Speaker 1: hurricane recovery workers. But we're going to close with something
9:45
Speaker 1: I wrote about on my sub stack and my news
9:48
Speaker 1: for a column. on sort of the ingredients that I
9:51
Speaker 1: think already exist for the leader we need post-Trump. But
9:56
Speaker 1: let me start with a city that I see a
10:00
Speaker 1: lot of time in. It's Pensacola, where I'm wondering if
10:03
Speaker 1: we've just lost the plot. If Trump, Stephen Miller, and
10:08
Speaker 1: ICE have completely lost the plot here. Let me start
10:11
Speaker 1: with what the story is. It's out of Pensacola Beach, Florida.
10:13
Speaker 1: This is where I've this podcast has for most of
10:17
Speaker 1: the summer was based in Pensacola Beach, Florida. OK, this
10:21
Speaker 1: is where I spend a lot of time. This is
10:23
Speaker 1: where my Florida headquarters are for the podcast. And according
10:30
Speaker 1: to Pensacola News Journal, federal immigration enforcement officials showed up.
10:35
Speaker 1: At a restaurant that when you come onto the beach,
10:37
Speaker 1: it's called the Grand Marlin. It's the first restaurant that
10:39
Speaker 1: you see. It's this big building. It's a well-known landmark
10:43
Speaker 1: to anybody that's spent time on Pensacola Beach. And they
10:46
Speaker 1: showed up at the restaurant where a crew of roofers
10:49
Speaker 1: were repairing damage from the hurricane from last week, Isaias.
10:53
Speaker 1: And I don't know if we've all come to an
10:56
Speaker 1: agreement on how we're pronouncing this hurricane's name. I've been
10:58
Speaker 1: going to Isaias. I know others say it differently, but
11:03
Speaker 1: I'm sticking to that pronunciation. Well, so it appeared to
11:08
Speaker 1: be there wasn't confirmation if it was ICE or if
11:11
Speaker 1: it was HSI, which is Homeland Security Investigators, but they've
11:14
Speaker 1: been operating in tandem at many of these immigration raves. Well,
11:20
Speaker 1: the roofers refused to come down. They decided to stay
11:22
Speaker 1: on the roof when these folks showed up. And according
11:24
Speaker 1: to witnesses, these federal agents remained at the restaurant for
11:28
Speaker 1: about two hours before eventually they decided to leave without
11:30
Speaker 1: making any arrests. Now, again, we don't know for sure
11:35
Speaker 1: where these Confirmed ICE agents. That wasn't clear. Witnesses said
11:39
Speaker 1: it was Homeland Security personnel. There was clearly some law
11:46
Speaker 1: enforcement agency claiming to act on the behest of the
11:50
Speaker 1: federal government, was essentially trying to find out what the
11:57
Speaker 1: citizenship status was for the people doing hurricane recovery. These
12:01
Speaker 1: guys were not committing a crime. they were repairing a
12:04
Speaker 1: roof damaged by a hurricane. This is a community trying
12:10
Speaker 1: to recover from a natural disaster, Mr. President. Businesses are
12:16
Speaker 1: trying to reopen. Homeowners are trying to make their properties
12:18
Speaker 1: livable again. It's a lot of work to be done.
12:21
Speaker 1: And anyone who's ever lived through a hurricane knows that
12:24
Speaker 1: one of the biggest challenges afterward is just simply finding
12:26
Speaker 1: enough people to help. Because everybody's working on their own house.
12:31
Speaker 1: And sometimes you need to find people that have traveled
12:34
Speaker 1: hundreds of miles and they will because they're looking for work.
12:37
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you this, anybody that's willing to travel
12:39
Speaker 1: hundreds of miles to work, I want them working with
12:41
Speaker 1: me because that's how badly they want to work. And
12:48
Speaker 1: in the middle of all this, the federal government decided
12:50
Speaker 1: they had time to spend two hours, not to lift
12:53
Speaker 1: a freaking finger and help the community, but to harass
12:58
Speaker 1: these roofers of Hispanic origins. What public policy priority does
13:06
Speaker 1: this serve? Do you live in the real world, Mr. Miller, Mr. Trump?
13:12
Speaker 1: This is your policy that you've concocted. And it is
13:16
Speaker 1: absolutely filled with just, you're just harassing decent Americans all over. Look,
13:25
Speaker 1: immigration enforcement is a legitimate function of the federal government.
13:29
Speaker 1: And I believe you campaigned on focusing on those that
13:33
Speaker 1: were hear'd to do harm to our country, not to help,
13:37
Speaker 1: not people that came here to help us. I understand
13:40
Speaker 1: that a lot of us have very different opinions about
13:43
Speaker 1: how aggressively some of these laws should be enforced, but
13:47
Speaker 1: surely there's a difference between enforcing immigration laws and creating
13:51
Speaker 1: an environment in which people trying to help a community
13:54
Speaker 1: recover from a hurricane are afraid to come down from
13:58
Speaker 1: a roof. And ready for this? Pensacola News Journal also
14:04
Speaker 1: had this little item. They were talking to some immigration
14:07
Speaker 1: advocates in the community. They said that before the hurricane,
14:11
Speaker 1: some families were afraid to go to emergency shelters because
14:14
Speaker 1: they worried about encountering immigration authorities. Think about that for
14:18
Speaker 1: a moment. This is America. I know we're so past
14:23
Speaker 1: anybody giving a shit about what the Statue of Liberty says.
14:26
Speaker 1: Give me your tired, give me your poor and all that.
14:28
Speaker 1: You know? We pride ourselves on being a nation of immigrants.
14:35
Speaker 1: And we want people coming to this country in fear?
14:39
Speaker 1: Trust me, they've left fear. That's why they're here. And
14:44
Speaker 1: we're going to terrorize them? I thought we were better
14:46
Speaker 1: than this. So you had people in Pensacola who had
14:53
Speaker 1: to weigh the danger of staying, say, in a trailer
14:56
Speaker 1: that was probably not safe during a hurricane. against the
14:59
Speaker 1: possibility of being detained if they decided to seek shelter.
15:03
Speaker 1: In the United States of America, if you were visiting
15:06
Speaker 1: another country, wouldn't you like to know that you could
15:10
Speaker 1: go to a shelter without getting deported in a time
15:13
Speaker 1: of an emergency? Is that what we're gonna do to
15:18
Speaker 1: fellow human beings? Whatever your views are on immigration, surely
15:23
Speaker 1: we can all agree that people should not be afraid
15:25
Speaker 1: to seek shelter from a natural disaster. I mean, this administration,
15:34
Speaker 1: you know, they just don't know how to govern. They
15:40
Speaker 1: have no sense of proportion. They have no sense of priorities.
15:45
Speaker 1: Americans didn't want the chaos at the border, but they
15:47
Speaker 1: didn't want this. There's a difference. And everybody knows there's
15:52
Speaker 1: a difference. Donald Trump used to claim no one else
15:57
Speaker 1: had common sense and he had common sense. This is
15:59
Speaker 1: uncommon sense. And buddy, you're Mar-a-Lago. We already know that
16:05
Speaker 1: half the people you've hired over the years would probably
16:10
Speaker 1: be afraid of an ICE raid themselves. Sometimes the job
16:16
Speaker 1: of government is simply to help people get through a
16:17
Speaker 1: hurricane and put their lives back together. And if we're
16:22
Speaker 1: going to talk about the labor shortage we have in
16:24
Speaker 1: this country, particularly in construction and other physically demanding jobs,
16:29
Speaker 1: maybe we ought to spend a little more time figuring
16:30
Speaker 1: out how we can make it easier for people to
16:32
Speaker 1: do the necessary work legally rather than creating situations like
16:37
Speaker 1: this one. I don't know what prompted these officers to
16:40
Speaker 1: approach the workers, but literally the island is recovering from
16:43
Speaker 1: a hurricane. The power got turned on yesterday. But I'd
16:49
Speaker 1: like to get an explanation from these people who chose
16:52
Speaker 1: to harass roofers. I tell you, I think it's really
16:58
Speaker 1: crummy politics for the Republicans. And if you're wondering why
17:03
Speaker 1: there's a dummy mander now in Texas and Florida where
17:06
Speaker 1: all of these congressional districts, they thought were going to
17:10
Speaker 1: go Republican because they suddenly had a bunch of supporters,
17:13
Speaker 1: Hispanic supporters. Well, keep harassing anybody of Latino descent and
17:20
Speaker 1: see how far that's going to get you politically. You know,
17:26
Speaker 1: the timing. I mean, I will say this. Democrats can't
17:29
Speaker 1: win in this environment. I don't know what environment they're
17:31
Speaker 1: going to have because this administration is going out of
17:33
Speaker 1: its way to push voters away from that. All right,
17:41
Speaker 1: let me move to Kansas here for a second. Roger Marshall,
17:45
Speaker 1: the Republican senator who's suddenly in the fight for his
17:47
Speaker 1: political life, Has done something that for me is a
17:52
Speaker 1: tell that he knows this race is that he's on
17:56
Speaker 1: the he's on the verge of losing. With with less
18:00
Speaker 1: than three weeks to go before Election Day. He's up
18:04
Speaker 1: with a positive ad, but it's not necessarily a positive ad.
18:08
Speaker 1: What it is, it's a it's a it's a fixes
18:11
Speaker 1: image ad. And it's an ad that tries to remind
18:14
Speaker 1: voters that he used to be a compassionate doctor. So
18:17
Speaker 1: the new television ad is called Debt, and it features
18:19
Speaker 1: a woman talking about how Marshall, when he was practicing medicine,
18:22
Speaker 1: helped her through an emergency procedure and offered to cover
18:25
Speaker 1: some of the costs. I'm sure it's a true story.
18:30
Speaker 1: But the timing of the ad actually says a lot, right?
18:35
Speaker 1: We know that Marshall and his billings when he was
18:39
Speaker 1: a doctor and he was sending it to credit you know, immediately,
18:43
Speaker 1: you know, sending people to small claims court, things like that.
18:46
Speaker 1: And it's been used and it's really hit him hard. Right.
18:48
Speaker 1: It's hit his character hard. And Marshall's favorable ratings are
18:52
Speaker 1: upside down. So what it tells you is they've decided
18:57
Speaker 1: their negatives are so bad. They've they can't just negative
19:01
Speaker 1: add Hamilton to death and hope they can like we're
19:04
Speaker 1: going to make everybody so unpopular that now you'll you'll
19:08
Speaker 1: vote for the incumbent. It's so bad they decided they
19:12
Speaker 1: had to try to go positive with less than three
19:15
Speaker 1: weeks to go. Ironically, one of the last places you
19:18
Speaker 1: want to be as an incumbent in October is running
19:21
Speaker 1: advertising designed to convince voters you're actually a decent human being.
19:26
Speaker 1: If that's what you feel like you have to do,
19:28
Speaker 1: you're spending all this money. Money's precious at this point
19:30
Speaker 1: in time. Airtime is expensive and you've decided you've got
19:34
Speaker 1: to do this. Oh my God, the numbers are even
19:37
Speaker 1: worse than we thought. This episode of the Chuck Todd
19:43
Speaker 1: cast is brought to you by Kalshi. It's an exchange
19:48
Speaker 1: where you can trade on what you actually think is
19:50
Speaker 1: going to happen. Sports, politics, culture, whatever's on your mind.
19:54
Speaker 1: It's a market. You know, I think of it as
19:57
Speaker 1: a share of stock in a person or idea, if
20:01
Speaker 1: you will. So, for instance, you can trade in a
20:03
Speaker 1: market of blue wave versus blue tsunami in the midterms
20:07
Speaker 1: on Kalshi. The odds, in fact, on Cal State right
20:10
Speaker 1: now of a blue wave, and that is defined by
20:12
Speaker 1: Democrats holding 218 or more House seats and 49 or
20:18
Speaker 1: more Senate seats. And they have the blue wave at
20:21
Speaker 1: 81 percent, which means for essentially, if you don't believe
20:25
Speaker 1: Democrats are going to sweep and get or you don't
20:28
Speaker 1: believe they're going to get to 50 Senate seats and
20:30
Speaker 1: 218 House seats. It costs you only 19 cents per share. Now,
20:35
Speaker 1: how do they define blue tsunami? Well, the odds of
20:38
Speaker 1: a blue tsunami where Democrats hold 235 or more House seats,
20:42
Speaker 1: and remember, they haven't been over 235, I believe, this century,
20:46
Speaker 1: or 51 plus Senate seats. The blue tsunami scenario, a
20:50
Speaker 1: share of that costs you 43 cents, which means a
20:54
Speaker 1: majority of this market believes it is not going to
21:00
Speaker 1: be a blue tsunami. The way an investor would look
21:02
Speaker 1: at this, if you're pretty convinced there's going to be
21:05
Speaker 1: a blue tsunami, but you want to hedge a little bit, right?
21:09
Speaker 1: What you're really predicting is that the poles are off, right?
21:13
Speaker 1: And if you believe the poles are going to be,
21:14
Speaker 1: the poles are saying this is going to be a
21:16
Speaker 1: blue wave. But if you believe the poles are off,
21:18
Speaker 1: maybe you believe they're more likely to be off on the,
21:20
Speaker 1: you know, that it's going to be a blue tsunami.
