Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - The Strait of Hormuz: Iran's Weapon Trump Didn't See Coming + Is The Democratic Party’s Future More Progressive?

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Full Episode - The Strait of Hormuz: Iran's Weapon Trump Didn't See Coming + Is The Democratic Party’s Future More Progressive? · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: is a sponsor I absolutely embrace, so use that code. Hello,
1:51
Speaker 1: their Happy Monday, and welcome to another episode of the
1:54
Speaker 1: Chuck Podcast. I'm actually personally pretty excited about today because
2:01
Speaker 1: tonight I'm going to my first ever WBC World Baseball
2:06
Speaker 1: Classic game down in Miami. I'm very excited about this,
2:09
Speaker 1: going to go see Venezuela versus Italy. I'll be honest,
2:15
Speaker 1: I was when I bought these tickets. I was hoping
2:18
Speaker 1: for two of the following three teams to be playing
2:21
Speaker 1: each other. TV USA Dominican Republic Team Japan. I miss
2:26
Speaker 1: missed out on the tickets for Team I thought I
2:30
Speaker 1: was buying the right ones for Team USA, but not
2:33
Speaker 1: being the one seed out of their pool put them
2:36
Speaker 1: in the other bracket. You know, be careful gaming these things.
2:39
Speaker 1: Obviously getting to both semi finals should have been the goal,
2:43
Speaker 1: but hey, we all have logistical challenges here. But this
2:46
Speaker 1: is something my son really wanted to do. And I thought, hey,
2:49
Speaker 1: what a great excuse. He's on his spring break. He's
2:52
Speaker 1: been hanging out down in Florida, because it isn't that
2:54
Speaker 1: what you do in spring break. But this is a
2:57
Speaker 1: good way for me to parachute in as a parent
3:00
Speaker 1: have a fun little bothering son. But I'll be honest
3:04
Speaker 1: with you, I am ecstatic. I wanted one of the
3:08
Speaker 1: following three teams to see in Miami. I wanted to
3:12
Speaker 1: see either the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, or Venezuela, and
3:15
Speaker 1: I'm going to get Venezuela. I just the excitement in
3:18
Speaker 1: the community and it is such a reminder about what
3:22
Speaker 1: baseball should be in South Florida. And we've a as
3:26
Speaker 1: a South Florida Native front and a huge baseball fan.
3:32
Speaker 1: My frustration. It's just a series of horrendous owners, and
3:36
Speaker 1: it's a multiple of horrendous owners. You've probably heard me
3:38
Speaker 1: go off on this rant. But when you see the
3:40
Speaker 1: turnout and excitement for the WBC in Miami, we've seen it.
3:45
Speaker 1: We saw it three years ago. Again, we see it now.
3:47
Speaker 1: There's really you know, it's it's electric. This is what
3:52
Speaker 1: a really well run baseball franchise in Miami could do.
3:56
Speaker 1: We just haven't had a well run one. It is
3:59
Speaker 1: just frustrating, and this is only highlights the frustration with
4:05
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball in general and Commissioner Manfred. Your challenge
4:08
Speaker 1: is to improve the ownerships. Right, the owners collectively suck
4:13
Speaker 1: in baseball. They suck anyway. I know I've got a
4:17
Speaker 1: lot more to say about this, and at some point
4:19
Speaker 1: I'm going to really ran about this when they try
4:20
Speaker 1: to loot cost us a season after baseball's like been
4:24
Speaker 1: on this incredible positive trajectory. But see, look, I'm getting
4:28
Speaker 1: myself all worked up and I'm just excited about seeing
4:34
Speaker 1: I do something that I've never been able to witness
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Speaker 1: in person. In Miami. I nearly sold out Marlin's Park
4:41
Speaker 1: to watch a baseball game, so anyway. That is just
4:46
Speaker 1: thought I would share that little anecdote. I know we've
4:48
Speaker 1: got a lot of NCAA talk. I'm going to have
4:50
Speaker 1: a little bit of that at the end of the podcast.
4:52
Speaker 1: Let me lay out what to expect today. On this episode.
5:00
Speaker 1: We've we've we've drawn the inside straight and that is
5:02
Speaker 1: not a good thing in this war. We're going to
5:04
Speaker 1: talk all things straight of warmus and how this choke
5:08
Speaker 1: point could choke off whatever positives that the President was
5:12
Speaker 1: hoping to get out of starting this war with Iran.
5:16
Speaker 1: We've got. My interview is with progressive political strategist, longtime
5:21
Speaker 1: advisor to Bernie Sanders Fasciacorp. I I have and you'll
5:27
Speaker 1: this is I've had him on before. I think he
5:29
Speaker 1: gives a very sober and honest take about where he
5:33
Speaker 1: thinks that the progressive movement is, where he thinks the
5:37
Speaker 1: Democratic Party is where it should go. But he is
5:41
Speaker 1: there aren't many of these folks on the progressive left
5:44
Speaker 1: and in Sanders world. But he is a pragmatist. He
5:48
Speaker 1: truly is the definition of pragmatic progressive. But he does go.
5:53
Speaker 1: You'll see where he conforms and where he doesn't. Bottom line,
5:59
Speaker 1: I think it's a it's an interesting conversation to try
6:02
Speaker 1: to understand where the progressive movement is, where the Democratic
6:05
Speaker 1: Party is. Is this brand fixable with in underneath the umbrella?
6:10
Speaker 1: What about this movement of independence running in some key
6:13
Speaker 1: places populist independence and Nebraska, Montana and South Dakota people
6:20
Speaker 1: that in some ways embrace much of what Bernie Sanders
6:24
Speaker 1: has talked about when it comes to economic populism. So
6:27
Speaker 1: I think it's a timely conversation you'll enjoy that. I
6:30
Speaker 1: got a fun little time machine and I just got
6:32
Speaker 1: a simple hint for you about the topic time Tom
6:37
Speaker 1: keeps on ticking anyway. Sorry, just revealed my gen X
6:42
Speaker 1: rock and roll roots there, but time that's your clue.
6:46
Speaker 1: And like I said, I have a little bit of
6:48
Speaker 1: a few thoughts on the NCAA's pretty much we're coming
6:52
Speaker 1: up with. You know, we just finished the first of
6:57
Speaker 1: three fantastic weeks when it comes to college basketball, and
7:01
Speaker 1: we just wrapped up an incredible week. I've had a blast.
7:05
Speaker 1: There's nothing like working during the day and having muted
7:09
Speaker 1: basketball games on the TV during the afternoon. I am
7:11
Speaker 1: going to miss that Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week.
7:15
Speaker 1: But we get a brief taste of that again Thursday
7:17
Speaker 1: and Friday. But let's dig in to the war because
7:23
Speaker 1: at this point, as much as you could say there
7:25
Speaker 1: are other things going on in American politics, there are
7:27
Speaker 1: other things going on in the world, but there really is.
7:31
Speaker 1: There is really only one story right now before everything else,
7:34
Speaker 1: because this story is going to has tentacles for everything,
7:39
Speaker 1: for the mid terms, for the economy, for the global
7:43
Speaker 1: political order, you know, for the weekend's developments just strengthened
7:48
Speaker 1: Russian ways that I don't think any of us expected
7:51
Speaker 1: even with this administration. So needless to say, we are
7:55
Speaker 1: at an important pivot point here in this war. Two
8:01
Speaker 1: weeks in, and the biggest story is no longer the
8:03
Speaker 1: bombing campaign itself, because militarily this has been a route,
8:08
Speaker 1: but militarily so is the Iraq war a route. Militarily
8:12
Speaker 1: at times, so is Vietnam a route. Militarily at times,
8:18
Speaker 1: it looked like the Russians are going to route the Ukrainians.
8:20
Speaker 1: But the minute you can make the war asymmetrical, when
8:24
Speaker 1: you can start to use the bigness against your as
8:30
Speaker 1: an overmatched opponent against the entity that supposedly is overmatching you.
8:36
Speaker 1: That's when you run into massive problems. And we are
8:39
Speaker 1: at potentially one of those points because we have a
8:42
Speaker 1: narrow strip of water. It's about twenty one miles wide.
8:45
Speaker 1: It's called the Strait of Hormuz, and it is now
8:47
Speaker 1: the single most important waterway in the world. The Strait
8:52
Speaker 1: is where Donald Trump's theory of this war is colliding
8:55
Speaker 1: with reality. This war was supposed to be fast, right,
8:59
Speaker 1: It's going to be easy. The Iranians were going to
9:01
Speaker 1: fold like that, right, it was going to be decisive.
9:05
Speaker 1: It was supposed to demonstrate overwhelming American power and force
9:09
Speaker 1: Iran to back down quickly. Right, just like what happened
9:13
Speaker 1: for him in Venezuela. They snatched the president. Immediately everybody
9:17
Speaker 1: around the president folds, and now he's got a puppet state.
9:20
Speaker 1: A little concerning that there's no democracy and there doesn't
9:23
Speaker 1: seem to even be a plan for it. And by
9:25
Speaker 1: the way, if you're wondering that it's going to be
9:29
Speaker 1: I will have my ear tuned in a little bit
9:31
Speaker 1: at that when I'm at the game tonight between ben
9:35
Speaker 1: to hear and talk with some of my friends in
9:37
Speaker 1: the Venezuelan community. But we all want to focus on baseball,
9:40
Speaker 1: but I am going to be curious on that front.
9:43
Speaker 1: But I digress everything in Iran, and it's clear that
9:48
Speaker 1: what the President thought he could get away with what
9:50
Speaker 1: he had already done with Iran, that these guys were weak,
9:55
Speaker 1: We're going to cave, and that they were like him,
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Speaker 1: very malleable, very transactional. He seemed to forget that Iran
10:06
Speaker 1: and this regime and has supporters that are similar to
10:09
Speaker 1: his supporters that are so blindly loyal. He could shoot
10:12
Speaker 1: somebody in Fifth Avenue and they go nowhere. So if
10:16
Speaker 1: he has built that kind of following in ten years,
10:19
Speaker 1: what does he think the Iranian theocracy has done over
10:22
Speaker 1: forty seven years? Bottom line is the straight of War
10:26
Speaker 1: MOUs is now the place where this narrative is under
10:29
Speaker 1: the most stress. And now thanks to our friends at
10:33
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal, the supposed friendly Wall Street Journal
10:38
Speaker 1: owned by the Murdoch but we've known they have really
10:41
Speaker 1: kept to their independence, and the Murdoch family ought to
10:43
Speaker 1: be praised for that. I mean in many ways that
10:46
Speaker 1: Murdochs are managing a more independent media, at least with
10:49
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal, than anything so far that the
10:51
Speaker 1: Ellisons have done. But I digress. But according to their journal,
10:55
Speaker 1: before the US launched these attacks, the chairman of the
10:57
Speaker 1: Journey Chiefs, General Dan King, warned the President that Iran
11:02
Speaker 1: could respond by trying to shut down the Strait of Ormus.
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Speaker 1: It is always been the concern. It has always been
11:09
Speaker 1: one of the biggest sort of deterrents that Iran had
11:13
Speaker 1: on keeping, you knowrent deterrent won. That's why they wanted
11:17
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. They see what a deterrent It's paid off
11:19
Speaker 1: for North Korea, right, But the deterrent that they've had
11:23
Speaker 1: for most of the last forty seven years is the
11:27
Speaker 1: fact that they could easily shut down the Strait of
11:29
Speaker 1: Ormus and essentially choke off the world economy like that.
11:37
Speaker 1: So the President heard this warning from the from the
11:39
Speaker 1: from General Kane. By the way, General Kane been nothing
11:43
Speaker 1: but professional secretary head set, anything but but I digress.
11:48
Speaker 1: But the warning, of course wasn't even hypothetical. It's been
11:51
Speaker 1: It's been the central scenario in US war planning for decades.
11:55
Speaker 1: Iran has always understood that they cannot defeat the United
11:58
Speaker 1: States militarily. They've he's known this. Their response was always
12:03
Speaker 1: the Strait of Ormus because they can create enormous leverage
12:07
Speaker 1: by threatening the global economy, which is what they're doing
12:10
Speaker 1: at the moment, because the Strait of Ormus is the
12:13
Speaker 1: lever to do that. Roughly a fifth of the world's
12:15
Speaker 1: oil supply passes through that waterway. It's one of the
12:18
Speaker 1: most important energy choke points on the planet. And Kane
12:22
Speaker 1: told Trump that Iran could deploy minds, drones, anti ship
12:25
Speaker 1: missiles to disrupt shipping. There everything we're seeing. Look, our
12:29
Speaker 1: military is top notch for a reason. The leadership knows
12:34
Speaker 1: what it's doing, the uniform leadership, but they report to
12:39
Speaker 1: a civilian leadership. And if your civilian leadership doesn't know
12:42
Speaker 1: what it's doing, that's where trouble arises. Now, Trump apparently
12:46
Speaker 1: did acknowledge the risk. He understood it. Okay, I see it.
12:50
Speaker 1: But according to the Journal, the President believed that Iran
12:54
Speaker 1: would likely capitulate before it tried something that drastic. What
12:58
Speaker 1: evidence he had in that is beyond me. But he
13:02
Speaker 1: just was convinced to this that this forty seven year
13:05
Speaker 1: old theocracy would quickly capitulate. He knew the Cubans had
13:09
Speaker 1: been you know, we're on the verge of capitulating. We
13:11
Speaker 1: know this in Venezuela. But these are much different societies,
13:17
Speaker 1: much different societies than the Iranian theocracy. And then of
13:23
Speaker 1: course there's a bit of hubris here. He said, if
13:26
Speaker 1: Iran tried it, he really believed the US military could
13:28
Speaker 1: easily handle the situation. Well, maybe easily's doing a lot
13:33
Speaker 1: of work here. I got two words for you, ground troops.
13:38
Speaker 1: Let's put a pin in that. So what we're seeing
13:42
Speaker 1: is that this calculation that he took now is real life.
13:46
Speaker 1: Iran has not capitulated, and there doesn't seem to be
13:48
Speaker 1: evidence that they're going to capitulate anytime soon. You know,
13:52
Speaker 1: they don't see you know, look at the evidence. What
13:57
Speaker 1: going to the table now with the United States? I
14:00
Speaker 1: know the president every hour says, you know, this feels
14:02
Speaker 1: like you know him saying that, you know, like O. J. Simpson,
14:06
Speaker 1: he's going to find the real killers, or he's going
14:07
Speaker 1: to find the real Obama birth certificate. He says, oren's
14:10
Speaker 1: about that. You know, they want they want to surrender.
14:12
Speaker 1: There's just nobody there to surrender. They're going to and
14:14
Speaker 1: you're just like, what part of this do you not understand? Right?
14:20
Speaker 1: You mean, look at how easy he's manipulated his own
14:22
Speaker 1: political base. It's only ten years old. I keep coming
14:25
Speaker 1: back to this because I just think this is this
14:27
Speaker 1: is just incredible lack of self awareness, you know, And
14:35
Speaker 1: you know, the biggest two mistake many American leaders have
14:38
Speaker 1: made over the years and decades has been assuming other
14:41
Speaker 1: people think like we do. And that's always the mistake.
14:45
Speaker 1: You've got to actually put yourself in their shoes. You
14:48
Speaker 1: cannot assume they're going to do what you believe is
14:51
Speaker 1: in their best interest. Straight up, harmon Hormons is the
14:59
Speaker 1: regime's most powerful leverage point in this war. And do
15:01
Speaker 1: you think they're going to walk away from it anytime soon?
15:06
Speaker 1: Ships have been stuck, Shipping traffic has slowed, Insurance costs
15:08
Speaker 1: for tankers have served, Oil markets are reacting violently. The
15:13
Speaker 1: war is no longer just a military story. It's an
15:19
Speaker 1: economic story, and it's a global economic story. In fact,
15:24
Speaker 1: just listen to how the president himself is framing the situation.
15:27
Speaker 1: After the US decided to strike Iran's carg Island, this
15:30
Speaker 1: is the hub of Iran's oil export infrastructure. Trump posted
15:34
Speaker 1: the following statement on truth Social He wrote, moments ago,
15:37
Speaker 1: my direction in the US United States Central Command executed
15:39
Speaker 1: one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history
15:41
Speaker 1: of the Middle East. He continued, our weapons are the
15:45
Speaker 1: most powerful and sophisticated that the world has ever known,
15:48
Speaker 1: and then he added this Iran has no ability to
15:51
Speaker 1: offend anything that we want to attack. There is nothing
15:53
Speaker 1: they can do about it. And yet they're not surrendered.
16:00
Speaker 1: There is something they think they can do about it.
16:02
Speaker 1: They can make this war incredibly expensive. They get to
16:06
Speaker 1: own the West instead of owning the Libs. You get
16:09
Speaker 1: my point here, right. You know you've always wondered why
16:12
Speaker 1: do certain partisans do or say things or act what
16:15
Speaker 1: is not in their best economic interests? Right, this is
16:19
Speaker 1: not in Iran's best economic interest, But this is bigger
16:24
Speaker 1: than their economic interests, right. And you know, I keep
16:28
Speaker 1: putting this back to our extreme politics in this country,
16:33
Speaker 1: and when we wonder there's such devotion to it, it's
16:36
Speaker 1: illogical at times. How come it's no pragmatism, Okay? And
16:41
Speaker 1: then we wonder when we deal with a country that
16:45
Speaker 1: is run by an extremist, by the extremism, don't be
16:51
Speaker 1: surprised when there's a lot of devotees to the extremism.
16:53
Speaker 1: We know there's a lot of people that are fighting it,
16:55
Speaker 1: but there's still plenty of people devoted to it. So
17:01
Speaker 1: Iran can do something about this. They can make this
17:03
Speaker 1: war very expensive, they can make it global, they can
17:06
Speaker 1: make it politically painful, and they can do that without
17:09
Speaker 1: defeating the United States militarily. This is the scary part
17:14
Speaker 1: of this war. And this was right, the lack of
17:17
Speaker 1: sort of intellectual maturity between between Trump and Hegsath Propaganda Pete.
17:25
Speaker 1: We had in the first Golf War. We had Bagdad
17:27
Speaker 1: Bob and the crazy Saddam spokesperson who would say crazy things.
17:30
Speaker 1: I don't think any of us thought we'd have it,
17:32
Speaker 1: we would be the entity that had the propagandist, but
17:37
Speaker 1: we do. Unfortunately, in Propaganda Pete, there was just some
17:43
Speaker 1: intellectual immaturity here. Just did not see it and in
17:47
Speaker 1: many cases perhaps saw it through too much of a
17:49
Speaker 1: religious prism. You know that they're thinking this is some
17:53
Speaker 1: existential fight, fighting for Christianity, fighting for Western culture and
17:57
Speaker 1: Western civilization, which is you know, always gets you to
18:00
Speaker 1: make stupid decisions when you're making these ideological, less rational
18:04
Speaker 1: based decision making, and I do fear there was too
18:07
Speaker 1: much of that with some of the civilian entities here.
18:10
Speaker 1: The military guys have been nothing but doing followed orders.
18:15
Speaker 1: They've executed it as brilliantly as possible, they've warned of
18:20
Speaker 1: the fallout, and it's been essentially ignored by our civilian leadership.
18:26
Speaker 1: So welcome to the essence of asymmetric warfare, which, of
18:30
Speaker 1: course is a playbook that everybody has now around the world.
18:34
Speaker 1: It's a playbook arguably originally written by a bunch of
18:38
Speaker 1: renegade bandits in thirteen colonies in the United States in
18:42
Speaker 1: the late eighteenth century. Right, Asymmetrical warfare always can extract
18:51
Speaker 1: a high cost on huge conventional military powers. So that's
18:58
Speaker 1: what's happening here. When a weaker power confronts a stronger one,
19:01
Speaker 1: it rarely tries to win it conventionally, you're not going
19:03
Speaker 1: to win a conventional war. Instead, you try to stretch
19:06
Speaker 1: the conflict. You try to exact costs all over the place,
19:09
Speaker 1: not just at the front lines, but economically and politically
19:14
Speaker 1: so and guess what it's there's a great line that
19:18
Speaker 1: the Taliban used to use. You have the watches, we
19:22
Speaker 1: have the time as the expression that the Taliban would
19:25
Speaker 1: use all the time in Afghanistan, And that's essentially the
19:28
Speaker 1: way the extremists here with Iran in this regime, we
19:34
Speaker 1: have the watches. As far as they're concerned, they have
19:37
Speaker 1: the time, so they want to raise the cost. They
19:40
Speaker 1: want to turn time into the weapon. Aarn doesn't need
19:43
Speaker 1: to sink a single American aircraft carry to complicate this war, right,
19:48
Speaker 1: and we're sinking all sorts of good. They okay, we
19:51
Speaker 1: got rid of their conventional navy. They were never going
19:53
Speaker 1: to fight us with a conventional navy. All around has
19:57
Speaker 1: to do is to make the straight of horror moves
19:58
Speaker 1: dangerous enough that the global economy feels it. And that's
20:01
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21:39
Speaker 1: So to understand why this matters so much, it does
21:41
Speaker 1: help the look backwards because we've seen something like this before.
21:44
Speaker 1: So in the late eighties, during the Iran Iraq War,
21:47
Speaker 1: the Persian Gulf became the center of what was known
21:49
Speaker 1: as the tanker war. Iran and Iraq both began attacking
21:53
Speaker 1: oil tankers to try to disrupt each other's exports. Right,
21:56
Speaker 1: it was trying to hit both of their economies. Eventually
21:59
Speaker 1: those attacks spread to ships belonging to neutral countries, and
22:03
Speaker 1: the insurance markets panicked, Shipping companies reconsidered routes, and global
22:07
Speaker 1: energy markets felt the shock. Now the United States eventually intervened.
22:11
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty seven, the Reagan administration launched Operation ernest Will.
22:14
Speaker 1: It was called Escorting Coitity oil tankers with putting American
22:18
Speaker 1: flags on them and escorting them through the Gulf. The
22:21
Speaker 1: idea was simple, protected commercial shipping, but protecting shipping mean
22:25
Speaker 1: something else. It meant American warships operating constantly near Iranian forces.
22:29
Speaker 1: So there was constant tension and there was constant risk.
