Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - Trump’s Corruption Knows No Bounds + Iran Attacks America’s Water Supply & Trump Attacks Democrats

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Chuck’s Commentary - Trump’s Corruption Knows No Bounds + Iran Attacks America’s Water Supply & Trump Attacks Democrats · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: three four three nine eight five. Hello thereon, Welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the first August episode of the Chuck Todcast. I am
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: singling out the month of August because while, oh, a
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: decade or so ago, it would have been the beginning
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: of what was supposed to be sleepy August. Well, first
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: of all, August had never been sleepy, at least in
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: my professional career. But August is no longer sleepy, particularly
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: in even numbered years. We have a slew of primaries,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: including a big one on Tuesday. It is Michigan, the
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: start of what could be sort of the next iteration
• 2:51
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  Speaker 1: for control of the House and Senate in some ways
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  Speaker 1: might be at stake. Depending on these primary results, We will
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  Speaker 1: myself is we will navigate Michigan, Kansas and the entire
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Tuesday calendar of events on that front. But, as I
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: always promise, welcome to the check podcast where we deal
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: with politics for the rest of us. And yes, it
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: was a monstrous weekend in some ways. If you chose
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: to pay attention to every little detail that you wanted
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: to in the world of politics, if you chose to
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: try to continue a summer vacation, God bless you, and
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: maybe you are in better spirits for it. So then
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: you tune into me to help you let you know
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: what you may have missed this weekend. A role I am,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: a role I am happy to play, and I appreciate
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: you turning to me for that. So let's begin with
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: the weekend. It was one of those weekends where everything
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: happened at once. You had Iran dominating the headlines again.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: There were new revelations about cyber attacks on American water
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: systems that are quite serious. President's not taking them seriously,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: but they seem to be quite serious. Another Justice Department
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: story raising new questions about the credibility of the rule
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: of law in the United States of America. And like
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I said at the start, we're on the eve of
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: one of the most consequential democratic primary days of this cycle.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: And buried underneath all of that are a couple of
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: bigger questions that I don't think we're asking enough of.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Is Donald Trump actually getting an accurate picture of what's
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: happening in the country. And it's the Democratic Party about
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: to spend the next two weeks deciding whether it wants
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: to be a governing party or simply a movement. I'm
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: going to get to both. By the way, quick run down, right,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I've got I'm going to go through a few things.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Iran Minnesota, the corruption stuff, Senate Democrats producing a fascinating
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: response to the corruption message, a little bit of a
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: preview of Michigan in Wisconsin, And of course it's my
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Monday episode, which means we have a little history lesson
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: for today. Let me just tell you this week in
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: history is a slew of monumental things that have happened,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: particularly in American political history. I am going deep on
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: one of them. And if you think about it, and
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: you think about the week that is August third through
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: August ninth, I think you have an idea of what
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: anniversary I'm going to be quote unquote marking or celebrating,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: depending on your point of view. And then of course
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: we will go to questions on that front. And finally,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: obviously Tuesday is another potential showdown. I left out one
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: other thing, and that is the Todd Blanche confirmation potential
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: confirmation committee hearing vote on Tuesday. It seems as if
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has made it clear he would rather fight
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: to warp what happened on January sixth for his followers
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: rather than do what it takes to get Todd Blanche confirmed.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: John Cornyn and Tom Tillis shockingly somehow think Blanche has
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: qualified for this job, the idea, but for this deal
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: that he helped orchestrate for his one time personal client,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, this whole IRS immunity business, the weaponization fund.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Tillis and Cornan are implying publicly they're trying to get
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: to yes, and all Donald Trump has to do is
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: agree to get rid of this settlement document, and he
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: just can't bring himself to do it. So we're going
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: to find out how stiff is Corny's spine, how stiff
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: is Tillis's spine. I do believe they're not the only
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: two no votes on Blanche. I think there are slew
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: of Republicans on the ballot in twenty six including people
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: like Ashley Moody, John Houston, Dan Sullivan, Susan Collins who
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: do not want to have to vote for Todd Blanche.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Maybe they will if it gets forced upon him. Some
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: of them may vote yes. I certainly think Collins is
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: a no. And I'm very curious what a guy like
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Housteed or Sullivan does because they're very deep trouble. They're
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: not Republicans who normally want to get comfortable with the
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: corrupt side of the Trump years, and this would probably
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: be a tough one. So I think Tillis and Cornin
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: are essentially shields for Senate Republicans who can't, who have
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: decided they can't either stomach standing up to Trump on
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: this publicly or politically feel like they can't. But it
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: is what it is. But first, let's start with what
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: has become almost an eerie pattern. So last Thursday's episode,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I argued that we've been looking at the Iran War
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: in the wrong way. We keep calling it a small
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: regional conflict. Unfortunately it is not that anymore. It's become
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: a global conflict. Right, we have more than thirty countries
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: that have been touched by this conflict. It's a global
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: conflict in anything but name only, right, Drone shipping lanes,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: the oil markets, the cyber attacks, the supply chains, all
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: of it's connected here. And then this weekend, and we've
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: all seen this movie before, right, it's wash Rent's repeat.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Every weekend seems almost to be the same script. Right.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Trump begins the week talking up you know, Tuesday, Wednesday,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: and Thursday, there's this I'm gonna bomb, I'm gonna bomb,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna threaten, right, and then all of a sudden
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: there's some sort of walk back. We got another walk back.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Sometimes markets react and it triggers the walk back. Sometimes
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia or u he reacts and it triggers the
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: walk back, But the walk back nonetheless. And of course
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: news outlets are stuck, sometimes looking like they're doing nothing
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: but his propaganda work. But what choice do you have.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: The president is saying they're gonna do these things. You say, well,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: if he does, then you have to prepare everybody for
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: an historic weekend of troublesome war and a lot of deaths.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: And of course it usually doesn't happen. Donald Trump usually
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: backs down. He tries to declare success or hint that
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: some new success is closed, talks are coming, a deal
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: is in sight. Oh, these Iranians. They really want to
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: make a deal. They can't handle this anymore. Okay, Monday
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: arrives and then we go through the whole thing all
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: over again. Right, it is groundhog Day. Welcome to Donald
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Trump's groundhog Day foreign policy when it comes to Iran war. Now,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: don't under misunderstandment. I'm not minimizing any of this. American
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: forces have been attacked, Iranian proxies remain very active, and
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: the cost keep stacking up. And I'll say it as
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: plainly as I did last week. This war is going
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: to be remembered as one of the largest strategic presidential
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: errors of my lifetime. This is going to be up
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: there with WMDs. This is going to be up there
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: with Vietnam. But think about it, both of them. I mean,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: what we're staring at here is a loss strategically, even
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: if it's not a loss militarily. Trump is trapped in
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: a box of his own making. As I have said
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: over and over again, and every week he picked the
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: option that keeps him in his own box. Right. By
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: the way, just a reminder here, there were researchers at
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Brown University have been doing a running tracker of oil
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: prices since the war began in February. And on the
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: issue of gasoline, the price Americans have paid for this
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: war of choice by Donald Trump, seventy four billion dollars
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: more for gasoline and diesel than we would have paid
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: had this conflict not started. It breaks down to five
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: hundred and eighty six dollars per household. The Trump Iran tax.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Let me say it again, the Trump Iran tax. Five
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: hundred and sixty dollars per household. Nobody voted for that tax,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: nobody debated that tax. It's just showing up at the pump.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: It is real money. Five hundred. This is just since February.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: This has cost five This is not even over an
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: entire calendar year yet, essentially about five months. So one
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars extra every month. Wow, that's not anything that
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: was in that one big beautiful bill, now, was it.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: And then there's the cyber war that's expanded. And this
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: was incredibly disturbing over the last few days because last
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Sunday and Monday, we had more than thirty Minnesota community
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: water systems hit in a coordinated attack on their operating technology.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Hackers went after the controls and in some places, water
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: pressure dropped. Some communities had to switch to running their
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: systems by hand. State of Michigan reported similar activity. The
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: FBI and EPA issued an advisory on Thursday of last week. SISA,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: which of course is the sort of cyber security arm
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: of the federal government that Donald Trump attacked because this
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: was the entity that said we had a free and
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: fair election in twenty twenty. SISA warned that attackers are
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: targeting what is called programmable logic controllers at water utilities,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: and they've been changing passwords to try to lock out
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: operate out of their own systems. We now think at
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: least seven states are under investigation for some sort of
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: problem here. Now, the good news is nobody's been hurt,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: State officials have been cleared, the drinking water is safe.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: But understand what has actually been touched here. Not a
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: website or an email service. This is the machinery that
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: puts waters in the taps of American towns. So one
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: thing that makes us different almost from any other country
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: on Earth is how reliable our drinking water is. Imagine
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: introducing unreliability to our drinking water in this day and age. Now,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: attribution in cyber attacks always takes a lot of time,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and nobody has formally attributed this to anyone, but three
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: state officials that were briefed on the investigation told The
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: New York Times that the trade craft they're observing here
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: in these water systems and the absence of any ransom demand,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: if this were just some sort of you know, cyber
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: hijackers based in Russia or something like that, there was
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: no ransom to on this. So because of that, it
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: pointed all analysts to Iran that this essentially was part
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: of their war response to US. Now, they also cautioned
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: that the assessment could change. That's how all this is
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: supposed to work, right, more investigation, you get more evidence. Now,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: let's step back and look at what that is politically.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: If you're the president of the United States and your
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: argument is that Iran is a dangerous regime, so dangerous
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: that it threatens Americans at home and we have to
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: go into this war, then an attack on the drinking
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: water of thirty American towns is the single most useful
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: fact that you will ever be handed to make your
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: case that you need to continue to engage in this
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: hot war with Iran. The facts themselves, in theory might
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: make the case for you, you don't even have to
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: manufacture a pretext on this one. But here's the thing
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: I always try to remind you, and I do this
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: for all friends and family and reporters. Sometimes what doesn't
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: happen is a story, and sometimes what doesn't happen is
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: the story. Trump didn't seize on it. He didn't use it.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: He had a free pretext to get tougher on Iran,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: and he left it sitting on the table. Strange, isn't it.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Now Here's what he did instead. At a cabinet meeting
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: at Camp David on Friday, the President was asked about it.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: He said he didn't think Iran did it. He said
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: he blamed it Minnesota, that they were quote grossly incompetent.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: He added that Iran had bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota. Now,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: let's be precise here, because this matters. He wasn't trying
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: to pivot. He didn't change the subject to Minnesota. Minnesota
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: is the subject. Minnesota's where the attack was first discovered.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Minnesota is a crime scene, perhaps a war crime scene.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: He was handed the strongest available evidence for his own argument,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: and had said he used it to attack the state
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: that got hit. He attacked fellow Americans. He didn't not
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: the attacker the victim. He blamed the victim. Look, I
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: understand his narrative here, right. Donald Trump collects grievances. We
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: know this, and he never puts his grievances down. Minnesota
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: is where he came closest to flipping his state he'd
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: narrowly lost twice. It's also where twenty twenty. It's where
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty anchored his law and order argument that he's
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: been running on ever since. George Floyd, the unrest tym Walls.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: But he does attribute his twenty twenty loss a little
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: bit to George Floyd, a little bit to COVID. Right,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: this is why he's so angry at Fauci's why he
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: gets so angry at the entire state of Minnesota. Right,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: never mind that his entire ice campaign is so unpopular.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Why because of the out of the ordinary targeting of
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the state of Minnesota, and six years later it is
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: still live for him, He's obsessed with all things Minnesota.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: For him, he hears the word Minnesota and he immediately
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: goes into grievance point. It's like, it's why he can't
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: support u Krat. He blames you Crat for his first impeachment,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: so he constantly thinks they're they're not with him, and
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: it's why he's so soft on Russia. Right. You know,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: some people will assume he's on the payroll, but at
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: his most base instinct is well, Russia helped me in sixteen,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: so I'm gonna be nice to them. So whether any
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: of that's fair unfair is in my point. But doing
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: what he did didn't help him, It actually cost him.