21:23
Speaker 1: But if the poles are off the other way, then
21:25
Speaker 1: it's a blue mirage, right? The fact is, this is
21:27
Speaker 1: a pretty good investment you could make here where you're
21:30
Speaker 1: hedging a You're not risking as much as you could
21:34
Speaker 1: if you decide to trade on the blue tsunami. And
21:37
Speaker 1: at the same time, you hedge that trade with a
21:40
Speaker 1: no on the blue wave. But I could tell you
21:44
Speaker 1: right now, blue tsunami seems like a discount. And so
21:48
Speaker 1: does no on the blue wave. So here's what you
21:51
Speaker 1: need to know on CalSheet. You're going up against other
21:53
Speaker 1: traders directly. There's no house that's setting the odds. right?
21:57
Speaker 1: It's just people putting their opinions on the line and
22:01
Speaker 1: that's what determines this market. Trade $ 25 with the code
22:05
Speaker 1: Chuck Todd and they'll throw in another $ 25 instantly. Please
22:09
Speaker 1: remember to trade responsibly. This is a reminder, right? He
22:16
Speaker 1: didn't think he was going to be in a race.
22:18
Speaker 1: He never established this image of himself, right? A smart campaign,
22:23
Speaker 1: a good campaign, realizes that this could become a problem.
22:31
Speaker 1: This is not out of left field or right field
22:34
Speaker 1: that Kansas is competitive. It's been creeping into the competitive
22:38
Speaker 1: category every two years. This is just proof, you know, look,
22:42
Speaker 1: good gets better, bad gets worse. And just Marshall is
22:45
Speaker 1: just not very good at this, right? He may have
22:48
Speaker 1: been a decent doctor. He may know, he may understand
22:50
Speaker 1: what the job of a senator is, but this man
22:53
Speaker 1: is a terrible politician. And guess what? If you don't
22:57
Speaker 1: like people, don't get into politics. Get out of politics.
23:01
Speaker 1: But the fact that you're trying to say, no, no, no, no,
23:03
Speaker 1: I'm really a decent person, please. And it's October. Maybe
23:09
Speaker 1: time to stick a fork in that campaign. I'm not
23:11
Speaker 1: saying it's done, but now you know why. I think
23:14
Speaker 1: Kansas flips before Iowa flips. Both could end up flipping.
23:17
Speaker 1: But you can see here, Roger Marshall is in deep,
23:21
Speaker 1: deep trouble and his own campaign knows it. Speaking of
23:25
Speaker 1: more problems from this administration, we got a new inflation
23:30
Speaker 1: report on Wednesday, and here's something that shouldn't shock us.
23:35
Speaker 1: Prices have once again accelerated, and now they've accelerated to
23:39
Speaker 1: the point that now the Fed is probably gonna have
23:42
Speaker 1: to raise interest rates again before election day. And imagine
23:45
Speaker 1: having to do it before election day. Now, none of
23:48
Speaker 1: this was particularly surprising. We've spent months talking about the
23:50
Speaker 1: economic consequences of tariffs, the Iran war, higher energy costs,
23:55
Speaker 1: costs and the enormous uncertainty that all this has introduced
23:58
Speaker 1: in the economy. But you couldn't pick a worse time
24:04
Speaker 1: for this bad inflation report to come out. It's accelerating.
24:08
Speaker 1: And if you have to raise interest rates again, guess
24:09
Speaker 1: what you've just done? You've just put the house, you
24:12
Speaker 1: just put a starter home even further out of reach
24:16
Speaker 1: for somebody in their late 20s, early 30s. You've just
24:19
Speaker 1: made this economic ladder harder to climb. And these are
24:25
Speaker 1: all Trump policies. None of these, all of these were
24:29
Speaker 1: policies not put in by Joe Biden. All of these
24:34
Speaker 1: accelerants to this current situation that we're in are all
24:39
Speaker 1: choices Donald Trump himself made. The tariffs, the trade wars,
24:45
Speaker 1: the war in Iran, the energy, this is all on
24:48
Speaker 1: him and the voters know it. And now it's This
24:57
Speaker 1: environment gets bleaker. And I think this is why you
25:00
Speaker 1: see that this is, there is, we're already, you see now,
25:04
Speaker 1: I don't know what fuel deal he could cut at
25:06
Speaker 1: this point. You know, the only shot they have at
25:11
Speaker 1: sort of changing the narrative of the belief in this
25:14
Speaker 1: economy is if somehow the Iran war ends in the
25:16
Speaker 1: next 72 hours. And when I say end, like end, sign,
25:21
Speaker 1: like statement, regime, you know, some massive success that none
25:24
Speaker 1: of us can envision is possible. The cake is baked.
25:32
Speaker 1: This economy is the economy for this election. This is
25:39
Speaker 1: not a good economy. This is how you lose majorities.
25:45
Speaker 1: A couple other nuggets to share. I think some big
25:52
Speaker 1: news happened at a Georgia Senate debate on Tuesday night.
25:57
Speaker 1: John Ossoff. said that he has no interest in running
26:01
Speaker 1: for president and pledged to serve a full six years
26:05
Speaker 1: and not run for president as Senate. Wes Moore was
26:08
Speaker 1: asked a similar question, didn't pledge to serve the full years.
26:12
Speaker 1: But what was interesting is that local coverage of both debates,
26:18
Speaker 1: and with Moore, it wasn't a debate, it was a
26:19
Speaker 1: Q & A that he did. But the coverage of
26:21
Speaker 1: both of them indicated, hey, they both, you know, it
26:25
Speaker 1: was as if they both were, you know, talking, talking
26:29
Speaker 1: down about their presidential ambitions. Now, look, I will say this.
26:33
Speaker 1: Ossoff's declaration did come across as more definitive. He was
26:39
Speaker 1: asked a direct question about serving the full term, and
26:42
Speaker 1: he said, absolutely, I have no interest in running for president.
26:45
Speaker 1: Moore left himself wiggle room. But this is the part
26:49
Speaker 1: of the story where the narrator will tell you, yeah,
26:51
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton pledged in a debate in 1990– that he
26:55
Speaker 1: was going to serve a full four-year term. And he
26:57
Speaker 1: ended up announcing his candidacy for president nine months into 1991.
27:04
Speaker 1: So if there's a reason reporters like me are very
27:09
Speaker 1: cynical about these pronouncements, all I'll say is Ossoff's was
27:12
Speaker 1: a little more definitive. And it is why I've been
27:16
Speaker 1: a little more, why I haven't really talked up. I
27:20
Speaker 1: know he's been sort of an exciting idea for some
27:25
Speaker 1: people in the anti-Trump, in the Trump resistance movement, because
27:29
Speaker 1: he's pretty good with a zinger. But I had not
27:33
Speaker 1: seen any other evidence that he was truly looking at this. And,
27:36
Speaker 1: you know, you don't just run for president on a whim.
27:40
Speaker 1: You know, you do start to have to put things together.
27:42
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean he doesn't have the building blocks to
27:44
Speaker 1: pull it off and he may change his mind, but
27:47
Speaker 1: he did put himself in a rhetorical box where he's
27:49
Speaker 1: going to have to explain why he said one thing
27:51
Speaker 1: to voters. in October of 2026, if he suddenly decides
27:54
Speaker 1: to change his mind, but Asaf off the board, you know,
27:58
Speaker 1: if you're a Pete, Pete Buttigieg, you're secretly pretty happy
28:02
Speaker 1: about that. Um, you know, there, I think Asaf and Pete, uh,
28:08
Speaker 1: in some ways are, um, are, are in the same lane, uh,
28:13
Speaker 1: so to speak. Um, one more fun little item that I,
28:18
Speaker 1: I've been, I've been having this in a while. Uh,
28:23
Speaker 1: because it made me smile. Jamie Raskin, Democrat from Maryland,
28:28
Speaker 1: has introduced legislation that would direct the Smithsonian to collect
28:33
Speaker 1: and preserve some of the Trump administration's portraits and signs
28:39
Speaker 1: and posters and other displays in federal buildings that if
28:43
Speaker 1: you're around Washington, you see them all over. And it's
28:46
Speaker 1: kind of like, are we in North Korea? It's like
28:48
Speaker 1: something you'd expect out of Pyongyang, not out of the
28:51
Speaker 1: United States of America. But I found it interesting what
28:55
Speaker 1: Raskin is up to here, right? Because he wants to,
28:58
Speaker 1: you know, that the Smithsonian needs to preserve all of
29:01
Speaker 1: these things, including some of the material accusing the Smithsonian
29:05
Speaker 1: of ideological bias. Now, the bill is not going to
29:09
Speaker 1: become law in this Congress, but it might in the
29:12
Speaker 1: next Congress. And I think it's a pretty clever idea
29:15
Speaker 1: because there's something wonderfully ironic about taking an administration's effort
29:19
Speaker 1: to control how history is presented, and proposing to preserve
29:24
Speaker 1: those very efforts as historical artifacts. Imagine the exhibit 50
29:30
Speaker 1: years from now. Here's how the Trump administration tried to
29:34
Speaker 1: reshape the very institution you're visiting right now here in Washington, D.C.,
29:39
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian. Here's what that administration wanted Americans to see.
29:44
Speaker 1: Here's what it wanted it removed. And here's how it
29:47
Speaker 1: described its political opponents. You know, and this is the beauty.
29:51
Speaker 1: One of the things that authoritarian-minded leaders frequently forget is
29:55
Speaker 1: that they don't get the final word. And now history
29:57
Speaker 1: remembers that. Oh, do they wish they did? They think
30:01
Speaker 1: they can control buildings and they can change a sign
30:04
Speaker 1: here or there. Maybe they can put up a portrait.
30:06
Speaker 1: But they never get to control what future generations think
30:09
Speaker 1: those actions meant. That's what I love about the Raskin
30:13
Speaker 1: proposal here. It's an attempt to turn the administration's own
30:16
Speaker 1: messaging into evidence for future historians. And frankly, I suspect
30:22
Speaker 1: historians are going to have an extraordinary amount of material
30:24
Speaker 1: to work with when they try to explain this era.
30:28
Speaker 1: As I've as I've said to a bunch of people
30:30
Speaker 1: asking me these questions about this era, I've said, you know,
30:33
Speaker 1: I think 50 years from now, I think, you know,
30:36
Speaker 1: he's going to, Donald Trump might be as relevant to our, to,
30:41
Speaker 1: to the history books as Grover Cleveland is. An anomaly.
30:47
Speaker 1: Two or three sentences and you move on. That, if
30:55
Speaker 1: there's anything that would bother Trump the most, it's that
30:57
Speaker 1: he would be a, less relevant. And that's what I
31:04
Speaker 1: love about this Raskin proposal. One more thought before I
31:10
Speaker 1: get to this analysis of the third-party candidates that I've
31:13
Speaker 1: been promising you for the last couple of podcasts. My friend,
31:15
Speaker 1: John Ellis, who writes the newsletter News Items, which also has,
31:20
Speaker 1: I think he's got various subsidiaries, political items, terrific observation
31:25
Speaker 1: about political advertising. And it's not a new observation. but
31:28
Speaker 1: it's one that deserves repeating every now and then. And
31:31
Speaker 1: he talked about, you know, he lives in the New
31:33
Speaker 1: York City media market. And frankly, I see it here
31:35
Speaker 1: in D.C. and you see it, you know, wherever I travel,
31:38
Speaker 1: I see it. And he's like, he talks about being
31:41
Speaker 1: bombarded with ads for congressional and statewide races. And he
31:46
Speaker 1: notes that a substantial majority of them are negative. Now,
31:50
Speaker 1: as he notes, that's not a new development. Negative advertising, frankly,
31:53
Speaker 1: has been the central feature of American campaigns for decades.
31:57
Speaker 1: But Ellis makes a point that I think is worth repeating,
32:02
Speaker 1: and frankly worth repeating over and over again. So every
32:05
Speaker 1: two years, political campaigns spend billions of dollars telling Americans
32:09
Speaker 1: that the people running for office are dishonest, corrupt, incompetent, dangerous,
32:14
Speaker 1: or some combination of all four. And then we wonder
32:18
Speaker 1: why Americans don't trust politicians. What other industry spends this
32:26
Speaker 1: much money trying to convince its customers that the entire
32:29
Speaker 1: industry is rotten. It reminds me of a joke, an
32:36
Speaker 1: old journalism friend of mine, Matt Cooper, who I think
32:39
Speaker 1: is at Washington Monthly these days. He used to be
32:42
Speaker 1: at Newsweek. He's been a great journalist. Very funny guy.
32:46
Speaker 1: Did amateur stand-up, but like really worked at it. And
32:51
Speaker 1: he had this whole longer riff about, you know, Imagine
32:55
Speaker 1: if Miller and Budweiser used campaign tactics, you know, the
33:00
Speaker 1: tactics of the two parties in their advertising, right? And
33:06
Speaker 1: is basically the punchline is if Miller and Budweiser used
33:09
Speaker 1: the advertising tactics of political consultants, eventually nobody would drink beer, right?
33:16
Speaker 1: Miller Lite says it's less filling, but what they don't
33:19
Speaker 1: tell you is if you, you know, And, you know,
33:23
Speaker 1: might read the ingredients with a sinister voice. And that's
33:27
Speaker 1: the thing, right? If beer companies did this, nobody would
33:30
Speaker 1: drink beer. You'd think beer itself is the problem. And
33:35
Speaker 1: you got to ask yourself, are we doing the same
33:37
Speaker 1: thing to American politics? We've created a system in which
33:41
Speaker 1: winning an election increasingly involves persuading voters that the alternative
33:45
Speaker 1: is so awful they have no choice but to support you.