22:33
Speaker 1: And in eighty eight the US S Samuel B. Roberts
22:35
Speaker 1: struck an Iranian naval mind and those were rudimentary mines
22:39
Speaker 1: in the Straightahom News. Then in the late eighties, much
22:41
Speaker 1: more sophisticated drones and mines these days that didn't exist then.
22:47
Speaker 1: But that mine almost sank that ship. Ten shillers were injured.
22:51
Speaker 1: The US retaliated with what was called Operation Praying Mantis,
22:55
Speaker 1: destroying several Iranian vessels. The history matters because convoy protection
23:00
Speaker 1: missions rarely stay small. You start by escorting ships, then
23:05
Speaker 1: you must protect the escorts, Then you must suppress the
23:08
Speaker 1: threats to the escorts, and suddenly the war grows larger
23:11
Speaker 1: than the one you started. Welcome to mission greed. And
23:15
Speaker 1: that brings us back to today. The Pentagon is already
23:18
Speaker 1: moving additional marines and naval assets into the region. Ships
23:22
Speaker 1: from the USS Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group and the thirty
23:25
Speaker 1: first Marine Expeditionary Unit are both headed towards the Middle East.
23:29
Speaker 1: Marines are arriving in the theater. Do that mean they're
23:32
Speaker 1: going to be ground troops. Well, we'll see. If the
23:37
Speaker 1: objective becomes securing the strait of war moves, well, the
23:41
Speaker 1: mission changes dramatically. Now you're talking about escort operations. You're
23:46
Speaker 1: talking about mine clearing missions, anti drone patrols, protection of
23:50
Speaker 1: commercial vessels, suppression of missile batteries along Iron's coastline. Protection
23:56
Speaker 1: of the force is protecting the shipping where the mission
24:00
Speaker 1: creep starts to become real. Because once the objective becomes
24:06
Speaker 1: keeping shipping lanes open, the timeline expands, so do the risks.
24:11
Speaker 1: And now the consequences of this aren't limited to the battlefield.
24:15
Speaker 1: They're already spreading across the global economy. Look at the
24:17
Speaker 1: Gulf States. For years, countries like Saudi Arabia, the Ue, Bahrain,
24:21
Speaker 1: Qatar have tried to transform their image not just as
24:24
Speaker 1: oil exporters, but tourism hubs. Many of you have probably
24:28
Speaker 1: seen the advertisements over the last few years, you know,
24:32
Speaker 1: talking about coming to Dubai and Abu Dhabi and you know,
24:38
Speaker 1: being able to experience. They're basically trying to pitch themselves
24:43
Speaker 1: against the Pacific islands in the Caribbean, right and they
24:46
Speaker 1: want to be this other part of the globe where
24:51
Speaker 1: you would go to seek warmth and enjoy tourism. They're
24:56
Speaker 1: also becoming huge financial centers, big entertainment destinations, particularly with
25:01
Speaker 1: the individual sports right either the mixed martial arts you
25:05
Speaker 1: see as a huge presence, Tennis and golf have big presence.
25:09
Speaker 1: Formula one They poured enormous sums into makeup projects, sporting events,
25:14
Speaker 1: cultural spectacles, all designed to show the world that the
25:16
Speaker 1: golf is stable and open for business. Formula one races
25:21
Speaker 1: in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia perfect example. They're not just
25:25
Speaker 1: sporting events, they're global branding exercises. They signal that this
25:31
Speaker 1: is a modern era, this is a stable place, and
25:36
Speaker 1: they give the golf global prestige. But now the war
25:39
Speaker 1: is disrupting that narrative. Formula one had to cancel its
25:42
Speaker 1: April races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia because of the conflict.
25:45
Speaker 1: You know, that tells you if it conflict and in
25:47
Speaker 1: tomorrow they couldn't rebuild the infrastructure in time to do
25:51
Speaker 1: this right, So already this is not just an economic
25:56
Speaker 1: below to the region. This is an image below that's
26:00
Speaker 1: going to take years to recover from, not weeks, not months. Years. Okay,
26:08
Speaker 1: Formula one pulling out sends the message far beyond sports.
26:12
Speaker 1: It signals uncertainty and instability, undercuts the basic economic transformation
26:18
Speaker 1: the golf governments have spent years promoting. And remember these
26:24
Speaker 1: golf states at the same time were simultaneously encouraging the
26:26
Speaker 1: United States and Israeli to take care of their Iranian problem.
26:29
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to sit here and have one
26:30
Speaker 1: hundred percent empathy for them on this, because they essentially
26:34
Speaker 1: wanted Israel in the United States to do their security
26:38
Speaker 1: dirty work for them. They want to confront Iran, but
26:42
Speaker 1: not on their terms. They'd rather see the air. Then.
26:45
Speaker 1: They don't like how the US and Israel and I
26:47
Speaker 1: understand that they may not like it, but they're the
26:50
Speaker 1: ones that that have been encouraging this the most, particularly
26:54
Speaker 1: the Saudis on this. They were very encouraging and now
26:59
Speaker 1: they see, oh, this thing's so good. No it's not.
27:07
Speaker 1: But we have a real world example of a massive
27:09
Speaker 1: economy of a nuclear power collapsing in a matter of weeks.
27:17
Speaker 1: If we're not Carol careful, it's Pakistan. Pakistan imports roughly
27:21
Speaker 1: eighty five percent of its crude oil from Saudi Arabia
27:23
Speaker 1: and the UEE, and guess how it comes through routes
27:28
Speaker 1: connected to the Strait of Horn moves. If those routes
27:31
Speaker 1: become unreliable, of which they are right now, Pakistan's fragile
27:36
Speaker 1: economy feels the impact immediately. Fuel prices rise, food prices rise,
27:40
Speaker 1: energy short shortens, energy shortage is worsened. So now you
27:45
Speaker 1: have a war that was centered in the person Gulf,
27:48
Speaker 1: affecting the economic stability of a nuclear armed country thousands
27:51
Speaker 1: of miles away who is in the middle of its
27:53
Speaker 1: own kinetic I don't know what you want to call this,
27:57
Speaker 1: but essentially kinetic conflict with Afghanistan at the moment, but
28:01
Speaker 1: the Taliban government there. Now you add Europe to the
28:05
Speaker 1: equation because this was the huge below to freedom around
28:11
Speaker 1: the world that happened over the last seventy two hours,
28:14
Speaker 1: and that was the President's decision to lift temporary lift
28:17
Speaker 1: oil sanctions on the Russians. I mean, just a disastrous
28:22
Speaker 1: decision for freedom in Ukraine. Douse Higher oil prices benefit
28:28
Speaker 1: Russia and its war machine. When global energy prices rise,
28:33
Speaker 1: Russian oil revenue rises with them, and that means the
28:36
Speaker 1: war in Iran is now indirectly strengthening Russia's financial position
28:41
Speaker 1: in its war against Ukraine in a massive way. European
28:45
Speaker 1: governments are already struggling to sustain the military and financial
28:48
Speaker 1: support for Kiev, and now the Russians just got a
28:51
Speaker 1: financial shot in the arm thanks to about President of
28:53
Speaker 1: the United States. By the way, and a meeting with
28:56
Speaker 1: the G seven. Apparently six countries were against this, one
28:59
Speaker 1: was for it. So now we've got a conflict in
29:05
Speaker 1: the Persian Gulf, reshaping strategic calculations all across the entire
29:09
Speaker 1: European continent. We've got the potential, we've got We're in
29:13
Speaker 1: the middle of what appears to be a growing military
29:16
Speaker 1: crisis between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and now you've got Pakistan's
29:19
Speaker 1: economy could collapse again. It's a nuclear power, right, and
29:25
Speaker 1: the economic implications aren't going to stop there. The straight
29:28
Speaker 1: of ORMUS crisis threatened something that American voters feel very quickly. Inflation,
29:33
Speaker 1: energy prices ripple through the entire economy, transportation costs, manufacturing costs,
29:39
Speaker 1: food costs, air travel, shipping. If oil prices remain elevated
29:44
Speaker 1: for weeks or months, that pressure shows up everywhere, and
29:49
Speaker 1: that creates a political challenge for Donald Trump. So even
29:52
Speaker 1: if this conflict doesn't trigger a formal recession, it could
29:56
Speaker 1: easily produce something voters experienced just as intensely, and something
30:00
Speaker 1: they've been experiencing now ever since COVID. Rising prices and
30:04
Speaker 1: economic uncertainty. You know, when you mess with the shipping lanes.
30:07
Speaker 1: When you mess with the supply chain, when you mess
30:10
Speaker 1: with the energy markets, the American consumer feels it quickly,
30:16
Speaker 1: so which means that this war is not just a
30:18
Speaker 1: foreign policy gamble, it is an economic gamble. Markets are
30:24
Speaker 1: still one of the few checks that actually seem to
30:28
Speaker 1: work on presidential decision making in American politics right now,
30:31
Speaker 1: at least with this president. But here's the thing. Just
30:37
Speaker 1: stopping declaring victory and stopping isn't necessarily going to get
30:40
Speaker 1: Iran to stop screwing with the strait of Ormus. And
30:45
Speaker 1: that's the problem he's got here. Now, there's one more
30:48
Speaker 1: dimension to this story that I want to touch on,
30:52
Speaker 1: and it's one that I've vacillated about whether to touch
30:55
Speaker 1: on because it's clearly a manufactured story you try to
31:00
Speaker 1: distract from what was questionable civilian decision making to launch
31:05
Speaker 1: this war in the first place. Okay, over the last
31:10
Speaker 1: seventy two hours, the chairman of the FEC, Brendan Carr,
31:13
Speaker 1: has essentially declared regulatory war on the broadcast press. He
31:19
Speaker 1: wants to eradicate freedom of the press completely, cars invoking
31:26
Speaker 1: a long standing legal concept known as the public interest standard.
31:31
Speaker 1: Broadcast stations operate on public airways. It's the affiliates that
31:34
Speaker 1: technically operate on the broadcast airways, not the overall networks themselves.
31:39
Speaker 1: And b S doesn't have the license. Its affiliates have
31:41
Speaker 1: the license. Okay, so the law does require them to
31:45
Speaker 1: quote serve the public interest. So what's the public interest?
31:48
Speaker 1: Freedom of expression, freedom of the press. It's all in
31:50
Speaker 1: the First Amendment. I think it's pretty easy. We know
31:52
Speaker 1: what public interest is. But Carr now is trying to
31:55
Speaker 1: reinterpret that standard through a political lens. So on Saturday
31:59
Speaker 1: he posts did that broadcasters running what he called quote
32:02
Speaker 1: hoaxes and news distortions, what he labeled fake news, have
32:05
Speaker 1: a great chance to quote correct course before their license
32:07
Speaker 1: renewals come up. Interesting. Then, in a CBS interview, he
32:11
Speaker 1: went further. He said broadcast licenses are not a property right,
32:15
Speaker 1: they are a privilege. He said broadcasters have grown too
32:18
Speaker 1: comfortable assuming the government cannot take those licenses away, and
32:22
Speaker 1: he suggested that the FCC must enforce patriotic standards of
32:26
Speaker 1: truth and wartime. Wow, patriotic standards. Look, we went through
32:33
Speaker 1: this shit in World War Two and it you know,
32:36
Speaker 1: it is one of the black marks on World War Two,
32:39
Speaker 1: let's not pretend that this was a good thing. Okay,
32:42
Speaker 1: It's one thing to ask movie makers to to make
32:46
Speaker 1: movies that, you know, show the Americans in a good
32:49
Speaker 1: light and help explain how bad the Nazis are. I
32:52
Speaker 1: think that that that's one thing, but it's another to
32:56
Speaker 1: actually start censoring the news. There was no censoring of
33:01
Speaker 1: the news, but that's what he wants to do here.
33:07
Speaker 1: Patriotic standards of truth in wartime, this is putin bullshit.
33:11
Speaker 1: This is Russian today, this is RT shit. And you know,
33:16
Speaker 1: I don't know what to make of Brendan Carr. I mean,
33:18
Speaker 1: I think he's not a dumb man, but he's really
33:21
Speaker 1: acting like a political clown. And this is just you know,
33:27
Speaker 1: some of these people that perform just for the audience
33:30
Speaker 1: of one, and which is what this is, to performance
33:33
Speaker 1: for an audience of one. There's no serious story here.
33:36
Speaker 1: There shouldn't be. And if he actually attempts this, I mean,
33:40
Speaker 1: he's so undermining the constitution that it will just get
33:44
Speaker 1: killed in the courts. But it's normalizing this garbage that
33:51
Speaker 1: we ought to be fighting. And that's why it's an
33:54
Speaker 1: extraordinary statement. The chairman of the SEC is essentially saying
33:58
Speaker 1: that a broadcasters air reporting that the administration considers false.
34:03
Speaker 1: And remember what propaganda petes definition of what's false is,
34:06
Speaker 1: it's stuff that he doesn't like. Doesn't make it false,
34:09
Speaker 1: It doesn't like the tone of coverage. You know, that's
34:13
Speaker 1: what an authoritarian regime does, not a democracy. But he's
34:17
Speaker 1: threatening regulatory consequences. And here's the thing, Carr knows that
34:22
Speaker 1: the corporate owners of these entities are spineless and effeckless fools.
34:28
Speaker 1: And they're all rollover because they already have. Because legally,
34:31
Speaker 1: car can't simply shut down a network. The FCC licenses
34:35
Speaker 1: are individual stations, not networks, so revoking a license requires
34:39
Speaker 1: a hearing, evidence and a vote by the full Commission.
34:42
Speaker 1: But he does have a Republican majority in the FCCA,
34:45
Speaker 1: and he can launch investigations, and the investigations themselves can
34:50
Speaker 1: create pressure. Right, it's coercion, it's extortion essentially, it's sort
34:54
Speaker 1: of government extortion. Corporate boards, we know this. They hate
34:57
Speaker 1: regulatory fights, they hate uncertainty. And if a network's coverage
35:02
Speaker 1: triggers FCC scrutiny, and by the way, the broadcast networks,
35:05
Speaker 1: whatever's left of these Big four, these Big three and
35:08
Speaker 1: a half news divisions. I don't know where to put
35:10
Speaker 1: Fox here because their news divisions mostly out of their
35:12
Speaker 1: cable outlet. They really don't air much stuff on their
35:15
Speaker 1: national network. They do for big specials, but not often.
35:18
Speaker 1: So mostly we're talking about ABCNBC and CBA. There are
35:21
Speaker 1: shelves of their former selves. They they're barely doing. They're
35:25
Speaker 1: doing like ten percent of the coverage that they did
35:27
Speaker 1: even three or four years ago. This is really going
35:30
Speaker 1: to put pressure. And it's clear what they're doing. This
35:33
Speaker 1: Next Star Tegna merger that's taking place, that's going to
35:36
Speaker 1: combine and create the largest owner of individual TV stations
35:40
Speaker 1: in the country. He's and you know Next Star is
35:42
Speaker 1: buying Tegna, and Next Star has been playing the right
35:46
Speaker 1: wing foot see in been doing little performative virtue signaling
35:51
Speaker 1: in order to get this quick regulatory approval. And we've
35:55
Speaker 1: seen right, I mean, look the the you know, the biggest,
36:01
Speaker 1: biggest mistake that was made was what Bob Eiger did
36:04
Speaker 1: in settling the Stephanopolis lawsuit totally. What it did is
36:07
Speaker 1: it made all three broadcast networks capitulators. It stained them permanently,
36:13
Speaker 1: and this is why the rise of independent media is
36:16
Speaker 1: become stronger and stronger. It's now a self fulfilling prophecy. Right.
36:19
Speaker 1: The more Brending Carr manipulates the public and creates these
36:24
Speaker 1: false right wing narratives, the more these broadcast networks capitulate,
36:29
Speaker 1: and the more they do nothing, and they come across
36:30
Speaker 1: as feckless fools. And it's unfortunate. There's some good journalists
36:34
Speaker 1: there and the smart ones are leaving. You kind of
36:38
Speaker 1: have to leave if you want to keep your integrity,
36:40
Speaker 1: because it's clear the corporations aren't going to allow journalists
36:44
Speaker 1: to keep their integrity here, and that's unfortunate. But you
36:48
Speaker 1: know what, maybe we'd be better off to not have
36:52
Speaker 1: corporate shareholder impact where the government regulatory process can impact
36:58
Speaker 1: freedom of speech and freedom of the press. But it's
37:02
Speaker 1: clear Brendan Carr is hoping to do that, to use
37:04
Speaker 1: corporate extortion to essentially get propaganda on the airways, and
37:09
Speaker 1: it aligns closely with proposals that were outlined in that's
37:13
Speaker 1: so called Project twenty twenty five blueprint for government. The
37:16
Speaker 1: idea is to reinterpret the phrase news distortion as a
37:20
Speaker 1: failure of character qualification under the public interest standard, so
37:24
Speaker 1: it's not censorship. It's what car and his supporters would argue,
37:28
Speaker 1: it's regulation. Doubtful the legal theory would survive real serious
37:33
Speaker 1: judiciary scrutiny. First Amendment creates an extremely high bar here.
37:37
Speaker 1: But again, the investigation itself is the point. But I
37:40
Speaker 1: have to imagine the reaction if Barack Obama has suggested
37:43
Speaker 1: that Fox News needed to quote correct course on wartime
37:46
Speaker 1: reporting or risk it's broadcast licenses the right wing pitchforks,
37:52
Speaker 1: They'd already be stabbing people to death. The outrage would
37:56
Speaker 1: have been deafening. The principle would have been obvious, and
37:59
Speaker 1: I'd have been right there with them. Government officials cannot
38:02
Speaker 1: threaten the press over coverage of war propaganda. Pete can
38:06
Speaker 1: do everything he can here. He's making a fool of himself.
38:09
Speaker 1: And you know what's also ugly what President Trump and
38:13
Speaker 1: Haig Seth are doing to celebrate the destruction. There's no
38:18
Speaker 1: celebration in destroying anything. It's a sad consequence of diploma
38:24
Speaker 1: of a failure of diplomacy, and it may be Aron's
38:27
Speaker 1: failure of a diplomacy, but it's tragic that this is happening.
38:31
Speaker 1: It's not something to celebrate. To intersperse with football highlights
38:35
Speaker 1: to drag professional athletes into this, it's sick and gross.
38:41
Speaker 1: Pete hagg Seth should be so fired, so impeached. So
38:47
Speaker 1: just absolutely this is he is an embarrassment to what
38:51
Speaker 1: he's doing, and he is. I assume many uniform military
38:56
Speaker 1: folks are just appalled at the behavior of propag and
39:00
Speaker 1: a peep. So the government's narrative is being tested most
39:05
Speaker 1: directly by one place on the map. The straight of
39:07
Speaker 1: war moves this look. Yes, the president can complain that
39:14
Speaker 1: the press isn't celebrating its military victory enough, but what
39:18
Speaker 1: were your war aims? Your war aims have not come
39:21
Speaker 1: to fruition yet. Iran has not capitulated. There is not
39:25
Speaker 1: a new regime. And if anything, terrorist threats against Americans
39:30
Speaker 1: are now up, not down. This was supposed to limit
39:33
Speaker 1: the terrorism, Now it's expanding it. We had two attacks
39:37
Speaker 1: over the last seventy two hours in this country. Want
39:39
Speaker 1: at old Dominion, wanted a synagogue in Michigan. I don't
39:45
Speaker 1: think our leaders have properly prepared Americans that this is
39:48
Speaker 1: now something we all have to live with. Being a
39:51
Speaker 1: Jewish American, it is not new to me to have
39:54
Speaker 1: security in and around synagogues. We've been doing this for years.
39:57
Speaker 1: We spend millions of dollars a year for security. This
40:02
Speaker 1: very small group of people has to spend all this
40:04
Speaker 1: money on our own diddo with those that practice Islam
40:07
Speaker 1: in this country. The majority religions haven't had to do this,
40:13
Speaker 1: but Jews and Muslims have had to do this, so
40:17
Speaker 1: we know firsthand the impact of threats of terrorism. This
40:22
Speaker 1: administration is not prepared the country for this, and I
40:25
Speaker 1: do fear that this war has already essentially launched two
40:28
Speaker 1: terrorist attacks in this country. This is the fallout, This
40:32
Speaker 1: is the risk of doing this, and the President did
40:35
Speaker 1: nothing to prepare the country for this, did nothing to
40:39
Speaker 1: rally the country or prepare us for the consequences. We
40:44
Speaker 1: all have to live with the consequences. We in a
40:46
Speaker 1: free and independent press have to report on the actual
40:49
Speaker 1: reality and what's happening here, and the fact that the
40:53
Speaker 1: administration doesn't want the truth to come out should scare
40:56
Speaker 1: the shit out of all of you. I apologize that
41:00
Speaker 1: I've been a little four letter wordy, but I'm trying
41:03
Speaker 1: to get the FCC's attention right. I'm borrowing the old
41:06
Speaker 1: seven words of George Carlin so we may say them all.
41:08
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say the f fort, but it's
41:14
Speaker 1: this is look, I vacillated about how hard to come
41:21
Speaker 1: at car because he's like taken stupid shots at me.
41:24
Speaker 1: And I know there's some funny graphic rolling around that
41:28
Speaker 1: like claimed that Trump purged me from NBC and Lester whole.
41:31
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of amusing, but you know there
41:35
Speaker 1: is some truthiness. Right. A lot of us felt we
41:38
Speaker 1: couldn't practice independent journalism anymore and it was just useless
41:42
Speaker 1: to stay if you want to do your job. And
41:47
Speaker 1: that's a real decision that many a journalist is having
41:49
Speaker 1: to make right now. But I believe in our constitution
41:54
Speaker 1: and above all, because if it goes away, you know,
41:59
Speaker 1: then it is the rules of the jungle. I don't
42:02
Speaker 1: want the rules of the jungle. I like our constitution
42:04
Speaker 1: and I'm going to fight to the death to support
42:06
Speaker 1: it and defend it and explain it. So all of
42:13
Speaker 1: you know all of the rights you really have here.
42:16
Speaker 1: The good news is Brendan Carr's threats will go nowhere.
42:20
Speaker 1: The courts will stop him. I know what you're thinking.