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  Speaker 1: of course there's a much smaller story that was very
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  Speaker 1: revealing this weekend, and it's the reflecting pool business right,
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  Speaker 1: much smaller stakes, and yet it was almost very similar
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: to this entire Minnesota story. So if you recall, on
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: July second, Jeanine Piro, the former Fox A host and
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: now US attorney in Washington, indicted a sixty seven year
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  Speaker 1: old former Olympian canoeist named David Hearn, charging him with
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  Speaker 1: felony destruction of property carried a ten year sentenced to prison.
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  Speaker 1: She told reporters the evidence showed he violently ripped up
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  Speaker 1: the pools liner well. Then after the indictment came down,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the Interior Department turned over documents it had been holding
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: the entire time. Turns out those documents show the damage
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: came from a botched installation by the contractor, work that
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: fell behind almost immediately rain and wind, repeated failures on
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: the seals. It was a job rushed before those America
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: to fifty events around the fourth of July, So on Friday,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Pierro had to move to dismiss her own case. Almost
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: a month later, she wrote that it was difficult to
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: attribute the damage to vandalism, let alone prove it beyond
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: a reasonable doubt. She noted that the damage appeared in
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the middle of the pool, where no vandal would plausibly
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: be peeling anything, And she said in a court filing
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: that Interior had not been forthcoming with her office. I
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: don't think we should wave past what any of this means.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Her filing says her office took evidence to a grand
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: jury that the damage was caused by vandals based on
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: what Interior and park police handed her. So if Interior
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: was sitting on documents saying otherwise while that was happening,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: then what the grand jury was actually told becomes a
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: live question. Hearn's life lawyers are already calling it an
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: abuse of government power. A judge still us to sign
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: off on this dismissal. I promise you this is all
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: going to cost us more money because David Hearn's got
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: a defamation suit. He's going to sue the government, and
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: he's going to win this suit, and millions are going
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: to go to him, our taxpayer dollars because of Donald
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Trump's grievances. But grand jury material, by the way, doesn't
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: stay sealed forever. And if that transcript ever sees daylight,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: somebody in this chain has a serious problem. We haven't
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: asked the question. Nobody's asked this question of Piro, yet
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: somebody should. But it strikes me Piro didn't want to risk.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Maybe she doesn't want to risk this grand jury transcript
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: getting unsealed because it may show her committing misdeeds that
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: could get her disbarred or sanctioned or whatever. She could
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: be in deep, deep trouble. And what we have learned here,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: what we have learned here is that there are moments
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: where people just won't go there for Trump. They're not
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: going to put themselves at risk of losing their job.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: For Donald Trump, there's always a line. Pam BONDI couldn't
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: do it. That's why she was fired. She just couldn't
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: break the law. She feared this barmament. Perhaps even Piro
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: met a line she couldn't cross. But here's where I
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: keep coming back to. The President responded on Saturday. He
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: said he disagreed one hundred percent with Jean Piro. He
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: said he didn't know what she was thinking. He allowed
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: that there may have been some contractor difficulty, and then
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: said the major damage was caused by vandals. So two days,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: two agencies, and it's the same sort of Trump move.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: R very predictable. His own investigators point towards Iron on
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Friday and he says it's Minnesota. On Saturday, his own
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: prosecutor says in a sworn filing that the contractor did it,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: and he says, nope, it's vandals. And weirdly, he doesn't
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: deny the new information, so at least he admits there's
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: some new information here, and on Saturday he even conceded
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: it there may have been some contractor difficulty, so he
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't let it change the conclusion. Though. Facts get in,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: but this conclusion never moves. So the question I've been
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: sitting with all weekend is not whether he has his
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: facts straight. We know he The question is does he
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: know that he doesn't have his fact straight right? And
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: is he seeing all of this now? There are three
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: answers of available that are realistic. One he sees exactly
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: what everybody else sees and he simply dismisses it. He
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: gets the briefing, he reads the assessment, and he decides
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: the version he prefers is the one he's going to
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: go with, regardless of what the facts say. That's not
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: a cognitive failure. It's pretty much Donald Trump over the
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: last forty years of his life. The man is habitually
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: unable to tell the truth. Two, he's being shielded. Okay,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the staff, Remember the staff hasn't evolved in how they
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: handle Donald Trump. This staff was selected right. The people
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: who used to actually interrupt him in the first aren't
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: gone because they just drifted away. They're gone because he
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: removed them, and he hired for the opposite trape. He
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: didn't want people that worried about facts and reality. He
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: wanted people that were going to be loyal at whatever
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: he thought was factual and whatever he thought was reality.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: And so we know this information gets softened before it
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: ever even reaches him, It gets delayed before it reaches him,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: it gets wrapped inside better news even if it does
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: get reached to him, or it even gets quietly dropped
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: and never told. And again this isn't I'm not blaming
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: the staff here. The president created these conditions, he got
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: the staff he ordered. And then there's a third option,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: and this is the one I'd bet on. A principal
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: who punishes bad news produces a staff that stops delivering
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: it cleanly. And a staff that stops delivering it cleanly
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: produces a principle in this case Trump, who increasingly is
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: certain he was right all along. It's a terrible feedback loop. Now,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: I have no doubt some people think, you don't understand
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: if we told Trump all the truthiness, he'd be impossible
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: to deal with. He'd be a rage in the country,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: would be even bigger trouble. So I have no doubt
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: there is a rationale among West wing staffers, and we'll
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: hear about it five years after this presidency ends. You
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: have no idea how bad it could have been. Right,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: We know that's common, but you know this reality is
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: really bad for him. Right now, look at what look
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: at his reality you have. We can look at the
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Economists YouTube poll that shows thirty four percent approved, sixty
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: two percent disapprove. Right among Independence in that survey, only
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: nineteen percent approve. That is a midterm disaster in the making.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: CNN's poll in the same week HadAM at a minus
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: fifty two with Independence PW early in the months thirty
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: four sixty four. What was the approved disapprove? I mean,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. You know, some of these pollsters I
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: think are really good. Some of them are kind of average.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: They're all finding the same conclusion, this president's uniquely unpopular,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: and he's becoming more popular as the year goes on.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: And then, and then you see that the top issue
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: is now being shared with the economy. We're seeing threats
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: to the democracy start to percolate. Up right, The more
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the corruption narrative gets going here, the more that democracy
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: issue starts to percolate. So and then, of course we
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: see it. Even his own network's polling has him a
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: job approval rating below forty percent. Now, of course, whenever
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: he sees bad poll numbers on Fox, he blimes the pollster.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: He doesn't accept the reality. So it's funny. He just
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: can't accept any news that alters his narrative, even if
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: it comes from his supposed trusted source Fox News. You know,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: it was interesting. I sort of asked this question on
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Twitter of the weekend, and I got a response from
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Stephanie Grisham and her twitter feed. Former you remember her,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: she was a Trump press secretary. Later she was Malania
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Trump's chief of staff all on the first term. And
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: I asked this question, is he getting all the information?
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Is he being shielded? How bad is this right now?