33:49
Speaker 1: I'm describing the entire 21st, every national election we've had
33:52
Speaker 1: this century. It's been the against election, the hold your nose.
33:59
Speaker 1: And then we are shocked when the people they do
34:02
Speaker 1: elect suddenly lose faith of the voters immediately. I don't
34:10
Speaker 1: know how we fix this, but it is an important
34:12
Speaker 1: reminder and an observation. One of the reasons I think
34:15
Speaker 1: so many Americans are looking for political alternatives is even
34:19
Speaker 1: if those alternatives don't have a realistic chance of winning
34:23
Speaker 1: is because of this. There's just an exhaustion from it all.
34:28
Speaker 1: And it brings me to this story about independent candidates.
34:34
Speaker 1: And there's an individual who's trying to exploit this dissatisfaction
34:38
Speaker 1: in a fascinating way. And it's not to win an election,
34:41
Speaker 1: but simply change which party wins. So let me tell
34:44
Speaker 1: you a little something, uh, about this person. There's a
34:52
Speaker 1: story in Semaphore about a gentleman named Aaron Day. Aaron
34:57
Speaker 1: Day ran as an independent in the 2016 New Hampshire
35:00
Speaker 1: Senate race when the Republican incumbent, Kelly Ayotte, lost to
35:05
Speaker 1: then the sitting governor, Maggie Hassan. And she lost by
35:08
Speaker 1: just over a thousand votes. It was a super close election. Day,
35:12
Speaker 1: Aaron Day, received more votes than the margin between Ayotte
35:17
Speaker 1: and Hassan. Now, it doesn't mean we can say definitively
35:21
Speaker 1: that Day cost Ayotte the election. We don't know how
35:25
Speaker 1: his voters would have behaved if he hadn't been on
35:28
Speaker 1: the ballot. But Day is so enamored with the role
35:32
Speaker 1: he may have played in 2016 that he actually is
35:35
Speaker 1: trying to replicate that experience across the country. Day has
35:39
Speaker 1: established something called the Stark Freedom Pack, and he's talking
35:43
Speaker 1: about spending as much as $ 2. 5 million to promote minor
35:47
Speaker 1: party candidates in competitive Senate races. And his objective is
35:50
Speaker 1: quite explicit. And he says it. He wants Republicans to
35:53
Speaker 1: lose control of the Senate. And he believes he's identified
35:56
Speaker 1: eight states where he thinks a relatively small investment in
35:59
Speaker 1: third-party candidates could change the result. And he's looking at Texas, Iowa,
36:04
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, Minnesota, South Carolina, Michigan, Ohio, and Kansas. And
36:09
Speaker 1: here's how he's proposing to do this. He wants to
36:12
Speaker 1: use artificial intelligence to produce inexpensive online advertising for these
36:17
Speaker 1: third-party candidates. with the theory that he doesn't need to
36:19
Speaker 1: persuade a huge number of voters. He just needs to
36:22
Speaker 1: make enough voters aware of an alternative candidate to move
36:26
Speaker 1: a few points. Moneyball, right? It's a moneyball approach to this.
36:31
Speaker 1: Find a relatively cheap way to influence the margin in
36:34
Speaker 1: a very expensive election. I have no idea if this
36:37
Speaker 1: is going to work. And I'm, you know, I think
36:42
Speaker 1: sometimes these efforts can be, you know, a little overrated,
36:48
Speaker 1: but there are plenty. You know, John Tester, two of
36:52
Speaker 1: his Senate races, he didn't get 50%. The Libertarian got
36:57
Speaker 1: just enough vote that made the winning number 49. And
37:03
Speaker 1: if you can lower the winning number in Iowa, Kansas, Texas,
37:09
Speaker 1: you know, Alaska's got the right choice. See, that's what
37:14
Speaker 1: right choice voting does. eliminates this possibility. But you can,
37:17
Speaker 1: if you lower the winning number, what's interesting is we've seen, actually,
37:22
Speaker 1: I told you a story a couple podcasts ago about
37:26
Speaker 1: what appears to be a Republican group trying to promote
37:28
Speaker 1: a socialist third-party candidate in the Ohio Senate race, right?
37:32
Speaker 1: So Ohio is competing spoiler strategies because there's also a
37:35
Speaker 1: libertarian on the ballot as well. So maybe they end
37:40
Speaker 1: up canceling each other out, but there's a libertarian sitting
37:44
Speaker 1: on the ballot in Kansas, right? It's in these redder
37:48
Speaker 1: states where the libertarian or in some states it's a
37:52
Speaker 1: constitutional party candidate where they're in some ways more, whatever
37:56
Speaker 1: they are, more conservative than the conventional Republican nominee. And
38:00
Speaker 1: it's been, like I said, Democrats use this strategy to
38:02
Speaker 1: big success in Montana over the years. Texas, I absolutely expect,
38:11
Speaker 1: I think Tallarico can't get more than 51, maybe 52.
38:15
Speaker 1: on his best day, but I don't expect Paxton to
38:18
Speaker 1: be at 48 or 49. I expect him to be
38:21
Speaker 1: at 44, 45, 46, because I expect a whole bunch
38:24
Speaker 1: of Republicans who can't bring themselves to vote for Tallarico
38:28
Speaker 1: who just can't stomach voting for Paxton. So I think
38:32
Speaker 1: he gets somewhere in that three or 4% range. Iowa
38:39
Speaker 1: has a libertarian candidate on the ballot. And in fact,
38:43
Speaker 1: he's not an ordinary candidate. Thomas Lane is an elected
38:46
Speaker 1: county attorney. He's got an interesting political background. He's pro-life,
38:51
Speaker 1: which could appeal to some conservative voters. But he's promised
38:54
Speaker 1: that if he wins, he would caucus with the Democrats. Again,
38:59
Speaker 1: if he just gets two or three points and he
39:03
Speaker 1: gets it from, you know, anti, you know, from the
39:06
Speaker 1: right side of the aisle. Josh Turek. As many of
39:12
Speaker 1: you know, look, this could be a close race. Turk
39:15
Speaker 1: would have a lot easier time to win if 48
39:17
Speaker 1: or 49 were the winning number. South Carolina has two
39:22
Speaker 1: right-leaning third-party candidates. Again, we already know she's got problems
39:29
Speaker 1: communicating the generic Republican vote. Trump's got to go back
39:32
Speaker 1: down there and try to bail her out in the
39:35
Speaker 1: most Republican part of the state, in Greenville. You get
39:40
Speaker 1: a constitutional party candidate, Libertarian. They get three or four points.
39:45
Speaker 1: Annie Andrews can find a path to victory. And then
39:48
Speaker 1: you throw in that this guy wants to throw a
39:49
Speaker 1: little bit money on that. Now, it doesn't only work
39:52
Speaker 1: one way. There's a Green Party candidate in Michigan that
39:55
Speaker 1: could siphon votes away from Abdul El-Sayed, and some Republicans
39:59
Speaker 1: are helping there. In Mississippi, there's a third-party candidate that
40:06
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily help the Democrats, a guy named Ty Pinkins.
40:12
Speaker 1: He was the Democratic Senate nominee in 2024, and he's
40:15
Speaker 1: running as an independent. You know, he absolutely could end
40:20
Speaker 1: up hurting the Democrats in that one. But you see
40:24
Speaker 1: the general trend here, and especially in states that lean largely,
40:30
Speaker 1: you know, if you're the challenger party and you're not
40:33
Speaker 1: the majority party in that state, right? So this is
40:38
Speaker 1: why this is likely to benefit more Democratic campaigns than
40:41
Speaker 1: it will this cycle Republican campaigns, because this is an election.
40:46
Speaker 1: that's essentially being fought in Republican territory, you know, and
40:50
Speaker 1: this doesn't even count the candidates where the independent is
40:54
Speaker 1: the main candidate, main challenger candidate to the incumbent Osborne
40:58
Speaker 1: in Nebraska, uh, Brian Banks in South Dakota, Todd Achilles
41:02
Speaker 1: in Idaho. And of course, Seth Bodnar, uh, in Montana.
41:08
Speaker 1: And again, I look at it as, uh, I think
41:13
Speaker 1: they're already, we already know this. There's a whole bunch
41:15
Speaker 1: of voters who just feel more and more uncomfortable with
41:19
Speaker 1: the two major parties. And it's especially in the Republican
41:27
Speaker 1: coalition where they're not happy with Trump, but they can't
41:31
Speaker 1: bring themselves to vote for a Democrat. I think it's definitely,
41:35
Speaker 1: this to me is going to be one of the,
41:36
Speaker 1: let me put it another way. If Democrats net six
41:40
Speaker 1: or seven Senate seats, I'm going to guess that they'll
41:44
Speaker 1: have at least three of their winners not get 50%.
41:49
Speaker 1: And that brings me to the subject that I want
41:50
Speaker 1: to spend the rest of today's podcast on. Because while
41:54
Speaker 1: we're spending an enormous amount of time trying to figure
41:56
Speaker 1: out which of these candidates are going to be able
41:58
Speaker 1: to pull this off and what the majorities are going
42:00
Speaker 1: to be and what's your coalition look like, you know,
42:03
Speaker 1: and do you siphon votes away here or there? We
42:07
Speaker 1: do have a bigger question we got to answer after
42:10
Speaker 1: these elections. This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is
42:16
Speaker 1: brought to you by Quince. You know, the best pieces
42:18
Speaker 1: in your closet are the ones you can count on,
42:21
Speaker 1: whether you're heading to work, going out or keeping things
42:24
Speaker 1: a bit casual. And this time of year, Quince makes
42:26
Speaker 1: finding something great for everyone else just as easy. The
42:30
Speaker 1: holiday season is coming. That's right. It's we're under 90 days, folks.
42:35
Speaker 1: It's where I'm shopping for myself and everyone else on
42:38
Speaker 1: my list because I know Quince delivers. Nobody's ever disappointed
42:42
Speaker 1: in stuff they get from Quince. Why? Quince focuses on
42:45
Speaker 1: high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere,
42:51
Speaker 1: 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. Their cashmere sweaters start at
42:56
Speaker 1: just $ 60. And the lineup doesn't stop there. They have
42:59
Speaker 1: premium down jackets, wool outerwear, cashmere accessories, everything you and
43:04
Speaker 1: your loved ones need to stay warm And look put
43:06
Speaker 1: together all season long without breaking the bank. Everything at
43:10
Speaker 1: Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands.
43:14
Speaker 1: How do they do this? Well, they work directly with factories.
43:17
Speaker 1: And not just any factories, ethical factories. They cut out
43:21
Speaker 1: the middleman or the middle person. So you can kind
43:25
Speaker 1: of get in your sort of luxury quality pieces without
43:29
Speaker 1: paying that luxury price tag. You know, it sounds like
43:33
Speaker 1: ad copy. But Quince is responsible for sort of the
43:37
Speaker 1: stuff I just grab and go, the stuff that I
43:39
Speaker 1: know I can just throw on that works well. I
43:43
Speaker 1: get these two pairs of shorts from Quince. And the
43:47
Speaker 1: shorts are both warm. They're kind of khaki, but they're
43:49
Speaker 1: kind of not. They're just easy to wear. I'm wearing
43:53
Speaker 1: a pair of those shorts right now as I'm taping
43:55
Speaker 1: this podcast. So when it comes to gifting, Quince is
43:58
Speaker 1: a lot more than clothing, too. By the way, they've
44:00
Speaker 1: got fine jewelry, leather bags, hotel-quality bedding. chef-grade cookware. People
44:07
Speaker 1: love a nice piece of equipment to play with in
44:11
Speaker 1: the kitchen these days. Five-star luggage, plenty of ways to
44:14
Speaker 1: find something special for everyone on your list. So give
44:18
Speaker 1: the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince
44:23
Speaker 1: app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. You get
44:27
Speaker 1: free shipping on your order, 365-day returns. now available in
44:31
Speaker 1: Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where
44:34
Speaker 1: you heard about them, please let them know it was
44:37
Speaker 1: the Chuck Todd cast. It's the best way to support
44:41
Speaker 1: the show and the best way to make sure you're
44:43
Speaker 1: getting every discount. We got to find someone who can
44:49
Speaker 1: assemble a coalition that actually believes in their leadership, right?
44:53
Speaker 1: Right now, this is a coalition of no's, a coalition
44:55
Speaker 1: of against's that we have. It's a coalition united in opposition. Shoot,
45:01
Speaker 1: I think most of Trump's voters are not pro-Trump. They're anti-Democrat.
45:07
Speaker 1: And I think it's vice versa. I'm curious of when
45:11
Speaker 1: we're going to find a leader who can put a
45:14
Speaker 1: coalition together that's bigger than that. A coalition that believes
45:18
Speaker 1: a particular person is capable of leading the country through
45:21
Speaker 1: an extraordinarily difficult period. And it's interesting. It got me
45:27
Speaker 1: thinking about something Bill Kristol wrote. in one of his
45:30
Speaker 1: Bulwark newsletters earlier this week. And it made me think
45:36
Speaker 1: a little bit about what we need to look for
45:38
Speaker 1: in 2028. So Crystal made this point. He identified four
45:42
Speaker 1: rather unlikely figures who in their own ways have emerged
45:45
Speaker 1: as defenders of the Western liberal order, small l. At
45:50
Speaker 1: precisely the moment, the United States has been retreating from
45:54
Speaker 1: its traditional role as basically defender of the liberal world order.