42:22
Speaker 1: All the courts have been manipulated a little bit, not
42:24
Speaker 1: that much. Not that much. Okay, the courts are definitely
42:29
Speaker 1: more pro business than ever before. I'm not gonna sit
42:31
Speaker 1: here and say that the corporate America has a more
42:34
Speaker 1: friendly court system today than they did fifteen years ago.
42:37
Speaker 1: But on the basics of our rights on speech, I
42:42
Speaker 1: don't think this is going to go This is going
42:45
Speaker 1: to go well for him. But just the ability to
42:50
Speaker 1: scare you, the ability to distract, and this is we
42:54
Speaker 1: Like I said, I hesitated get involved because it the
42:57
Speaker 1: fact is, they just want a distraction from what is
43:01
Speaker 1: uncomfortable reality of this war. It's been a tactical military success,
43:07
Speaker 1: but if you don't achieve the aims of the war,
43:09
Speaker 1: what is the success? What have you gotten for your efforts?
43:16
Speaker 1: And right now we are getting higher prices, we are
43:19
Speaker 1: getting a more unstable glow, we are getting more threats
43:22
Speaker 1: of terrorist attacks. The President owes the American publican explanation
43:26
Speaker 1: why paying higher prices and being less safe is the
43:30
Speaker 1: price to pay for this war? Trust me, I want
43:36
Speaker 1: the Iranian regime gone. It has been a singular scourge
43:42
Speaker 1: on free people that live in Israel in particular. But
43:48
Speaker 1: it's been they've been They've been a scourge. The golf
43:51
Speaker 1: has been trying to develop for years, and the Iranians
43:53
Speaker 1: have tried to prevent that from happening. This is not
43:56
Speaker 1: a good regime. And I shouldn't say the Iranians this regime,
44:00
Speaker 1: just like I don't like when people say the Americans,
44:01
Speaker 1: it's this administration. A new regime would absolutely be has
44:09
Speaker 1: to be better for the world than this regime. But
44:13
Speaker 1: there's costs, and this president did nothing to explain the costs,
44:18
Speaker 1: and he apparently ignored civilian leadership, excuse me, military leadership
44:23
Speaker 1: when they told him the honest truth about how hard
44:26
Speaker 1: victory was actually going to be. All right, let's stick
44:32
Speaker 1: a commercial break in there on that upbeat note. Thank
44:37
Speaker 1: you to all of my sponsors, and thank you for
44:39
Speaker 1: supporting independent journalism. As we've now learned, we know the
44:43
Speaker 1: broadcast networks, their corporate parents will not stand up to
44:47
Speaker 1: this administration. They should on behalf of their journalists. I
44:51
Speaker 1: know my colleagues are begging for these wimpy network corporate
44:59
Speaker 1: parents to stand up, but Iger already wouldn't. Comcasts already
45:04
Speaker 1: spun off MSNBC, and we already saw what CBS has done.
45:09
Speaker 1: So thank you sponsors for supporting independent journalism. That's the
45:13
Speaker 1: only way you're going to get an honest assessment of
45:18
Speaker 1: Like I've always said, I practiced, I cover politics as
45:20
Speaker 1: it is, not as I wish it were, and missus
45:23
Speaker 1: politics as it is. With the Chuck Podcast today, let's
45:27
Speaker 1: take a break and when we come back, my conversation
45:29
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47:22
Speaker 1: a senior advisor to Bernie Sanders, but also the head
47:26
Speaker 1: of executive director of a of a progressive media organization
47:31
Speaker 1: called More Perfect Union. It's my core I've known Faz
47:35
Speaker 1: a long time, and one thing that I will tell
47:37
Speaker 1: you about Faz is he uh, he can't spin. It's
47:43
Speaker 1: it's I think it's his most endearing quality, which is
47:46
Speaker 1: why so many of us reporters like dealing with Faz.
47:48
Speaker 1: He is a truth teller. He has very he certainly
47:53
Speaker 1: has his opinions, but he's not a very good spinner,
47:55
Speaker 1: meaning he's not a he doesn't like the bullshit people.
47:58
Speaker 1: And so the point is is you don't have to
48:01
Speaker 1: feel like you're deciphering what he's saying to my questions.
48:06
Speaker 1: It will be pretty straightforward. I hope you take that
48:08
Speaker 1: as accomplished that I do.
48:10
Speaker 2: I appreciate that, and obviously it goes back to why
48:13
Speaker 2: we got involved in politics in the first place. And
48:15
Speaker 2: ideally it's not enough for spend or the tactical approaches,
48:17
Speaker 2: but rather some conviction.
48:19
Speaker 1: Well, you actually usually get pretty frustrated by it. I'm curious,
48:21
Speaker 1: have you ever had clients get frustrated with you that
48:23
Speaker 1: you don't do that?
48:25
Speaker 2: Thankfully, the people I've worked for have not gotten frustrated.
48:28
Speaker 2: Harry Reid was a truth teller. It is, you know,
48:30
Speaker 2: very kind of classic way and Bernie Sanders for John
48:34
Speaker 2: Podesta and people like that who generally just appreciated my approach.
48:37
Speaker 2: But I'm sure that if there are many politicians who
48:41
Speaker 2: could potentially get frustrated, who might probably wouldn't work for.
48:46
Speaker 1: So this is sort of an interesting political environment we're in. Right,
48:50
Speaker 1: you can look at it just through the lens of
48:53
Speaker 1: you know, you're hoping progressives have a better shot. You're
48:56
Speaker 1: looking at and tactically things couldn't be better of the left, right.
49:01
Speaker 1: The opportunities are across the board. But there's it feels
49:06
Speaker 1: that there's something right. There's it's the Democratic Party feels
49:10
Speaker 1: very divided and sort of arguably leaderless. It is worth
49:15
Speaker 1: noting you ran for d Yeah you went, And most
49:19
Speaker 1: of the time when you're the party out of power,
49:21
Speaker 1: it's you usually are less your lead. Your leaders aren't
49:25
Speaker 1: usually very well known. But in this case it feels
49:28
Speaker 1: very leaderless. I do want to remind people you ran
49:31
Speaker 1: for d n C chair in the race that that
49:34
Speaker 1: elected Ken Martin. I am curious if that rate, if
49:37
Speaker 1: that position opens up before the end of the year,
49:39
Speaker 1: would you run again.
49:41
Speaker 2: No, I don't believe so. I mean the reason that
49:43
Speaker 2: I ran at that time though, it wasn't because I
49:45
Speaker 2: thought I went, but because I had a case that
49:47
Speaker 2: I wanted to make publicly about the direction of the DNC,
49:50
Speaker 2: And as I watch Ken Martin try to struggle through
49:54
Speaker 2: what I think were foreseeable, understandable challenges, that you have
49:57
Speaker 2: a bureaucracy that you have to navigate, and if you
50:00
Speaker 2: don't come in like a bull in a china shop
50:02
Speaker 2: to change it, that the bureaucracy will capture you. And
50:06
Speaker 2: I think what I was trying to argue for at
50:08
Speaker 2: the time was that you have to have a clear
50:10
Speaker 2: mandate coming in the door of what you want to
50:13
Speaker 2: do and have people understand it and vote upon that.
50:15
Speaker 2: If you don't, you'll get stuck. And I think he's
50:18
Speaker 2: a good person stuck in a bad system. And you
50:21
Speaker 2: can see right, I mean, the only thing he had
50:22
Speaker 2: really firmly campaigned on was that the state parties would
50:25
Speaker 2: get additional funding, which he has delivered, but it has
50:27
Speaker 2: also put them in some difficult straits, which I know
50:30
Speaker 2: he's working his butt off to try to fix.
50:32
Speaker 1: No, that's a great way of putting it. It does feel
50:34
Speaker 1: as if that he just he doesn't know how to
50:37
Speaker 1: deal with the system.
50:39
Speaker 2: And I think he'd own it and tell you, I mean,
50:42
Speaker 2: we've had some candid conversations between us about my own
50:45
Speaker 2: desires would be to lay out an agenda for twenty
50:48
Speaker 2: twenty six on the Democratic Party side, to say here
50:50
Speaker 2: four or five things we're actively going to go and
50:52
Speaker 2: campaign on, to compel that kind of a conversation. I
50:55
Speaker 2: don't think he necessarily sees it as the DNC role.
50:58
Speaker 2: I think Schumer Jeffery is the leader of the Democratic
51:00
Speaker 2: Party right now, don't want to necessarily campaign and that
51:03
Speaker 2: kind of direction. They think, if Trump is burying himself,
51:06
Speaker 2: why put anything out there affirmatively for a vision. And
51:09
Speaker 2: so you've got a bit of a play dead philosophy
51:11
Speaker 2: and mentality that is governing much of the Democratic ranks.
51:14
Speaker 2: And for those of us who are trying to reinstill
51:16
Speaker 2: the brand to be definitionally about something, it's an uphill
51:20
Speaker 2: climb right now. It explains partly why Bernie Sanders so
51:22
Speaker 2: popular within the Democratic Party right now, why in a
51:25
Speaker 2: leaderless place, why he is probably the most popular Democrat
51:29
Speaker 2: and elected official in Americas, because he's definitionally about something affirmative.
51:34
Speaker 1: Well, you're getting into something that I think is the
51:37
Speaker 1: real challenge for the party, and I just don't think
51:39
Speaker 1: they have the leadership to do with the challenge right
51:41
Speaker 1: at the moment, and that is, Look, the party's got
51:44
Speaker 1: a massive brand problem. It's still there the new NBC
51:47
Speaker 1: News poll. As bad as Trump is, as unpopular as
51:50
Speaker 1: this war is, the Democratic brand is in worse shape
51:52
Speaker 1: than the Republican brand. So that is, you know, that
51:55
Speaker 1: is the one thing at sort of which what is
51:57
Speaker 1: different from twenty eighteen. That is the one difference. Now
52:01
Speaker 1: it may not matter in this mid term and because
52:05
Speaker 1: of what you just described the play dead strategy, which
52:07
Speaker 1: is and and you know, let them this is ropen dope, right,
52:10
Speaker 1: let them punch themselves out. And they're doing a pretty
52:12
Speaker 1: good job. Yeah, I mean, Trump debates himself on Iran.
52:15
Speaker 1: Why do you have to put out a statement He's gonna,
52:18
Speaker 1: he's gonna, he's gonna.
52:19
Speaker 2: Fractures his own coalition, you see now Joe Rugan and
52:22
Speaker 2: Megan Kelly and you.
52:23
Speaker 1: Know, and he's doing it all over the place, right
52:25
Speaker 1: if you think about it over the last two weeks,
52:27
Speaker 1: you know, and it's always for a check, right, Monsanto
52:30
Speaker 1: wrote a check. So he did the executive order on
52:32
Speaker 1: the on the weed killer. That upsets Maha, right, he
52:36
Speaker 1: doesn't run that upset like he put together this interesting coalition.
52:40
Speaker 1: But when you put together coalitions, you got to keep them.
52:43
Speaker 1: You got to you gotta deliver.
52:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and he sleut them down. I mean, I
52:48
Speaker 2: think in my mind, the one big difference from his
52:50
Speaker 2: first term to a second term, what what did we Well,
52:53
Speaker 2: a lot of things were baking in the cake about
52:54
Speaker 2: Donald Trump. If we had told each other, oh, he's
52:56
Speaker 2: going to be tough on immigration, He's going to do
52:58
Speaker 2: some acts that are illegal, we wouldn't have been terribly
53:01
Speaker 2: surprised about that. If you said, hoo, he's gonna even
53:04
Speaker 2: you know, engage in tax cuts for the rich. There's
53:08
Speaker 2: lots of things that you just would have baked into
53:09
Speaker 2: the cake. I think the way in which he campaigned
53:12
Speaker 2: and well, at least from the moment he wins to
53:15
Speaker 2: immediately the inauguration, having Bezos, Zuckerberg and you know, Musk
53:20
Speaker 2: right behind him was a stark departure from the first term,
53:24
Speaker 2: in which, you know, you remember he had an anti
53:26
Speaker 2: trust case against Google, and now in the second term
53:29
Speaker 2: he has just wholeheartedly embraced big tech and the oligarchy,
53:33
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia, the kings of the universe, as it were
53:37
Speaker 2: as a corruption racket, and I think that has more
53:40
Speaker 2: aggressively splintered the coalition faster than I think a lot
53:43
Speaker 2: of people would have assumed.
53:44
Speaker 1: As would you accept the premise that he is now
53:46
Speaker 1: the caricature that many on the left tried to paint
53:49
Speaker 1: the Bush family as, right, The Bushes were never like this, right,
53:54
Speaker 1: he he's like this caricature version.
53:56
Speaker 2: Of this because we don't give him any credit for this,
54:00
Speaker 2: but he is brazen about putting the corruption out loud
54:04
Speaker 2: in front of you, to say, this is exactly why
54:07
Speaker 2: I'm operating everything from you know, you take the Iran war,
54:10
Speaker 2: it's just you know, here we're going to go do
54:12
Speaker 2: it with Israel. It's very clear in your face how
54:14
Speaker 2: we're going to execute this all the way through, you know,
54:17
Speaker 2: to just you know, these AI tech deals will be
54:20
Speaker 2: done at the behest of Tim Cooks sitting right here
54:22
Speaker 2: in front of me, and then him out loud stating
54:25
Speaker 2: that these are the people, these high IQ individuals who
54:28
Speaker 2: I listen to, who I think are really brilliant and
54:30
Speaker 2: are going to guide this administration. So when most working
54:33
Speaker 2: class Americans right now are worried that does the President
54:35
Speaker 2: even see me understand the struggles with affordability or cost
54:38
Speaker 2: of living that I'm going through. And they're worried that
54:40
Speaker 2: his agenda is somehow not on a different is fully
54:45
Speaker 2: on the different plane than the one in which they live.
54:46
Speaker 2: They are correct because he's telling them that. Every given day,
54:50
Speaker 2: he tells you the things that are most important to him,
54:52
Speaker 2: and none of them are around affordability. You can send
54:54
Speaker 2: Susie Wiles and Company. You're trying to compel him to say,
54:57
Speaker 2: the union.
54:58
Speaker 1: Kind of music. They set up these events that are
55:01
Speaker 1: clearly they're very much You're like, they're well thought out,
55:04
Speaker 1: like you know what they're doing. I think we're taping
55:06
Speaker 1: here on a Wednesday, where eleventh they've got a couple
55:08
Speaker 1: today and in contentio, you know it's this. It's the
55:12
Speaker 1: stuff that that means table stakes, right, it's the stuff
55:15
Speaker 1: you should be doing as president in an electioneer, sell
55:19
Speaker 1: your agenda, show people, show people an example where you
55:21
Speaker 1: think your agenda's having an impact, And we know what
55:23
Speaker 1: he's going to do. He's going to go there just
55:25
Speaker 1: whin about the word affordability. They're telling me I have
55:28
Speaker 1: to do this, and you're just sitting there going huh okay.
55:31
Speaker 2: And he's stuck in the bad as you. We remember
55:34
Speaker 2: about this with Biden, you get stuck in the finger
55:36
Speaker 2: wag of don't you people know that I am doing
55:40
Speaker 2: amazing things? Why aren't you appreciating all of the amazing
55:44
Speaker 2: things I've done? Instead of you know what we are
55:46
Speaker 2: arguing with Biden. I think it would also be true
55:47
Speaker 2: to Trump. You lean forward and say here's the fundamental
55:50
Speaker 2: problems in society that you are dealing with that I
55:52
Speaker 2: am focused on, and I have to do next, not backwards,
55:55
Speaker 2: and they only get stuck looking backwards and saying, I've
55:58
Speaker 2: just done all these amazing things.
56:00
Speaker 1: What did you I I uh, I noticed over the
56:04
Speaker 1: week at JD. Vance tried right, he said, you know,
56:07
Speaker 1: he's trying. He was trying to say, yes, I know,
56:10
Speaker 1: there's an affordability issue, and he did the old you know,
56:13
Speaker 1: which is what any presidential administration we do. Hey, it
56:17
Speaker 1: was it was really bad when we took over. This
56:19
Speaker 1: is going to take more time meanwhile, which okay, that's
56:23
Speaker 1: sort of beam C plus B minus spin. But when
56:27
Speaker 1: the president says, hey, pay no attention to that. It
56:30
Speaker 1: talked about undermining whatever little attempt Vance was doing to
56:33
Speaker 1: try to to try to let these people know that
56:36
Speaker 1: he at least pays attention.
56:39
Speaker 2: Well, you get into the psychology of the Trump Advance thing,
56:41
Speaker 2: which is kind of entertaining and going, I.
56:46
Speaker 1: Mean, you know, yeah, right, you there were there were
56:48
Speaker 1: sort of two core principles to Vance that I bought into.
56:53
Speaker 1: One is that he was genuinely a believer in in
56:58
Speaker 1: breaking up these monopolies, you know, corporate consolidation. You know,
57:02
Speaker 1: he would praise Lena Khan. Not many Republicans would do that,
57:05
Speaker 1: the conservatives, the right wing populas and.
57:10
Speaker 2: Who goes into the DS later.
57:11
Speaker 1: Who was a JD Vance? You know. So I genuinely
57:15
Speaker 1: believe this is something that is that is that he
57:19
Speaker 1: believes that this isn't just something that he adopted for
57:22
Speaker 1: political purposes. And then no more foreign wars, right, and
57:26
Speaker 1: here's Trump essentially firing his staffer a justice right, allowing
57:33
Speaker 1: companies to go around the Justice Department, and essentially like
57:37
Speaker 1: with the Ticmaster thing. It's like, I mean, you know,
57:40
Speaker 1: this is the thing that like everybody knows the combination
57:44
Speaker 1: to Trump, right, how do you it's a there's a
57:47
Speaker 1: and I always hate to make Seinfeld references because there's
57:50
Speaker 1: it's such an old show now, but there's enough people
57:52
Speaker 1: that still spind it. But there's this like gag running
57:54
Speaker 1: gag with Elaine where she says, I put it in
57:57
Speaker 1: the vault and then like everybody knows, you know, the
58:01
Speaker 1: the uh, the combinations of the poll. You just get
58:03
Speaker 1: a little booze ent her and she'll tell you all
58:06
Speaker 1: spell all the secrets. Well with Trump, well know the combination.
58:09
Speaker 1: You write a check to run of the slush funds,
58:11
Speaker 1: you'll get what you want. You know, you know there's
58:13
Speaker 1: you know, you got to do a couple of things here,
58:16
Speaker 1: but you do a deal with the family whatever, and
58:18
Speaker 1: you'll get what you want. It's pretty true. And you know,
58:21
Speaker 1: I think it's you know, he allows people to know
58:24
Speaker 1: these things because he's trying to He's hanging out a
58:26
Speaker 1: sign like hey, this is how you do it. It's
58:31
Speaker 1: really undermine Vance, Like I just don't think Vance has
58:35
Speaker 1: any anything, any credibility left.
58:39
Speaker 2: There's obviously this musing about him suggesting Rubio might you know,
58:42
Speaker 2: be a better candidate mar A Lago, And I was
58:44
Speaker 2: wondering if they leaked into your thought about it. When
58:47
Speaker 2: leading up into the Iran War, there's obviously some leakage
58:50
Speaker 2: of around Well, Jade Vance wasn't fully on board initially,
58:53
Speaker 2: and I had some concerns and I was like, it
58:55
Speaker 2: reminded me back in the day when you remember Obama
58:58
Speaker 2: and they had the decision of going in bin Laden
59:01
Speaker 2: an inlete that Biden had against me with him, right,
59:04
Speaker 2: And it felt that most are reducts of that. And
59:07
Speaker 2: it was done at that time, right, and you could
59:09
Speaker 2: sense of a Hillary kind of world that was setting
59:12
Speaker 2: up twenty sixty. You know, here's the choice, and it
59:15
Speaker 2: was felt again we got a Ruby overs Van's choice
59:18
Speaker 2: of who was with the president.
59:20
Speaker 1: My warning to Rubio would simply be when the president
59:24
Speaker 1: besides Iran was a mistake, not if okay, we know
59:28
Speaker 1: when he ain't taken the blame, right, you know, and
59:32
Speaker 1: I think Rubyo has been set up.
59:35
Speaker 2: I mean this, in my view, we can get down
59:38
Speaker 2: for a policy conversation there. So the rationales for this
59:42
Speaker 2: war are worse than you can imagine any prior US
59:46
Speaker 2: intervention anywhere, and it is really doing a great disservice.
59:50
Speaker 2: And talked about the Democratic Party and the struggles with
59:53
Speaker 2: it that there isn't a leading security minded argument against
59:58
Speaker 2: this war. Well, you're seeing and hearing a lot of
1:00:01
Speaker 2: our process and gas prices and domestic needs, and those
1:00:04
Speaker 2: are all fair and correct. But what they miss is
1:00:07
Speaker 2: if the President says this is an imminent threat, Iran's
1:00:10
Speaker 2: going to attack US, I had to go do this war.
1:00:12
Speaker 2: Who is making this American security minded argument that that
1:00:16
Speaker 2: is fully nonsense and that this war of choice puts
1:00:20
Speaker 2: US in a weaker position security wise than ever before.
1:00:24
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think be the more opposite of America. First, Yeah, right,
1:00:28
Speaker 1: I mean, who's making the argument? It's Rand, but you're
1:00:31
Speaker 1: asking it's actually Rand.
1:00:32
Speaker 2: Pauli, which always frustrates me that we you know, I
1:00:36
Speaker 2: appreciate the Democrats are focused on the domestic needs and
1:00:39
Speaker 2: we have to be right, and we just cost of
1:00:40
Speaker 2: living in formula issues, But if you live in the
1:00:43
Speaker 2: place of wanting to protect America, we should be making.
1:00:47
Speaker 1: The argument the issue This is still Vietnam syndrome. Yes,
1:00:51
Speaker 1: And I think I think infiltrates the democratic brain.