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: And she wrote that roughly eighty five percent of negative
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: information in the first term was kept from him, but
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: anything that was favorable in front of him, regardless of
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: the source, right, whether it was a reputable one or
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: disreputable one. So look, I can't verify her percentage, but
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: she's a former aid with a book and a well
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: documented break with the family, and Trump's people have spent
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: five years attacking her credibility. But remember this is what
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: she said it was like in twenty twenty one when
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: we actually had guardrails. Supposedly in that right, there were
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: people that were actually trying to stop him from doing
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: stupid stuff. Maggie Haberman has been pointing out with her
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: new book, Regime Chains, in this case, the White House
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: was built deliberately without any of people that he had
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: in his first term that would be guardrails. It was
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: deliberately built without guardrails. Loyalty wasn't a benefit of the
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: hiring process. It was the hiring process. So if that's
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: what it looked like in the first term, what Stephanie's describing,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: can you imagine what it looks like now with a one
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: hundred percent stick of things. And we do have a
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: data point on what happens to people who bring back
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: the wrong answer. Pam Bondi ran the Justice Department for
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: fourteen months. She dismantled the wall between the White House
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: and Department of Justice that had stood since Watergate. She
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: brought ridiculous cases that the President publicly demanded against James
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Commey Letitia James, and both were thrown out pretty easily.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Federal judge found the acting US attorney who secured those
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: indictments had been unlawfully appointed. The court said known in
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: April he fired now the reporting side of the Epstein files.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: But we know what Trump saw was insufficient aggression in
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: going after his enemies. The system told him the cases
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: weren't there, and he concluded the problem wasn't the system,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: but the person delivering the message. And that's what got
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Bondy fired. Just remember that it wasn't a warning that
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: went out by accident. It was a memo everybody in
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: the building Reddit. So you ask yourself what Janeine predict
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Puro had to be weighing on Friday. She had no
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: choice in her mind. The documents were there showing the facts,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: but she knew exactly what Saturday was going to look like,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: and she chose this path anyway, that's how much legal
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: jeopardy she thought she was in. Now here's the telling
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: where the rest of the party is on this. Watch
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: the Republicans who have to face voters. They're not campaigning
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: like people who think this is going well. Jesus crime, Andy.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Go look at Ken Paxton's economic agenda that he rolled
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: out on Friday. Ken paxed it right, supposedly the biggest
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: ally of Trump. His first big general election white paper
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: was not a border agenda or culture war agenda. He
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: put on an affordability agenda. He called it protecting the
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Texas Promise. But my got it read like a Shared
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Brown white paper didn't read like a Donald Trump won
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars deduction for out of pocket medical costs,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars for first time home buyers, doubling the
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: child tax credit to forty four hundred dollars. I think
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: that was a Kamala Harris idea. Obviously, nobody's ever confused
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Ken Paxton with Shared Brown or any other senate Democrat
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: out there. But hey, he sees reality. He's looking at
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: the reality. He's behind in just about every poll out
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: there in Texas. So is it reading the electorate out
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: of intellectual curiosity. He's having to deal with an electorate
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: that's dealing in reality. Now, put that next to the
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: president of the same issue. Last December, at a cabinet meeting,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Trump called affordability a con job by the Democrats. It
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: was a scam. Then in the spring, after those November
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: elections late twenty five went badly, Trump told his aides
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: that Republicans needed to own the affordability issue. Then he
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: ran an affordability tour and it was going to be
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: the center of his economic agenda. And then in July,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: just ten days ago, he told a crowd that affordability
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: was a word that Democrats had made up. Think about
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: what that sequence requires to act out of finding you
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: have to have received it. He got the data, He
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: ran on it. That happened until it didn't. Then something
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: unreceived it for him. The data reaches him and it
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: doesn't stick. I mean, it's just it's just insanity. Right,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: This is no way to run a country, let alone
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: a political party or anything. Now, two ho his caveats
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: before I lay in this section. First, none of this
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: means Democrats are are slam dunk here. We know that, right,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: registering and go, well, they have a massive financial disparity
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: that they're going to have to overcome, and an anti
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: incumbent environment feels like is bigger than being a pro
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party environment. Right, So we know that this isn't
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: a slam dunk for the Democrats, but it becomes easier
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: if Donald Trump doesn't know, doesn't accept the reality of
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the situation, then there's one more hole I can't close.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know whether the President was briefed on the
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: preliminary Minnesota assessment before he stood up Friday and totally
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: contradicted it. We don't have that reporting yet. If he
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: was briefed, then this is a story about a president
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: choosing to choosing the satisfying fight over facts. It's really disturbing. Right.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: If he already knew that Iran was likely behind this
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: and he chose to attack Minnesota anyway, this is a
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: much worse story, and I think it's the biggest thing
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: we need answer this week. It is answerable. We will
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: know whether he was briefed on whether he knew in
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: advance that Iran was behind us any attack Minnesota anyway.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: This here's where I come down. There's a comfortable version
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: of this argument, and I want to name it so
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: I can reject it. The comfortable version says the institutions
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: have failed him, that the guardrails erode, it that the
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: machinery drifted, and the president wound up isolated by forces
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: beyond his control. But we know that's not what happened here.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: He built this room. Every person around him was chosen
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: for their sycahantry. The guardrails didn't erode. They had been
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: removed before January twentieth, twenty twenty five, deliberately, and that
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: was a feature, not a bug. So the bubble is
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: not a malfunction, it's a product design. And if that's
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: where we are, then is the problem really the room
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: where he gets his information or is it simply who
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: he is? Because here's the part of this I can't
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: get past. Somebody went after the water systems of thirty
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: American towns dropped the pressure, blocked operators out of their
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: own controls, forced communities to run their water by hand,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: perhaps putting potable drinking water at risk for millions of Americans.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: And the President of the United States looked at that story,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: and his first instinct was to find a Democrat to blame.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Not the attacker. He wanted to blame the governor and
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: the state of Minnesota. He doesn't seem to care about
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: the Americans that are impacted by this. So let's set
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: aside a ran for a second. Set aside all everything
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: else I've talked about. An adversary were at warwith may
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: have reached into this country and touched the drinking water
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: of American citizens. That should enrage a president. It should
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: be the easiest outrage of his entire term. And instead,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: this man is so demented with polarization disease, whatever you
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: want to call it, his own form of dds Democrat
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: arrangement syndrome. He had a reach for a political attack
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: on the people who got hit. He didn't ask what
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: happened to them. He didn't ask whether the drinking water
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: was safe. He asked what did it do to his narrative.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: This isn't a man who's been shielded from the facts.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: This is a man who heard them found the citizens
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: of Minnesota. Besides the point, could give a shit about
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: whether they were actually negatively impacted. Let that sit for
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: a second, because the room only says what he hired
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: it to say. But that instinct, that's all him. He
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: did not care that millions of Americans might not have
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: drinking water. He instead reached for a political grievance to
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: highlight instead, the man doesn't care about his fellow man.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: That is disturbing all right now. One of the reasons
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: I am increasingly convinced that Democrats are probably going to
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: win both the House and the Senate this fall has
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with the Democrats. As I pointed out,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: they're not in the best of shape, but they're not
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Trump right now, and they're not the party of corruption.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is almost ragging about how much he has
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: grifted off the American taxpayer and American companies, And I
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: have a feeling the American people are getting more exhausted
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: by this eighteen months of watching stuff that would have
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: been a six week scandal in any other presidential term.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: The plane from Qatar, the crypto company where a fund
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: backed by the UAE bought a piece of the family business.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Now you have this FIFA thing, and right whatever Trump touches,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: it just explodes, right yeah, Inpatino's going to regret the
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: day he ever met Donald Trump. Trust me, the president
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: of FIFA right now, who invented a peace Prize to
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: appease Donald Trump after he floated selling off a piece
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: of the World Cup where the lead investor was somebody
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: sort of two degrees from the Trump family orbit, Jared
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Kushner's brother. Well, let's just say FIFA totally reversed, because
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: everything Trump touches, he ruins just like this. Now, this
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: is normally the easiest thing in the world for the
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: party out of power. Corruption is the oldest, most reliable
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: play in American political playbook for midterms. You don't have
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: to explain it, you don't really have to pull test it.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Trust me. It's shown up in focus groups left and right.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Everybody's sick of this corruption business. And it lands with
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: people who don't even follow politics. They already have sort
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: of a built in baseline believing that politicians are kind
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: of corrupt anyway, So all of this stuff is almost
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: easy to land. This is a golden opportunity for Democrats.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Not since six have they had a message scheme like this, right,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: And let me just tell you, Senate Democrats, they decided,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: they responded. They came up with a big anti corruption agenda.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer rolled it out last week and guess what
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: they dropped an absolute stinker. All right. Now, before we
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: get to all that, before I explain how you fumble
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: a layup this wide open, I want to lay out
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: what they're actually running against. Because the Wall Street Journal
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: published something Friday that might be the single most important
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: piece of political journalism this year. Now, one thing about
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: that journal piece before I get into it. Donald Trump
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: is currently suing Dow Jones, the parent company of the
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, over a story about that birthday letter
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: to Jeffrey Epstein. So realize this, when you are already
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: a defendant in a defamation suit brought by the subject
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: of your reporting, you do not put a comma on
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: that news story that you can't defend in a deposition.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: This is about as airtight of a story as anything
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: you're going to get right now out of the Wall
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Street Journal, and it landed hard for me. Here's why
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: I want to give you four things from this piece,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: because these four are the ones that seem to matter
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: and will matter later. Number One, there's nobody in between
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: the president and the financial ask The Journal reports that
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: almost every night Donald Trump gets on the phone with
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: his chief fundraiser and goes down the list who paid,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: who did, how much. He sets the number himself, five
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: million from this one, fifty million from that one, and
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: he gives her names to call. Often people who were
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: just in a meeting with him asking for some sort
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: of something from the federal government. She calls them and says, hey,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: the boss wants the money. He calls her the Princess
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: of Darkness because she's a killer with the owners. Now, look,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: every scandal like this in modern American history has had
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: a buffer and aid got out over his skis a fundraiser, freelance.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: The president didn't actually know the specifics. Not here, there's
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: no buffer. He's on the phone. He is the specific
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: every night. So remember the fundraiser. She's going to come
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: back in my story here. One of the great examples
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: in here is connected to my guests later in this episode.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: The tobacco sequence. In May of this year, Trump's golf
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: club and Jupiter Flour tobacco executives come in. The President
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: promise them most of what they want on vaping and
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: FDA policy. Millions of dollars flow to his political committees
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: and his fundraiser. A private citizen, not a government employee,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: is sitting in the room for this policy meeting. So
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: she can translate the policy into money. Shortly after the meeting,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: the FDA magically lifts restrictions on some flavored vaping products,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: and the FDA commissioner gone money in the room policy
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: out the other side, just days apart. The pay to
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: play is right there, wide open for everybody to see.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: And in fact Trump wants everybody to see it because
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: he wants everybody to know this is how it works,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: because he wants more people in the system doing it
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: this way. In the paid play scheme, of course, the
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: White House claimed that the only thing guiding their health
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: policy was called gold standard science. I'll let you decide.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Here's another important number three from the story. Somebody is
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: keeping a ledger a million dollars ahead to have dinner
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: at the White House. The dinners are organized by industry.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: One night of we Crypto, another night it's manufacturer boy.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: I remember when Republicans were outraged about Hillary Clinton and
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: her coffee clutches in the White House for potential donors
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: and fundraisers for the nineteen ninety six campaign. Oh how
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: quaint that was. Now here's the detail I can't get
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: out of my head. The fundraiser sits at these dinners,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: takes notes on what the President promises each donor. She's
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: quite good at this. Then she rocks those notes to
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: other White House officials. Again private citizen. So somewhere in
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: that building there's a running list of presidential commitments, indexed
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: by who paid for them. Just a running list. Again,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: worse than Watergate, worse than to be about done. It's
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: not even close. The single most rupt sort of scheme
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: we've seen a president run for pay to play. That's
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: not an appearance of impropriety, it's a filing system showing
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: it off. This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought
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• 41:33
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• 41:47
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• 41:50
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  Speaker 1: Application times may vary and rates may vary. Number four,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: eight hundred million dollars and nobody has to tell you
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: where it went. That's the journal's running total since he
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: took office. Most of it has raised through vehicles that
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: never have to disclose a single donor, and they rarely
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: report how they spend their money. And then Trump at
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: the dinner for ballroom donors, talking about the leftovers. We'll
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: have money leftover, he claims, and we'll use that for something,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: maybe for the arts or something else. Money raised for
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: one purpose, spendable on whatever he feels like, reported to nobody. Shoot,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: here's Trump himself last year at the same dinner, and
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: I want you to hear the actual quote. A couple
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: of you. I was sitting here and saying, sir, would
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: twenty five million be appropriate? They said, I'll take it,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: And then it doesn't take too many twenty fives to
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: get it done. Trump is fundraiser, deal maker, regulator all
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: in one. Now here's the thing. None of this is
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: technically illegal. Unfortunately, there is no law preventing a president
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: from raising unlimited money for a library, a ballroom, a
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: birthday party, or a political committee. Most of it doesn't
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: even have to be disclosed. He didn't find a loophole
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: and squeezed through it. He walked through a door. Congress
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: never got around to close it. Remember who ran on
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: draining the swamp, Well, he didn't drain it. He took
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: one look around and figured out he could be the
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: biggest alligator in the swamp. So obvious, ugly impossible for
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: any Republican on the ballot to defend. It. Handed Democrats
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: a huge issue on a silver platter, and let me
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: show you what they did with it. On Thursday, Chuck
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Schumer rolled out the Anti Corruption Bureau Creation Act at
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: an event hosted by Public Citizen. It's one hundred and
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: thirty three page bill. They wrote a model bill. Now,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: before I tell you what's in it, let me tell
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: you who's on it. There were four senators standing with
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Trump on this one was Schumer on this one? Schumer,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Alex Piddie of California, Jeff Burkeley of Oregon, Andy Kim
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: of New Jersey. It was a shockingly small number right,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: four out of a caucus of forty seven. Now, original
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: co sponsor lists can grow. That's normal, and let's be
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: fair about it. Maybe it will, but I have a
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: feeling after they realize if anybody actually read this bill.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: I don't think any of those senators read this bill.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: This bill is a piece of garbage. And I'll explain.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: It's amazing who didn't stand behind this bill, which tells
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: me some senators did read it and they didn't stand
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: behind it. Elizabeth Bourne wasn't on it. She's the ranking
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: member on Senate Banking. She's one of the loudest anti
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: corruption voices. I wonder why she didn't sign under this bill.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: Sheldon Whitehouse, he's a loud voice. He didn't sign under
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: this bill. Osoff didn't clobashar Booker. Why didn't you name it?