45:59
Speaker 1: And the four people he singled out are Zelensky, Peter Magyar,
46:05
Speaker 1: the guy who beat Viktor Orban in Hungary, Mark Carney
46:09
Speaker 1: of Canada, and the Pope. Now, these are four very
46:15
Speaker 1: different men from four very different backgrounds confronting four very
46:19
Speaker 1: different challenges. But they all have one thing in common.
46:22
Speaker 1: They're defending principles that, until fairly recently— We Americans assumed
46:28
Speaker 1: our own political leadership would always defend pluralism, the rule
46:32
Speaker 1: of law, the consent of the governed, the belief that
46:35
Speaker 1: freedom is worth defending, that institutions matter, and that the
46:40
Speaker 1: strong shouldn't simply be allowed to impose their will on
46:44
Speaker 1: the weak. Small L liberalism, if you will. Not the
46:50
Speaker 1: ideological liberalism of the American left, but the larger liberal
46:54
Speaker 1: tradition that made the modern Western civilization dominance possible. Now,
47:02
Speaker 1: Crystal was writing, essentially asking, where's America's version of these leaders?
47:09
Speaker 1: I'm changing the question from what he asked. Why are
47:11
Speaker 1: we so convinced that America is incapable of producing one
47:14
Speaker 1: of these leaders? Because when I started to think about
47:19
Speaker 1: these four men and what struck me wasn't simply what
47:21
Speaker 1: they've accomplished so far, It was where they came from.
47:27
Speaker 1: Think about the institutions they all now lead. Think about
47:30
Speaker 1: what those institutions looked like before these four men arrived.
47:35
Speaker 1: And ask yourself how unlikely it would have seemed just
47:37
Speaker 1: a few years ago that any of these institutions or
47:40
Speaker 1: places would produce the kind of leadership that the Western
47:44
Speaker 1: world desperately needs. Ukraine. Start with Zelensky. The entire world
47:51
Speaker 1: thought Russia was just going to roll over Ukraine in
47:55
Speaker 1: a couple of days. Its government was still widely viewed
48:01
Speaker 1: as corrupt. Its military was thought to be overmatched. Its
48:06
Speaker 1: political institutions were considered too weak to withstand this assault
48:10
Speaker 1: from one of the world's great powers. And its president
48:13
Speaker 1: was a former television comedian, a guy whose qualifications for
48:17
Speaker 1: the job were frequently questioned, including by people inside his
48:21
Speaker 1: own country. And yet when the moment came, Zelensky helped
48:24
Speaker 1: rally his country and much of the democratic world to
48:27
Speaker 1: resist Putin. And what has happened to Ukraine? It's become
48:31
Speaker 1: one of the most innovative military powers of the 21st century,
48:34
Speaker 1: largely because necessity demanded it. Now, I'm not saying Zelensky's perfect.
48:41
Speaker 1: Ukraine still has enormous challenges. The war is ongoing. The
48:44
Speaker 1: country's political future is very uncertain. He's going to have
48:46
Speaker 1: to hold elections at some point. But the point is
48:50
Speaker 1: that the leadership he demonstrated wasn't necessarily visible to the
48:54
Speaker 1: political establishment before this crisis arrived. The circumstances revealed something
49:01
Speaker 1: in him that a lot of people didn't know existed.
49:05
Speaker 1: And it's worth remembering when we're thinking about who our
49:08
Speaker 1: next American, great American president is going to end up being.
49:11
Speaker 1: How about Peter Magyar in Hungary? For years, Orban was
49:16
Speaker 1: held up as proof that an illiberal democracy wasn't merely
49:19
Speaker 1: a theory, that it could be a governing model that
49:22
Speaker 1: could survive, consolidate power, and sort of become something that
49:27
Speaker 1: you could actually export. In fact, elements of the American
49:31
Speaker 1: right openly admired Orban's illiberal model and wanted to replicate
49:37
Speaker 1: parts of it here. There's a whole following on the
49:40
Speaker 1: right that doesn't believe in pluralistic democracy. And Hungary's opposition
49:48
Speaker 1: seemed hopelessly fragmented. And the political playing field had been
49:53
Speaker 1: tilted so dramatically in Orban's favor that defeating him appeared
49:56
Speaker 1: almost impossible. Till Magyar didn't. And what's always interested me
50:03
Speaker 1: about Magyar isn't simply that he did it, but how
50:06
Speaker 1: he did it. He had to persuade people who had
50:08
Speaker 1: become accustomed to Orban's political dominance that an alternative was possible.
50:14
Speaker 1: He had to reach voters who weren't necessarily ideological allies
50:18
Speaker 1: of the traditional opposition. He had to convince people who'd
50:21
Speaker 1: lost faith in the possibility of democracy working that participating
50:25
Speaker 1: in politics could actually produce a different result. That's an
50:30
Speaker 1: amazing political skill. It's what we're going to need in
50:34
Speaker 1: America in 2028. Our next president is going to have
50:38
Speaker 1: to persuade people who do not necessarily agree with one
50:40
Speaker 1: another that they can still trust the same person to
50:43
Speaker 1: lead them. How about Mark Carney in Canada? Before Carney's arrival,
50:48
Speaker 1: the country's political leadership, particularly on the left, looked exhausted.
50:52
Speaker 1: Its economy was vulnerable. Its relationship with the United States
50:55
Speaker 1: was increasingly precarious. Donald Trump seemed to regard Canada as
51:00
Speaker 1: little more than a punching bag for truth social. And
51:03
Speaker 1: along comes a former central banker, not the obvious profile
51:08
Speaker 1: of a political revolutionary. And yet Carney didn't just help
51:12
Speaker 1: to rally Canadians around their national sovereignty. He did so
51:17
Speaker 1: while trying to preserve the broader Western alliance that Trump
51:21
Speaker 1: seems so determined to get rid of. And the best
51:25
Speaker 1: part of Carney for me is his temperament. He's not
51:27
Speaker 1: somebody whose entire political identity depends on creating some daily controversies.
51:32
Speaker 1: He never makes himself the center of every conversation. He
51:37
Speaker 1: actually sees competence and stability as strengths, not weaknesses. And
51:44
Speaker 1: I suspect an awful lot of voters here in America
51:46
Speaker 1: would find basic stability and competence to be quite appealing.
51:52
Speaker 1: But competence alone isn't enough. You have to connect with voters.
51:54
Speaker 1: You have to understand their concerns. You have to build
51:56
Speaker 1: a coalition. But Carney is a reminder that voters sometimes
51:59
Speaker 1: respond to leadership that doesn't fit. the conventional political bowl.
52:04
Speaker 1: Then there's Pope Leo. Think about the Catholic Church and
52:09
Speaker 1: what it's been going through over the last couple of decades.
52:12
Speaker 1: This is an institution that has been confronting a crisis
52:16
Speaker 1: of credibility, much of itself inflicted. The Vatican was hardly
52:21
Speaker 1: the first institution most people would have identified as a
52:24
Speaker 1: potential source of renewed moral leadership for the West. And
52:28
Speaker 1: yet here is Pope Leo reminding the world of principles
52:32
Speaker 1: that have deep roots in both Catholic social teaching and
52:35
Speaker 1: American liberal tradition. Human dignity, compassion, the responsibilities of the powerful,
52:41
Speaker 1: the moral obligations we have to one another. And there's
52:46
Speaker 1: a wonderful irony here that I want to return to
52:47
Speaker 1: before we're done. One of Crystal's four unlikely defenders of
52:52
Speaker 1: the Western liberal order is already an American. Robert Prevost
52:57
Speaker 1: was born in Chicago, raised in the suburbs, educated at Villanova.
53:02
Speaker 1: The Catholic Church found its next moral leader in an American,
53:07
Speaker 1: even as America's own political institutions seem incapable of producing
53:12
Speaker 1: one themselves. Think about that. We produced Pope Leo. It
53:17
Speaker 1: took the Vatican to recognize it. Now, none of these
53:21
Speaker 1: men are perfect. Their circumstances are completely different, and their
53:24
Speaker 1: success so far shouldn't obscure the challenges that they all
53:30
Speaker 1: will be facing. But it's beside the point. If you'd
53:33
Speaker 1: been asked just a few years ago, which of these
53:35
Speaker 1: institutions or countries was most likely to produce the kind
53:38
Speaker 1: of leadership that the Western world desperately needed, would any
53:42
Speaker 1: of them been at the top of your list? That
53:44
Speaker 1: the new leader of Hungary, a new Pope? I'm sure, look,
53:51
Speaker 1: I'm like many people, I'd kind of given up on
53:53
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church as a source of these things. Just
53:56
Speaker 1: another institution that was sort of, you know, collapsing on itself. Ukraine, Canada.
54:07
Speaker 1: But here we are. So what about America? Well, we're
54:15
Speaker 1: less than three weeks away from a midterm election that
54:17
Speaker 1: could tell us an enormous amount about the future of
54:19
Speaker 1: both parties. And I've spent a lot of time over
54:22
Speaker 1: the last few weeks talking about the possibility of a
54:25
Speaker 1: significant repudiation of Donald Trump and the Republican Party. What
54:29
Speaker 1: we don't know is how significant. But the size and
54:32
Speaker 1: shape of this repudiation will tell us quite a bit
54:35
Speaker 1: about what comes next. And then for this, I'm watching
54:39
Speaker 1: the governorships closer than I'm watching the Senate races for
54:43
Speaker 1: this issue. And I talked a lot about governor's races
54:46
Speaker 1: in the last podcast, but I want to return for
54:48
Speaker 1: a different reason, because I think some of these races
54:50
Speaker 1: will tell us something about the kind of political leadership
54:54
Speaker 1: the country is capable of producing. A Democratic Senate victory
54:58
Speaker 1: in a red state can be explained away as a
55:00
Speaker 1: backlash against an unpopular president or an unpopular Republican nominee
55:05
Speaker 1: or some combination of the two. But if Democrats are
55:08
Speaker 1: winning governorships in places like Texas, Ohio, and Iowa, while
55:13
Speaker 1: also winning those states' Senate races, then there's something bigger happening.
55:18
Speaker 1: That's voters questioning the governing choices and political identity of
55:21
Speaker 1: the entire Republican Party itself. That's not just voting for
55:24
Speaker 1: a check on Trump's power. It's something else. Think about
55:30
Speaker 1: what a Democrat has to accomplish to win a governorship
55:33
Speaker 1: in Texas or Ohio or Iowa. That candidate has to
55:35
Speaker 1: persuade a substantial number of people who are instinctively suspicious
55:40
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party right now to trust a Democrat
55:43
Speaker 1: with executive power. So they have to overcome the national
55:47
Speaker 1: party's negative brand. And remember, it's more unpopular than the
55:50
Speaker 1: GOP right now. They have to navigate a political environment
55:53
Speaker 1: that's already tilted against them in the red state that
55:55
Speaker 1: they live in. And then they have to build a
55:57
Speaker 1: coalition that extends well beyond the people who already agree
56:00
Speaker 1: with them. Sound familiar? That's what Baguiar had to do
56:04
Speaker 1: in Hungary. In some ways, that's what Carney's pulling off
56:08
Speaker 1: in Canada. And neither succeeded simply by rallying people who
56:13
Speaker 1: already were on their side. They had to persuade the skeptics.
56:17
Speaker 1: That's why I think these red state governor's races may
56:19
Speaker 1: be the most important test of political leadership in this election.
56:22
Speaker 1: The candidates who can win those races will have demonstrated
56:25
Speaker 1: precisely the skill our next president is going to need
56:31
Speaker 1: if they want to be successful. Because if we have
56:33
Speaker 1: another partisan president, we're doomed. We're doomed for another term
56:36
Speaker 1: of paralysis. We need somebody who has the ability to
56:41
Speaker 1: persuade ideological skeptics to trust them. Right. There's actually an
56:47
Speaker 1: interesting counterexample that succeeded quite a bit on the governor's level.
56:51
Speaker 1: It's in Vermont, Phil Scott. But the Republican brand is
56:55
Speaker 1: turning into a big problem for him. He spent years
56:57
Speaker 1: demonstrating that a Republican would win one of the most
57:00
Speaker 1: Democratic states in the country by rejecting Trumpism and building
57:08
Speaker 1: a coalition that extends well beyond his party. And Scott
57:11
Speaker 1: has won his last three re-election campaigns by 40 points.
57:17
Speaker 1: Now he's struggling this cycle. Now I don't know if
57:20
Speaker 1: Scott's actually going to lose, but he's a five-term incumbent. Remember,
57:24
Speaker 1: there are two-year terms in Vermont. He's been among the
57:27
Speaker 1: most popular governors, and he had to do it via
57:29
Speaker 1: building an extraordinary brand. But the fact we're even discussing
57:32
Speaker 1: the possibility tells us something about the Republican Party. If
57:35
Speaker 1: Phil Scott is now having trouble separating himself from the
57:38
Speaker 1: national Republican brand, think about what that means for Republicans
57:42
Speaker 1: who haven't spent years cultivating a reputation for independence. And
57:48
Speaker 1: it raises an interesting question about what happens after November.