1:00:54
Speaker 2: You know, I tend to think that Israel politics is
1:00:58
Speaker 2: also at play here, and that there's some concerns around
1:01:02
Speaker 2: you know, the AI companies that are at play here,
1:01:04
Speaker 2: and how do you navigate the big money that's being
1:01:07
Speaker 2: spent in this election cycle, which we can get into, right,
1:01:09
Speaker 2: Who's who are the big spenders in these primaries? And
1:01:12
Speaker 2: it tends to be it's a I have two versions, right,
1:01:15
Speaker 2: it's AI of Artificial Intelligence and it's AI of AI
1:01:18
Speaker 2: American Israel Political Action Committee stuff. So both of them.
1:01:22
Speaker 1: Don't forget the crypto guys too, fair shake where Chuck
1:01:25
Speaker 1: Schuber actually told them in the Again, I mean when
1:01:28
Speaker 1: when Chuck Schumer tells the Democratic Caucus you're just going
1:01:32
Speaker 1: to have to suck it up on crypto. Yeah, that
1:01:36
Speaker 1: felt like that we have we have crossed the rubicon
1:01:39
Speaker 1: of of of financial capture, right, And and I know
1:01:43
Speaker 1: it's fascinating to me. You you would appreciate this. I
1:01:45
Speaker 1: moderated a panel a couple of weeks ago at the
1:01:49
Speaker 1: Principal's First Conference, which is sort of a right, you know,
1:01:52
Speaker 1: sort of Republicans still trying to repair the Republican Party
1:01:56
Speaker 1: post Trump. They're all anti Trump and all this stuff.
1:01:58
Speaker 1: And there's Pat McCrory at cating for campaign finance reform,
1:02:02
Speaker 1: and you're just like the number of people I've run
1:02:05
Speaker 1: into recently that have gotten religion on campaign finance reform
1:02:09
Speaker 1: are people I never would have put anywhere near this
1:02:12
Speaker 1: topic even five years ago.
1:02:16
Speaker 2: Do you think that, just to stick with that for
1:02:19
Speaker 2: a second, that in that wonderful NBC pull that you
1:02:22
Speaker 2: and I read closely, democrats are at the bottom on
1:02:25
Speaker 2: approval unfortunately talked about that. But you see who is
1:02:29
Speaker 2: a little bit below that.
1:02:31
Speaker 1: AI that is you know, we're we're I was at
1:02:45
Speaker 1: another conference, a tech conference earlier this week, and they
1:02:52
Speaker 1: haven't fully I mean, I think it's because of them,
1:02:55
Speaker 1: is what I said that you guys that AI is
1:02:58
Speaker 1: so unpopular, right, there's a distrust that the public's not
1:03:02
Speaker 1: being stupid here. They know what social media did to.
1:03:04
Speaker 2: Us, the publishers. It's the same.
1:03:06
Speaker 1: Companies that are that are in charge of this. And
1:03:11
Speaker 1: you know if you and oh, by the way, the
1:03:13
Speaker 1: memory of globalization one point, oh wasn't very good for
1:03:17
Speaker 1: these people. What's interesting is that we are the most
1:03:20
Speaker 1: negative on AI of any Western country.
1:03:22
Speaker 2: In the world.
1:03:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you make of that?
1:03:24
Speaker 2: But understandable and I we should be I think if
1:03:26
Speaker 2: you look at to your point of the understandings of
1:03:29
Speaker 2: what upside benefits does this have to working class people
1:03:32
Speaker 2: living paycheck to paycheck sixty percent of Americans, and you say, well,
1:03:35
Speaker 2: what aren't you possibly putting on the table to improve
1:03:37
Speaker 2: their lives? There's really very very little to nothing being
1:03:40
Speaker 2: put on the line, on the line by AI companies,
1:03:44
Speaker 2: by the tech oligarchs to say you're going to generally
1:03:47
Speaker 2: improve I would argue, we can get down all of
1:03:50
Speaker 2: all of the rabbit hole. But just looking at the
1:03:52
Speaker 2: campaign finance side of this, you know they are spending
1:03:56
Speaker 2: tons of money, both on Super Bowl ads, which you
1:03:57
Speaker 2: and I watched together, but also it's spending in a
1:04:00
Speaker 2: lot of political primaries and trying to capture the political system,
1:04:03
Speaker 2: which means that the candidates are not actually being populous
1:04:06
Speaker 2: in the way that I would like to see, well,
1:04:08
Speaker 2: articulating the harms of working class people who are very
1:04:10
Speaker 2: worried about it.
1:04:11
Speaker 1: Well, when you have a massive amount of money, consume
1:04:16
Speaker 1: your camp primary campaign. And that's what we're seeing in Illinois, right.
1:04:19
Speaker 1: I think the Illinois Senate race is gross.
1:04:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
1:04:23
Speaker 1: It is. It is so gross because it feels like
1:04:26
Speaker 1: all of the candidates have some sort of sponsor right
1:04:31
Speaker 1: that they're you know that they have a title sponsorship. Right.
1:04:34
Speaker 1: One is the crypto guy, one is the AI data center.
1:04:36
Speaker 1: Person one is the anthropic AI people, right, but it's
1:04:41
Speaker 1: it feels like they've all been captured by some massive
1:04:47
Speaker 1: industry that is currently trying to buy off Washington. And
1:04:49
Speaker 1: there's the three people, the three big the three big entities,
1:04:54
Speaker 1: and four if you want to put an APAC in there.
1:04:58
Speaker 1: And it is. What's interesting is that APEX numbers are
1:05:03
Speaker 1: actually pale financially in comparison to what you're saying with
1:05:06
Speaker 1: Crypto and with the ACT. But it has made me
1:05:10
Speaker 1: question all those candidates running in Illinois.
1:05:12
Speaker 2: It should I mean, I mean, this is why it's
1:05:14
Speaker 2: a Bernie Sanders moment in America is because it's not
1:05:17
Speaker 2: about the policy agend as much as the integrity question.
1:05:19
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the integrity question of do you
1:05:22
Speaker 2: orient yourself of being a populas who fights for working
1:05:25
Speaker 2: class people and that that is who governs your sense
1:05:27
Speaker 2: of the fights I picked the people for whom I
1:05:30
Speaker 2: am going to challenge the wealthy and the powerful fights.
1:05:33
Speaker 1: That you pick. You talk about this all the time.
1:05:35
Speaker 1: You got to learn, you know, Donald Trump was really
1:05:37
Speaker 1: good about pick and fights. And you've said this before,
1:05:40
Speaker 1: and you think Democrats are terrible about it.
1:05:43
Speaker 2: They don't like friction by almost It's almost in the
1:05:46
Speaker 2: DNA now you can sense it that even as we
1:05:48
Speaker 2: talk right now, in this moment of leading up to
1:05:50
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six, what are we putting on the table
1:05:53
Speaker 2: besides our hatred of Donald Trump? I mean, you go
1:05:55
Speaker 2: that Illinois race and the f candidates run, you know,
1:05:58
Speaker 2: running f Trump adds three seconds of that Trump. Okay,
1:06:02
Speaker 2: got that. That's pretty clear. I think the public has
1:06:04
Speaker 2: an understanding that you and Donald Trump are not I
1:06:07
Speaker 2: time on anything else. Is there any friction within American
1:06:11
Speaker 2: society on any economic justice issues in which you're willing
1:06:14
Speaker 2: to name names and take on powerful actors. And this
1:06:18
Speaker 2: goes back to our AI question. They're telling you right now.
1:06:20
Speaker 2: American public is telling you right now that this is
1:06:24
Speaker 2: one of their top concerns. And how is it possible
1:06:26
Speaker 2: that any political actors or political parties have not gravitated
1:06:31
Speaker 2: to the layup that's on the table. We could argue
1:06:33
Speaker 2: about the Data Center moratory methode policy, but it is
1:06:36
Speaker 2: clear that Bertie Sanders, just by putting it on the docket,
1:06:39
Speaker 2: has said I am putting something out there that it
1:06:41
Speaker 2: was reflecting the pain of working class people. Does anybody
1:06:43
Speaker 2: want to meet me or match this bar or suggest.
1:06:45
Speaker 1: That Shared Brown loss because of Crypto fast exactly. I mean,
1:06:49
Speaker 1: like the it is that has It seems like that
1:06:53
Speaker 1: result that Bernio Moreno became the crypto guy and then
1:06:57
Speaker 1: dropped the whole ton of cash on Shared Brown in
1:07:00
Speaker 1: twenty four it seems as if that has just absolutely
1:07:06
Speaker 1: overwhelmed them.
1:07:07
Speaker 2: This is why great talking with you about these kinds
1:07:09
Speaker 2: of things, as you live these very well, because you,
1:07:12
Speaker 2: unlike most political commentators, I think, are able to marry
1:07:15
Speaker 2: policy and politics, and I think often we get into
1:07:18
Speaker 2: your Democrats think so heading about policy that they let
1:07:23
Speaker 2: their politics suffer as a result. Meanwhile, the Republicans are
1:07:26
Speaker 2: the other way around. They know when they're going to govern,
1:07:28
Speaker 2: they're going to govern on behalf of crypto. But when
1:07:30
Speaker 2: I politic, when I get out into the world and
1:07:32
Speaker 2: talk to working class people, I say things brazenly about,
1:07:36
Speaker 2: oh I'm going to take on the wealthy and the powerful.
1:07:39
Speaker 2: I hate this wealthy actor and in ways that I
1:07:41
Speaker 2: think because they're better populist wise campaigning, and it gets
1:07:47
Speaker 2: to my deep, deep frustration with the Democrat Party of
1:07:49
Speaker 2: how we a don't campaign is to name names name.
1:07:52
Speaker 2: Some villains get into fights, elevate these kinds of issues,
1:07:56
Speaker 2: and then of course I want to marry that with
1:07:58
Speaker 2: a policy agenda. But often the agenda, you know, is
1:08:02
Speaker 2: so much in the forefront of our mind that we
1:08:04
Speaker 2: have no politics by which to reach regular people.
1:08:08
Speaker 1: Over So, I it's interesting that you call it. You
1:08:13
Speaker 1: think you're there's a Bernie Sanders moment here. I certainly
1:08:16
Speaker 1: think there's an outsider, independent moment that's happening. And I'm
1:08:20
Speaker 1: but you know, I'm one of those that getting close
1:08:22
Speaker 1: isn't going to mean anything to me in twenty six.
1:08:26
Speaker 1: You know, if Osborne loses again, okay, then it didn't work.
1:08:30
Speaker 1: Just because you come close doesn't mean it's It doesn't work.
1:08:32
Speaker 1: If Seth Bodner is not a United States Senator out
1:08:35
Speaker 1: of Montana, it didn't work. If Mike Duggan is not
1:08:38
Speaker 1: the next governor of Michigan, it didn't work.
1:08:42
Speaker 2: Well.
1:08:42
Speaker 1: But all three could happen, maybe three, all three could
1:08:46
Speaker 1: benefit from not having a party label a la Bernie.
1:08:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. But also I think the over unders matter that
1:08:52
Speaker 2: the delta's in the margins. So I wouldn't go all
1:08:55
Speaker 2: the way to saying, hey, I hear you're still trying
1:08:57
Speaker 2: to figure out what is the right directional form of
1:09:00
Speaker 2: politics that people that matches what people would support, and
1:09:04
Speaker 2: for democratic parties trying to find its way, I'm arguing
1:09:08
Speaker 2: that some of these independents are offering a kind of
1:09:11
Speaker 2: different working class economic first agenda, then should influence the
1:09:18
Speaker 2: way in which we think. Right.
1:09:22
Speaker 1: You know, I was spending a little bit of extra
1:09:26
Speaker 1: time on the FDR coalition a couple of weeks ago,
1:09:28
Speaker 1: and and and going back through some of it, and
1:09:31
Speaker 1: you do realize that FDR's decision to just stick to
1:09:36
Speaker 1: an economic focus did widen, did broaden his support. Now
1:09:43
Speaker 1: there's history is not kind on some of the on
1:09:47
Speaker 1: some of these things, right with him, But the only
1:09:53
Speaker 1: way you can make econom you can make economic justice
1:09:56
Speaker 1: a transformational issue, is if you can get five sixty
1:10:00
Speaker 1: percent type of coalitions. And he did build one, and
1:10:04
Speaker 1: he showed. I mean, I've said, if if the right
1:10:07
Speaker 1: drops its cultural greed, the economic populace on the right,
1:10:10
Speaker 1: drop the cultural grievance issue, or start prioritizing the economic
1:10:13
Speaker 1: justice over and above everything else. And you know, and
1:10:17
Speaker 1: Bernie's gotten in trouble at this at times right where
1:10:19
Speaker 1: he will endorse candidates that maybe he doesn't agree with
1:10:22
Speaker 1: on guns and doesn't agree with on abortion, but he's like,
1:10:24
Speaker 1: look on the economic issues, this is the priority. And
1:10:29
Speaker 1: this to me is always how the Democrats get in
1:10:31
Speaker 1: their own way, right, they punish a candidate it isn't
1:10:34
Speaker 1: correct on these social issues, and that still seems to
1:10:38
Speaker 1: be the struggle the party is having, and why these
1:10:42
Speaker 1: these Osborne's of the world or or the Bodiers of
1:10:46
Speaker 1: the world are going You know what, I'm better off
1:10:47
Speaker 1: from running as an independent. That way I can say
1:10:50
Speaker 1: no to some of these groups and not get punished
1:10:52
Speaker 1: for it.
1:10:52
Speaker 2: Right. I mean again, in that wonderful NBC poll, I
1:10:55
Speaker 2: they get asked, you know, Republicans and Democrats essentially, would
1:10:59
Speaker 2: you prefer candidate who has closer ideology to you or
1:11:02
Speaker 2: electability arguments? And it was always been generally the case
1:11:05
Speaker 2: that Democrats have favored these kinds of electability arguments. That
1:11:09
Speaker 2: still did in that poll, though there's a little bit
1:11:10
Speaker 2: more ideological.
1:11:12
Speaker 1: It was a twenty point right, it was like Republicans
1:11:14
Speaker 1: were like seventy twenty. And you know this is what
1:11:17
Speaker 1: I have a big progressive lean in the class that
1:11:20
Speaker 1: I'm teaching at USC this year. There's a lot of
1:11:22
Speaker 1: you know, legal studies majors. They're ready to go tack
1:11:25
Speaker 1: on the world right justice warriors, and they're all very
1:11:29
Speaker 1: frustrated that you would love them, because they are like,
1:11:31
Speaker 1: why does the Democratic Party? You know, they seem to
1:11:34
Speaker 1: always cave to its moderates. And I always say, look,
1:11:36
Speaker 1: there is a math problem that the Democrats have, right,
1:11:38
Speaker 1: which is the self described conservative is about ten points
1:11:42
Speaker 1: more than the self described liberal and what does that
1:11:45
Speaker 1: mean in your goal to get to fifty percent? Republicans
1:11:49
Speaker 1: need fewer middle of the road voters than Democrats do. Right,
1:11:53
Speaker 1: continues to be a math problem.
1:11:55
Speaker 2: For the last MAYA pill fight on this within the
1:11:57
Speaker 2: Democratic Party ranks has been a kind of a rearguard
1:12:00
Speaker 2: difficult fight, which is that Bernie Sanders is a stronger
1:12:04
Speaker 2: general election candidate than he as a primary candidate. And
1:12:07
Speaker 2: to understand that you haven't.
1:12:09
Speaker 1: Been able to never.
1:12:12
Speaker 2: Been able to get there. And I would argue, well, sadly,
1:12:15
Speaker 2: we'll never see it, but I would I'm firm about
1:12:17
Speaker 2: my own personal views on that, and as if people
1:12:22
Speaker 2: were to agree with me on it, then you're saying, well,
1:12:24
Speaker 2: what about Senator Sanders would would move a five percent
1:12:28
Speaker 2: of conservatives independence in the column of him. Well, now
1:12:32
Speaker 2: we get into the heart of what I think of
1:12:34
Speaker 2: a Democratic Party should be in and around, is that
1:12:36
Speaker 2: here's a fight against a billionaire class, a willingness to
1:12:40
Speaker 2: take on corporate power and corporate greed and corporate influence,
1:12:42
Speaker 2: and willingness to fight our campaign finance reform and meaningful
1:12:45
Speaker 2: and important ways and integrity that you trust that you
1:12:49
Speaker 2: wake up every day wanting to fight for working class Americans.
1:12:51
Speaker 2: That is, that's clearly what they people associate with Bernie,
1:12:54
Speaker 2: and I think we want more of that associated with
1:12:56
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party. But unfortunately, this is a polical re
1:12:58
Speaker 2: alignment opportunity to in my view, I think we get
1:13:02
Speaker 2: you don't always get these opportunities, but right now you
1:13:04
Speaker 2: got one where I think if the right candidate with
1:13:06
Speaker 2: the right appeal gets that five seven percent, moving fully
1:13:11
Speaker 2: over and potentially staying with you if you you know campaign,
1:13:16
Speaker 2: you know, we saw this with Obama. He had the
1:13:18
Speaker 2: opportunity in two thousand and seven and eight, and he
1:13:20
Speaker 2: had it, you know, for a period of time. Somebody
1:13:22
Speaker 2: coming along right now could realign America in a major,
1:13:26
Speaker 2: major way.
1:13:27
Speaker 1: I am near at Tandon shares your belief in that
1:13:30
Speaker 1: that this is that this is a moment. Now she's
1:13:33
Speaker 1: more in the this is a moment for the Democratic Party,
1:13:36
Speaker 1: don't screw it up type of moment. I I'm a
1:13:40
Speaker 1: bit more pessimistic. I think where I think there needs
1:13:43
Speaker 1: to be another kick. You know, there's that Mitch McConnell
1:13:46
Speaker 1: phrase that I sort of like that he uses, which
1:13:49
Speaker 1: is there's no there's no second educator, there's no extra
1:13:51
Speaker 1: education with the second kick to the head by a
1:13:54
Speaker 1: mule or something like that. And yet I have a
1:13:58
Speaker 1: feeling that I have a feeling that twenty six is
1:14:04
Speaker 1: going to give Democrats false hope about twenty eight and
1:14:07
Speaker 1: that they will go in the wrong direction. Well, all
1:14:11
Speaker 1: what happened in eighty six to eighty eight, it was
1:14:13
Speaker 1: a very similar situation the.
1:14:15
Speaker 2: The big TVD There though, is that unlike let's call
1:14:19
Speaker 2: it twenty twenty two when you say, you know it
1:14:21
Speaker 2: led to the kind of the wrong false hope that
1:14:23
Speaker 2: you're referring to. There was an assumed front runner right
1:14:26
Speaker 2: of the Democratic nomination. There wasn't going to be as
1:14:29
Speaker 2: much of a debate. There should have been, argue but
1:14:31
Speaker 2: there wasn't sure at this time. There will be right,
1:14:35
Speaker 2: There will be actively has to be a very competitive primary,
1:14:38
Speaker 2: very open debate. The question and concern that I have,
1:14:41
Speaker 2: of course, is that given that Senator Sanders is extremely
1:14:44
Speaker 2: extremely unlikely to run, I do think that were he
1:14:47
Speaker 2: able to run, he would win in this in this cycle.
1:14:51
Speaker 1: And oh, I'm more convinced today than I would have
1:14:54
Speaker 1: been five years ago that the twenty that Bernie wins
1:14:56
Speaker 1: the twenty sixteen election right unfortunate. It was probably would
1:15:01
Speaker 1: not have been in that camp in twenty eighteen.
1:15:04
Speaker 2: But I think he you know, if we could rand
1:15:06
Speaker 2: clock fifteen years younger where he could run, he would
1:15:08
Speaker 2: do very well. So is there a natural follow on?
1:15:12
Speaker 2: Is the obvious question? Who most is closest to the
1:15:18
Speaker 2: conceptions of what are the best political attributes of Bernie?
1:15:22
Speaker 2: And at this point, as you and I talk, it
1:15:24
Speaker 2: is not yet clear that there is. That There's a
1:15:27
Speaker 2: lot of in the normy kind of moderated centrist lane,
1:15:30
Speaker 2: lots of governors, as we could rattle off, but who's
1:15:33
Speaker 2: going to be out there progressive aggressively saying like Bernie Sanders,
1:15:38
Speaker 2: I believe X, Y and Z.
1:15:40
Speaker 1: You know it's interesting. You're right, I'm I'm you know,
1:15:43
Speaker 1: I think another under sould aspect to Bernie, which is
1:15:49
Speaker 1: why I'm more skeptical of AOC, is that he was
1:15:53
Speaker 1: from a rural state. Yeah, and so there's a little
1:15:57
Speaker 1: bit more credibility than coming from you know, he he's
1:16:00
Speaker 1: been had, he stayed in Brooklyn and been a New
1:16:02
Speaker 1: York senator. I don't know if he has the same following. Well,
1:16:06
Speaker 1: I mean, I know that it's a small thing, but
1:16:07
Speaker 1: I wonder because there is just a there is a
1:16:12
Speaker 1: branding that comes with New York Democrat, California Democrat that
1:16:17
Speaker 1: you don't get with Vermont. Yeah, liberals different, you know.
1:16:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, by his orientation is very much a class based there.
1:16:26
Speaker 1: You know, it's a class and what the Democrats This
1:16:30
Speaker 1: goes back to the Democrats need a good old fashioned
1:16:32
Speaker 1: class warfare Campase. Probably this is what FDR did. But
1:16:36
Speaker 1: you got to drop the culture and that I don't
1:16:39
Speaker 1: know if today's Democratic Party and the interest groups that
1:16:41
Speaker 1: control it are ready to do that.
1:16:43
Speaker 2: Right, Maybe I'd quibble with drop the culture because the
1:16:47
Speaker 2: thing I get concerned about on this front is you
1:16:49
Speaker 2: cannot go before the American public and lie and deceive
1:16:52
Speaker 2: them about what you might honestly believe. What you're trying
1:16:56
Speaker 2: to argue in my mind over is what is the
1:16:58
Speaker 2: primacy of the things that I most care about? From
1:17:02
Speaker 2: my end litigated the sober Kambla and other people, is
1:17:04
Speaker 2: that when you don't have the privacy of an economic
1:17:07
Speaker 2: justice class based argument that people believe and trust and say, oh,
1:17:10
Speaker 2: that's what animates you. When you don't have that, what
1:17:13
Speaker 2: becomes subsumed by you is the sense that you probably
1:17:16
Speaker 2: care a lot more about these other culture issues in
1:17:19
Speaker 2: which there's far more differences of opinions about the American public.