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Richard Blumenthal, Chris van Holland, Chris Murphy, they weren't on it.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: By the way, Van Holland and Blouomenthal are actually holding their
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: own forum on Trump's corruption in the same week. So
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: you have seven Democrats in addition or negotiating ethics provision
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: in the so called Clarity Act. Right now. Angela also
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: brokes guy At, Reuben Diego, Mark Warner, Ruphiel Warna, Catherin
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Quortez Masto, John Hickenlooper Booker. Again, none of them signed
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: on to this bill. And there's no House companion bill,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: not one. Now, I do think that contrast might tell
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: you something. And here's one more contrast. Well, Chuck Schumer
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: was announcing his anti corruption bill, which, by the way,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: spoiler alert, his idea is to create a new federal agency.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: I'll get to it in a minute. Jamie Raskin, the
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: ranking member on House Judiciary in the House, I'm remember
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: the minority, He was actually firing off document demands to FIFA,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: visitor logs for their office and Trump Tower records of
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: they're dealings with the president, basically the things that Congress
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: gives him the power to do. It's called oversight. A
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: member of Congress using the powers that a member of
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Congress already has. So one of these two men, Jamie Raskin,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: is doing the job. The other one is proposing to
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: create an agency to do the job for him. That's
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: what Chuck Schumer proposed. So let me tell you about
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: this bill. I actually read this one hundred and thirty
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: three page bill, if many of you know cessed about
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: this corruption issue, all right, I think it has destroying
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: both parties. I think we are just we're out of
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: control with money. The crypto industry has completely just bought
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: off Washington in ways. So it's really bad out there.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: This is a necessary We need a Teddy Roosevelt, we
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: need a bad one. So I care about this issue
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: a lot. I read a lot about it, and I
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: read every bit of this bill. Let me start with
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: the part I don't think anybody is caught. This bill
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: wouldn't even cover the story I just told you about
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: from the Wall Street Journal right then and there. It's
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: a failure. Right. So here's the mechanism. The bill creates
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: liability for certain people, so called covered persons, who use
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: their office to personally enrich themselves by more than fifty
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars. That's the baseline of this bill. So is
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: a check to a presidential library foundation, personal enrichment is
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: a ballroom project? Is a birthday party, nonprofit? A dark
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: money issue committee. Maybe there's an argument. It's very difficult,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: it's nowhere close to a sure thing, and it's precisely
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: the fight A competent defense lawyer would want to have,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: because every one of those payments is legal today and
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: none of them are prohibited by anything that the Schumer
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: bill touches. Then there's the fundraiser themselves, the woman at
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: the dead center of this entire journal story, the one
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: making the call, sitting in the policy meetings, and taking
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: them the notes. She is not a government employee. She
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: does not receive taxpayer dollars. So I went through the
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: bill's list, President, vice President, their spouses and adult children,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Cabinet secretary, senior White House staff, special government employees, senior
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: Justice Department official, CIA IRS, commissioner, officers of the President's
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: re election committee, except he's termal limit, So there isn't
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: one federal contractors, everything named in the bill, and this fundraiser,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: who's not a government employee, falls through every single category.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: She doesn't belong to any of them. So a bill
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: in theory written in response to this paid to play
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: operation may not actually reach the person running the operation.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: So that's failure number one here. But it doesn't even
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: begin to go through my failures on this bill. That's
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: before we get to the three ways they wrecked it. First,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: the bill they wrote is unconstitutional from the very beginning.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: And here's why they made it personal. The finding section
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: of the bill name checks Donald Trump, name checks the Suns,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: name checks Elon Musk and Peter Teel. It reaches back
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: to January twentieth, twenty twenty five. They didn't create some
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: rolling ten year window that would catch anybody in either party,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: but the first day of this guy's term. They didn't include,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: for instance, mister goldbar Senator from New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Now this isn't I'm not saying that's illegal. I'm just saying,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: if you actually want to win in court, you don't
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: hand the other side of the argument that this is
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: a vendetta bill. And that's what they did in writing
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: this bill. They made it easy to potentially throw it
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: all out because you cannot write a law that targets
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: an individual right. You target a behavior, but not an individual.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: And yet they wrote they wrote the findings for the
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: press release. It's pretty clear, and the press release costs
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: them the lawsuit. Second part of this bill. And this
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: is where I ended up channeling my inner Tom Cruise
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: from a few good men. So there's this scene in
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: that movie, Kathy's in his apartment and he's really upset.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: It to me more and he finally snaps, I'm sorry,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: I keep forgetting. You were sick the day they taught
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: law at law school. Well it was on page twenty
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: four of this bill. That's the reaction I had. And
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: I'm not even a freaking lawyer. I didn't go to
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: law school. But at this point, after thirty five years,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: I've given myself an amateurs certainly reading of it. And
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: in section two of one of the bill, here's the
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: actual test, actual text in this bill. And this is
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: where I literally could not believe it. There is established
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: in the executive Branch the Anti Corruption Bureau. Let that
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: sink it. Chuck Schumer's big idea to curtail corruption of
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: this presidency is to create a new bureau inside the
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: executive branch. It would have seven members appointed by the
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: president and chairman designated by the president. So the remedy
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: for a corrupt president is a new agency that the
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: corrupt president gets to staff. All right, I know what
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: you're thinking, Hey, but Schumer said it's independent. He can't
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: fire them. Oh lord, let me read you the removal
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: protection in this bill, all of it. It's in section
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: two oh six within five days of firing somebody, the
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: president has to send Congress a letter explaining why that's it.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: That's the whole thing. He can fire all seven of
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: them on Tuesday morning, as long as he writes a
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: nice note by Friday. Now here's the part that is
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: in an accident. And this is what I'm like, did
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: you got? Are you? Is anybody paying attention to what's
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: actually happening in jurisprudence? Remember, on June twenty ninth, one
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: month before this bill came out, Supreme Court decided Trump
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: versus Slaughter six to three. This was about the whole idea.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: Can he fire members of independent agencies that reside in
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: the executive branch? And Justice Roberts wrote that they threw
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: out a ninety year old president, and he held that
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: the president can fire the people who run independent agencies
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: whenever he wants. The lawyers who drafted this bill, you
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: would think, read that opinion, and in fact, they know
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: the opinion exists because there is no job production in
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: this bill, because they knew it wouldn't survive. But then
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: the press release when out calling this bureau insulated from
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: presidential interference, that's not true. They knew it wasn't true.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: It's written into their own bill, and they set it anyway.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: But it gets worse. There's a section in there designed
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: to stop anybody from gutting the agency. Right, no federal
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: officer can cut its powers with a budget, except the
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: text says other than the chair who gets to pick
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: the chair of this agency? According to this bill, the president.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: They wrote the trap door into their own floor. Third,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: they made it easier to capture, not harder. So, for instance,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: if you want to control federal ethics enforcement, you have
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: to take three separate agencies, the Federal Election Commission, the
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: Office of Government Ethics, and the Office of Special Council.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Three buildings, three bosses, three different fives. This bill decides
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: to merge all three into one. They give it exclusive authority.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: Nobody else can enforce those laws, and everybody running it
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: can be fired at will. So they took three locks
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: off the door and replaced them with one, then handed
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: the key to whoever wins the next election. So let's
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: be very clear about what was proposed here. If this
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: passed tomorrow, Donald Trump appoints all seven members and picks
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: the chairman. That's not spin. That's page twenty four. Of
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: this bill that Schumer released. I mean no wonder he's
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: lost so much confidence among his own Democrats. Now there's
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: a simpler way you could have done this. It's called
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: doing your fricking job, and it's called reading Article one
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: of the Constitution. Every single thing this bureau would do,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Congress already can do right now, some of it without
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: even passing a law subpoenas Congress has them. Ask Jamie Raskin.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: What they've stopped doing is enforcing them. There used to
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: be a thing called inherent contempt where Congress could send
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: its own officer to bring you in. Well, they last
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: used it in nineteen thirty five. They could switch it
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: back just with a simple rules change, And you would
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: think that's something Democrats that they win control of Congress
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: would brag about doing. But they don't. How about the money.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: One sentence in a spending bill, no federal dollars go
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: to any entity of the president or his family if
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: they own a piece of Congress writes sentences like that
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: one hundred times a year for all sorts of things.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: One line in every appropriations bill could essentially make it
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: a federal crime for any of this to benefit fit
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: the president or his family. How about foreign money, that's
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: actually in the Constitution Article one. Congress is the body
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: that's supposed to say yes or no to foreign payments
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: to American officials. Right, it is up the Congress to
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: decide is to get to keep the plane the cutter plan. Right. Ironically,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: in two hundred and thirty seven years since that Constitution
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: has existed, Congress has actually never defined what that means
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: by statute. They never built a reporting system on foreign
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: payments or emoluments. This is the so called emolument's clause.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: They never attached a penalty. The Constitution gives them the
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: power to do that. The power has been sitting on
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: the shelf since George Washington. How about disclosure? Right, that's
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: basically the entire point of the Wall Street Journal piece.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: None of that eight hundred million dollars has to be reported,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: So let's fix that takes about six pages, doesn't even
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: need an agency. How about conflicts of interest? There's a
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: federal conflicts of interest statute already in the books, but
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: it specifically exempts the President of the United States. Congress
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: wrote that exemption. Guess what Congress can get deleted? Something
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: Democrats could run in order to get control of Congress.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: Then of course there's confirmations and as impeachment. Right, we
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: know they're available, so why don't they Well, here's why,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: because oversight does cost you something. It costs you floor time,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: it costs you subpoenophytes, and eventually this is this becomes
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: the expensive part. Costs you having to go after a
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: president of your own party because someday it'll be your guy.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: Creating an agency costs you a press conference, and that's
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: the trade off. This is a punt by Schumer and
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: the Senate Democrats. This is embarrassing if you're a Senate Democrat.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Running this bill is embarrassing. But it's the same move
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: that Congress when both parties has made on war powers,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: on emergency declarations, on tariffs. Somehow the idea is to
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: hand more fricking power to the executive BRANCHM Cruse said,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: were you absent the day they taught the Constitution in
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: the history class? This is how we got here, And
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: this is being offered as the answer to how we
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: got here. Unbelievable. Now, I want to talk to people
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: who look at both parties on this and figure the
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: whole thing is just a racket. Frankly, you're closer to
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: right than either party wants to admit. Republicans are finished
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: on this issue. They're done, They have no credibility. The
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: party that chanted during the swamp for a decade is
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: now the party where the president personally works the phones
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: for fifty million dollar checks and the FDA changes its
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: position a few weeks after a meeting that he gets
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: to collect donors. That's no, there's nothing to defend, and
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: you see nobody even tries. But here's what Democrats need
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: to hear. And they're not going to like it. You're
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: barely ahead on this issue, and you want to meddle
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: for it. You're just not as bad. Right, there's always this,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: but they're worse because for damn near every Trump deal
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: there's a Democratic version. Yes it's smaller, Yes it's less brazen,
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: and it's usually legal, but it shouldn't be. But it's there.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: The foundation money, the speaking fees, the family members with
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: impossible to explain consulting arrangements. Right, the Democratic senator's child
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: who got a big crypto deal. The senator convicted of
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: taking gold bars from a foreign government, he said on
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer's own conference, and he's not mentioned one single
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: time in the fightings of this bill, not once. In fact,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: members of Congress trating stocks and information they get in committee,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: which everybody in America agrees is indefensible and which somehow
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: never gets fixed. By the way, why did Schumer and
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: the Democrats exempt every member of Congress from their corruption bill? Look,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: Democrats didn't build the swamp. Trump is swimming it, but
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: they sure didn't drain it. When they had the chance.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: They kept the doors open because someday they wanted to
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: walk through them too. And it's all right here in
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: that text. Go through who the bill covers. This Schumer
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: bill covers the President, the Vice President, their families, white
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: House staff, juste Department CIA irs, every federal contract in America.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: And you know who's not on that list in this