57:51
Speaker 1: Will Republicans interpret a difficult election as merely a temporary
57:55
Speaker 1: setback caused by an unpopular president? Or will they begin
57:58
Speaker 1: reconsidering the larger direction Donald Trump has taken the party? That,
58:04
Speaker 1: to me, is one of the most important questions in
58:06
Speaker 1: American politics over the next two years. What happens to
58:09
Speaker 1: the Republican Party after Trump? I'm skeptical that the current
58:12
Speaker 1: Republican leadership has much interest in repairing the damage Trump
58:15
Speaker 1: has done to America's credibility. the rule of law, or
58:18
Speaker 1: the Western alliance. I think there are some elected Republicans
58:21
Speaker 1: who are alarmed. I think there are conservatives who have
58:25
Speaker 1: never been comfortable with Trumpism. And there are others who
58:27
Speaker 1: have gone along with it because they believed it was
58:29
Speaker 1: the only way to survive politically. But I don't know
58:32
Speaker 1: if they constitute a large enough coalition to reclaim their party.
58:39
Speaker 1: It's interesting in thinking about this, Marco Rubio becomes an
58:42
Speaker 1: interesting figure I've been thinking of Rubio, he could end
58:44
Speaker 1: up being something like the Joe Biden of the MAGA movement.
58:47
Speaker 1: And what do I mean by this? Biden emerged in
58:50
Speaker 1: 2020 as basically the compromise candidate in a party that
58:54
Speaker 1: was pretty divided, right? Progressive, though, were okay with it
59:00
Speaker 1: because they thought, eh, we can push him to the left.
59:02
Speaker 1: Moderates thought he was fundamentally one of them. And the
59:05
Speaker 1: party establishment thought he was just simply somebody who could win.
59:09
Speaker 1: Everybody's a little bit of what they wanted to see.
59:12
Speaker 1: I think that's what, it's interesting to me, that's what
59:15
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio is, right? He's the Joe Biden. He's kind
59:17
Speaker 1: of a chameleon here. MAGA thinks he's becoming more MAGA.
59:21
Speaker 1: The establishment world still thinks Rubio's one of them. And
59:25
Speaker 1: he's been very careful. He's one of the few cabinet
59:27
Speaker 1: secretaries that hasn't gone out of his way to let
59:29
Speaker 1: his family enrich themselves, right? He's been better about this
59:35
Speaker 1: than most other of the cabinet members. But the problem
59:39
Speaker 1: he's got is he's been an active participant in this administration.
59:43
Speaker 1: He's had to defend its policies. He's adapted his positions.
59:46
Speaker 1: He had to carry out a foreign policy that has
59:48
Speaker 1: actually strained some of the very alliances he used to champion.
59:54
Speaker 1: So yes, maybe Rubio could be a band-aid over the
59:58
Speaker 1: different factions of the Republican party for one election, but
1:00:02
Speaker 1: I'm not sure he can pivot and be the person
1:00:04
Speaker 1: that takes them beyond Trumpism. And I'm not sure somebody
1:00:10
Speaker 1: so deeply involved in the Trump administration could credibly lead
1:00:13
Speaker 1: a restoration of American leadership post-Trump, because that's a much
1:00:17
Speaker 1: harder question. But I don't want to dismiss the idea
1:00:22
Speaker 1: that the Republican party doesn't produce this change agent because
1:00:25
Speaker 1: Nobody in 2015 thought Donald Trump was going to remake
1:00:28
Speaker 1: the Republican Party into what it had become today. Think
1:00:33
Speaker 1: about it. How many Republicans genuinely believed Donald Trump could
1:00:36
Speaker 1: hijack their party, bend it to his will, and remake
1:00:39
Speaker 1: its ideological identity all in under 10 years? Nobody was
1:00:43
Speaker 1: saying that in 2015 outside of Roger Stone and Donald Trump.
1:00:47
Speaker 1: But it's exactly what happened. So if one political movement
1:00:51
Speaker 1: could so thoroughly transform the Republican Party this quickly— I
1:00:55
Speaker 1: guess it's not inconceivable that another faction could do the
1:00:57
Speaker 1: same thing. I'm skeptical. We'll see. Now let's do the Democrats.
1:01:06
Speaker 1: Because I think this coming election presents an entirely different
1:01:09
Speaker 1: danger for them. Learning the wrong lesson from victory. One
1:01:13
Speaker 1: of the things I've learned from covering politics for more
1:01:15
Speaker 1: than three decades is that success can teach political parties
1:01:19
Speaker 1: the wrong lessons. Sometimes winning an election convinces politicians that
1:01:23
Speaker 1: voters have endorsed an agenda they've never actually voted for.
1:01:25
Speaker 1: That's what happened to Scott Walker. Now, I think there's
1:01:33
Speaker 1: a real danger of that happening to Democrats if they
1:01:35
Speaker 1: have a big election victory this November. Now, look, I've
1:01:39
Speaker 1: got two competing theories about this and what a Democratic
1:01:42
Speaker 1: wave might produce for 2028. One is that the bigger
1:01:45
Speaker 1: the Democratic victory, the more emboldened the progressive wing becomes.
1:01:49
Speaker 1: The left concludes that the country is ready for a
1:01:51
Speaker 1: much more ideologically ambitious agenda. And Abdul El-Sayed, if he
1:01:55
Speaker 1: wins in Michigan, will be seen as an avatar or
1:01:59
Speaker 1: proof that, see, progressives can win even in swing states.
1:02:04
Speaker 1: And what it probably could mean is that the next
1:02:09
Speaker 1: Democratic presidential nominee is a progressive that is seen as
1:02:15
Speaker 1: the most acceptable to the center-left rather than a center-left candidate.
1:02:19
Speaker 1: that is seen as acceptable enough to the progressive. But
1:02:22
Speaker 1: there's another way Democrats could go if they actually take
1:02:27
Speaker 1: a look at how they won. Maybe they look closely
1:02:30
Speaker 1: at how these candidates won in these red states, particularly
1:02:35
Speaker 1: the states that don't normally elect Democrats. Because if Democrats
1:02:38
Speaker 1: win Texas, Iowa, Ohio, and Kansas, it won't necessarily be
1:02:43
Speaker 1: because their candidates successfully nationalized the party's progressive positions. maybe
1:02:50
Speaker 1: because they did the opposite. And they met voters where
1:02:53
Speaker 1: they were. They distanced themselves from the unpopular national positions
1:02:58
Speaker 1: when necessary. Focused on problems voters actually wanted solved. Political
1:03:07
Speaker 1: parties usually aren't this pragmatic. But that's the question I wonder.
1:03:13
Speaker 1: A candidate can win an extraordinarily favorable political environment without
1:03:16
Speaker 1: winning a mandate for every ideological position that candidate holds, right?
1:03:22
Speaker 1: And that's what Democrats have to be careful of, right?
1:03:24
Speaker 1: George W. Bush overreached. He won comfortably in 04. You know,
1:03:28
Speaker 1: it wasn't a blowout. It was close. But he interpreted
1:03:32
Speaker 1: it as a mandate to tackle Social Security privatization. Voters said, oh, no,
1:03:37
Speaker 1: we didn't give you permission to do that, and you
1:03:39
Speaker 1: didn't campaign on that. It's the mistake Joe Biden made
1:03:44
Speaker 1: after 2020, particularly after January 5th and 6th, the when
1:03:47
Speaker 1: they got control of the Senate on the 5th, and
1:03:49
Speaker 1: then what happened on January 6th? Joe Biden was elected
1:03:53
Speaker 1: in large part because voters believed he would restore some
1:03:55
Speaker 1: sense of normalcy, lower the temperature, govern as a pragmatist. Instead,
1:04:01
Speaker 1: there were times that his administration governed as though the
1:04:03
Speaker 1: progressive wing of the party had given him his decisive mandate.
1:04:09
Speaker 1: And that is what led to what we have today.
1:04:13
Speaker 1: I know some of my friends on the left are
1:04:15
Speaker 1: going to say, oh, Chuck Todd is just once again
1:04:19
Speaker 1: stiff-arming the left, trying to push both parties to the center.
1:04:24
Speaker 1: It's not my argument. I don't think it matters whether
1:04:28
Speaker 1: the next nominees from either party, which wing they come from,
1:04:33
Speaker 1: from the left, right, or center. I'm interested in whether
1:04:36
Speaker 1: that person has the skills to persuade voters who are
1:04:40
Speaker 1: ideologically suspicious of them to believe in their leadership. That's
1:04:45
Speaker 1: what I'm seeing with Gina Inosa. She comes out of
1:04:50
Speaker 1: the party's progressive wing in Austin, but she's refused to
1:04:54
Speaker 1: let opponents define her by the caricature of a progressive.
1:04:58
Speaker 1: And instead, she's meeting voters where they are. And that's
1:05:00
Speaker 1: the point. The next leader of the Democratic Party doesn't
1:05:03
Speaker 1: necessarily have to emerge from the moderate wing to behave
1:05:06
Speaker 1: this way. It can be from any wing, but it's
1:05:12
Speaker 1: the acknowledgement that you don't have, you need, coalition partners?
1:05:17
Speaker 1: And are you good enough at convincing people you can
1:05:20
Speaker 1: be trusted? And I look at the next presidency, it's, look,
1:05:26
Speaker 1: I know every president, presidential election, most important of our lifetime, yada, yada, yada.
1:05:31
Speaker 1: But the next president is going to inherit an extraordinary mess,
1:05:34
Speaker 1: both domestically and internationally. I want to call it, we're
1:05:38
Speaker 1: going to be electing our first post-war president. What do
1:05:44
Speaker 1: I mean by that? Not because we've literally are emerging
1:05:46
Speaker 1: from a conventional war, although the Iran war and the
1:05:49
Speaker 1: continuing conflict in Ukraine are obviously still enormous challenges. I'm
1:05:53
Speaker 1: talking about this political, cultural cold war we've all been
1:05:56
Speaker 1: living through for much of this century. A cold war
1:06:01
Speaker 1: that has exhausted much of the electorate, weakened our institutions,
1:06:05
Speaker 1: made it increasingly difficult for Americans to believe that the
1:06:08
Speaker 1: government is even capable of solving any problems. So the
1:06:12
Speaker 1: next president is gonna have to begin rebuilding. You gotta
1:06:15
Speaker 1: repair alliances. The federal government's credibility is badly damaged. You
1:06:21
Speaker 1: gotta have to restore that. The rule of law will
1:06:24
Speaker 1: need more than just rhetorical restoration. There's gonna be enormous
1:06:28
Speaker 1: fiscal challenges. This debt problem is only getting worse. And
1:06:31
Speaker 1: the bond market is not gonna be so kind to
1:06:33
Speaker 1: us anymore. There's gonna be economic and social disruption caused
1:06:39
Speaker 1: by artificial intelligence. And that's gonna test the capacity of
1:06:44
Speaker 1: our governing institutions in ways we haven't even thought of yet.
1:06:48
Speaker 1: So think about the scale of the assignment for the
1:06:50
Speaker 1: next president. We're talking about somebody who may have to
1:06:54
Speaker 1: rebuild trust in government while simultaneously confronting technological disruption, enormous
1:06:59
Speaker 1: economic challenges, and a world in which American leadership can
1:07:02
Speaker 1: no longer be taken for granted. We can't afford an
1:07:08
Speaker 1: ordinary president. It's gonna require more than an ordinary political skillset.
1:07:14
Speaker 1: And that brings me back to Carney, Zelensky, Magyar, and Leo.
1:07:18
Speaker 1: Because if I were advising somebody who genuinely wanted to
1:07:21
Speaker 1: become the next president of the United States, somebody who
1:07:23
Speaker 1: wanted to turn the page on the Trump era and
1:07:25
Speaker 1: begin rebuilding America's credibility at home and abroad, I'd be
1:07:29
Speaker 1: telling them, study all four of them, because they all
1:07:32
Speaker 1: have the qualities that the next American president desperately needs.
1:07:37
Speaker 1: I want Carney's temperament and competence. I want Pope Leo's
1:07:41
Speaker 1: moral grounding. I want Zelensky's courage. And I want Magyar's
1:07:45
Speaker 1: political savvy. Right? You give me all four of those things.
1:07:51
Speaker 1: Someone who isn't going to panic in a crisis. Somebody
1:07:54
Speaker 1: with an actual moral compass. Somebody willing to take political
1:07:57
Speaker 1: risks like Zelensky. And finally, a guy like Magyar who
1:08:01
Speaker 1: understands the mechanics of politics well enough to assemble a
1:08:05
Speaker 1: disparate coalition that doesn't begin and end with the committed.
1:08:15
Speaker 1: I think that the next successful nominee of the Democratic
1:08:18
Speaker 1: Party is gonna be somebody who can best persuade the
1:08:28
Speaker 1: most number of ideological skeptics in their own party. Now look,
1:08:39
Speaker 1: history doesn't always produce the leaders we expect. Harry Truman
1:08:43
Speaker 1: was an accidental president. Teddy Roosevelt, also an accident. Abe
1:08:49
Speaker 1: Lincoln emerged from a divided Republican Party simply because he
1:08:54
Speaker 1: was acceptable to multiple factions. James Garfield emerged from a
1:08:59
Speaker 1: deadlock Republican convention. So we don't know. They're not, they're
1:09:06
Speaker 1: not easily. What I would say is this, that, that the,
1:09:10
Speaker 1: the obvious people that you think of in some ways, right? It's, it's,
1:09:18
Speaker 1: We are looking for a needle in a haystack. So
1:09:21
Speaker 1: we'll see. But here's what I'll be looking for. I
1:09:26
Speaker 1: am curious of not the candidate who generates the most
1:09:29
Speaker 1: enthusiasm from an ideological wing. Not necessarily the one who's
1:09:34
Speaker 1: got the most money. I'm curious of the candidate who
1:09:39
Speaker 1: sparks the interest of people who normally wouldn't support them.