1:17:22
Speaker 2: And we tend to think maybe that's what animates you
1:17:25
Speaker 2: and why you want to get into government? Does you
1:17:27
Speaker 2: want DEI and various government agencies? And you know that
1:17:30
Speaker 2: you can't fault a lot of people from understand seeming
1:17:32
Speaker 2: like they're trying to hunt for what is it that
1:17:35
Speaker 2: drives you? And I don't want people to feel like, oh,
1:17:38
Speaker 2: I have to run away from culture, but I don't
1:17:39
Speaker 2: think that's the case. They just want to know that
1:17:42
Speaker 2: will you give allowance for disagreement on the cultural issues
1:17:45
Speaker 2: where there might be and say, hey, this is what
1:17:47
Speaker 2: I believe. I appreciate and you might have a different
1:17:49
Speaker 2: point of view, but here's what I believe. But together
1:17:51
Speaker 2: you and I are on the same page on these
1:17:54
Speaker 2: economic justice fights, on wealth and income and quality, that
1:17:57
Speaker 2: they are the first order priorities of today.
1:18:02
Speaker 1: So what would you be doing if you were running
1:18:05
Speaker 1: the party right now with these independent candidacies in the
1:18:09
Speaker 1: in the in the sort of upper Midwest, you know
1:18:12
Speaker 1: you have You're probably gonna have one in Kansas, now
1:18:15
Speaker 1: in Nebraska, Montana, South Dakota. Well, you're a lot, let
1:18:20
Speaker 1: me said Doug aside. Dougan is sort of a different
1:18:23
Speaker 1: type of campaign. The other ones are all very similar
1:18:26
Speaker 1: because you know, they actually coordinate. You know, they have
1:18:29
Speaker 1: their own I've interviewed a couple of them and they said, oh, yeah,
1:18:32
Speaker 1: we're on a text chain, you know, Osborne and Bangs
1:18:35
Speaker 1: and and uh the guy in Idaho, I'm blanking on
1:18:39
Speaker 1: his name. I apologize. They're gonna be mad at me,
1:18:41
Speaker 1: Todd Todd, Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, thank you. What
1:18:46
Speaker 1: would you be doing with them if you were at
1:18:48
Speaker 1: the dance?
1:18:49
Speaker 2: Uh? In my view, we have some really great Canada. So,
1:18:53
Speaker 2: first of all, while acknowledging that you've mentioned some that
1:18:56
Speaker 2: are kind of maybe problematic or challenging for you know,
1:19:00
Speaker 2: do you advance a Democratic candidate? You are surveying the field,
1:19:03
Speaker 2: is there a strong candidate or not? You have to
1:19:04
Speaker 2: make prioritizations the question We're just say, well, who is
1:19:06
Speaker 2: a priority for you? Thankfully, the Democrats do have very
1:19:09
Speaker 2: strong priorities that you know, go to Alaska, you go Iowa, Texas, Maine,
1:19:13
Speaker 2: North Carolina, hire lots of potentials of pickups and on
1:19:17
Speaker 2: the Senate races alone, and you say, that's where the
1:19:21
Speaker 2: prioritization for the Democratic National Committee is right. Just to
1:19:23
Speaker 2: look at this field and look at the possibilities, and
1:19:26
Speaker 2: we need to advertise. This is the moment to advertise
1:19:28
Speaker 2: a different kind of a Democratic party. And Mary Bell
1:19:31
Speaker 2: totally gives you that. James Tallerico gives you on Grand
1:19:33
Speaker 2: Plantner gives you that. Obviously, have to navigate some primary
1:19:35
Speaker 2: issues here, who represents us in Iowa, who represents us
1:19:38
Speaker 2: in some of these other places. But I think that
1:19:40
Speaker 2: the possibility is that for the first cycle that I
1:19:42
Speaker 2: can remember a long period of time, we will have
1:19:44
Speaker 2: new faces that look and feel like working class voices,
1:19:48
Speaker 2: relatively new voices across the board, although Charit and Roy
1:19:51
Speaker 2: Cooper are older, but I think you might have the
1:19:54
Speaker 2: opportunity to say, here, look at the new faces, the
1:19:57
Speaker 2: new direction, the new or orientation of this Democrat Barry.
1:20:01
Speaker 2: That's what I think is really possible from the d
1:20:03
Speaker 2: n C side of things.
1:20:05
Speaker 1: So what would you do though about the secondary races
1:20:08
Speaker 1: of Montana and Nebraska?
1:20:11
Speaker 2: What do you say on the table? I mean, we're
1:20:13
Speaker 2: not going to be. We're not going to be.
1:20:15
Speaker 1: The Democrats agreed to stand down in Nebraska. I mean
1:20:18
Speaker 1: it seems like that's a that's an open secret. Montana's
1:20:22
Speaker 1: a different story where you have John Tester endorsing the Independent. Yeah.
1:20:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in my mind, if you feel like there's
1:20:30
Speaker 2: a good chance that we could capture the Senate with
1:20:33
Speaker 2: Democrats majority of the Democrats, why wouldn't you let a
1:20:37
Speaker 2: flyer run in Montana or wherever the case might be,
1:20:42
Speaker 2: in which we don't necessarily have to feel as a
1:20:45
Speaker 2: democratic Canadate because we think we can defeat the Republican
1:20:47
Speaker 2: with the Independent. I don't know, I haven't seen enough
1:20:49
Speaker 2: with the polling on that. But we're making a theoretical
1:20:53
Speaker 2: observation here that if we feel like we can get
1:20:55
Speaker 2: to fifty plus one with Democratic votes and that Osborne
1:20:59
Speaker 2: or dependent that Montana could win. Great, great, that's great,
1:21:03
Speaker 2: great grateful of us.
1:21:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I mean, I just this is the look
1:21:11
Speaker 1: I kind of think we we we kind of need
1:21:14
Speaker 1: a a moment that that push that forces both parties
1:21:18
Speaker 1: to rethink of what they are right, and that's what
1:21:20
Speaker 1: that's what independent candidacies can do. They're not replacements, right,
1:21:23
Speaker 1: We're not We're not doing that. There's not a third
1:21:25
Speaker 1: party that becomes a second party per se. But there's
1:21:29
Speaker 1: definitely interest in this right. You see it among younger voters.
1:21:33
Speaker 1: I assume you see it a lot in your work
1:21:35
Speaker 1: at more Perfect Union.
1:21:36
Speaker 2: No, I mean the MVP have we've seen this and
1:21:38
Speaker 2: Verie as he gets that he's done the fight, all
1:21:40
Speaker 2: Gurchy rallies and the course of the last year, and
1:21:42
Speaker 2: we look at the match every attendee over the vility
1:21:45
Speaker 2: involves minutes. And then same with the MVU, and we
1:21:47
Speaker 2: look at all of our audience where they're coming in.
1:21:51
Speaker 2: Particularly if you're younger than thirty five, you're you're an independent,
1:21:54
Speaker 2: You're you're no party preference. Honestly, even if you might
1:21:57
Speaker 2: say you're done, you're not really And so a lot
1:21:59
Speaker 2: of people are just are independent minded. But when you
1:22:02
Speaker 2: say independent minded, what is there? They still have ideological orientation.
1:22:07
Speaker 2: That's what often gets discounted, that the sense there's sometimes
1:22:10
Speaker 2: a conflation that independent is moderate, centrist, not c.
1:22:13
Speaker 1: What I always say independent usually is is you know,
1:22:17
Speaker 1: they nobody wants to feel like they have to own everything,
1:22:21
Speaker 1: the deeds and the rs stand for these days when
1:22:24
Speaker 1: I understand why people don't want to do.
1:22:26
Speaker 2: That, and that the partisanship isn't what appeals to people
1:22:29
Speaker 2: right now. It is I don't want to beat the
1:22:31
Speaker 2: dead horse hero once again, that the people's economic lives
1:22:35
Speaker 2: govern their orientation and they're thinking about politics, not the
1:22:39
Speaker 2: other way around. Politics doesn't tend to govern. I mean sure,
1:22:41
Speaker 2: like you and me political animals. If you think about
1:22:43
Speaker 2: politics all the time, most people I think about their
1:22:45
Speaker 2: economic lives, of the struggles, and then working backwards to
1:22:49
Speaker 2: does politics even match and represent or or have infuse
1:22:52
Speaker 2: anything into this? And the answer currently right now is
1:22:55
Speaker 2: not really, because you don't have working class candidates generally
1:23:00
Speaker 2: across the board who are matching your concerns over AI
1:23:03
Speaker 2: or the development or the lack of a few human
1:23:06
Speaker 2: labor force who matches where you're thinking is at.
1:23:20
Speaker 1: Where are you in the redistricting wars?
1:23:24
Speaker 2: You know, it's I think at some point we were
1:23:27
Speaker 2: always due for some kind of national orientation on this.
1:23:29
Speaker 2: To be honest with your idea, the sustainability of these
1:23:32
Speaker 2: kinds of state by state approaches is in this age,
1:23:37
Speaker 2: what we understand of Trump is a sense of authoritarianism,
1:23:40
Speaker 2: and you sense that there's an appeal among some people
1:23:42
Speaker 2: in the public rightly so that all structures across the
1:23:46
Speaker 2: board become dysfunctional. There's lack of trust in democracy because
1:23:49
Speaker 2: we don't believe that institutions can can function. So then
1:23:54
Speaker 2: in my mind, there are some of these approaches that
1:23:55
Speaker 2: make better sense to execute nationally. Now that we're in
1:23:59
Speaker 2: a cycle, in a race at the bottom, you fight
1:24:00
Speaker 2: the fights that you have to fight to fight the moment.
1:24:03
Speaker 1: That we're in, well, there's this mindset of just do
1:24:07
Speaker 1: whatever it takes to grab power. Then you can implement
1:24:10
Speaker 1: an agenda. And I sense that that is where you
1:24:14
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of a divide, almost like a
1:24:16
Speaker 1: tactical divide on the left, which.
1:24:18
Speaker 2: Is that there I don't even see that session ever.
1:24:20
Speaker 1: Just get power and then we'll worry about everything else.
1:24:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess the quibble there is do
1:24:25
Speaker 2: you sense an orientation once you have power?
1:24:28
Speaker 1: What you do?
1:24:29
Speaker 2: What is a first order priority of how do you
1:24:31
Speaker 2: solve this fundamental problem? And I think we have to
1:24:34
Speaker 2: we have to make sure that it's an integrity based
1:24:36
Speaker 2: movement of people are saying, hey, here's the right way
1:24:38
Speaker 2: an election system should work. Let's let's have national readition.
1:24:43
Speaker 1: Do you worry that the left giving up it's look,
1:24:46
Speaker 1: I do think so let me defend Here's how I
1:24:51
Speaker 1: would defend the Democratic Party's lack of why there's a
1:24:56
Speaker 1: little bit of fear of putting themselves out there or
1:25:00
Speaker 1: or picking a fight. I think I could make an
1:25:03
Speaker 1: argument that be playing the role of worthy adult in
1:25:07
Speaker 1: the room party has helped Democrats compete in some places
1:25:14
Speaker 1: that they normally wouldn't do as well, and so there's
1:25:17
Speaker 1: a fear of giving up the adult. For instance, I
1:25:19
Speaker 1: think for instan this redistricting, you spend fifteen years branding
1:25:24
Speaker 1: yourself as the party of fairness and then you throw
1:25:27
Speaker 1: it all away here. You can't get that back. Are
1:25:31
Speaker 1: you going to regret in the long run not being
1:25:34
Speaker 1: seen as the party that was willing to put fairness
1:25:36
Speaker 1: above partisanship.
1:25:38
Speaker 2: I don't live with that fear. I think everyone is
1:25:41
Speaker 2: fully aware why we are engaged in a kind of
1:25:44
Speaker 2: asymmetrical warfare and the need for a different orientation to
1:25:47
Speaker 2: meet the crisis of the moment. And that happens to
1:25:50
Speaker 2: be around Donald Trump and has the lack of value
1:25:54
Speaker 2: system of how he thinks about how to govern. And
1:25:57
Speaker 2: so you say, okay, well we we're going to fully
1:25:59
Speaker 2: lose ours. We got to fight a fight right now,
1:26:01
Speaker 2: the bullies in the in the in the in the alley,
1:26:04
Speaker 2: and then attacking you attack, But then once you reorient,
1:26:08
Speaker 2: So how would I better deal with this situation in
1:26:10
Speaker 2: the future such to avoid these kinds of problems? And
1:26:13
Speaker 2: I want that kind of a thinking that we have
1:26:15
Speaker 2: to be the structhur of a foreign party that says, hey,
1:26:18
Speaker 2: now that having it lived through chaos and a reorientation
1:26:21
Speaker 2: of what Donald Trump did to government, can we come
1:26:23
Speaker 2: in and be reform minded in our own right. This
1:26:26
Speaker 2: goes back to your issue with discussion of the Democrats
1:26:29
Speaker 2: not loving friction and fights. We come up status quo party.
1:26:33
Speaker 2: It is what it is assumed of you and of
1:26:34
Speaker 2: us in the words that you used as well. Adults, well, pragmatism.
1:26:39
Speaker 1: Has become code for status quo.
1:26:41
Speaker 2: Exactly adult minded is to say, no, listen, guys, don't
1:26:46
Speaker 2: fight fights you can't win, don't worry about this is
1:26:49
Speaker 2: the system as it's always been. Don't worry about it.
1:26:52
Speaker 2: And and I don't mean to describe oversuscribes to it,
1:26:55
Speaker 2: but there has been a sign mentality around people who
1:26:58
Speaker 2: are upper class, upper educated. Right you know, you're making
1:27:01
Speaker 2: over a hundred fifty thousand dollars a year, you have
1:27:03
Speaker 2: an advanced degree, and you're like, fundamentally, we don't need
1:27:07
Speaker 2: overhauls of any major things. But yeah, but the rest
1:27:10
Speaker 2: of America sixty plus percent believes in major systemic overhauls.
1:27:14
Speaker 2: We have to reflect those and they are needed in
1:27:16
Speaker 2: this moment.
1:27:19
Speaker 1: Who's the heir apparent to Bernie?
1:27:23
Speaker 2: I want a lot of people competing for that, lad Jack,
1:27:26
Speaker 2: I want I want a lot of people throw in
1:27:27
Speaker 2: their house.
1:27:28
Speaker 1: Is who do you think is doing a good job
1:27:29
Speaker 1: competing for the mantle right now?
1:27:32
Speaker 2: Good job competing is a high barber at the moment.
1:27:34
Speaker 2: I mean, there's obviously people. He has a great fondness
1:27:37
Speaker 2: for college. My Kazi pretension. He's gone out into the
1:27:40
Speaker 2: world with He's done events with a number of people.
1:27:42
Speaker 1: I mean, if it looks like he has a preference
1:27:45
Speaker 1: for her, if you're just watching observationally, and how many
1:27:48
Speaker 1: times he's done events with her versus others. But by
1:27:51
Speaker 1: reading the.
1:27:51
Speaker 2: Word preference is doing a lot of work for you there.
1:27:54
Speaker 2: But I'd say what is clear is that he respects
1:27:57
Speaker 2: that she has built something of a national appeal and
1:28:00
Speaker 2: has a lot of young people in particular who believe
1:28:03
Speaker 2: in her and her vichen of leadership, and he feels
1:28:06
Speaker 2: like he learned something from that. Right, is that, oh,
1:28:08
Speaker 2: here's somebody cultivating a populist kind of large natural, wide
1:28:13
Speaker 2: scale support. And for those of us, you know Bernie
1:28:16
Speaker 2: and he's a populist by nature, he respects those who
1:28:19
Speaker 2: have built You could be Trump, he could build AOC,
1:28:22
Speaker 2: you could be really any kind of politicians building huge
1:28:26
Speaker 2: amounts of support, because there's something to learn from that.
1:28:29
Speaker 2: Through that those kinds of people, you are getting a
1:28:32
Speaker 2: better access into what American public, what does American public
1:28:35
Speaker 2: think and believe? And in that way, it's sad to
1:28:39
Speaker 2: say that there aren't that many competitors on this front
1:28:43
Speaker 2: of who is populist, who gets their energy from people,
1:28:48
Speaker 2: who motivates and rallies large scales of people. AOC is
1:28:52
Speaker 2: at the top of that list right now, but there
1:28:53
Speaker 2: aren't that many beyond her, unless you want to challenge
1:28:59
Speaker 2: that condition.
1:28:59
Speaker 1: No, I'm I mean, I'm you know, look, I Will
1:29:01
Speaker 1: Rocanna would like to be considered. What do you said?
1:29:04
Speaker 1: What do you make of him?
1:29:05
Speaker 2: He's a very what you know about Row, he's very
1:29:07
Speaker 2: strategic and smart thinker, and you know his Silicon Valley times.
1:29:12
Speaker 1: He lets this strategic thinking go get too public.
1:29:17
Speaker 2: I don't know that that's a it's a flaw I
1:29:21
Speaker 2: would put on him. I mean, you want people to
1:29:22
Speaker 2: be them.
1:29:23
Speaker 1: I like it, but I wonder if it plays like
1:29:26
Speaker 1: if it looks like he's being too calculating at times.
1:29:29
Speaker 2: I mean, he is calculating heat.
1:29:33
Speaker 1: That's who he is. He's not going to pretend somebody
1:29:35
Speaker 1: is not right. I mean, he says it up front.
1:29:38
Speaker 1: He moved to Silicon Valley simply because he thought it
1:29:41
Speaker 1: was better to represent that world than suburban Philadelphia.
1:29:46
Speaker 2: He's smart, and I think you would add if you
1:29:48
Speaker 2: were here, he's a strategic, smart thinking person. Like that's great,
1:29:52
Speaker 2: and you know, in this competitive environment you're saying, I
1:29:55
Speaker 2: think in this you know, it's about the presidency. It's
1:29:58
Speaker 2: not just a battle over it's of intelligence. It is
1:30:01
Speaker 2: really kind of who captures the emotions and the visceralness
1:30:05
Speaker 2: of the feelings of American call, especially post Trump, where
1:30:08
Speaker 2: I think we'll have once again this moment of sensing
1:30:12
Speaker 2: who who. It's an entertainment industry as much as it
1:30:15
Speaker 2: is policy industry, and it's who feels like they are
1:30:19
Speaker 2: representing understand my life. And I think it's not just rows.
1:30:23
Speaker 2: A lot of people struggle to say, how how am
1:30:25
Speaker 2: I going to capture you emotionally?
1:30:28
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting here'd be the I think a
1:30:32
Speaker 1: challenge that a sort of Burnie protege might have in
1:30:36
Speaker 1: twenty eight is that, well, there's a big demand for change.
1:30:41
Speaker 1: There's an exhaustion from all the disruption Trump has caused.
1:30:44
Speaker 1: And I think that's going to be a competing issue, right,
1:30:49
Speaker 1: You're going to have I call it the divide is
1:30:51
Speaker 1: not left versus center, it really is fight versus unite
1:30:54
Speaker 1: a little bit. And you know, I think that you know,
1:30:58
Speaker 1: when you look at Biden by and benefited from the
1:31:01
Speaker 1: exhaustion wing of the country, and then he tried to
1:31:04
Speaker 1: govern as a massive change agent and it didn't take.
1:31:07
Speaker 1: And I think part of it is if you don't
1:31:08
Speaker 1: if you start governing different than you campaign, it doesn't
1:31:11
Speaker 1: matter whether you're closer to them or not. It's just
1:31:15
Speaker 1: it bothers people. It's disruptive, like you know, you know,
1:31:19
Speaker 1: it is why you know, why hasn't Trump been punished
1:31:21
Speaker 1: more for by the voters? Well, the voters kind of
1:31:24
Speaker 1: knew he was always going to do certain things, so
1:31:27
Speaker 1: there is an expectation. Biden set the expectations radically differently
1:31:32
Speaker 1: as a campaigner versus how he attempted to govern, and
1:31:35
Speaker 1: I think that's why he ran into some I think
1:31:37
Speaker 1: in hindsight that's why he ran into so many roadblocks,
1:31:40
Speaker 1: because what I get from you is if you tell
1:31:42
Speaker 1: people what you're going to do, you tell people you're
1:31:44
Speaker 1: going to be a disruptor, they're going to have more
1:31:46
Speaker 1: patience for you disrupting.
1:31:48
Speaker 2: And where I'm agreeing with you is that in that
1:31:51
Speaker 2: disruption argument, we need or want candidates who wrestle with
1:31:58
Speaker 2: coming in with an agenda and a plan on which
1:32:00
Speaker 2: is executable. That I think this project twenty twenty five,
1:32:05
Speaker 2: which obviously has now governed a lot of what Trump
1:32:07
Speaker 2: has done, and the fact that really came in with
1:32:09
Speaker 2: the qualifire doge and a lot of the desk.
1:32:12
Speaker 1: To learn from. Yeah, I'm trying to learn from that one.
1:32:16
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I could not stress this far. And
1:32:17
Speaker 2: I don't think enough thinking is being done on the
1:32:20
Speaker 2: left of center of given that you've got a reorientation
1:32:23
Speaker 2: if you were to walk into the presidency right now.
1:32:25
Speaker 1: It's what you know, it's interesting, it's what says She's
1:32:28
Speaker 1: trying to get cap to do is essentially be focused
1:32:31
Speaker 1: on if if he can destroy an agency without congressional approval, well,
1:32:36
Speaker 1: what can you do with agencies in other ways without
1:32:39
Speaker 1: congressional approval?
1:32:40
Speaker 2: We know it comes more from Alena con Wing of
1:32:44
Speaker 2: our party, which is to say, here's a woman, the
1:32:47
Speaker 2: talented person of integrity, comes into the FTC and says,
1:32:50
Speaker 2: here's all these latent powers that many people didn't even
1:32:52
Speaker 2: know existed, didn't believe this agency should operate in the
1:32:55
Speaker 2: way that it is. I'm coming in to reinstill a
1:32:58
Speaker 2: sense of imagination and purpose and mission to this place
1:33:02
Speaker 2: morek into what it was founded to be and Therefore,
1:33:05
Speaker 2: one of our primary objectives is to look at corporate
1:33:08
Speaker 2: concentration problems file lawsuits. Even when people in the bureaucracy
1:33:12
Speaker 2: might say, well, we haven't filed lawsuits like that before.