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: bill Congress. Not one member, not one spouse, not one
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: adult child, not one senior staffer, no stock trading, nothing.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: One hundred and thirty three pages about public corruption written
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: by senators, and it does not cover the senators. That's
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: the tel folks, that's the whole thing. In a single
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: drafting decision, handed a blank page able to write anything
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: they wanted, and they wrote themselves out of it, one
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: month after the Supreme Court rule that the president can
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: fire the head of any independent agency he wants. The
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: answer from the opposition party is, let's build him another
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: independent agency to gut. If I had gotten this paper
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: I meant on how to fix Washington my USC class,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: it would have gotten a B minus or C plus.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: But I would have just sent it back to go
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: rewrite it because I don't like to, you know, please,
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: today's students don't like to get B minuses and C pluses.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: But it would have been like, this is ridiculous. Yes, Look,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: their diagnosis is excellent, The facts in the findings are
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: accurate and well sourced. And there's one genuinely smart provision
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: that is buried in here that would fix the three
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: three deadlock on the FEC that's made campaign finance law
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: functionally unenforceable for almost two decades. Five pages, and that
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: could have passed on its own tomorrow. But the remedy
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: that they chose is going to make this disease worse.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: It hands more power to the branch that has abused it,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: It exempts the people who wrote it, It may not
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: even cover the conduct that inspired it, and it ignores
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court decision from thirty days earlier that cuts
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: the entire design in the first place. The best idea
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: in this bill is an amendment to a statute that
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: already exists, and it's buried under one hundred and twenty
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: eight pages of agency. One more thing, and this one
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: really bothers me. The good government groups who are at
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: that press conference. Public Citizen hosted it, Common Cause Campaign,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: Legal Center, Crew, Protect Democracy, the Brendan Center, all of
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: them put out statements praising it. I liked a lot
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: of these organizations. I've relied on their work for years.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: There's some really great people over there. I've had many
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: of them on this show. I hope they didn't read
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: this bill, because if they signed off to this after
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: reading it, then I questioned if they know what they're
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: doing anymore. But I really believe they didn't read it,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: because if they had, somebody in that room would have
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: raised a hand and said, hold on a minute. We
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: have spent eighteen months warning that this president has captured
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: the independent agencies. Why are we handing them a new one.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: Somebody would have noticed that the removal section is a
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: permission slip. Somebody would have asked why Congress isn't in
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: the bill at all. They lent their credibility to a
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: press release, and credibility is the only asset those organizations have.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: You don't spend it on something you didn't read. So
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: here's where this lands. The country is watching a president
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: run the most transactional, perhaps corrupt operation anybody's ever seen,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: out of the lighthouse, right in the open, on the record,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: with a fundraiser taking notes on what he promises. And
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: the answer from the opposition party is a bill that
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: can't pass, wouldn't survive a court challenge if it did,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: and may not cover the woman at the center of
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: the story itself, and would hand the next president one
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: stop control over every ethics cop in the federal government.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: That's not a plan. It's a press release with a
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: bill number that's never going to see the light of day.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: And if you're one of the people who's decided that
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: neither party is serious about corruption, congratulations, you just got
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: a one hundred and thirty three long page pieces of
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: evidence that prove you were right. That's a huge shame.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: All right, Before we go, let's do a quick preview
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: Michigan and Wisconsin. Next two weeks are going to tell
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: us a lot more about whether this Democratic parties had
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: it than the last two years did. Tuesday, we got Michigan.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: A week from Tuesday, it's Wisconsin. Two primaries, two states
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: Trump carried in twenty four and sixteen, two versions of
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: the same fight. Now, this isn't going to be the fight.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: The fight I'm describing me is going to be the
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: one you here described sort of in the algorith rhythm
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: driven places that you may see stuff pop up. This
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: isn't about the moderates versus the socialist That's a very
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: lazy construction. This, I think, is a fight between people
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: who want to win an election and people who want
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: to win an argument inside their own party. So one
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: theory of politics is very old and very simple. You
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: assemble a majority, you persuade people who disagree with you,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: you compromise where you have to, and you win. Then
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: you govern. The other theory reverses that order. First, you
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: change the conversation, You move the party. You redefine what's
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: acceptable to say out loud, You normalize ideas that today
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: poll badly. Winning election matters, but changing the party matters more.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: Because eventually the theory goes electoral success follows ideological clarity. Now,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: those aren't two tactics. Those are two definitions of success.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: And here's the part I'd like to ask you to
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: sit with. Both of them are coherent, right, Neither one
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: is a crazy version of events, but I would argue
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: they're solving different problems. I think in Michigan we ought
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: to be reminded to listen to what they say when
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: nobody's when they think nobody's listening. Campaigns will tell you
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: exactly what they're trying to accomplish. You just have to
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: be listening at the right moment. Usually the moment isn't
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: a debate, it's usually a donor call. All right, you
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: remember the infamous forty seven percent eavesdrop for Mitt Romney. Right, well,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: abdu AlSi ed was on a zoom with donors last
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: month when somebody asked a fair question, what do you
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: actually do with the job given that no Democrat is
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: passing legislation for the next two years? And his answer
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: was not about Michigan, was not about lowering the cost,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: was not about any of that. His answer was about
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. He talked about a platform a win
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: would give him. He talked about primarying sitting democrats he
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: named check John Fetterman. And then the line that everybody's
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: been talking about. Put one ogre on a pike, and
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: everybody else gets the message and it starts to sound
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: a lot different. Now the language got the coverage. Some
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: Democrats called it violent, got sexist real fast when people
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: assumed he met Haley Stevens, and he spent the final
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: debate clarifying they actually meant fetterment. But let's strip away
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: the image a minute and look at what's underneath it.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: That is a theory of political change. It's a demonstration effect.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: You beat one of them in public and the rest adjust.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: That is not a senate campaign. That is a movement
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: campaign that happens to be running inside a Senate race. Now,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: look that's not disqualifying, right. This is sort of what
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: Jim Demitt dreamed of and what he's gotten with the
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: mega movement with Donald Trump. Right, what the Tea Party
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: was trying to do that Trump have created. But it
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: is a different job description than the one that's on
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: the ballot. And then, of course in Wisconsin, we're gonna
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: get the same argument. One week later, Francesca home state
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: rep for Madison's chef bartender line cook, single mother. She's
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: the first Asian American to serve in the Wisconsin legislature,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: and she's been endorsed by the Madison, Milwaukee and Northeast
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin Democratic Socialists of America chapters. She is, by every
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: public pull the front runner in a crowded field to
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: be the Democratic nominee. And the field has gotten less
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: crowd and she looks even harder to defeat. Now they
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: have a supposed one on one. We'll see, right, the
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: sitting Lieutenant govenor dropped out, the former lieutenant governor dropped out.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: The Milwaukee count executive first got in, then he's back in,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: got out, then he's back in. There's clearly an coordination
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: attempt here by some wing factions of the Democratic Party.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: Party is trying to consolidate to stop the socialist, but
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: the polling sense suggests not only is it not work,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: it may have accelerated her victory. The establishment theory of
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: politics requires the establishment to be capable of coordinating. Increasingly
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: they can't really coordinate very well. So I want to
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: make a distinction that I don't hear enough people make,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: and I want to make it without a value judgment
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: attached right now. There are movement politicians and there are
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: governing politicians. A movement politician measure success by whether the
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: boundaries of the debate have been shifted. Did the party
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: say something in twenty twenty eight it wouldn't say in
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, right, That's essentially what I'll do sayet
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: is promising, and governing politicians measure successful whether they got
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: fifty percent plus one and then did something with it,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: passed a bill, persuaded, shifted the conversation a bit, and
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: the general electorate. Movement politicians are usually right about the future,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: but they're usually wrong about the timeline, and governing politicians
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: are usually right about the current timeline, and they usually
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: don't have a huge ambition about the future. They're not
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: looking to change trajectories as much. Obviously, a successful political
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: party needs a little bit of both. Parties get in
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: trouble when they convince themselves they only need either the
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: movement people or the pragmatists. Right, So, the Democrats I
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: keep thinking about this week aren't in Michigan or Wisconsin.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: They're the ones that have won in Kentucky or Kansas,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: places where a Democrat wakes up every money knowing a
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: majority of their neighbors disagree with the national party ideology.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: Those Democrats don't get to assume the country will eventually
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: come around. Their entire existence depends on persuading somebody who
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: voted against them the last time. Sheer, Lor Kelly, even
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: Roy Cooper. They're not less principal, They're just solving a
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: harder math problem. And notice what none of them are
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: talking about. Look, the argument is older than everybody in it.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: Barry Goldwater changed the Republican Party, Reagan won with it.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Sixteen years later, George McGovern changed the Democratic Party, and
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: it was a disaster, and it took Bill Clinton to
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: change it back. Twenty years later, the Tea Party changed
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: the Republicans and Trump finished the job. So sometimes the
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: movement does come first, Sometimes the coalition comes first. One
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: could argue that today's Democratic internal fights started with the
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: successful coalition. Obama Bill he had both. He had the
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: movement folks and the government folks. And look history's littered
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: with both. So the question is whether movements matter. They do.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: The question is how long are you willing to wait
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: for the electorate to catch up? Brings me to the
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: thing that's been bothering me the most this weekend. I
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: know a lot of things have bothered me this weekend.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: This you know, I need a vacation anyway. The Democratic
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: Socialism America one hundred and twenty thousand members. Right now,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: they've become a real force in some of these primaries.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: They put up platforms. They put out a platform this
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: summer that calls for abolishing the United States Senate, also
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: the Presidency in the Supreme Court. They want to replace
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: it all with a single legislative chamber. Their CoA chair
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: even went to che Span and said the Senate exists
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: to serve only wealthy landowners and that abolishing it is
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: an extreme. Now, look to be fair, and I want
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: to be fairer. Senate Democrats some of them pushed back
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: a little this week. Bernie Sanders said no, Mark Kelly
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: said it's in the constitution. Rocanna said he he's for
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: abolishing the filibuster, not the Senate. Corey Booker called it farcical. Okay,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: but listen to how they pushed back. Almost all of
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: them said it's impractical that it would take a constitutional amendment.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: It's not happening. Voters care about healthcare move on. So
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: basically they objected that it was being brought up. Nobody
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: defended the institution of the Senate. What the heck Booker
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: in the same breath said he'd support ending equal representation
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: for stage, which, by the way, is the one in
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: the entire Constitution that cannot be amended without every affected
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: state agreeing to it. Article five. The Framers walled that off. Specifically,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: it's actually the only thing they walled off. It's not
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: a footnote. That's the Founders telling you exactly how load
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: bearing they thought the wall was. So here's my question.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: Where are the Democratic Senate candidates on this. There are
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: nine of them on ballots this year running to join
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: this chamber that have serious chances to win. Some of
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: them are on the ballot this coming Tuesday. Which of
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: them is going to stand up and say the Senate's
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: not a bug, it's a feature. Because it is a feature,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: I understand the argument against it. Wyoming and California get
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: the same two votes. Small states are overrepresented, it's unfair
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: by population, that's all true. It's actually besides the point,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: in fact, if we had a House that was meeting
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: the constitutional assumption that the Founders made we might not
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: hate the Senate as much. We would understand why they
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: created the Senate the way they created the House problem
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: that we have right now underrepresenting the entire country in America.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: It's too small. It does not represent you know, it
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: does not represent communities of interest anymore. The House is
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: the problem here, and it's made people think it's the Senate.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: The whole point of the Senate was so that one faction,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: with one good election and one moment of national passion,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: cannot run rough shot over the entire government and the
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: entire citizenry. It's a break on political extremism. It's slow,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: it's frustrating, it's frequently maddening, and it works. We are
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: watching right now what happens when the other checks get weak.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: And the answer to that is it fewer checks. And