1:09:44
Speaker 1: That's the person who will demonstrate to me that they
1:09:46
Speaker 1: have the skill set to accomplish, to be the president
1:09:52
Speaker 1: we need in 2029, who can start to give America
1:09:58
Speaker 1: its credibility back. Political renewal doesn't always come from places
1:10:04
Speaker 1: we expect. Ukraine found courage from a former TV comedian.
1:10:10
Speaker 1: Canada found steadiness in a former central banker. And the
1:10:15
Speaker 1: Vatican came to America to find its moral voice. America
1:10:21
Speaker 1: is perfectly capable of producing the kind of leader this
1:10:24
Speaker 1: moment demands. We've already produced one who now leads an
1:10:27
Speaker 1: institution with more than a billion followers. It just took
1:10:32
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church to recognize him. So the question isn't
1:10:36
Speaker 1: whether America can produce the leader we need. The question
1:10:40
Speaker 1: is whether our politics will allow a person with this
1:10:44
Speaker 1: skill set to emerge. But a lot of it A
1:10:50
Speaker 1: lot of it begins when we're going to begin to
1:10:57
Speaker 1: get some clues of what's possible in about 19 days.
1:11:08
Speaker 1: Ask Chuck. All right, let's do a little Ask Chuck.
1:11:13
Speaker 1: We will start with Michael T. from Chicago. And he goes,
1:11:16
Speaker 1: thanks for your commentary these last few weeks, especially when
1:11:18
Speaker 1: it's harder to than ever to separate reality from rhetoric.
1:11:20
Speaker 1: You recently discussed a survey showing that 50% of stockholders
1:11:24
Speaker 1: aren't changing their spending habits, which may explain why Trump
1:11:27
Speaker 1: seems so disconnected from the economic struggles on Main Street.
1:11:30
Speaker 1: Could he genuinely be unaware of what everyday Americans are
1:11:33
Speaker 1: experiencing and therefore see election fraud as the only explanation
1:11:36
Speaker 1: for Republican loss? Or does he know better and simply
1:11:39
Speaker 1: choose to perpetuate that narrative? And how far do you
1:11:41
Speaker 1: think he'll push those claims if or when Republicans lose
1:11:44
Speaker 1: in a few weeks? I genuinely believe he does not
1:11:49
Speaker 1: know how the average person is handling this. I really don't.
1:11:52
Speaker 1: I think he's very out of touch. I think it's
1:11:55
Speaker 1: possible J.D. Vance has some idea. I would like to
1:11:59
Speaker 1: think maybe he's put himself in a bubble. I'm not sure.
1:12:02
Speaker 1: But at least he was once connected to working class Americans.
1:12:07
Speaker 1: But no, this is not an administration. I think you
1:12:11
Speaker 1: have people that know how to read polls. But. I
1:12:17
Speaker 1: think he genuinely thinks this affordability issue is overrated because
1:12:22
Speaker 1: all of his friends are fine. And so I think
1:12:25
Speaker 1: he doesn't fully appreciate the sense of urgency on this.
1:12:29
Speaker 1: As for where he goes with election fraud, look, I
1:12:37
Speaker 1: think it's pretty obvious that he's going– we know he's
1:12:41
Speaker 1: not going to accept the blame. I think the number
1:12:46
Speaker 1: one person he's going to blame is John Thune. He's
1:12:49
Speaker 1: going to say, you didn't pass the SAVE Act. And
1:12:52
Speaker 1: it did two things. It allowed the Democrats to rig
1:12:56
Speaker 1: the election to win the Senate. But that's on you.
1:12:58
Speaker 1: That's not me. It'll be his way of doing that.
1:13:02
Speaker 1: And he'll be like, and he's already kind of hinted
1:13:05
Speaker 1: at this. Well, we know the public doesn't like Republicans,
1:13:07
Speaker 1: but they like me. So he'll try that spin as well. Look,
1:13:16
Speaker 1: do I think he's– I don't think he's– he doesn't
1:13:22
Speaker 1: care about what happens to the Republican Party. So the
1:13:26
Speaker 1: reason why I'm not concerned he's going to try to
1:13:28
Speaker 1: do anything, because ultimately, as long as he's still president,
1:13:31
Speaker 1: what does he care? So I don't think he's going
1:13:37
Speaker 1: to go to the lengths he went to in 2020
1:13:40
Speaker 1: and 2021. Right. Because that was– he was the one
1:13:47
Speaker 1: that was going to– that lost the election. So I
1:13:51
Speaker 1: think he's going to say these things, but I think
1:13:53
Speaker 1: he's going to– I think instead he's going to use
1:13:57
Speaker 1: it to try to blame others. And I do think
1:14:04
Speaker 1: that Thune is the one that will be in the–
1:14:07
Speaker 1: it will be Thune in the SAVE Act. That's how–
1:14:09
Speaker 1: it's his way of manufacturing the voter fraud policy. idea,
1:14:13
Speaker 1: concept that you brought up, but also attacking another wing
1:14:18
Speaker 1: of the party. Now I go back to what the
1:14:21
Speaker 1: reality is. The reality is the weakest Republican Senate candidates
1:14:25
Speaker 1: are the ones where he got involved in the primaries.
1:14:30
Speaker 1: The Senate candidates who have the best chance of surviving
1:14:32
Speaker 1: are the ones that John Thune basically forced upon Trump
1:14:36
Speaker 1: and told him to stay out of those primaries. Susan Collins,
1:14:39
Speaker 1: Mike Rogers in particular. So we'll see. But I just
1:14:46
Speaker 1: think that because it's not about him, he'll only care
1:14:51
Speaker 1: enough to use it as a way to try to
1:14:57
Speaker 1: use it as a wedge in his own party, maybe
1:14:59
Speaker 1: find a way to blame somebody else for all of this.
1:15:03
Speaker 1: But I don't think he's going to move now. He
1:15:04
Speaker 1: may ignore Congress. He may do all sorts of things.
1:15:06
Speaker 1: But he ignores Congress now, and it's been controlled by Republicans.
1:15:09
Speaker 1: So why should we expect him to change that behavior?
1:15:15
Speaker 1: All right. Next question comes from Major Matthew Kindig. And
1:15:19
Speaker 1: he goes, hey, I really enjoy your political insight. I'm
1:15:21
Speaker 1: active duty military stationed at Rock Island Arsenal. So I've
1:15:24
Speaker 1: been seeing plenty of Iowa political ads during the Obama administration.
1:15:29
Speaker 1: Republicans flipped more than 900 state legislative seats in 29 chambers.
1:15:32
Speaker 1: Could a potential blue wave this November produce similar gains
1:15:35
Speaker 1: for Democrats at the state level? And which state legislatures
1:15:37
Speaker 1: do you think are most vulnerable to flipping? Thank you
1:15:40
Speaker 1: again for taking my question. Well, let me just run
1:15:44
Speaker 1: through what's sort of on edge. One thing the Democrats
1:15:47
Speaker 1: have done is that they've learned that they learned a
1:15:49
Speaker 1: hard lesson from the Obama years. And there's a lot
1:15:53
Speaker 1: more effort that's put into legislative races, a lot more
1:15:56
Speaker 1: money that's being spent. And you see that the margins
1:15:59
Speaker 1: are much tighter. So, you know, for instance, Democrats need
1:16:03
Speaker 1: to pick up just four seats to control the Michigan Statehouse. Well,
1:16:09
Speaker 1: If the governor candidate can win by four or five points,
1:16:13
Speaker 1: that's possible. They had a trifecta at times when Gretchen
1:16:17
Speaker 1: Whitmer was there. So that's a big one. And most
1:16:20
Speaker 1: of the action is in, for what it's worth, is
1:16:22
Speaker 1: in the following states. It's all the battleground states. Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, Wisconsin,
1:16:27
Speaker 1: and Pennsylvania. Those are the big ones. The Michigan Senate,
1:16:32
Speaker 1: it's decontrolled, but there's one vacancy, right? It can go
1:16:36
Speaker 1: either way. The Minnesota State House is tied. So that's
1:16:40
Speaker 1: why the Amy Klobuchar candidacy was so important to Democrats
1:16:43
Speaker 1: in Minnesota. The Minnesota State Senate is Democrats have a
1:16:47
Speaker 1: one seat majority. Arizona, Democrats have been making a lot
1:16:52
Speaker 1: of progress in Arizona. They only need three seats to
1:16:55
Speaker 1: control the Senate and they only need four in the House. Now,
1:16:59
Speaker 1: it's a very gerrymandered situation in Arizona. So we'll see.
1:17:04
Speaker 1: But that's another one that's up for grabs. Wisconsin Senate,
1:17:08
Speaker 1: our control. Democrats need two seats to pick up, to
1:17:12
Speaker 1: pick that one. It's possible. The state assembly, it's a
1:17:15
Speaker 1: hundred seat legislature. They need five pickups. Again, possible. So
1:17:23
Speaker 1: we'll see. I mean, it's, like I said, the big
1:17:26
Speaker 1: targets are the battle, presidential battleground states plus Minnesota because
1:17:31
Speaker 1: Minnesota has been so tight, but they've been tight for
1:17:34
Speaker 1: a while. The bottom line is, is that You know,
1:17:40
Speaker 1: I'll be impressed if they do something like get a
1:17:43
Speaker 1: chamber in Georgia. Right. You know, Democrats are more competitive
1:17:48
Speaker 1: in actual majorities in some of those Midwestern battleground states,
1:17:54
Speaker 1: even as they've made progress in carrying, you know, Arizona,
1:17:58
Speaker 1: carrying Georgia. They've not been able to flip those legislatures
1:18:02
Speaker 1: just yet. So that for me. I'll know something big
1:18:09
Speaker 1: happens if they are able to flip control of a
1:18:11
Speaker 1: legislature in Georgia or suddenly make one of the two
1:18:17
Speaker 1: chambers more competitive than we've seen in a while in, say, Florida.
1:18:22
Speaker 1: But for the most part, most of the dollars are
1:18:25
Speaker 1: being spent by both parties in those presidential battleground states, Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, Wisconsin,
1:18:35
Speaker 1: and Pennsylvania. They're getting the lion's share. New Hampshire is
1:18:38
Speaker 1: getting some attention and plenty of other legislative chambers are
1:18:44
Speaker 1: getting some action. But that, for to get to the
1:18:47
Speaker 1: question you were asking directly really is there. I mean,
1:18:51
Speaker 1: I'm very curious to see if you're in Iowa. So
1:18:54
Speaker 1: you're seeing all the Iowa ads. I'm curious to see
1:18:56
Speaker 1: if if Rob Sands big victory for governor in Iowa
1:19:00
Speaker 1: translates into him having any coattails. And does he make
1:19:03
Speaker 1: the margins in the Iowa legislature tighter or narrower? Dustin,
1:19:09
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania 11, writes, he goes, hey, your interview with Marcia
1:19:11
Speaker 1: Chatelain reminded me of a conversation with my T.O. in Baja, California,
1:19:17
Speaker 1: where I realized how much news coverage had shaped my
1:19:20
Speaker 1: own fears about Mexico, while he assumed everyone in the U.S.
1:19:23
Speaker 1: uses drugs based on what he sees on the news.
1:19:26
Speaker 1: It's amazing how easily media narratives can reinforce biases when
1:19:30
Speaker 1: we don't dig deeper, whether about Mexico, Somali immigrants or
1:19:34
Speaker 1: other communities. How could journalists report the facts fairly while
1:19:37
Speaker 1: avoiding the stereotypes and distorted perceptions that so often come
1:19:41
Speaker 1: from news coverage? Go Canes. And which game will Mario
1:19:43
Speaker 1: screw up with his clock management this year? I think
1:19:46
Speaker 1: we can run the schedule and see where the chips
1:19:48
Speaker 1: fall in January. Oh, I'm just... Look, I think Mario
1:19:54
Speaker 1: already had that game. He let Wake Forest back into
1:19:57
Speaker 1: the game. I really believe that. Wake Forest just wouldn't
1:20:01
Speaker 1: refuse to come into the game. So I choose to
1:20:04
Speaker 1: believe that Mario... the Mario mishap was, was avoided because
1:20:09
Speaker 1: wake forest missed their opportunity to take advantage of Mario's
1:20:13
Speaker 1: bad play calling and bad. He doesn't call a play.
1:20:15
Speaker 1: Shannon Dawson does, but sort of the, uh, one of his,
1:20:18
Speaker 1: one of those clock games. Um, I, I, this, I'm
1:20:24
Speaker 1: going to repeat something that Mario said the other day,
1:20:26
Speaker 1: which is this team likes winning. They, they, they have
1:20:29
Speaker 1: an edge to them. Uh, at least they better have
1:20:33
Speaker 1: an edge to them. Uh, but, but, I am hopeful
1:20:36
Speaker 1: that maybe we can avoid that this time. Do we
1:20:39
Speaker 1: have to do it this way? I think that I
1:20:42
Speaker 1: really hope we don't. But your more important question. This
1:20:49
Speaker 1: is why you want diversity in a newsroom. Right. Which
1:20:53
Speaker 1: is and the diversity has to be all kinds of diversity,
1:20:57
Speaker 1: socioeconomic diversity, geographic diversity, ethnic diversity. Religious diversity. And I
1:21:05
Speaker 1: teach this to my students in my class about media
1:21:07
Speaker 1: and political polarization. We all stereotype. All of us stereotype.