1:33:15
Speaker 2: Those would be very hard, those would be challenging. Those
1:33:17
Speaker 2: are traditionally not what we do. It's like, guess what
1:33:20
Speaker 2: new sheriff in town. We're going to file some lawsuits
1:33:23
Speaker 2: and we're putting ourselves on the front edge. Now, if
1:33:25
Speaker 2: you're going to come into government, you're going to own that.
1:33:26
Speaker 2: We're going to do stuff here. We're going to have
1:33:28
Speaker 2: to shake up the way in which the corporate world
1:33:31
Speaker 2: is two stacked against the American public. And that is understood.
1:33:34
Speaker 2: So if you take that FTC approach authored by I
1:33:37
Speaker 2: think by Lena that WORL. Hitchopra at the CFPB was
1:33:40
Speaker 2: great and effective as well, and you apply that across
1:33:43
Speaker 2: the board. It's part of a agriculture. We need somebody
1:33:45
Speaker 2: who shakes that up. We need Center for Medicare and
1:33:47
Speaker 2: Medicaid Services shakes that up and said what are the
1:33:49
Speaker 2: powers to have more rural hospitals in America. I'm not
1:33:53
Speaker 2: going to sit here and just navigate the bureaucracy and
1:33:56
Speaker 2: the rules as it were. I have some purpose and
1:33:58
Speaker 2: mission to some real concrete goals, and I'm going to
1:34:01
Speaker 2: use the authorities to come in and do it. That
1:34:03
Speaker 2: kind of thinking, I think has been more associated with
1:34:05
Speaker 2: the progressive wing because they believe in the sense of
1:34:08
Speaker 2: a mission and a purpose and disruption. To your point,
1:34:11
Speaker 2: that like, we're going to tap these latent authorities and
1:34:14
Speaker 2: have a concrete goal. Not just I think you know,
1:34:17
Speaker 2: good people, but Sarah Bill Sack, all these kinds of
1:34:19
Speaker 2: folks who've lived in government for a long period of time.
1:34:21
Speaker 2: Can you get the sense they come in and say,
1:34:23
Speaker 2: what is it that we all have agreed to do here? Right, Okay,
1:34:26
Speaker 2: we'll just do what we've all agreed.
1:34:28
Speaker 1: To do doing it like, no, it's a little bit
1:34:30
Speaker 1: of agency capture. Yes, So of the all the people
1:34:37
Speaker 1: that run around floating, you know sort of, that are
1:34:40
Speaker 1: auditioning right now to run for president Among the Democrats,
1:34:44
Speaker 1: who do you pay attention to the most? Who are
1:34:46
Speaker 1: you like I'm curious how they were received with that message,
1:34:49
Speaker 1: or I'm intrigued by the message they're using, or I
1:34:55
Speaker 1: don't understand what they're up to. You know, I'll just
1:34:59
Speaker 1: start naming it.
1:35:01
Speaker 2: Obviously, he's built the strongest small dollar fundraising that work.
1:35:05
Speaker 2: I mean, if you if you start not only with
1:35:06
Speaker 2: the poles of him building his traction support off of
1:35:10
Speaker 2: Trump problem. I mean, in many ways, it's kind of
1:35:12
Speaker 2: become the clearest you know, you almost we have the
1:35:14
Speaker 2: visual in our head the finger point right of Trump
1:35:16
Speaker 2: right out the tarback like right, that's what the t is. Yeah, right,
1:35:21
Speaker 2: He's built it and he's cultivated. I think what he
1:35:23
Speaker 2: has done more effectively than anybody so far is he's
1:35:26
Speaker 2: translated that into an actual political app right, so they
1:35:30
Speaker 2: as he as he delivers indoors.
1:35:32
Speaker 1: Do you know any policy proposal he's offering.
1:35:34
Speaker 2: I don't think he's really. I mean, he's obviously doing
1:35:36
Speaker 2: the podcast circuit, which is Yeah.
1:35:39
Speaker 1: That's my thing with him, and that's why I think
1:35:40
Speaker 1: it's a it's probably a sugar high well, by the way, on.
1:35:44
Speaker 2: That right, he's stuck in the morassos where well, tax
1:35:47
Speaker 2: is probably one of the biggest fights of our age
1:35:49
Speaker 2: right now, one of the point one of the biggest
1:35:51
Speaker 2: issue space in public. If I go out anywhere to
1:35:54
Speaker 2: any tamehol, I don'kay put a bunch of bag of
1:35:56
Speaker 2: people from me and I talked about taxing the rich.
1:35:58
Speaker 2: I guarantee you I got a lot of support. And
1:36:01
Speaker 2: here he is in what in California, basically opposing well Texan,
1:36:05
Speaker 2: not figuring out.
1:36:06
Speaker 1: Exactly he's probably eliminating himself from Democratic Party contention, and
1:36:09
Speaker 1: he doesn't fully.
1:36:10
Speaker 2: Realize employees out. But I imagine he's not, you know,
1:36:13
Speaker 2: not where the public is right now. AI too, by
1:36:16
Speaker 2: the way, you know, data centers also on the wrong
1:36:18
Speaker 2: side of that one. But not only him, I mean
1:36:20
Speaker 2: Shapiro Wmer. A lot of the governors have been stuck
1:36:23
Speaker 2: in these wrong I think, wrong positions on you know,
1:36:26
Speaker 2: cozying up to big tech, all the garths on data centers.
1:36:29
Speaker 1: Rob Emmanuel, you know, he's doing it differently than everybody
1:36:33
Speaker 1: else right now, which I find just I'm always interested
1:36:36
Speaker 1: in different you know.
1:36:38
Speaker 2: And I was talking before about the sense that you
1:36:40
Speaker 2: got to just politic better, and at least to his credit,
1:36:44
Speaker 2: he's like, I'll own that bas I'm just the politic better.
1:36:47
Speaker 2: I think the struggle that it have with wrong right
1:36:49
Speaker 2: you know this well is here's the person been in
1:36:51
Speaker 2: politics for like twenty thirty years.
1:36:52
Speaker 1: I don't know how his baggage, right, I think his
1:36:55
Speaker 1: resume is too long for what people are looking for today.
1:36:58
Speaker 2: Right to be on every side of various fight raft Ian,
1:37:01
Speaker 2: You and I could go every text.
1:37:04
Speaker 1: You would be able to, you would be able to knit.
1:37:07
Speaker 1: You could pick a thousand knits in a Democratic primary,
1:37:10
Speaker 1: and he would be deaf by a thousand cuts. And
1:37:12
Speaker 1: yet what he's doing on the education issue is I
1:37:17
Speaker 1: think something that and he's been right. He came on
1:37:20
Speaker 1: this podcast and said, you know, I don't know why
1:37:22
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party stopped talking about education, and He's right,
1:37:25
Speaker 1: as a national issue, the Democrats have kind of surrendered
1:37:28
Speaker 1: this issue.
1:37:29
Speaker 2: A great yes, and I'll challenge.
1:37:32
Speaker 1: I think it's why Latinos. I think it's why Latinos
1:37:35
Speaker 1: have been flirting with the Republicans, because the one thing
1:37:38
Speaker 1: Republicans do on a state level is they talk about education. Now,
1:37:43
Speaker 1: they don't want they want to gut public education. But
1:37:47
Speaker 1: you know, if you're a Latino voter, you care about education,
1:37:49
Speaker 1: one party is talking about giving you an opportunity to
1:37:52
Speaker 1: do something different. The other party's saying nothing. Right.
1:37:55
Speaker 2: So what I love about him, and I appreciate this,
1:37:57
Speaker 2: is that he is willing to throw ideas into the
1:37:59
Speaker 2: main it up. Let me just say that's on education.
1:38:02
Speaker 2: What I what I worry about is obviously you could
1:38:03
Speaker 2: get phones out of schools, that's easy, but you got
1:38:05
Speaker 2: to take on the power a big tech. That's a
1:38:07
Speaker 2: funmentally different question. I think related to this is all
1:38:11
Speaker 2: throw an idea. You know, I'm a pro labor guy,
1:38:13
Speaker 2: and I still believe that we should have year round
1:38:16
Speaker 2: schooling in America, which I'm not sure where the you
1:38:18
Speaker 2: know where our teachers unions might feel about it, but
1:38:20
Speaker 2: we should have year round schooling and that.
1:38:21
Speaker 1: That's something that would be enormously popular. And I have
1:38:24
Speaker 1: no idea why some of this.
1:38:25
Speaker 2: It should be built around trades, food, finance. We should
1:38:29
Speaker 2: teach kids how to cook those imagine summer programs that
1:38:33
Speaker 2: more built carrying.
1:38:37
Speaker 1: You for life life skills, a summer of life skills.
1:38:40
Speaker 1: But it's mandatory education. Nobody says you have to go
1:38:43
Speaker 1: to the same school. Maybe a camp offers it, maybe
1:38:46
Speaker 1: there's it's a form. Look what you're what you're getting to.
1:38:50
Speaker 1: I love this idea because what it gets me closer
1:38:52
Speaker 1: to is national mandatory national service.
1:38:55
Speaker 2: And so now I'm one hundred to stay with that one.
1:38:57
Speaker 2: So I think of the ideas I think to put
1:38:59
Speaker 2: on the Jennifer twenty twenty. I hope there's Democrat candidates
1:39:02
Speaker 2: who says that having scenes around them done, you execute
1:39:05
Speaker 2: a thirty dollars hour snow shoveling job in a crisis.
1:39:08
Speaker 2: We need to take that kernel of an idea and
1:39:11
Speaker 2: expand this nation wide. We need to put we need
1:39:14
Speaker 2: to make political economy judgments for this nation of the
1:39:17
Speaker 2: areas that we need service workers and other kinds of
1:39:21
Speaker 2: trade workers to work in that we do not have
1:39:23
Speaker 2: sufficient numbers of people working in, whether dentist, doctors, nurses, teachers,
1:39:27
Speaker 2: whatever the case might be. We need more of these. I,
1:39:30
Speaker 2: as President United Stations, prepared to make that determination and
1:39:33
Speaker 2: set wages and benefits such that you can go and
1:39:36
Speaker 2: do public service for two three years to help our
1:39:39
Speaker 2: nation to do elder care. I will make sure you
1:39:42
Speaker 2: get paid eighty thousand dollars seventy thousand dollars with benefits
1:39:45
Speaker 2: to go and do this because the nation calls you.
1:39:48
Speaker 2: Right now, I am hungry for that kind of a vision.
1:40:00
Speaker 1: I think if you did a mandatory national service that
1:40:03
Speaker 1: was bigger than this is not the military draft, you know,
1:40:06
Speaker 1: this is different.
1:40:08
Speaker 2: Well, it's a version of it domestically, it's saying that,
1:40:11
Speaker 2: unlike a military, would we mobilize people in service, which
1:40:14
Speaker 2: you know is I'll confuse people on my views on ICE.
1:40:16
Speaker 2: But I do then to think a lot of people
1:40:18
Speaker 2: who sign up for ICE CBP right now see a
1:40:20
Speaker 2: fifty thousand dollars bonus are motivated not only financially, but
1:40:24
Speaker 2: also a sense of purpose and mission. I got federal
1:40:26
Speaker 2: job protecting your nation. I want to go after this
1:40:28
Speaker 2: vast majority of them say, Hey, what if I give
1:40:30
Speaker 2: you fifty thousand dollars to be a school teacher in
1:40:32
Speaker 2: eighth grade or do the summer school that we're just
1:40:34
Speaker 2: talking about. Would you do that instead? Would you help
1:40:36
Speaker 2: be a young male mentor for so many young men
1:40:39
Speaker 2: who need it? I think they would be there for
1:40:41
Speaker 2: it one hundred percent.
1:40:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk a little geographic tactics. If you could
1:40:48
Speaker 1: pick the ideal first four states to start the democratic
1:40:51
Speaker 1: primary process.
1:40:52
Speaker 2: I got my first. That's easy, right? Where am I going? First? That?
1:40:55
Speaker 2: What are you?
1:40:56
Speaker 1: Is your FORO? What do you think that should be
1:40:57
Speaker 1: the right test?
1:40:58
Speaker 2: At one hundred percent? So that Nevada to.
1:41:00
Speaker 1: Start in Nevada first person, are you on the DNC.
1:41:03
Speaker 2: Did you get I'm removed?
1:41:08
Speaker 1: Removed? Congrats.
1:41:09
Speaker 2: I guess the eurogen has got a different order, but
1:41:12
Speaker 2: I understood and I was comfortable with that. To be clear,
1:41:15
Speaker 2: I'm just not me upset about it.
1:41:18
Speaker 1: So I but look, you come for the king best
1:41:22
Speaker 1: not Missay.
1:41:24
Speaker 2: They do me a service of not needing to be
1:41:28
Speaker 2: I I think that I would love Nevada go first.
1:41:31
Speaker 2: There's a lot of reasons. You know, I'm an old
1:41:33
Speaker 2: grey guy, and I think there's a lot of things
1:41:35
Speaker 2: about that state that the service it well and in
1:41:38
Speaker 2: terms of a primary the compressed geography is they've able
1:41:41
Speaker 2: to meet and talk to people one to one, do
1:41:44
Speaker 2: TV ads and such that don't blow the budget. So
1:41:47
Speaker 2: I think that that that makes sense for one.
1:41:50
Speaker 1: I love you're not concerned that Vegas is too big
1:41:53
Speaker 1: of a market now, No, I.
1:41:54
Speaker 2: Think it's got a lot of working class people, culinary
1:41:56
Speaker 2: you know this. I mean, I love that the labor
1:41:59
Speaker 2: approach of that is one that would orient Democrats to
1:42:02
Speaker 2: figuring out how to talk about labor again. I mean,
1:42:05
Speaker 2: we don't go through the dough tax on tips. But
1:42:06
Speaker 2: Trump was very loud and proud about the fact that
1:42:09
Speaker 2: that state and those workers in that state have guided
1:42:11
Speaker 2: him to one of his more popular proposals. You know,
1:42:14
Speaker 2: so I want that to happen. For the Democratic Party Michigan,
1:42:18
Speaker 2: I would move, you know, I would take either.
1:42:20
Speaker 1: Put the top four. That's a big state to put
1:42:23
Speaker 1: in the top four.
1:42:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. But it's such a again because.
1:42:26
Speaker 1: I always worry about the big states just favoring the
1:42:28
Speaker 1: money candidates. All.
1:42:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's fair to where in the first four.
1:42:32
Speaker 2: It's an open question here. I like, I probably put
1:42:36
Speaker 2: Georgia over North Carolina. But between Georgia and North Carolina
1:42:39
Speaker 2: for me on one of those, uh, and then and
1:42:43
Speaker 2: then we got a TVD here on what we want
1:42:45
Speaker 2: as the fourth.
1:42:46
Speaker 1: Well, I here's the here would be My concern about
1:42:49
Speaker 1: your Matt and and what I've been obsessed with is
1:42:51
Speaker 1: that I do think what Iowa did do for the
1:42:53
Speaker 1: Democratic Party for a long time is that it got
1:42:57
Speaker 1: it forced Democrats to talk doctor world voters right, and
1:43:02
Speaker 1: to go out and it's you know, and look, I
1:43:04
Speaker 1: understand there's this scar tissue from Iowa and for the
1:43:09
Speaker 1: you know, two times in a row it's not clear
1:43:12
Speaker 1: who won. And you know that's you want to be
1:43:16
Speaker 1: our first in the nation and you can't tell us
1:43:17
Speaker 1: who won twice now, right, So I understand that aspect,
1:43:21
Speaker 1: But there's also a party building aspect. Right. So if
1:43:24
Speaker 1: you made Kansas or Nebraska, which could easily both, you know,
1:43:29
Speaker 1: I could make the case for both of them as
1:43:31
Speaker 1: an Iowa like replacement. You also might start organizing a
1:43:35
Speaker 1: state and turning it into turning a state that's light
1:43:37
Speaker 1: red at the moment to a swing state.
1:43:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. Unfortunately that isn't the story of Iowa as we know.
1:43:43
Speaker 1: No, but once it was there, it was. I mean
1:43:45
Speaker 1: which case I think? Look, Iowa, New Hampshire are there
1:43:48
Speaker 1: are two states that demographically don't belong in the battleground,
1:43:51
Speaker 1: and they were in the battleground a long time. And
1:43:53
Speaker 1: I think it's simply because they were first in the
1:43:55
Speaker 1: nation states, meaning that voters, I think voters. This is
1:43:59
Speaker 1: where we underestimate voters. If you treat voters like swing voters,
1:44:03
Speaker 1: they'll behave like swing voters. And and if you treat
1:44:07
Speaker 1: them like you know, partisan voters, they'll behave like partisan
1:44:10
Speaker 1: voters sometimes.
1:44:11
Speaker 2: Right, I'll give you a crazy idea that I've long
1:44:13
Speaker 2: had about this out, which was along those lines was
1:44:16
Speaker 2: to look at highest democratic performance of every state and
1:44:24
Speaker 2: line them up by which state parties. In other words,
1:44:28
Speaker 2: we're doing a great job cycle after cycle of making
1:44:31
Speaker 2: sure that that's.
1:44:32
Speaker 1: Almost like a reverse lottery, right like you you earn
1:44:35
Speaker 1: you want first in the nation, be the best democratic
1:44:37
Speaker 1: performing stage.
1:44:38
Speaker 2: You have a spot for them essentially, Like you know,
1:44:40
Speaker 2: I'm not a huge soccer fanible from what I understand,
1:44:43
Speaker 2: you know you have like the you know, the second tier,
1:44:45
Speaker 2: the good degas. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
1:44:47
Speaker 1: You want to be in the first tranche of primaries
1:44:50
Speaker 1: where you'll get a lot of candidates and a lot
1:44:52
Speaker 1: of money, a lot of extra resources, or do you
1:44:55
Speaker 1: want to be in the second trants of primaries or
1:44:58
Speaker 1: it might be a coronation by the time you're your statement.
1:45:00
Speaker 2: The only challenge with my line of thinking there is
1:45:03
Speaker 2: that sometimes sometimes the smaller states benefit, because very month.
1:45:08
Speaker 1: In Delaware could both benefit.
1:45:10
Speaker 2: I'm sure right exactly, So I do, though think to
1:45:14
Speaker 2: your point, I mean, it's making your argument here, how
1:45:16
Speaker 2: and why you could have a recipe to do that.
1:45:18
Speaker 2: It's okay, a smaller state that will overperform getting democratic
1:45:21
Speaker 2: vote out and will have earned a spot in the
1:45:23
Speaker 2: first four by virtue of that, And I think it's
1:45:27
Speaker 2: not a bad thing to everything that you just say.
1:45:28
Speaker 2: It's probably more you know, probably rule tendencies and now
1:45:31
Speaker 2: your rewarding states to say, show me that you are
1:45:34
Speaker 2: going to turn Democratic voters out on YouTube and find
1:45:37
Speaker 2: yourself in the top at least have a metric and
1:45:39
Speaker 2: guide for a.
1:45:39
Speaker 1: How's it likely? Or how about Kansas sixteen sixteen years
1:45:45
Speaker 1: of democratic governors in the last twenty four Yet they
1:45:49
Speaker 1: get treated like, you know, as if that that's not
1:45:52
Speaker 1: an accomplishment worth noting.
1:45:54
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, But on this though, the thing I'm trying
1:45:59
Speaker 2: to distress is not that Democrats have held offices, is
1:46:02
Speaker 2: that we're building our ranks. I want to see and
1:46:05
Speaker 2: reward those in the state parties who are who are
1:46:07
Speaker 2: doing an aggressive job of building the people. And right now,
1:46:13
Speaker 2: that was my number one critique of a democratic natural
1:46:16
Speaker 2: committee of architecture is that that is not one thing
1:46:18
Speaker 2: that we measure or assess or reward. If you're going
1:46:21
Speaker 2: to give money out to state parties, do it with
1:46:23
Speaker 2: some metrics or goals in mind, and say, hey, you know,
1:46:26
Speaker 2: you will earn this money by showing me that people
1:46:30
Speaker 2: within your ranks have grown, How have they grown? What
1:46:33
Speaker 2: volunteer capacities have you done? How will you earn these
1:46:36
Speaker 2: dollars not just new dolling them ount.
1:46:38
Speaker 1: Well, but let's fast forward to the twenty thirty two
1:46:41
Speaker 1: problem for Democrats, which is, right, the Kamala Harris map
1:46:45
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, if she carries Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan,
1:46:51
Speaker 1: she has two hundred and seventy electoral votes. In twenty
1:46:54
Speaker 1: thirty two, that same group of states, it's worth two
1:46:58
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty nine. So where do you invest? Look.
1:47:03
Speaker 1: I understand rewarding those states, but you I think the
1:47:07
Speaker 1: Democrats have to put more states in play. They have
1:47:09
Speaker 1: to start looking for And to me, Kansas is just ripe.
1:47:13
Speaker 1: I just I view Kansas is really ripe on this
1:47:16
Speaker 1: issue more than any other state in this sort of
1:47:20
Speaker 1: mid mid in the middle part of the country. And
1:47:23
Speaker 1: then there's the question of Texas and Florida. Right, they're big,
1:47:26
Speaker 1: giant pots of money suck. But if you put them
1:47:29
Speaker 1: in play, you really screw up the strategy of the Republicans,
1:47:34
Speaker 1: right because they count on those two states. So how
1:47:36
Speaker 1: would you be how would you be thinking about twenty
1:47:40
Speaker 1: thirty two if you were sitting at the DNC right now.
1:47:42
Speaker 2: But you've got to find somewhere in the sun Belt
1:47:46
Speaker 2: to invest in. I mean Georgia. Obviously we're talking.
1:47:51
Speaker 1: Imagine if they hadn't done Georgia, right, and you know Georgia,
1:47:53
Speaker 1: North Carolina nour must wins. They're not nice to have
1:47:56
Speaker 1: us anymore.
1:47:57
Speaker 2: And how to my mind, you can't be the SEC
1:48:01
Speaker 2: this year after It's like that doesn't.