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: this is the part I think Democrats need to hear here.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: For ten years, the argument against Donald Trump was that
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: he doesn't accept the rules. He loses and the election
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: was stolen. He can't get a bill, and he does
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: it by executive order. He can't get the answer he wants,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: and he goes after the referee. That's the indictment, and
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: it's a far Indie. But look at the reflex on
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: the left. Right now, they're frustrated they can't move their agenda,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: they can't win the Senate master and the response is
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: at new messaging. It isn't better candidate recruitment. It isn't
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: going to going to Kansas and Kentucky and figuring out
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: why Democrats can't win there and why a national Democrat
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: can't win a Senate race there. The response has changed
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: the rules so we don't have to adjust to the
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: electorate that exists. It's the same reflex that Trump pass.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: It's the same impulse wearing a different jersey. When the
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: argument first, then you'll find out you don't need to
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: rewrite the rule book because you won't be losing. Tuesday's
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: not settling any of this. No primary ever does. But
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: it will tell us which theory has the momentum. Is
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: success changing the party or changing the country. The healthy
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: parties figured out how to kind of do both. The
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: unhealthy ones convince themselves they never needed the other one
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: in the first place. So movement, And I'll tell you
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: this movement. Nominees for senator, House or governor are easier
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: to defeat, and those that are actually just making a
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: case they want to govern. And right now Democrats could
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: still end up winning both Wisconsin governor and Michigan Senate.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be harder, and the price of winning may
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: cost them big time in twenty eight It's all right,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: it is time for my time machine. Where are we
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: going back? I told you that if you looked at
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: this week in history, there's a lot of sort of
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: big events whose anniversaries land on this week. So which
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: one do you think I picked? We are focusing on
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: more than just one day, the five days that ended
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: at Richard Nixon kind of a corruption theme to this episode.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: Huh so Richard Nixon, of course, resigned this week fifty
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: two years ago. Everybody remembers the images, or you've seen
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: the images. I don't want say everybody remembers the images, right,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: not all of you are under are over the age
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: of fifty two. And look, he resigned after I was born.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: But I don't remember the wave already of that, right,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to pretend that I did. But we've
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: all seen the helicopter lifting off the v for victory
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: signs Gerald Ford telling the country that our long national
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: nightmare was over. But you know. The longer I've studied
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: Nixon and Watergate, I've always wondered if we'd been asking
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: the wrong question. The question isn't what Richard Nixon did.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: We know what Richard Nixon did. The better question is
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: why Nixon? Why is Nixon the only president that has
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: truly paid a price for his corruption. Grant's administration was
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: full of scandal. Harding gave us the teapot and dome
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: scandal that I've been reminding you of. Bill Clinton survived
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: having an affair with somebody that was twenty years old,
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: and he survived impeachment. Donald Trump survived investigations, impeachments, criminal convictions,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: enough political controversy that historians will be sorting through it
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: for decades. So why is Richard Nixon the only president
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: in American history to resign in the face of scandal? Well?
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know if the answer is simply Watergate, and
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know if the answer is simply ooh, our
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: media environment, that's always the popular the other popular one.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: I think the answer is five days in August, right, Actually,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: maybe it's five days a Supreme Court that moved much
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: faster than it had to. One witness answering one unexpected question,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: a tape recorder Richard Nixon never should have installed, and
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: three Republicans who walked into the Oval office carrying nothing
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: more dramatic than a vote count. One thing has always
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: bothered me, though, about the way we remember Watergate. We
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: tell it backwards. We start with the resignation. The people
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: running Nixon's re election campaign thinking about resignation. No, they
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: just were simply thinking about winning. Actually, they were thinking
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: about winning forty nine states. Nixon was probably gonna win
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: anyway going into seventy two, but it wasn't enough. They
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: wanted George McGovern. Months before Watergate, there were already efforts
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: to influence the Democratic nomination. There was those dirty tricks.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: You've watched all the President's men, you know the lineup
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: of stuff with those dirty tricks, The infamous Canuck letter,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: generally attributed to Nixon, Crony's hurt ed Muski. The real
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: front runner at the time in New Hampshire, Donald Sigretti,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: you remember the character that played him in the movie.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: He was spreading forged campaign literature, fake letters. It was
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: all about sewing confusion, right. The point wasn't simply oppo
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: research The point was to shape the Democratic nomination to
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: be as favorable to Nixon as possible. Then came Watergate.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: And here's something that people generally forget about Watergate. The
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: June arrests weren't the beginning. It wasn't the first burglary.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: There had already been failed attempts. Then actually, in late May,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: option finally succeeded. They already had installed some listening devices
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: in the DNC headquarters at the water game. They had
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: already photographed documents. But one of the bugs, you know,
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: only one of the bugs was working reliably. It was
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: on the phone of Spencer Oliver. That name probably doesn't
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: mean much to you today. Back then, it meant quite
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: a lot. Oliver ran the Association of State Democratic Chairmen.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: If conversations about delegate strategy, convention maneuvering, or efforts to
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: stop George McGovern were moving through the state parties, his
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: phone was a logical place to listen and guess what
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: that is Where there was plotting and people trying to
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: figure out how do you stop McGovern. Democrats knew McGovern
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: was a loser. They knew it. Now, before anybody accuses
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: me of wandering into one of Watergate's endless rabbit holes. Okay,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: I know there are entire books built around Spencer Oliver's phone.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: G Gordon Lady spent years promoting one theory. John Deane
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: spent years fighting it in court. Alfred Baldwin, a former
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: FBI agent who actually sat across the street in the
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: infamous Howard Johnson that's now at GW Dorm, listened to
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: the intercepted calls. Later said much of what we heard
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: sounded personal, even gossipy. So maybe that's the evidence there
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: wasn't much there. Maybe, or maybe it's evidence that a
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: young x FBI agent had no idea what seasoned political
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: operatives were really saying when they talked about sensitive subjects
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: like stopping the eventual nominee of their Democratic Party. None
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: of us can answer that. It's actually still a remaining mystery.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: What did they know from their buggings? Right, nobody can
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: answer this. We don't know what Nixon's operation actually learned
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: before the arrests. Right. We don't always have complete records
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: in history. But what we do know is simpler. Richard
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: Nixon got exactly the opponent his campaign wanted, and then
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: he won forty nine states. And if history had stopped
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: on Election nine, nineteen seventy two, Watergate would probably be
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: remembered as one of the most successful political operation devor run.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: But instead history kept going. Then came one of the
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: strangest moments in presidential history. On July thirteenth, nineteen seventy three,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: Alexander Butterfield sat down with the Senate Watergate Committee staff
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: Don Sanders, a Republican Minority staff member, asked a question
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: that changed history, and three days later Fred Thompson, Yeah,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: the former senator and actor the Committee's Republican Minority Council
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: years before he became a Senator, asked essentially the same
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: question in public, and the answer was the same. Yes,
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: the president records his conversations. One answer in American history
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: changed forever. Now. I've always liked one detail from the
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: TV show for All Mankind about this. You know, what
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: if the Soviets had beaten in the Americans to the moon,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: because in their alternate timeline, Nixon loses reelection in seventy two,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: which means that the taping system still exists. It means
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: nobody in public knows it exists, and it ends up
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: becoming a plot point in the nineties when they go
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: to their alternative history and all stuff. By the way,
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: these tapes, do you know, there would have been thousands
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: of hours they had all been sit there, nobody would
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: ever heard of them. Right. Then there's the famous eighteen
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: and a half minute gap. Rosemary Woods always maintained she'd
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: accidentally e raised about five minutes while transcribed. We never
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: fully got the answer in the other thirteen and a half.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: Nobody has ever convincingly explained those deletions. Now, sometimes I
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: wonder whether somebody one hundred years from now invents a
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: way to recover magnetic traces from old real to real tape.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's impossible today, but you never know, right, But
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I you know a lot of people would
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: stand in line to hear the infamous missing tape, right.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: That would be awesome. But the truth is the tapes
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: we already have were enough to sink Nixon. And now
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: we get to the week that mattered. It was July
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: twenty fourth. The Supreme Court didn't simply rule against Nixon.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: It skip the normal appellate process entirely. It hears the
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: case in early July. It effectively stays in session. Remember
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: this is the summer. The Court three Court normally didn't
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: do that. Sixteen days later, unanimously, with Justice Rehnquist recusing
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: himself because he was a Nixon appointee, it orders Nixon
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: to turn over the tapes. That timetable wasn't inevitable. The
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: Court itself made it happen. Think about that, not because
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: I think the Court was wrong to do it, but
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: because timing matters. What if they move on a more
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: normal judicial calendar. What if the decision comes after the
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: seventy four election. History doesn't always turn because somebody changes
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: their mind. Sometimes it turns because institutions move faster than
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: anybody expected. Then came August fifth, the smoking Gun tape
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: becomes public. It had been recorded just six days after
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: the break. Richard Nixon approves using the CIA to tell
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: the FBI to back away from the investigation. Now today
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: we shorten that to obstruction. Washington heard something even more alarming.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: The CIA handled fourign intelligence They weren't supposed to be
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: involved in domestic surveillance. The FBI investigated crimes inside the
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: United States. Those lines were never supposed to cross. For
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: many Republicans, they just had. And then something happened that
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: never makes the movies. People simply counted votes. That's it.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: Richard Nixon needed thirty four votes in the Senate to survive.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: The count came coming back to him, according to senators,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: was around sixteen, maybe fewer, and it was falling. The
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: constitutional crisis was simply a math problem. On August seventh,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: three Republicans walk into the Oval office. Barry Goldwater of Arizona,
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: the father of the modern conservative movement, the Republican nominee
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: from sixty four, the man Nixon knew represented the conservative
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: heart of the party. Hugh Scott, Senate Republican leader from Pennsylvania.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: He'd served with Nixon in the House after World War Two.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: His job wasn't television. His job was knowing exactly where
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: every Republican senator stood. Then there was John Rhodes of Arizona.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: He was the House Republican leader. He was quiet, methodical,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: respected a man so known for counting votes, not making headlines,
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: and in fact, Rhodes had already announced before the meeting
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: the day before that he would probably vote to impeach.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: He said publicly in August sixth that the House support
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: had deteriorated to the point where impeachment was a foregone conclusion.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: So together they represented the Republican leadership in Congress. Now,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: contrary to the legend, they never actually told Richard Nixon
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: to resign. In fact, all three said publicly afterward they
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: never did. Al Haig had quietly encouraged exactly that approach.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: Nobody wanted congressional leaders creating the precedent that they could
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: march into the Oval office and order a president from office. Right,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: It's a bad look. So they didn't. They just simply
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: delivered him the numbers, nothing more. Richard Nixon did the
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: rest of the math himself. One thing he did know
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: how to do was count votes. Because this is the
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: thing that I think people need to remember about Watercave.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: This wasn't Republicans suddenly becoming saints, This wasn't a play.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: Republican leaders concluded the Republican Party in a better future
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: without Richard Nixon then with them. Period. That's called politics.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: And there's another reason that arithmetic matter. Eight months earlier,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: Congress had already solved another problem. Spiro Agnew had resigned,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: Gerald Ford became vice president. The Senate confirmed him ninety
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: two to three, the House confirmed him three eighty seven
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: to thirty five, the very people now counting votes had
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: already overwhelmingly and publicly installed an alternative to Nixon. Sit
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: with that minute, Political abandonment becomes much easy and much
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: easier calculation when everybody already knows and trusts the person
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: waiting in love. In fact, change one variable in that
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: What if Agnew was still vice president at the time
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: in August fifth when that tape was released? Do Goldwater,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: Scott and Roads make the same walk? I don't know.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: But you always have to think about the alternative. That's
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: why I'm obsessed with the alternative history. You have to
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: think about the alternative. It matters, It always does. Most
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: Watergate stories end with Richard Nixon boarding the Army helicopter.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: I think another story begins there. Roger Ales had become
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: convinced television would reshape politics after Nixon. He tried to
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: build a conservative television news service. It failed. Twenty years
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: later he tried again. The second attempt was Fox News.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: Pap Buchanan kept making the populist nationalist argument he'd been
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: making inside the Nixon White House for another half century.