1:21:17
Speaker 1: It is human nature. It is how the human brain
1:21:22
Speaker 1: organizes itself. So stereotypes are not something you're ever going
1:21:28
Speaker 1: to get rid of. what you do with stereotypes, it's
1:21:31
Speaker 1: just like bias, right? We're all born with original bias.
1:21:34
Speaker 1: You can't, there's no such thing as neutrality. And there's
1:21:39
Speaker 1: no such thing as eradicating a stereotype. What there is,
1:21:43
Speaker 1: is context. What there is, is counterfactual information. And, you know,
1:21:52
Speaker 1: being a bit self-aware. I'd like to think the older
1:21:55
Speaker 1: I get, the more often I put my try to
1:21:58
Speaker 1: put myself in the shoes of somebody else, even when
1:22:00
Speaker 1: I think they're behaving crazy. Well, let me do my
1:22:06
Speaker 1: best to put my shoes over here, put myself in
1:22:08
Speaker 1: their shoes. Now, I think you do your best. So
1:22:13
Speaker 1: that's why a newsroom having, it's why you don't want
1:22:16
Speaker 1: one person always writing a story. You want a second
1:22:19
Speaker 1: set of eyes, a third set of eyes, a fourth
1:22:21
Speaker 1: set of eyes, but it can't be people that came
1:22:25
Speaker 1: from the same background, right? So I can tell you
1:22:30
Speaker 1: when I thought about diversity in the newsroom, the first
1:22:33
Speaker 1: thing I thought about was socioeconomic and geographic. Those things matter.
1:22:38
Speaker 1: Gender matters, ethnicity, religious beliefs, all of those, all those
1:22:42
Speaker 1: diversity things matter. And a great newsroom has everybody at
1:22:48
Speaker 1: the table, just like a great democracy and pluralism assumes
1:22:53
Speaker 1: everybody's at the table. So I know it sounds a
1:22:57
Speaker 1: little preachy, my answer to you on this, but you,
1:23:01
Speaker 1: I loved how you heard the interview and you immediately
1:23:04
Speaker 1: went to your own example. I have my own, I
1:23:08
Speaker 1: remember my grandfather's, you know, when I, it was my
1:23:13
Speaker 1: grandfather's wife was like, why do you, I can't believe
1:23:16
Speaker 1: you're going to college in Washington, DC. This is a 1990.
1:23:20
Speaker 1: And if you remember the stereotype of Washington, DC, the
1:23:22
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties, you know, I'm in Miami, Florida, mind
1:23:25
Speaker 1: you in 1990. before I start school in the fall
1:23:30
Speaker 1: of 90 at GW. And my grandfather's wife goes, oh
1:23:34
Speaker 1: my God, it's so dangerous in Washington. And I remember
1:23:39
Speaker 1: saying to her, well, Aunt Ella, I lived in Miami
1:23:46
Speaker 1: when it was the nation's murder capital. I think at
1:23:49
Speaker 1: the time DC was considered the nation's murder capital. And
1:23:53
Speaker 1: I'm like, Miami had that title a couple of years
1:23:56
Speaker 1: ago and we were all fine. What you don't experience,
1:24:02
Speaker 1: what you don't physically see for yourself, you allow a
1:24:06
Speaker 1: stereotype to intervene. Our brains do it. They just do it.
1:24:10
Speaker 1: You have to fight it. You have to be aware
1:24:12
Speaker 1: about it. And the best journalists are self-aware about it.
1:24:16
Speaker 1: But the best way to deal with it is an
1:24:19
Speaker 1: incredibly diverse newsroom where diversity is socioeconomic, geographic, and ethnic.
1:24:29
Speaker 1: and gender. All right. What do we got here? Joe B.,
1:24:37
Speaker 1: North Carolina, 11th District, Asheville, North Carolina, go pack, go.
1:24:40
Speaker 1: All right. With Democratic Governor Josh Stein announcing a gas
1:24:44
Speaker 1: tax holiday in North Carolina shortly after the RNC pulled
1:24:47
Speaker 1: funding for Watley, could the timing have unintended down-ballot consequences?
1:24:51
Speaker 1: Could lower gas prices lead less engaged voters and Republican
1:24:54
Speaker 1: strongholds like North Carolina's 11th district to believe the economy
1:24:57
Speaker 1: is improving and potentially vote GOP? Thanks for helping us
1:25:00
Speaker 1: make sense of these interesting times. Regards, Joe B. Well,
1:25:04
Speaker 1: first of all, I just don't think, I mean, I
1:25:07
Speaker 1: think the lived experience where, you know, I'm answering your
1:25:09
Speaker 1: question on October 14th. You probably wrote it in maybe
1:25:14
Speaker 1: first week of October. You know, you're not, remember what
1:25:19
Speaker 1: these gas tech holidays, we're talking, the state level, what
1:25:22
Speaker 1: is it? 10 cents, right? So maybe you're saving a
1:25:27
Speaker 1: dollar 50 total for each fellow. Um, but you know,
1:25:32
Speaker 1: here's what tragically has happened because quite a few states
1:25:35
Speaker 1: have done this. Georgia did it. I think Pennsylvania has
1:25:38
Speaker 1: done it. I think New Hampshire has done it. I mean,
1:25:40
Speaker 1: quite a few states are, you know, you do what
1:25:42
Speaker 1: you can, right. Uh, on this, uh, and part of
1:25:45
Speaker 1: it is, you know, it's good politics by Stein, you know,
1:25:48
Speaker 1: to do this. Um, But the war ain't ending and
1:25:55
Speaker 1: the price still goes up anyway. I mean, in some places,
1:25:59
Speaker 1: imagine if you didn't do it. Now, I kind of
1:26:01
Speaker 1: think these gas tax holidays, they end up costing us
1:26:04
Speaker 1: more money. And they don't do, but there's a perception
1:26:09
Speaker 1: of at least, hey, I'm paying attention and I care.
1:26:13
Speaker 1: So there are good politics, even if they don't really
1:26:16
Speaker 1: have that impact. And I guess I'm not convinced people
1:26:20
Speaker 1: are really going to notice. All right, last question for
1:26:25
Speaker 1: the episode. Joanna Napa Valley writes in, hey, with all
1:26:30
Speaker 1: the controversy surrounding Pete Hegseth's pledge to live stream and execution,
1:26:34
Speaker 1: one thing I haven't heard discussed is what platform would
1:26:36
Speaker 1: actually allow it? I can't imagine Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or
1:26:40
Speaker 1: YouTube permitting something like that. So is this just a
1:26:42
Speaker 1: bunch of hot air if there's nowhere to stream it?
1:26:45
Speaker 1: Love the pod, even if my kiddos cringe every morning
1:26:47
Speaker 1: when I turn it on during our drive to school.
1:26:49
Speaker 1: I guess it's payback for all those years. My dad
1:26:52
Speaker 1: made me listen to talk radio on the way to school. Thanks, Chuck. Well, Joanna,
1:26:58
Speaker 1: and to your kids, I'm sorry. I'm happy to, we
1:27:03
Speaker 1: can include a topic your kids like if you want,
1:27:06
Speaker 1: you know, so I can time it for you, Joanna.
1:27:08
Speaker 1: So let me know what their interests are on that. Well,
1:27:14
Speaker 1: it's funny you bring that up because you're right. None
1:27:17
Speaker 1: of these– I don't think it's legal for any of
1:27:19
Speaker 1: these folks to do this. But if the government is
1:27:24
Speaker 1: doing it, then it becomes coverage, I guess. If the
1:27:31
Speaker 1: government is permitting it, then I guess that supersedes it.
1:27:40
Speaker 1: But I can tell you this. I assume none of
1:27:42
Speaker 1: them would carry it. But Truth Social, I guess, would.
1:27:48
Speaker 1: And for all we know, they'll turn it into some
1:27:50
Speaker 1: way to force more people to download the Truth Social app, right?
1:27:56
Speaker 1: But actually, for what it's worth, I think the backlash
1:27:59
Speaker 1: on this is pretty harsh. And it's coming from inside
1:28:03
Speaker 1: the House. So I have a feeling Trump's going to
1:28:08
Speaker 1: put the kibosh on this and this doesn't happen. But
1:28:12
Speaker 1: he does seem to have a hard time saying no
1:28:13
Speaker 1: to Pete Hicks. But No, you're, you're right. I mean,
1:28:16
Speaker 1: there's nobody, none of these platforms would feel legally comfortable
1:28:20
Speaker 1: doing this, but if the military is doing it and
1:28:26
Speaker 1: you know, the, in fact, the president might have to
1:28:29
Speaker 1: sign an executive order as sort of in order to
1:28:33
Speaker 1: indemnify this. I don't, you know, I mean, what, so
1:28:40
Speaker 1: let's say it's live stream, not only on true social,
1:28:42
Speaker 1: and then people decide to film it from, you know,
1:28:48
Speaker 1: sort of film the platform itself, airing it, and then
1:28:52
Speaker 1: it gets put on another platform. I'm, you know, just, just,
1:28:59
Speaker 1: Google and Facebook and all that, they just automatically take
1:29:02
Speaker 1: it down. I mean, I, I, I guess I personally
1:29:05
Speaker 1: hope so. Um, but you know, it's always tough to censor.
1:29:11
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, look at how they, they tried
1:29:13
Speaker 1: to get rid of the anarchist cookbook for decades. Um,
1:29:16
Speaker 1: and it never seems to go away. Um, so I'm
1:29:20
Speaker 1: always a little skeptical that, that the censorship things work
1:29:23
Speaker 1: as well as, as we think that they work. But
1:29:25
Speaker 1: I agree with you that none of these platforms, um,
1:29:29
Speaker 1: would feel legally comfortable doing it. And they might, in
1:29:33
Speaker 1: order to air it, they might almost demand some sort
1:29:36
Speaker 1: of government shield, if you would. But I think the
1:29:45
Speaker 1: wind has shifted on this one. I think Hank Seth
1:29:47
Speaker 1: is on his own. I think he's on an island
1:29:50
Speaker 1: on this one. And assuming the midterms go as poorly
1:29:54
Speaker 1: for Trump as we think, he's not going to throw...
1:29:58
Speaker 1: you know, he's not going to light this fire. I
1:30:01
Speaker 1: just don't believe it. All right, great questions. Now let's
1:30:14
Speaker 1: do my little preview, college football preview. You know, I'm
1:30:18
Speaker 1: sort of ashamed. It's Miami, Florida State week, and the
1:30:21
Speaker 1: national college football world is not covering the game at all, right?
1:30:26
Speaker 1: Both teams aren't ranked, right? Miami's ranked, but Florida State isn't,
1:30:29
Speaker 1: so that's a harm. Indiana-Ohio State is the big game
1:30:33
Speaker 1: of the weekend, and that's getting a lion's share of
1:30:36
Speaker 1: the attention. But you also have, I think, Florida and Texas, right?
1:30:39
Speaker 1: That's a pretty interesting matchup as well. It's a great
1:30:42
Speaker 1: weekend of college football, and I'm nervous as you know what.
1:30:47
Speaker 1: This is a rivalry game. Florida State, they're not always
1:30:54
Speaker 1: good at the same time, but when they are, it's fantastic.
1:30:58
Speaker 1: But in years when one is really good and the
1:30:59
Speaker 1: other one isn't, the games are still always close in
1:31:01
Speaker 1: nail biters. They all went to high school with each other.
1:31:04
Speaker 1: They all know each other. There's this weird... Last year,
1:31:10
Speaker 1: Miami was rolling. And then all of a sudden in
1:31:12
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter, they just sort of took their foot
1:31:14
Speaker 1: off the gas and Florida State made a furious comeback.
1:31:16
Speaker 1: And suddenly they were an onside kick away from having
1:31:20
Speaker 1: the ball with a chance to win the game. So
1:31:25
Speaker 1: I'm very nervous. you know, it's funny. There's multiple ways
1:31:29
Speaker 1: this could go, right? Mike Norvell, poor Mike Norvell has
1:31:31
Speaker 1: been coaching for his job every week. Um, I don't
1:31:35
Speaker 1: think a win saves his job, but if somehow Miami
1:31:40
Speaker 1: won by four or five scores, like every once in
1:31:43
Speaker 1: a while, both teams have put a, you know, what
1:31:46
Speaker 1: a whooping on the other, um, a big Miami win
1:31:53
Speaker 1: and Norvell may not make it back to Tallahassee. Um,
1:31:58
Speaker 1: But I just– I don't– I'm assuming a typical Miami-Florida
1:32:05
Speaker 1: State game. I know there is some talent disparity, but
1:32:09
Speaker 1: it's mostly on the skill positions. I think where there's
1:32:12
Speaker 1: usually a lot– where things level out, when both Miami–
1:32:16
Speaker 1: when one of them is down, where they're less down
1:32:21
Speaker 1: is usually on the D-line and O-line. So I'm expecting–
1:32:26
Speaker 1: that Florida State can't keep up with Miami score-wise and
1:32:29
Speaker 1: that Miami can build the lead quickly and do something
1:32:33
Speaker 1: with it. I think Florida State's a bit too one-dimensional
1:32:36
Speaker 1: to take advantage of things that you could take advantage
1:32:38
Speaker 1: of with Miami. I think you can pass the ball
1:32:41
Speaker 1: on Miami, as Wake Forest proved, but you've got to
1:32:47
Speaker 1: have the quarterback to do it. And I'm not sure
1:32:50
Speaker 1: he's the best passer in the world. He's proven to
1:32:52
Speaker 1: be a very good running quarterback. But I actually have
1:32:55
Speaker 1: some confidence that this defense can do a pretty good
1:33:00
Speaker 1: job containing him. So I, you know, I know I
1:33:07
Speaker 1: got that question about, you know, when is I don't.