1:48:03
Speaker 1: So which ones would you go to? I haven't been intrigued.
1:48:06
Speaker 1: My my favorite ones to look at that I think
1:48:08
Speaker 1: are organizable probably the way I would begin. Obviously, look,
1:48:15
Speaker 1: we'll see what Texas does. You know, winning is a
1:48:18
Speaker 1: big deal, right if Tyllerica.
1:48:19
Speaker 2: Wins, winning is a big deal. But over that.
1:48:22
Speaker 1: Does bring dollars to the state party. I was reading,
1:48:24
Speaker 1: I was doing the history of Texas campaigns a couple
1:48:27
Speaker 1: of weeks ago, and the John Tower victory in nineteen
1:48:31
Speaker 1: sixty one, when Republicans broke through the first time in
1:48:34
Speaker 1: since reconstruction. It said like that was the first That
1:48:38
Speaker 1: following year was the first time the National Republicans had
1:48:40
Speaker 1: ever written a check to the state Republicans in Texas.
1:48:43
Speaker 1: Right like it opened it does open the mind. Coming
1:48:46
Speaker 1: close doesn't always do that. Actually winning does it. So
1:48:49
Speaker 1: I see the path there. I look at a Mississippi,
1:48:52
Speaker 1: which is to me when you look at it, if you,
1:48:55
Speaker 1: if you, if you created a statistic like baseball does
1:48:59
Speaker 1: with win above replacement, when you look at the cost
1:49:02
Speaker 1: of investing versus the potential for return, Mississippi is the
1:49:07
Speaker 1: best value on the board.
1:49:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, and how do you think of that as different
1:49:11
Speaker 2: from Alabama? It's compared like we obviously Doug Jones was
1:49:14
Speaker 2: you know, Center obviously in a bit of a fluke situation.
1:49:17
Speaker 2: But nevertheless, we.
1:49:18
Speaker 1: Do American voters in MISSISSIPPISPI, I mean I don't disagree that.
1:49:23
Speaker 1: I think, look, if if you succeed in Mississippi, then
1:49:27
Speaker 1: Alabama surrounded, right Georgia on one side, Mississippi and the other,
1:49:31
Speaker 1: and then you'll find out. I think Alabama's just a
1:49:34
Speaker 1: little bit different. And yeah, probably not.
1:49:36
Speaker 2: I've been intrigued by more of the labor activity in
1:49:39
Speaker 2: the state. Obviously, you know UAW had Donnam Mercedes organizing campaign.
1:49:43
Speaker 2: There's an Amazon warehouse organizing in Alabama that it was United
1:49:47
Speaker 2: Mind workers who have been fighting over.
1:49:49
Speaker 1: Shipbuilders down a mobile I mean, there's definitely something.
1:49:52
Speaker 2: I think the labor base started, and it leads to
1:49:55
Speaker 2: a candidate too. So we're talking, we're talking about candidate.
1:49:58
Speaker 2: It's intrigued by you know, Holly Shaffner I think is
1:50:00
Speaker 2: her name. Who's who's running against Tom Cotton the cycle
1:50:04
Speaker 2: in Arkansas. I mean, obviously very very uphill fight. But
1:50:07
Speaker 2: I love a lover Bio which he's a work farmer
1:50:09
Speaker 2: who you know, who's standing with the farm workers in
1:50:13
Speaker 2: the very economic minded argument. And I'm like that that.
1:50:16
Speaker 2: I like for Arkansas, that's a good that's a good candidate,
1:50:19
Speaker 2: but I'd like to see it for Alabama, for Mississippi,
1:50:22
Speaker 2: putting forward those kinds of working class candidates that represent
1:50:27
Speaker 2: what I think are a lot of Democratic voters by history.
1:50:30
Speaker 2: I mean, we know these about West Virginia's and these
1:50:32
Speaker 2: kinds of states that if you go back to lineage,
1:50:35
Speaker 2: they've been Democratic voters, but they just feel the Democratic
1:50:37
Speaker 2: parties left them.
1:50:39
Speaker 1: Let me get you out of here. I realized we're
1:50:40
Speaker 1: just going over now, and I don't mean to do
1:50:42
Speaker 1: that to you. Let me get you out of here.
1:50:43
Speaker 1: On this, did you have a big preference between Tallerico
1:50:46
Speaker 1: and Crockett, what did you make of that primary campaign?
1:50:50
Speaker 1: I can just tell you. I say this not just
1:50:53
Speaker 1: as a as a guy who just enjoys a good campaign,
1:50:56
Speaker 1: but I felt like I felt like I didn't want
1:50:59
Speaker 1: that campaign to end yet. I wanted a couple more weeks.
1:51:02
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just because it was fun. I actually
1:51:05
Speaker 1: think they didn't debate enough. I wanted a little bit
1:51:08
Speaker 1: more of this debate. There was a style debate, yes,
1:51:14
Speaker 1: but there was some issues that were getting lost, right, Like,
1:51:17
Speaker 1: you know, Tall Rico is moderate and temperament progressive in
1:51:20
Speaker 1: his in his belief system. I think Crockett is, you know,
1:51:24
Speaker 1: a fighter obviously, but not you know, not Ness's probably
1:51:29
Speaker 1: would probably a little bit to the right of Tall Rico,
1:51:32
Speaker 1: but I.
1:51:32
Speaker 2: Think so yeah, Tall in many ways, in my view
1:51:36
Speaker 2: at least, was embodying a lot of a Bernie kind
1:51:39
Speaker 2: of argument with a different type of tone.
1:51:42
Speaker 1: Inside, putting it with a religious tone, which is right,
1:51:44
Speaker 1: Bernie's never gone down the religious.
1:51:46
Speaker 2: Staf Yeah, and so I think I think I was
1:51:50
Speaker 2: very pleased to see that kind I mean, I did
1:51:53
Speaker 2: feel like, here's a guy who's campaigning on a version
1:51:57
Speaker 2: of what I could imagine Centator Sanders doing in Texas.
1:52:00
Speaker 1: He's trying to sell Bernie to a different group of voters.
1:52:02
Speaker 1: Is what I would have got it? Is that fair? Exactly?
1:52:04
Speaker 2: Yes, And he's talked to only about his respect and
1:52:08
Speaker 2: admiration for Centator Sanders. So I think that I was
1:52:10
Speaker 2: there with with Crockett, obviously having gotten Commo's endorsement. It
1:52:14
Speaker 2: felt much more around a reflexive anti Trump type of campaign,
1:52:18
Speaker 2: which does meet a lot of voters where they're at
1:52:20
Speaker 2: of you know, give me that fight in a sense
1:52:23
Speaker 2: of swagger and a comfort and the kind of I
1:52:26
Speaker 2: am prepared to not play by rules with this guy,
1:52:30
Speaker 2: you know. And there's some appeal to that, for sure.
1:52:32
Speaker 2: We can't discount that. But if you're looking for agenda
1:52:36
Speaker 2: of who is thinking economic first, of a fight against
1:52:40
Speaker 2: a wealthy oliguards taking out corporate greed and corporate power,
1:52:44
Speaker 2: that was Talleriico, and I think it's one of the
1:52:45
Speaker 2: reasons that he was able to build all. You can
1:52:47
Speaker 2: look at the Latinos and why working classly. When we
1:52:50
Speaker 2: think of Latinos, they're working class Latinos, right, People making
1:52:53
Speaker 2: one hundred three thousand dollars, often working and holding a
1:52:56
Speaker 2: job and not with a college degree, those folks moving
1:52:59
Speaker 2: back in democratic ten, I think motivated by that kind
1:53:02
Speaker 2: of an appeal and to you to your point of
1:53:05
Speaker 2: value orientation around the religion as well, he.
1:53:07
Speaker 1: Wins a Texas Center race, or we are we ridiculous
1:53:10
Speaker 1: to think of him as a presidential contender automatically.
1:53:13
Speaker 2: No doubt. I mean that given the the where it's
1:53:17
Speaker 2: at right now, I think both Tellerico and if you know,
1:53:20
Speaker 2: who knows what happens in Maine with Platner, But you
1:53:23
Speaker 2: have these two candidates that's.
1:53:25
Speaker 1: Pretty charismatic, and they're pretty they've got outsized personalities, and
1:53:29
Speaker 1: you could I.
1:53:30
Speaker 2: Mean, obviously we'll have to know who the governor is
1:53:31
Speaker 2: to get on succession problems and all that. But in
1:53:35
Speaker 2: the Texas houses problem, right, clearly.
1:53:37
Speaker 1: But I think you take that problem. You know, the
1:53:39
Speaker 1: only way that happens is if he actually won the presidency.
1:53:42
Speaker 1: But anyway, yeah.
1:53:43
Speaker 2: Right, but I do think that you know, it would
1:53:46
Speaker 2: be very compelling and you remember the Obama story well,
1:53:49
Speaker 2: but it was probably too he was the incentiate for
1:53:51
Speaker 2: two years at least. These folks would lily be in
1:53:53
Speaker 2: the Senate.
1:53:54
Speaker 1: For no right, always asks me who's going to be
1:53:57
Speaker 1: the Democratic nominee And I'm like, well, none of the
1:53:59
Speaker 1: people you're talking about, And I said, I just sort
1:54:02
Speaker 1: of know that. I kind of know Democrats. They usually
1:54:05
Speaker 1: want the newest, hottest flavor, and that could be Molly McMorrow,
1:54:10
Speaker 1: that could be James tallerco that could be Dan Osborne.
1:54:14
Speaker 1: You know, I say this, and I'm like, you know,
1:54:16
Speaker 1: none of us saw Pete footage as a cider.
1:54:18
Speaker 2: I think you mentioned this earlier on independent side, which
1:54:21
Speaker 2: is true that had somebody running as a third party
1:54:24
Speaker 2: could definitely do very well in twenty twenty eight and
1:54:26
Speaker 2: be a concern or issue here. But within the Democratic
1:54:29
Speaker 2: Party ranks that outsider, I think, which.
1:54:32
Speaker 1: There's an outsider lane, Yeah, yeah, And right now I
1:54:35
Speaker 1: don't see there's there's no governor that's even you know,
1:54:39
Speaker 1: Andy Basheer. I think some people thought was going to
1:54:42
Speaker 1: do this, and he seems to be trying. I think
1:54:45
Speaker 1: he's at risk of losing what made him different, that
1:54:49
Speaker 1: he's almost becoming too part of the of the leadership
1:54:52
Speaker 1: structure of the party, DGA and stuff.
1:54:55
Speaker 2: Some people don't remember Steve Bullock ran for president and
1:54:57
Speaker 2: when you look at the bullet you know, the resume
1:55:00
Speaker 2: matches like, it looks nice and there's a good kind
1:55:02
Speaker 2: of theoretical appeal about it. And then as you know,
1:55:05
Speaker 2: you're in a presdential politics butter in a frying pan.
1:55:07
Speaker 2: You know, it's a very different beast and you have
1:55:09
Speaker 2: to be kind of a lot of different things that
1:55:12
Speaker 2: you don't have to be as governor.
1:55:14
Speaker 1: I just can't imagine Bernie is going to sit on
1:55:15
Speaker 1: the sidelines fast is.
1:55:18
Speaker 2: Once you have an idea, Russ, let us know, check
1:55:21
Speaker 2: who should we be getting behind?
1:55:22
Speaker 1: And I mean, no, that's the thing, like I think,
1:55:24
Speaker 1: you know, why shouldn't I assume Bernie gets.
1:55:26
Speaker 2: In, Oh for the reasons that you would.
1:55:31
Speaker 1: I know why he shouldn't. But I just know it's
1:55:37
Speaker 1: still the most popular politician in America.
1:55:39
Speaker 2: Until they come out with the anti aging pill, which
1:55:41
Speaker 2: please you know, looking for at Pharma, you know, bring
1:55:44
Speaker 2: it out, but until I think.
1:55:46
Speaker 1: Big Farma could do right. You know what, Big Farm
1:55:49
Speaker 1: has been hiding that pill for fear that Bernie gets elected.
1:55:52
Speaker 2: You know that.
1:55:55
Speaker 1: I'll get you out of here on tell me about
1:55:57
Speaker 1: more perfect union and where people can find what your
1:55:59
Speaker 1: work the.
1:56:00
Speaker 2: Love if they go to YouTube, as the kids say,
1:56:03
Speaker 2: like and subscribe YouTube Backslash more Perfect Union. We're up
1:56:07
Speaker 2: to well over three million subscribers, are getting over two
1:56:10
Speaker 2: hundred million views a month, and we're like, we're rocking
1:56:13
Speaker 2: and rolling. So please be among those who are helping
1:56:16
Speaker 2: us grow independent means.
1:56:18
Speaker 1: And take one percent of those those liking subscribes. There.
1:56:21
Speaker 1: That's a pretty impressive, impressive movement you got going there, Fast.
1:56:25
Speaker 1: It's great to catch up.
1:56:26
Speaker 2: Good talk, all right.
1:56:39
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Fast and have
1:56:41
Speaker 1: a better idea perhaps of where the progressive left is
1:56:44
Speaker 1: going to go. I think we're still got a few
1:56:47
Speaker 1: more years of fight between the sort of pragmat pragmatist
1:56:51
Speaker 1: wing progressive wing how that plays itself out. By the way,
1:56:56
Speaker 1: a few Reminders of the Week are going to be
1:56:58
Speaker 1: doing live election coverage of the big Illinois primaries on
1:57:02
Speaker 1: Tuesday night. Chrystal is a Decision Desk HQ Jeffrey Skelly
1:57:05
Speaker 1: will be back covering this and it is it is
1:57:09
Speaker 1: a feast of billionaire spending, particularly on the democratic side
1:57:14
Speaker 1: of the eye, on these primaries, whether it's AI, AI
1:57:18
Speaker 1: for APAC, AI for artificial intelligence, crypto, A billionaire governor
1:57:25
Speaker 1: putting money in. It's the battle of the billionaire funds
1:57:29
Speaker 1: in different ways. The question is if, basically, if all
1:57:36
Speaker 1: the billionaires are the winners, are we all the collective losers?
1:57:39
Speaker 1: But in all seriousness, will be covering that on Tuesday,
1:57:43
Speaker 1: so keep an eye out for that. It'll be on
1:57:46
Speaker 1: all of my socials, all of Crystaliza socials, all of
1:57:50
Speaker 1: Decision Desk, HQ socials. All right, with that? Its time machine.
1:57:59
Speaker 1: This is a fun when I said, the theme to
1:58:01
Speaker 1: this time machine is time, and it's when time stopped
1:58:06
Speaker 1: being local. So if you travel across the United States
1:58:09
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty, the time changed constantly, not because you
1:58:13
Speaker 1: crossed time zones, but because every town kept its own time.
1:58:18
Speaker 1: Noon was simply when the sun reached its highest point
1:58:20
Speaker 1: in the sky. Travel west and noon came a few
1:58:24
Speaker 1: minutes later. Travel east, and it came a few minutes earlier.
1:58:27
Speaker 1: Each town set its clock literally by the sun right
1:58:32
Speaker 1: For centuries, the system worked pretty well until modern life
1:58:36
Speaker 1: made it nearly impossible. And on March nineteenth, an anniversary
1:58:41
Speaker 1: will be celebrating later this week. On March nineteenth, nineteen eighteen,
1:58:46
Speaker 1: so just over one hundred years ago Congress passed this
1:58:50
Speaker 1: Standard Time Act, officially creating national time zones in the
1:58:54
Speaker 1: United States. And you know, okay, it sounds bureaucratic, but
1:58:58
Speaker 1: it was one of the quiet revolutions that made modern
1:59:00
Speaker 1: life that we all enjoy today possible. So the time
1:59:05
Speaker 1: before standard time, what was that like? Well, for most
1:59:07
Speaker 1: of human history, timekeeping was both local and natural sundials,
1:59:12
Speaker 1: church bells, town clocks. Mechanical clocks eventually made time keeping
1:59:16
Speaker 1: a bit more precise, but they didn't standardize time. Each
1:59:21
Speaker 1: town still ran on solar time, and by the mid
1:59:23
Speaker 1: eighteen hundred to the United States had hundreds of local
1:59:27
Speaker 1: time standards, and that didn't matter until what the arrival
1:59:33
Speaker 1: of the railroads. We got the railroad problem. Railroads created
1:59:38
Speaker 1: the first truly national transportation network. That's great, railroads require
1:59:43
Speaker 1: precise schedules, but the country was still operating on hundreds
1:59:47
Speaker 1: of local clocks. By the eighteen seventies, the United States
1:59:51
Speaker 1: had more than three hundred that's right, three zero zero,
1:59:54
Speaker 1: three hundred different local time zones. Chicago alone reportedly had
1:59:59
Speaker 1: twenty one differ for local times. You know, it's amazing.
2:00:03
Speaker 1: At Marshall Field it's twelve oh five, But at Wrigley Field,
2:00:06
Speaker 1: it's twelve ten, But I digress. But in all honesty,
2:00:10
Speaker 1: was it all dependent on which railroad station you were
2:00:12
Speaker 1: standing in, And you know they were at a crossroads Chicago,
2:00:15
Speaker 1: So there were all sorts of railroad stations coordinating trains
2:00:18
Speaker 1: under those conditions. Wasn't just confusing, it actually was dangerous.
2:00:21
Speaker 1: And in fact, like everything in our country, it takes
2:00:28
Speaker 1: injury harm to the populace before we do something. But
2:00:33
Speaker 1: it is worth noting the man who imagined global time,
2:00:36
Speaker 1: and I want to give a shout out to the
2:00:38
Speaker 1: intellectual architect of standardized time. His name was Sanford Fleming.
2:00:43
Speaker 1: Fleming was frustrated by chaotic railroad schedules, and in the
2:00:46
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies he proposed dividing the globe into twenty four
2:00:50
Speaker 1: time zones, each representing one hour of Earth's rotation. Today
2:00:54
Speaker 1: the idea feels obvious, well duh, but somebody had to
2:00:58
Speaker 1: see it first, so let's give old Sanford Fleming the
2:01:01
Speaker 1: shout out here. At the time, it was a radical idea,
2:01:05
Speaker 1: and instead of every town keeping its own solar time,
2:01:09
Speaker 1: entire regions which share a single clock, railroads actually decided
2:01:15
Speaker 1: to adopt Fleming's logic before the governments did, and so
2:01:18
Speaker 1: on November eighteenth, eighteen eighty three, American railroads private entities
2:01:23
Speaker 1: imposed standardized time zones. The government was not involved. Eastern,
2:01:28
Speaker 1: Central Mountain, and Pacific the four main time zones of
2:01:31
Speaker 1: the continentally United States. On November eighteenth, they were born.
2:01:35
Speaker 1: Thanks to the railroads road station synchronized clocks using telegraph signals.
2:01:40
Speaker 1: In many towns, people experience what newspapers called the day
2:01:43
Speaker 1: of two noons. First came noon according to the Sun.
2:01:47
Speaker 1: Then railroad officials reset the clocks. Suddenly it was noon again.
2:01:51
Speaker 1: Some people simply adjusted their watches. Others were a bit
2:01:55
Speaker 1: more upset about it. As you know, we always debate
2:01:58
Speaker 1: these time zone issues, and we've been debating since we
2:02:00
Speaker 1: decided to do this. Critics called it railroad time, and
2:02:04
Speaker 1: that wasn't a compliment to them. It was corporations dictating
2:02:09
Speaker 1: the rhythm of daily life. See, we're always angry at
2:02:12
Speaker 1: big entities back then in the nineteenth century, is big railroad.
2:02:16
Speaker 1: Some clergy even denounced it as unnatural, using religion to
2:02:21
Speaker 1: weigh in on things. Again, some things never change in
2:02:25
Speaker 1: our politics, right. One sermon warned that the railroads were
2:02:28
Speaker 1: trying to change the sun itself. What engineers saw as efficiency,
2:02:34
Speaker 1: others saw as an attempt to rewrite nature. Then the
2:02:38
Speaker 1: dangers became undeniable. In eighteen ninety one, two trains approached
2:02:43
Speaker 1: each other near Kipton, Ohio. The system depended on precise timing.
2:02:48
Speaker 1: One train was supposed to clear the track before the
2:02:50
Speaker 1: other arrived, but the engineer's watch it stopped for four minutes.
2:02:55
Speaker 1: That tiny error caused a head on collision. Eight people
2:02:59
Speaker 1: were killed. Accident shocked the railroad industry. Investigators concluded the
2:03:03
Speaker 1: problem wasn't just scheduling, it was timekeeping itself. Railroads began
2:03:08
Speaker 1: enforcing stricter standards. Engineers had to carry certified railroad grade watches.
2:03:13
Speaker 1: Those watches had to meet exact specifications. They had to
2:03:18
Speaker 1: be open face pocket watches, not hunting case watches with lids,
2:03:24
Speaker 1: because opening a lid wasted precious seconds the pocket watch anyway.
2:03:30
Speaker 1: They had to remain accurate to within thirty seconds per week,
2:03:33
Speaker 1: and they were inspected regularly by certified railroad time inspects.
2:03:38
Speaker 1: How about that for your bureaucredit? See some jobs do
2:03:41
Speaker 1: get eliminated as technology goes over time. We used to
2:03:43
Speaker 1: have people who did nothing but inspect watches at railroad stations,
2:03:48
Speaker 1: and now we have the atomic clock. I got ahead
2:03:50
Speaker 1: of ourselves here, but anyway, it is fun to remind
2:03:53
Speaker 1: people that, you know, jobs get taken away and jobs
2:03:57
Speaker 1: get added. You just never know. Railroad safety now dependent
2:04:00
Speaker 1: on something incredibly small, a watch ticking correctly in a
2:04:03
Speaker 1: conductor's pocket. Meanwhile, scientists, we're trying to build a global
2:04:08
Speaker 1: system of an agreed upon time, if you will. In
2:04:12
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty four, an international conference adopted Greenwich Meantime GMT.
2:04:16
Speaker 1: You've probably seen it. Well, it's the world's prime meridian navigation,
2:04:21
Speaker 1: astronomy and global commerce began coordinating around that single shared clock.