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: His candidacy for presidency in nineteen ninety two sounds like
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: a more coherent version of Donald Trump from twenty fifteen.
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: Roger Stone, one of the youngest Nixon campaign operatives at
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: the time, he never really stopped practicing Nixon's style politics
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: before finding himself in Donald Trump's orbit. Chuck Coulson found
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: religion before he went to prison. After prison, he built
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: Prison Fellowship into one of the country's largest prison ministries.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: G Gordon Letty served more prison time than anyone else
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: involved in Watergate, never apologized for what he did, and
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: reinvented himself as a conservt of radio personality. Bill Sapphire
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: took almost the opposite lesson Nixon speech writer. Then he
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: discovered his own phone had been wired tapped by the administration, sadly,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: probably because he targeted him for his religion. He eventually
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: spent three decades at The New York Times as a
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: conservative voice. Different people, different lessons, same presidency. And while
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: all of that was unfolding, another New York lawyer named
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: Roy Kom was beginning to mentor a young real estate
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: developer named Donald Trump through his first major fight with
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: the federal government. Different story, different city, same era. So
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: I'll leave you with this one thought. If you're somebody
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: who likes alternative histories, timelines, multiverses. Here's one to chew on.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: What if the Supreme Court doesn't fast track us versus Nixon?
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: What if the smoking gun tap smoking gun take comes
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: out after the seventy four election. What if Spiro Agnew
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: was still vice president? What if Richard Nixon finishes his terms?
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: Jerb Ford ever become president? Does Jimmy Carter? Does? Renald Reagan?
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: The immediate political winners after Watergate with the Democrats ate
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: a huge seventy four and they won the president see
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: barely in seventy six. But the longer story is more complicated.
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: Political victories and institutional victories don't always happen on the
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: same plock. History usually doesn't tell us which mattered more
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: until decades later. Richard Nixon thought his story ended when
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: the Army helicopter lifted off from the South Lawn. Maybe
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: it did, or maybe that's when another political timeline began.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: We'll never know. History only lets us watch one version
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: at a time. But you could argue that those five
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: days in August and the Richard Nixon the Watergate scandal
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: and how some Republicans handled it is how we got
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump today. Ask Chuck. First question comes from Scott.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: We're going to say he's from parts of no any writes. Hey,
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: love your insight. I'd love your insight on this. With
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: checks and balances seeming a weaker than they once wore,
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: the presidency becoming more powerful in a way that could
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: continue beyond Trump or is this approach unique? And from
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: historical perspective, has there been another president who exercised this
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: level of influence over the government in a comparable way. Thanks,
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: keep up the great work. PS. Loved your Hall of
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: Fame discussion. Maybe instead of a wiki, we need a
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: mall of Fame, complete with exhibits and a Wetzels Pretzels. Hey,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: the Baseball Hall of Fame. That's pretty funny. Just take
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: a giant baseball card show. Right. Look, I think the FDR.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: When you're looking for strong presidencies that push the envelope, right,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: there's FDRs presidency and frankly, there's a Lincoln's presidency. I mean,
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: you could say the most consequential presidency, some of whom
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: are helped shape us in a good way, Lincoln, FDR
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: some help shape us in a bad way. Arguably you
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: could say that that's Trump. Maybe Nixon, but both but
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: they I think both of them tried to really be
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: aggressive about executive power. It was less. So look, every
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: president believes they have more power than is agreed upon,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: and every Congress thinks that the presidency has less more
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: power than it should have. So this is not a
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: new argument. But to answer your question, I think we
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: haven't had a president this powerful in this influential on
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: culture and government and willing to push the envelope. I mean,
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: even Nixon had certain things he wasn't willing to do.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: Probably not since FDR. Right, I mean FDR try to
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: expand the court, all this stuff, right, He was very
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: aggressive in trying to flex the power of the presidency.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: And there's many that will note that during particularly order
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: to successfully fight the Civil War, it was a pretty
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: strong presidency and a strong executive that Abraham Lincoln carved
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: out and created there. So he's not the first, he's
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: just the first whose goal was there's own personal enrichment. Right.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: Whatever you think of FDR, it was for a political
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: and I may perhaps a goal that he thought was
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: going to better the country. What Lincoln did, he was
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: doing what he thought was going to better the country.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: What Donald Trump's doing is about self enrichment, which should
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: make it that much more frightening. And if you've gotten
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: to my Q and A here, Scott, you know, my
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: biggest fear is that there this democratic KNG is going
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: to hit somehow hidden more power to the executive. And
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: I promise you the next Democratic president is going to
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: try to copy some of the powerful some of the
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: executive flexing that Trump has done, and they're going to
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: test it, so we could be in a you know,
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: we have to somehow elect a president who is willing
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: to surrender executive power. So we really need a true
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: constitutionalist somebody, man. That's why I think a retired military
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: general is the type who somebody there who truly respects
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: checks and balances, understands the Constitution. You know, I just
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: want a president who actually reads the fricking Constitution. That's
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: what I'm looking for, period, simple, That's it. Okay. Next
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: question comes from Dennison and Connecticut first Congressional District. Big
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: big primary fight going on with John Larson. He's getting
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: the generational primary challenge there. Hey, Chuck, you recently answered
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: a question about the BBC as a model for news
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: coverage and raised concerns about whether our government funded outlet
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: could truly be independent. But isn't the same concern true
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: of corporate media owned media organizations that have ideological agendas
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: while presenting themselves as unbiased. Given the long standing regulations
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: of outlets like the BBC and CBC and the recent
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: debate over NPR funding, do you think the US has
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: the political maturity to support a publicly funded news organization
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: focused on honest, invented journalism. Thank you, I don't, But
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: I also think you have to pay some respect to
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: how our culture got started. You know, we haven't written
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: into the constitution freedom of the press, and in fact,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: there are some freedoms that we enjoy here as journalists
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: that you do not get in the in the UK,
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: and in fact that it's kind of troubling sometimes how much
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: power the government has to over some journalists and some reporting.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: So I take your point, and yes, I truly believe
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: that the publicly traded companies in particular are terrible custodians
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: for news organizations, as we learn, because they have to
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: answer to shareholders and all shareholders care about as they
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: have a feeder share responsibility their shareholders, which just means
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: you just find value for the shareholder. There's no morals
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: clause in that, right, There's no is it better for
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: the country, is it good for civics? Right? There's none
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: of that in there. So I do think that I
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: will just tell you that for most of the time
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: I was at NBC, I felt as if I did
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: not have any interference, I would say. What I've noticed
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: is it's not inter Sometimes it's not interference in what
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: you do. It's what they don't want you to do. Right.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: It's the if you starve an institution of resources, well
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: they can't do what you'd want to do, right, So
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: that's what's happened. Right, all of these media companies have
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: stars their news organization or resources, so they can't do
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: what they used to do. They can't and so they're
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: not technically influencing coverage, but in some ways they're actually
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: influencing coverage. So I don't disagree there, but I do
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: think you have to just we're just different when it
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: comes to that. We've we've always sort of that freedom
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: of speech and freedom, freedom of oppress, all of that
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: is is sort of ingrained in our constitution and is
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: not in the UK. And I think that's the that's
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: why it's hard harder for I think the entire country
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: to feel comfortable with government funded public media, but a
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: public private like I go back to this public private
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: model I do. I think that it's government ought to
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: create make it easy for journalistic you know, news organizations
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: to be able to survive, you know, do you you
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: know that's the way government can help independent news organizations, right,
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: you know, lower the cost of doing business frankly for
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: a news organizations, so that maybe advertisers who go into
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: independent media, you know, maybe they pay at you know,
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: they maybe they get a tax break if they support
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: independent media rather than corporate media. Stuff like that. I
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: those are the different ways to I think where you
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: can have sort of government or institutional support of independent
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: media without hurting the credibility of the media organization itself.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: That's kind of where I land on this. That kind
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: of that is where I land on this. Right, I'd
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: prefer independent. I'd prefer frankly, not an individual either, right.