1:33:12
Speaker 1: The game you worry about is the game is always
1:33:15
Speaker 1: one where there's a letdown possibility. Miami had a bye.
1:33:18
Speaker 1: They were preparing for it. So, you know, this is
1:33:22
Speaker 1: a coaching staff failure. Miami's not prepared. and doesn't win
1:33:27
Speaker 1: this game substantially. I think the spread's a little high.
1:33:29
Speaker 1: It's over 21 points. This feels like in the 14
1:33:33
Speaker 1: to 17 point range. And yes, maybe I'm saying that
1:33:38
Speaker 1: defensively a little bit, but I just can't imagine this
1:33:47
Speaker 1: being a total blowout. But if it is, then it
1:33:51
Speaker 1: very well might be Mike Norvell's last game. And I
1:33:53
Speaker 1: know we keep saying that pretty much every week. I
1:33:57
Speaker 1: know that Mrs. Todd, who many of you know, is
1:33:59
Speaker 1: a big Florida State alum, big fan, all of those things.
1:34:03
Speaker 1: I think she just wants the paralysis. Just, you know,
1:34:08
Speaker 1: willy or won'ty, just pull the plug already. Rip the
1:34:14
Speaker 1: Band-Aid off, whatever metaphor you want to use. But I
1:34:18
Speaker 1: think that there's an exhaustion from wondering Well, is this
1:34:22
Speaker 1: the week? Is it not the week? Et cetera, et cetera.
1:34:25
Speaker 1: But look, the big game, there's quite a few, right?
1:34:28
Speaker 1: Ohio State, Indiana. Indiana hosts this one. I don't know
1:34:33
Speaker 1: about you. I have a lot of questions about Indiana's offense.
1:34:35
Speaker 1: I have fewer about their defense. We'll see. I expect
1:34:39
Speaker 1: this to be a rock fight. But I question whether
1:34:45
Speaker 1: Indiana can keep up offensively with Ohio State. So to me,
1:34:49
Speaker 1: Indiana wins this game is if they can basically shut
1:34:53
Speaker 1: saying down. And I'm not sure that they can. I
1:34:57
Speaker 1: don't know if you can totally shut them down. Texas
1:35:01
Speaker 1: did until they didn't or didn't until they did. But
1:35:11
Speaker 1: it's a. Here's a question for you. If Ohio State loses,
1:35:16
Speaker 1: it's their second loss. And the Texas loss is not
1:35:22
Speaker 1: aging as well as it should. If Ohio State loses,
1:35:29
Speaker 1: what happens if they somehow stumble one more time? Does
1:35:36
Speaker 1: a 9-3 Ohio State team make the playoff? If the
1:35:41
Speaker 1: three losses are Indiana, Texas, and say, USC. Because it's
1:35:49
Speaker 1: at USA. But they beat Oregon, beat Michigan, beat Nebraska,
1:35:58
Speaker 1: and beat Northwestern. We know a 9-3 team in the
1:36:02
Speaker 1: SEC would probably make it. But I'm just going to
1:36:06
Speaker 1: put it this way. I don't know of a 9-3
1:36:09
Speaker 1: Indiana team with that same set of three losses would
1:36:13
Speaker 1: make it. But I wonder if a 9-3 Ohio State team. Anyway,
1:36:18
Speaker 1: just something to think about as you watch that game. Florida, Texas. Boy,
1:36:22
Speaker 1: this feels like a– man, all the vibes in Texas
1:36:26
Speaker 1: are so negative for poor old Arch. I've expressed my views.
1:36:32
Speaker 1: I just think he's in a no-win situation. I still
1:36:37
Speaker 1: think this is a Sark problem more than it's an
1:36:39
Speaker 1: Arch problem. I don't think he's figured out how to
1:36:43
Speaker 1: get the best out of Arch. And that, you know, I,
1:36:46
Speaker 1: these are, these are still young kids. I think this
1:36:50
Speaker 1: is on, I always believe coaching matters a lot more
1:36:53
Speaker 1: in college than anywhere else. Like matters even more in
1:36:56
Speaker 1: high school, but you know, I, I put this on,
1:37:00
Speaker 1: on more on Sark than I do on Arch. But
1:37:03
Speaker 1: needless to say, pretty big game. And I don't, I
1:37:07
Speaker 1: don't think a three loss Texas team, the way they've
1:37:09
Speaker 1: been playing, I don't think a three loss Texas team
1:37:13
Speaker 1: gets to the, gets to the playoff so i think
1:37:15
Speaker 1: this is kind of a big game for them and
1:37:17
Speaker 1: obviously if florida wants to get back into the conversation
1:37:20
Speaker 1: they need this after losing two in a row um
1:37:23
Speaker 1: but i have to i have to say i have
1:37:25
Speaker 1: no good vibe on this game at all i think
1:37:29
Speaker 1: texas will be up for this because florida frankly ruined
1:37:33
Speaker 1: their you know it was it was the it was
1:37:34
Speaker 1: the losing to a foreign aid team that you know,
1:37:37
Speaker 1: made his argument that nine and three Texas should have
1:37:40
Speaker 1: gotten over. He thought nine and three Texas should get
1:37:42
Speaker 1: in over 10 and two Miami last year. Sark did.
1:37:44
Speaker 1: So I think it's a, certainly it may be a
1:37:49
Speaker 1: playoff elimination game on that one. Mississippi State, LSU, every
1:37:54
Speaker 1: game is a elimination game for LSU. They have two
1:37:57
Speaker 1: losses now. They're, I think they're decent losses. If you
1:38:02
Speaker 1: want to say they're good losses, I think they're explainable losses.
1:38:06
Speaker 1: But they can't lose anymore. And they got Mississippi State
1:38:11
Speaker 1: and they're hosting them. I have a feeling Mississippi State
1:38:15
Speaker 1: stays as a ranked team. Maybe, you know, the more
1:38:19
Speaker 1: film people have on Super Camario, perhaps the easier it'll
1:38:24
Speaker 1: be to try to stop them. Again, though, every game
1:38:28
Speaker 1: now for LSU is an elimination. game now that they
1:38:31
Speaker 1: have two losses. I'll be paying a little attention to Kansas,
1:38:36
Speaker 1: Kansas State. I love interstate rivalries. That's one of my
1:38:40
Speaker 1: favorite parts of college football. We've got Miami, Florida State's
1:38:43
Speaker 1: a good one. I love Florida, Florida State. Kansas, Kansas State,
1:38:47
Speaker 1: I love those things because they never go the way
1:38:49
Speaker 1: they're supposed to go. That's why you love them. Teams
1:38:52
Speaker 1: get fired up for various reasons. Fan bases love them.
1:38:56
Speaker 1: One game I'm curious about, though, for upset potential, and
1:39:06
Speaker 1: that is Auburn-Georgia. Georgia just came off a huge win.
1:39:13
Speaker 1: And it took a lot out of them. It was
1:39:14
Speaker 1: a four-quarter game against Alabama in some crummy weather. Now
1:39:19
Speaker 1: they come home. They got an Auburn team. Nobody's paying
1:39:23
Speaker 1: a lot of attention. They're three touchdown favorites. Look, Auburn's
1:39:27
Speaker 1: got some athletes. They've got a quarterback that can, you know,
1:39:30
Speaker 1: I know this, you know, at some point, every team
1:39:35
Speaker 1: has a game where they, eh, they got off. They
1:39:39
Speaker 1: got out of the wrong side of the bed. They
1:39:41
Speaker 1: don't have Maybe they're not feeling so well. Anyway, this
1:39:46
Speaker 1: has a whiff of a trap game for Georgia here.
1:39:50
Speaker 1: So that's certainly one that will be in my four box.
1:39:56
Speaker 1: So Miami games at night. So we're able to I'm
1:39:59
Speaker 1: going to the Miami Florida State game. I'll see you
1:40:01
Speaker 1: down there in Miami for those of you going. And Auburn,
1:40:07
Speaker 1: Georgia is a 330. So that'll be good. Alabama, Tennessee. Um,
1:40:12
Speaker 1: probably a game that matters more for Tennessee than Alabama,
1:40:14
Speaker 1: Tennessee hosts, uh, pretender or contender. Well, it's tough when
1:40:19
Speaker 1: you don't really have a, when you don't feel confident
1:40:23
Speaker 1: in your quarterback position. Um, and we all want to
1:40:27
Speaker 1: see how Alabama does, you know, that's a hangover effect, right?
1:40:31
Speaker 1: Do you let your, do you let Georgia beat you twice? Um,
1:40:34
Speaker 1: but I do think it's a bigger game for Tennessee
1:40:37
Speaker 1: and then Ole Miss hosts, Missouri. If, I'd like to
1:40:41
Speaker 1: see Missouri beat a good team on the road, and
1:40:46
Speaker 1: then I'll believe. Until they do that, it's hard for
1:40:48
Speaker 1: me to believe in Missouri. Before the season started, Penn
1:40:59
Speaker 1: State going to the big house this weekend, we would
1:41:01
Speaker 1: have circled that as a potential. It's like Miami, Florida State.
1:41:04
Speaker 1: How come that game's not a bigger deal game? Yeah.
1:41:08
Speaker 1: Because Michigan has two losses and Penn State has three.
1:41:10
Speaker 1: How about that? Penn State and Michigan combined, their record
1:41:15
Speaker 1: is six and five. Not good. Not good, Bob. Not
1:41:21
Speaker 1: good at all. Bill Belichick versus my friend Manny Diaz,
1:41:26
Speaker 1: North Carolina at Duke. Interstate rivalry. That's one that's fun.
1:41:32
Speaker 1: That's one that I think the fans love hating each other.
1:41:36
Speaker 1: So it's another one. Obviously, it's better on the hard
1:41:40
Speaker 1: court than it is on grass, but still there's something
1:41:43
Speaker 1: to it. And then there's one game I'm not going
1:41:47
Speaker 1: to be able to watch because I'm going to be
1:41:49
Speaker 1: at the Miami-Florida State game, which is going to be
1:41:51
Speaker 1: on at the same time as the Notre Dame-BYU game. Now,
1:41:55
Speaker 1: many people will note Notre Dame basically has a three-game
1:41:57
Speaker 1: schedule this year. They play at BYU, and they host Miami,
1:42:00
Speaker 1: and they host SMU. On paper, they don't have anybody
1:42:04
Speaker 1: else that should come within two touchdowns of them. You know,
1:42:09
Speaker 1: this is a game– look, Notre Dame can't afford to
1:42:16
Speaker 1: lose because if they lose to BYU, then it really
1:42:19
Speaker 1: makes the Miami game a must-win for them. I don't
1:42:22
Speaker 1: know if a 10-2 Notre Dame gets in with the
1:42:25
Speaker 1: schedule that they have. They had a slightly better schedule
1:42:28
Speaker 1: last year, but if they do the same thing where
1:42:32
Speaker 1: the two best teams on their schedule they lost to–
1:42:34
Speaker 1: last year it was Texas A & M and Miami,
1:42:36
Speaker 1: and this year if their two losses are BYU and Miami–
1:42:40
Speaker 1: That's tough for the committee. I know they have the
1:42:42
Speaker 1: automatic bid if they're ranked 12th or whatever it is,
1:42:45
Speaker 1: but I don't know if that keeps them ranked 12th.
1:42:49
Speaker 1: And BYU, it's arguably a bigger game for Notre Dame
1:42:53
Speaker 1: than BYU because BYU, it's actually a meaningless game. It's
1:42:56
Speaker 1: a good perception game. Are they really a top 10 team?
1:43:00
Speaker 1: How well do they do hosting them? So I think
1:43:02
Speaker 1: it matters to them psychologically, but has no impact on
1:43:07
Speaker 1: the Big 12 standings. And they're still undefeated in the
1:43:10
Speaker 1: Big 12, regardless of what happens here. Upset alert at
1:43:16
Speaker 1: the Rose Bowl. Wisconsin going to UCLA. Wisconsin's won a
1:43:21
Speaker 1: few games in the Rose Bowl over the years when
1:43:23
Speaker 1: it was actually a Rose Bowl. UCLA, after their biggest
1:43:26
Speaker 1: win they've had probably in 20 years at Oregon, they
1:43:30
Speaker 1: lost their starting quarterback. This almost feels... too sharp you
1:43:40
Speaker 1: know already the line's only two and a half there's
1:43:42
Speaker 1: already a huge expectation here that that's a big letdown
1:43:45
Speaker 1: spot for ucla um and it's hard not to assume
1:43:49
Speaker 1: that uh and then kentucky kentucky goes to oklahoma is
1:43:54
Speaker 1: is oklahoma right at its ship uh or is that
1:43:58
Speaker 1: just an accidental victory for them i know if you're
1:44:01
Speaker 1: texas you really want oklahoma to win you need to
1:44:04
Speaker 1: prove that that loss to oklahoma was a good loss
1:44:06
Speaker 1: and not a bad loss It's a great weekend, folks.
1:44:11
Speaker 1: As we're getting into the heart of conference, it's like
1:44:15
Speaker 1: all these important conference games taking place in all the
1:44:19
Speaker 1: various important ACC games, important SEC games, important Big 10,
1:44:24
Speaker 1: important Big 12. Enjoy the weekend. I know I will.
1:44:28
Speaker 1: Let's go Canes. I'll see you in Miami.