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: Even look, Jeff Bezos Washington Post is independent. And I
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: can't say all publicly traded companies are terrible. New York
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: Times is publicly traded, but they have a North Star
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: that that believes their journalism is their value. Jeff Bezos,
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: he's got business before the government and he can't be
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: an honest broker. And the way he owns the Post
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: because the government, the business he has before the government
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: is matters much more to him than the Washington Post.
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: So you know, to me, it's sort of like any
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: news organization could have a troublesome ownership structure if the
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: owners have other ways they make money essentially, right, I
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: think at the end of the day, just give me
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: an owner of a news organization whose primary business is
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: that news organization. Right. When we have gotten into trouble,
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: it's when these owners have other business interests besides their
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: news organization, and that's when the comp That's when you
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: start to see news organizations get compromised. All right. Next
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: question comes of David New York's twenty fifth congressional district. Hey, Chuck,
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: do you think making voting mandatory would encourage more people
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: to engage in the political process. I've always thought of
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: voting as a price of citizenship. Even if someone votes
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: none of the above, they should still participate. Manatory voting
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: also create more opportunities for third parties well, that's interesting.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: I think it's Australia that has this. It's always the
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: first thing I think of in my head. I think
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: they have compulsory voting. I don't know. I'm going to
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: quote Getty Lee lead singer Rush. If you choose not
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: to decide, still have made a choice. Here's what I've
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: come to learn about voting turnout. Voter turnout when we're
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: worried about the future of the country, turnouts higher. When
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: we're feeling actually pretty good about where we are. Yeah,
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: voting voting is lower. I go back to It's something
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: that John Mullaney and his terrific first term Trump stand
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: up routine about a horse in the hospital, you know,
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: and he goes in there and he says, you know,
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: with the last guy who's president, I didn't have to
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: think about it every day, And I kind of want
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: a president that makes me not want to have to
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: think about how the government's being run every day. That
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: sort of says, you got this, I don't have to
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: think about it. I used to think apathy was a problem.
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: I actually think now voter apathy can right. Voter apathy
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: can be a signal that hey, we're doing okay, right,
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: and if you think about it, right, we talk about
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: this voter apathy movement. It was big in the nineties.
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: You know, we had a surprisingly high turnout for par
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: because we had more choice on the ballot. Then it
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: slowly went down, and then we kind of muddel the
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: long here a little bit, and then Obama surged it,
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: and then of course since Trump, our turnout's been way up.
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think people realize we have the
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: we have. We have the best participation in a ten
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: year period that we've had in a long time, which
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: tells me voters engage when they know things aren't going well.
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: So I'm like I said, I I think I guess
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: I'm a little bit of libertarian on this right. If
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't, if you choose not to decide, you still
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: have made a choice. But you're right compulsory voting, I
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: do think if we now, I think there are things
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: we could do to make voting matter more to the
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: folks who choose to set out. More choices would help.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: We do know this. More choices means more people will vote.
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: Anytime we've had competitive third party candidates, turnout goes up.
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: Turn out it never goes down. So I do think
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: figuring out a way to open up the process to
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: more voters, more and more candidates would do more to
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: increase turnout than creating compulsory voting. Next question comes from
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: Michael T Chicago, Illinois. But he told me he grew
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: up in Peoria, so he'll tell me how it's playing
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: in Peoria. Dear Jack, I enjoyed your analysis of the
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: primary calendar and agree that the process often shapes the outcome.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: While I see the value of Iowa forcing candidates to
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: connect with Middle America, it's caucus system has become too
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: slow and unreliable. Yeah, I know. Do you think Illinois,
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: with its mix of urban, rural, liberal and conservative voters,
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: would make a better early primary state. Well, look, here's
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: why I don't think any large state's a good idea,
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: because you know, first of all, you make money a
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: bigger factor. Right, The bigger the media market that a
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: state has, the more expensive it's going to be to run.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: The beauty of Iowa is that it's a semi small state,
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: and it's an affordable state for the governor of Vermont
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: to run in. Right, when Howard Dean was able to
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: go for a former senator named Paul Songus in Massachusetts,
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: although he didn't really can't pay and Iowa that Rika
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: is a hearken, but you get my point. These smaller states,
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: because you know, New Hampshire, Boston market can can can
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: increase the cost late in a general election. But in general,
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: the smaller states mean the problem with Illinois, I agree
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: with everything, but Chicago's almost too dominant and too big,
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: and essentially one guy with a big check book could
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: just overwhelm everything. Right, how many downstate people win statewide primaries?
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: How often is somebody not from the Chicago area been
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: able to win a state wide election? And I think
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: that's what makes that's why all the big states I
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: think fail that test, and it's why I you know,
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: I'm I think I worry that Michigan's a little too big,
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: although I think it's a little i because its largest
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: media market is so diverse within it. I think Michigan
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: in theory could be an interesting test. I worry about
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: Virginia in that respect. But Virginia coming at the end
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: almost in some ways, is supposed to be sort of
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: as you get to the large state, the first semi
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: larger population test as you come but that's I get
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: where you talk it. I think you're right. Illinois has
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of this diversity, but Chicago's almost too big
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: of a counterweight. I could you know, in that sense,
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: you could get almost the same thing you get from Chicago,
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: and you just go with Indiana, or you go with Missouri,
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: or you go with Kansas. It's a little less diverse
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: in Kansas, but not as not as white as you think.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: It is a large Latino, large and growing Latino population
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: in Kansas. But I hear what you're saying in theory.
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: I get it, But I just think Chicago's too big
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: and too overwhelming financially to allow lesser funded candidates to
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: catch fire. A former mayor of South Bend, a former
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: governor of Vermont. You get, you get with you know,
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: people who don't have the large you know, it would
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: really favor self funded, rich candidates. Allah your current governor,
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: Hey Chuck, this comes from Madam b West, Virginia second
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: Congressional District. Hey Chuck, You've made a compelling case questioning
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: the legality of open primaries, which got me thinking about
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: the presidential primary counter Since many candidates drop out early,
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: voters in later states often have little real choice by
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: the time they vote. Why not hold every state's presidential
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: primary in the same day so every voter had an
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: equal voice in choosing them on many things for all
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: you do? Uh, you know, I don't hate that. I've
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: seen different scenarios. How about we basically four regions. There's
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: four votes region one you know is in February region,
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: twos in March region, threes in May and region and
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: those regions you know, four regions right, north, south, east west.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: Essentially think of it like the March Madness map right
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: in different ways. I'd love that. You'd have to get
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: both parties to commit to it. I think it's right.
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: But here's the downside. It goes to what my answer
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: to the previous question, which is if you go in
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: that format, then suddenly it does favor the highest fate. Right.
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: The beauty of starting small one state, one state, one
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: state is is it allows for at least some voters
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: to have some one on one time and frankly, you
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: just get the find out how human are these people?
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: Right right? You get more flesh to flesh conversation, you
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: find out who they are. It's a little bit more
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: three dimensional where if you have these larger sort of
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: primary days and then it just becomes you know, who's
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: got the best memes who went viral at the right time?
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: Are they? You know? So I like the idea of
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: one state now, I just think this should rotate so that,
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: you know, over time, over a twenty year period, every
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: region gets a crack once and you know, maybe everybody
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: feels like they get some opportunity. But look, I've seen
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: ideas like yours, and I don't hate them, but the
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: one knock on yours is that it might make it
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: harder for lesser known people to quote unquote catch fire. Right,
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: You're Jimmy Carter's right. We still always want our president.
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: We want to have sort of equal access to the
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: to the process, right, whether you come in you're a
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: self under heir to the Hyatt you know, or you know,
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: the Highatt hotel world, or you're somebody like Peak Boodage
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: who you know served in the military and and and
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: ended up the may of soot Uh. And Katie comes
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: in with our last question. Hey, check, I wanted to
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: offer another perspective on your question about the backlash to AI.
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: I think it's driven as much by fear as by distrust.
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: My husband, a longtime tech pro, was laid off in May,
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: and despite applying for jobs every day, the market feels
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: frozen and dominated by AI driven hiring. You know, our
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: family's experience has made us question whether the American dream
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: still exists. And I wonder if this growing sense of
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: economic insecurity it's a much bigger part of the public's
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: anxiety about AI than we often acknowledge. Katie. I think
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: you're you're getting at it right. It's I I focused
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: on our anger at the tech industry and they really
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: have sort of you know, but you get it sort
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: of this issue too. Right, there's fear. I've said this
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: earlier and I'll say it again more clear than I
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: than I and I should have, which is, I do
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: think fear of AI job displacement is going to be
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: a huge issue in twenty eight and I think, frankly,
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: there's not an industry that this doesn't touch unless you're
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: a plumber, right or an electrician, And that is something
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: that I think only adds to more and more anxiety.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: Now there'll be the techno optimists will say, well, we've
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: had these anxieties. Every time we've had one of these,
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: one of these changes. That is all true, but this
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: one we're already there's just a lot of anecdotal evidence
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: like yours. Or I see what my own daughters are
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: trying to get a job and probably going to end
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: up with two good jobs that are both part time
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: because nobody wants to hire full time at the moment.
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: And then there's all right, it's these companies are almost
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: they're behaving like they're hoping the AI does create less heads,
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: but they don't know when that's going to happen, and
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: so they're taking these babies. Oh, I guess we've got
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: to add a person here, and it is. It is
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: frozen the job market for a lot of people, especially
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: in the intellectual spaces, the coding space is the technical
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: expertise spaces, And so no, you're right, this is I
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: sort of glossed over it, and I shouldn't have because
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: I've said it earlier where I think the single biggest
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: issue in twenty eight is going to be fear of
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: AI job displacement. Anyway, Katie, I appreciate the question, And yeah,
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: and the next presidential candidates, I have got to answer
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: the American dream question they have if you the candidate
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: that makes it seem possible and plausible, not just possible,
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: but plausible. It's going to be the one that gets
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: traction on us. All right, with that, I appreciate you listening.
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: Next time I come to You'll be coming back to
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: you from my Arlington studios as my summer retreat here
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: into what some would call real America type of things.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: But I'm just not on the East Coast, which I've
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: always a helpful way to constantly know that you're not
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: just living in your own bubble. I try to break
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: out of my bubble as best I can, well aware
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: then I'm also can be in my own bubble as well.
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: With that, I think you probably expect me to ran
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: about the Tarik School bl and the Dodgers and all
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: this stuff. Look, it is what it is. But let's
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: remember the Dodgers are a well run organization. Other organizations
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: could be just as well run. The Brewers could have
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: done this. Some teams prioritize their farm system more than
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: other teams, and some teams overpay for somebody simply to
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: make sure they're not available to somebody else. Now, I
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: do think the Dodgers in some way may have done
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: Rob Manfred of favor right. He wants to get fans
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: frustrated by this system. So if I want to put
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: out my conspiracy theory hat, there's no outcome. Ron Manfred
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: wanted more than the Dodgers can in Schooble. Anyway. Just
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: sit with that and with that, I'll see you later
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: this week until we upload again