2:04:27
Speaker 1: But every day life in America was still governed by
2:04:29
Speaker 1: railroad practice rather than federal law. Now entered daylight saving time.
2:04:37
Speaker 1: Daylight saving time is an unusual origin story. Yes, Ben
2:04:40
Speaker 1: Franklin joked about it in the seventeen hundred so our
2:04:43
Speaker 1: friends at at the movie National Treasure, and in that
2:04:47
Speaker 1: little one liner that was correct history. But the modern
2:04:51
Speaker 1: campaign came from a gentleman named William Willett, a British
2:04:54
Speaker 1: builder who believed shifting clocks forward would give people more
2:04:57
Speaker 1: usable evening daylight. Well, it spent years from mo in
2:05:00
Speaker 1: the idea. He died in nineteen fifteen, one year before
2:05:03
Speaker 1: daylight saving time was adopted in Europe during World War One.
2:05:08
Speaker 1: He never got to actually see his idea implemented. But look,
2:05:14
Speaker 1: look what triggered governments getting involved in time World War One?
2:05:19
Speaker 1: Back then, of course, it was just the Great War.
2:05:21
Speaker 1: War finally forced governments to act. Or one required massive
2:05:24
Speaker 1: industrial coordination. Railroads moved troops, factories produced weapons. Energy had
2:05:29
Speaker 1: to be conserved, and the fuel that powered industry was coal.
2:05:33
Speaker 1: Officials believed shifting clocks forward would reduce evening lighting demand
2:05:38
Speaker 1: and save millions of tons of coal. Germany adopted daylight
2:05:41
Speaker 1: saving time in nineteen sixteen, and other countries quickly followed suit. Hence,
2:05:46
Speaker 1: March nineteenth, nineteen eighteen, when the United States entered the war,
2:05:50
Speaker 1: that's when Congress formalized the system. The Standard Time Act
2:05:53
Speaker 1: officially recognized the four time zones already used by the railroads,
2:05:57
Speaker 1: and it introduced at the same time nationwide dylylight saving time.
2:06:01
Speaker 1: So for the first time, time itself became officially federal infrastructure.
2:06:07
Speaker 1: Now the farmer myth. Today, many people think daylight saving
2:06:09
Speaker 1: time was created for farmers. Oh no, the opposite is true.
2:06:12
Speaker 1: Farmers were amongst its strongest opponents. Their work followed the sun,
2:06:17
Speaker 1: not the clock. Cows didn't care what Congress said the
2:06:21
Speaker 1: time was. They needed milking when the sun came up
2:06:24
Speaker 1: hard stop. So when the war ended, opposition grew quickly,
2:06:29
Speaker 1: and Congress repealed daylight saving time. In nineteen nineteen. President
2:06:34
Speaker 1: Woodrow Wilson vetoed the repeal. Wilson believed daylight saving time
2:06:39
Speaker 1: improved productivity, and according to several contemporary accounts, he also
2:06:44
Speaker 1: enjoyed the extra evening daylight for golf. Congress overrode his veto. Obviously,
2:06:50
Speaker 1: not enough golfers, yet in Congress, they wouldn't have done
2:06:52
Speaker 1: that today, would they. Daylight saving time disappeared nationally until
2:06:57
Speaker 1: World War Two. World War two, daylight time saving time return.
2:07:01
Speaker 1: This time it stayed year round. From forty two to
2:07:04
Speaker 1: forty five, the country operated on quote wartime. When the
2:07:08
Speaker 1: war ended, local choice returned and chaos followed. By the
2:07:13
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, the system had become wildly inconsistent again. Cities
2:07:17
Speaker 1: adopted daylight saving time, nearby towns rejected it. One bus
2:07:23
Speaker 1: route reportedly passed through seven time changes within thirty five miles.
2:07:28
Speaker 1: Businesses struggled to coordinate schedules, so Congress had a step
2:07:32
Speaker 1: in again, the Uniform Time Act. Nineteen sixty six, Congress
2:07:38
Speaker 1: passed the Uniform Time Act, standardizing when daylight saving time
2:07:41
Speaker 1: begins and ends nationwide. And they've been tinkering with this
2:07:44
Speaker 1: sucker ever since we used to have it six month
2:07:47
Speaker 1: and six months now. Of course we've had the mission
2:07:49
Speaker 1: creep right, keep it longer and longer and longer till
2:07:52
Speaker 1: eventually they're going to try to bring it all back again.
2:07:54
Speaker 1: But I'm going to get to that in a minute.
2:07:56
Speaker 1: But the law they passed in sixty six did still
2:07:59
Speaker 1: allow states to hopes doubt, which is why even today
2:08:02
Speaker 1: Arizona still does not observe daylight saving time. It is
2:08:05
Speaker 1: for half plus another month of the year on one
2:08:10
Speaker 1: in the Mountain time zone, and then they're in the
2:08:12
Speaker 1: Pacific time zone for the other part. Why does not
2:08:15
Speaker 1: observe daylight saving time? The Navajo Nation inside Arizona does
2:08:21
Speaker 1: observe daylight saving time. Indiana spent decades split between time
2:08:26
Speaker 1: zones before standardizing statewide daylight saving in two thousand and six,
2:08:30
Speaker 1: but even today standardized time contains a bunch of local exceptions. Now,
2:08:35
Speaker 1: though it was we did one more experiment, a year
2:08:38
Speaker 1: round daylight saving time. We tried it again in nineteen
2:08:40
Speaker 1: seventy four during the original oil crisis. Obviously the idea
2:08:45
Speaker 1: was energy conservation, but winter mornings became dangerously dark in Florida,
2:08:50
Speaker 1: officials called the ending called for ending the experiment. Florida,
2:08:53
Speaker 1: remember home to two centa Marco Ruby, was the lead
2:08:57
Speaker 1: center of trying to get kind of goes to standardized
2:09:01
Speaker 1: time zone. But ironically it was Florida where there was
2:09:05
Speaker 1: an incident that triggered getting rid of the year long
2:09:08
Speaker 1: daylight saving Officials called for an ending the experiment after
2:09:10
Speaker 1: eight kids were killed in traffic accidents in a single month,
2:09:13
Speaker 1: all while waiting for school buses before sunrise. Within a year,
2:09:17
Speaker 1: the policy it was indeed abandoned. So for most of
2:09:20
Speaker 1: human history time belonged to the sun and the local
2:09:23
Speaker 1: town and the clock tower. However you built your clock tower.
2:09:27
Speaker 1: Railroads imposed coordinated time for obvious reasons. War forced governments
2:09:32
Speaker 1: to actually have to regulate it for even more obvious reasons,
2:09:35
Speaker 1: and ever since politics has been arguing about how the
2:09:37
Speaker 1: clock should work. Ever since, today the world's clocks are
2:09:41
Speaker 1: synchronized not by the sun or by the railroads, but
2:09:44
Speaker 1: by atomic clock so precise they lose only a second
2:09:47
Speaker 1: every hundreds of millions of years. But the principle remains
2:09:51
Speaker 1: the same. Whoever controls the clock quietly does shape daily life,
2:09:55
Speaker 1: work hours, markets, transportations, and even sleep. Which is why
2:10:00
Speaker 1: this debate is never going to end, regardless of what
2:10:04
Speaker 1: Congress does, whether they continue to do the mission creep
2:10:08
Speaker 1: of daylight saving, and the ridiculousness right now of all
2:10:11
Speaker 1: the darkness in the morning for so many of us
2:10:13
Speaker 1: on the East Coast, and all of the messing with
2:10:16
Speaker 1: everybody's body clock. What's funny is that the older you are,
2:10:20
Speaker 1: the less you care about daylight in the evening hours,
2:10:23
Speaker 1: And the younger you are, and the more you look
2:10:24
Speaker 1: forward to the daylight in the evening hours. At least
2:10:27
Speaker 1: that's the way I remembered it as a kid. Either way,
2:10:32
Speaker 1: time doesn't stand still now doesn't. All right? I had
2:10:34
Speaker 1: to try one bad dad joke there at the end.
2:10:37
Speaker 1: There you go. There's your history lesson for the week.
2:10:39
Speaker 1: Everything you needed to know about time, Ask Chuck, all right,
2:10:52
Speaker 1: just a few questions. Do a couple of them here,
2:10:55
Speaker 1: all right? This one Jay New York, and he wants them.
2:10:58
Speaker 1: This is a five timer. He has too many good questions,
2:11:02
Speaker 1: so that's why he makes it. You got to learn
2:11:04
Speaker 1: learn from Jay in New York. Thank you answered my
2:11:06
Speaker 1: question recently about the link between populism and Semitism. I
2:11:08
Speaker 1: wanted to ask a follow up about the main Senate
2:11:10
Speaker 1: Democratic primary. The populist Graham Platner continues to lead in
2:11:13
Speaker 1: polls and earn endorsements despite recent headlines that added to
2:11:15
Speaker 1: a troubling anti Semitic narrative. As a friend to the
2:11:18
Speaker 1: Jewish community, I'm concerned about the moral implications of elevating
2:11:21
Speaker 1: someone with his background as someone who wants to defeat
2:11:23
Speaker 1: Susan Collins. I'm concerned about the strategic implications of elevating
2:11:27
Speaker 1: someone who will be inundated with two hundred fifty dollars worth
2:11:29
Speaker 1: of Nazi tattoo ads. You think the Democrats might be
2:11:32
Speaker 1: walking into a trap here? Or is this just not
2:11:34
Speaker 1: a saying issue in Maine. We love your thoughts of
2:11:37
Speaker 1: this unique race. PS. If you answer this, I'm officially
2:11:39
Speaker 1: in the five time club. Keep me in mind. If
2:11:43
Speaker 1: you ever do any five time merchandise. I think, look,
2:11:46
Speaker 1: I need to mess around with this merchandise idea. And
2:11:50
Speaker 1: so we are officially considered this a We are officially
2:11:55
Speaker 1: NASA and Lauren. We are gonna do merch Okay, there's
2:11:58
Speaker 1: too many. We're only going to do fun stuff podcast
2:12:02
Speaker 1: time machine, five time ass Chuck. I kinda I kind
2:12:07
Speaker 1: of dig this because it's it falls under the category
2:12:10
Speaker 1: if you know, you know, if I can do this
2:12:11
Speaker 1: without losing losing my shirt. Literally we're going to do
2:12:15
Speaker 1: this because this is too much fun. I don't know
2:12:21
Speaker 1: is the simple answer here. I vacillate on this. I
2:12:26
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of there's a part of me.
2:12:29
Speaker 1: I think, you know, unfortunately, if you don't live in
2:12:32
Speaker 1: a community with many Jewish people or many Muslim people,
2:12:35
Speaker 1: you don't learn much about Islam, and you don't learn
2:12:38
Speaker 1: much amount of Judaism. And I accept the premise, you know,
2:12:42
Speaker 1: I sort of, you know, I was I lived in
2:12:47
Speaker 1: a Jewish bubble, and I didn't fully appreciate that I
2:12:49
Speaker 1: lived in a Jewish bubble growing up in Miami. You know,
2:12:53
Speaker 1: it was not uncommon that there were six or eight
2:12:57
Speaker 1: of us celebrating Knikah not uncommon that there were a
2:12:59
Speaker 1: bunch of us, you know, doing passover. So I never
2:13:03
Speaker 1: felt I knew I was in the minority, but I
2:13:05
Speaker 1: never felt isolated. And I say this because if you so,
2:13:12
Speaker 1: there's a I want to have, I think that it's
2:13:15
Speaker 1: I think if you're young and dumb and you and
2:13:19
Speaker 1: you say some things, you get a tattoo, it shouldn't
2:13:24
Speaker 1: it shouldn't mark you for life if you don't, if
2:13:26
Speaker 1: you're somebody who's educating yourself as you go out through life,
2:13:29
Speaker 1: and you sort of you know, we've got to allow
2:13:33
Speaker 1: people to evolve and get smarter and the more they learn, right,
2:13:37
Speaker 1: you know, I think we do a terrible job of
2:13:39
Speaker 1: educating people about the Middle East. You've heard me rail
2:13:42
Speaker 1: about and I put my money where my mouth is.
2:13:44
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the inspirations for my whole time
2:13:47
Speaker 1: Machine segment is my frustration over how poorly people teach
2:13:51
Speaker 1: the Middle East, how poorly we've taught World War One,
2:13:54
Speaker 1: how poorly we've taught about the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
2:13:56
Speaker 1: Most people think the Middle East began in nineteen forty
2:13:58
Speaker 1: eight with a partition, and just so, I mean, in
2:14:02
Speaker 1: many ways, my obsessions with teaching more history and connecting
2:14:07
Speaker 1: history with what's going on now are at the are
2:14:10
Speaker 1: at its roots this issue and a guy who grew
2:14:14
Speaker 1: up without knowing any Jews, and when you don't grow
2:14:19
Speaker 1: up knowing a minority group at all, it becomes a
2:14:22
Speaker 1: lot easier to turn them, that minority group into a
2:14:24
Speaker 1: two dimensional figure in your brain. And then it's astonishing
2:14:28
Speaker 1: that once people meet people from said minority group that
2:14:31
Speaker 1: they've never met, then all of a sudden they see
2:14:34
Speaker 1: these you see each other as three dimensional figures, and
2:14:36
Speaker 1: then suddenly the stupid hate kneltes away. There can be
2:14:40
Speaker 1: some caricatures and still some stereotypes that don't go away,
2:14:45
Speaker 1: you know, like the the insistent, you know, the constant
2:14:50
Speaker 1: reminder of how of which wealthy people happen to be Jewish?
2:14:54
Speaker 1: What about the wealthy people that aren't Jewish? Does that
2:14:56
Speaker 1: indicate the Christians control all this money? So it's a
2:15:00
Speaker 1: it's a really uncomfortable when when people go down that road.
2:15:03
Speaker 1: I don't think they realize how they're indicting than anybody
2:15:07
Speaker 1: from any faith, any group of people anyway. It just
2:15:11
Speaker 1: it's very disturbing when it gets done, and it's obviously
2:15:15
Speaker 1: done for some it's a way to try to turn
2:15:17
Speaker 1: working class and poor people who may not know everything
2:15:20
Speaker 1: about the entity about what's being debated automatically against an
2:15:26
Speaker 1: entire group of people. So I say all that in
2:15:30
Speaker 1: that what Graham Platner thought and did years ago should
2:15:35
Speaker 1: be a data point, not the data point. It's how
2:15:40
Speaker 1: he responds to the attacks. It's how he reassures members
2:15:45
Speaker 1: of the Jewish community and members of any minority community
2:15:49
Speaker 1: that he hasn't agreed with, whether they should feel comfortable
2:15:52
Speaker 1: that he's going to represent their interests. Now, you know
2:15:58
Speaker 1: a lot of this, a lot of this timing matters here, right,
2:16:02
Speaker 1: What's what's going to be the focal point? I The
2:16:08
Speaker 1: question is in most campaigns, who's it going to be
2:16:11
Speaker 1: a referendumunt? Is this a referendum on Trump? Is this
2:16:14
Speaker 1: a referendum on Platner? Is this a referendum on Collins?
2:16:17
Speaker 1: And ultimately which campaign is able to right? She wants
2:16:20
Speaker 1: to make it a referendum on Platner if Platner gets
2:16:26
Speaker 1: the nomination. Mills wants to make it an electability argument,
2:16:30
Speaker 1: which about Platner, which only but it doesn't fix the
2:16:33
Speaker 1: perception of the problems that some in the in the
2:16:37
Speaker 1: Democratic base had with her. So it could be a
2:16:42
Speaker 1: problem if he's a bad candidate. It's not a problem
2:16:45
Speaker 1: if his If he's truly evolved from the guy who
2:16:49
Speaker 1: had the Nats, who decided, who made the decision to
2:16:51
Speaker 1: get the Nazi tattooed? Right, is that you know, it's
2:16:55
Speaker 1: sort of like who is the real grand Platner. We're
2:16:57
Speaker 1: gonna the campaign itself will exp this. Campaigns are MRIs
2:17:02
Speaker 1: for the soul, not just presidential campaigns, but pretty high
2:17:05
Speaker 1: expensive campaigns are so ultimately we'll learn from Platner and
2:17:11
Speaker 1: we'll see how he handles this. I've been I would
2:17:15
Speaker 1: give him about a C minus so far in handling this,
2:17:18
Speaker 1: He's he's done the bare minimum. But I don't I
2:17:21
Speaker 1: think they're trying so hard to avoid it that it
2:17:25
Speaker 1: because I think they don't have I think he's changed
2:17:28
Speaker 1: the explanation a couple of times, which then doesn't help
2:17:31
Speaker 1: the situation. But it's also very possible that he could
2:17:38
Speaker 1: not manage this well and still win. That's how much
2:17:42
Speaker 1: I think this becomes a referendum on Trump into a
2:17:44
Speaker 1: lesser so on Collins. So now, if there's a high
2:17:51
Speaker 1: profile attack on Jews that take place in October, and
2:17:56
Speaker 1: the way things are going, the likelihood of that is
2:17:59
Speaker 1: not low. Fortunately, that could change. That could change things
2:18:04
Speaker 1: in this race, Right, That's one of those where how
2:18:06
Speaker 1: things play out could change things. But in some ways
2:18:11
Speaker 1: I think he has not inoculated himself enough on this issue.
2:18:16
Speaker 1: Next question comes from laurenem Hey. Thanks for introducing us
2:18:19
Speaker 1: to the Perfect Neighbor documentary. I was very impressed with
2:18:21
Speaker 1: their ability to string together bodycam video pretty seamlessly into
2:18:24
Speaker 1: a comprehensive storyline. I was also impressed by the professionalism
2:18:27
Speaker 1: and kindness of the police towards the community. What a
2:18:29
Speaker 1: sorrowful story, but an important one to share in Lauren
2:18:31
Speaker 1: M Lauren, That's exactly the impression I got, And I understand.
2:18:34
Speaker 1: You know, we had this long debate with the filmmaker
2:18:37
Speaker 1: about how should you know? And I think I think
2:18:40
Speaker 1: various people view the behavior of the police in different ways,
2:18:44
Speaker 1: but it doesn't matter. I mean, I think it's I
2:18:47
Speaker 1: think to me it was a reminder why bodycam footage
2:18:50
Speaker 1: should be a necessity and there shouldn't be any law
2:18:53
Speaker 1: enforcement without it all times. And there's no doubt right
2:18:57
Speaker 1: incentives when you have good insight of structures, your behavior changes,
2:19:02
Speaker 1: and these police officers have good incentive structures and their
2:19:04
Speaker 1: behavior whether you know. I think it's a reminder that
2:19:08
Speaker 1: I think ninety five percent of police officers, you know,
2:19:11
Speaker 1: their intent is to keep calm. Their intent is to
2:19:15
Speaker 1: be a member of the community, not an enforcer of
2:19:17
Speaker 1: law inside the community. Right, So I'm with you. I
2:19:21
Speaker 1: think that it's it's a tragic story. I think there's
2:19:24
Speaker 1: reminders of you know, how institutional racism does play can
2:19:29
Speaker 1: play itself out into society and ways that we don't
2:19:32
Speaker 1: fully see, but you kind of have to experience this.
2:19:35
Speaker 1: But just going through it and realizing, you know, the
2:19:38
Speaker 1: world that that woman was raised in and the war,
2:19:40
Speaker 1: and it just it's it's tragic, but it was. It
2:19:44
Speaker 1: was just such a wealthier I'm so glad you enjoyed it.
2:19:48
Speaker 1: And this just makes me glad I continue, you know,
2:19:52
Speaker 1: because these aren't always the best interviews for the YouTube algorithms, right,
2:19:56
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. But this is why I want
2:19:59
Speaker 1: to keep fighting to get these important conversations in the
2:20:04
Speaker 1: audio space. Brian from Arlington, Virginia wrights, Hey, I live
2:20:07
Speaker 1: in Virginia, but loved your recent Top five Texas state
2:20:10
Speaker 1: y racist. Perhaps you'll add this small twist to the
2:20:13
Speaker 1: Bush the bench Benson honorable mention story in a future telling. Yes,
2:20:16
Speaker 1: George HW. Bush lost had senate race to Benson, but
2:20:18
Speaker 1: he got more than even Bush Quail Pete to Cockaspenson
2:20:21
Speaker 1: in the eighty eight US presidential election. Absolutely, Brian, I mean,
2:20:24
Speaker 1: you gotta love the fact that they've faced off twice, right, Like,
2:20:27
Speaker 1: it's just such a you know, I just love those
2:20:30
Speaker 1: little I'm with you that thread. You're right, that was
2:20:33
Speaker 1: like the thread I think was implied, but I didn't
2:20:35
Speaker 1: say it directly. It's a it's a great it's you know.
2:20:39
Speaker 1: That's why I love history. I love the I love
2:20:42
Speaker 1: how everything is connectedly one large family tree of American history.
2:20:47
Speaker 1: Last question before I keep going to a quick little
2:20:51
Speaker 1: uh my advice for filling out you're into DOAA bracket.
2:20:55
Speaker 1: This comes from Luke and he writes, happened to notice
2:20:57
Speaker 1: Trump's post on troops social today lotting is to change
2:21:01
Speaker 1: the American media landscape, and I noticed you happen to
2:21:03
Speaker 1: be featured. Yeah, congrats to me. I think listeners know
2:21:06
Speaker 1: your opinion on the administration's meddling in the free press
2:21:08
Speaker 1: by now. But I'm curious how you feel about the
2:21:10
Speaker 1: President taking credit for your move to independent media. Seems
2:21:13
Speaker 1: the Post is suggesting that he's removed your influence in
2:21:16
Speaker 1: public discourse, among others. But I wonder if you feel
2:21:18
Speaker 1: your reach has grown or shrunk since the move. Independent
2:21:21
Speaker 1: media has certainly allowed you to speak more freely, and I,
2:21:24
Speaker 1: for one, have loved the change. Should I thank Trump?
2:21:26
Speaker 1: I guess thanks for everything you do. You know, it's funny,
2:21:31
Speaker 1: you know you're like, well, thanks for caring, mister president.
2:21:34
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you cared. It's I will tell you
2:21:40
Speaker 1: how I know that I've gotten some really good traction.
2:21:44
Speaker 1: So for last summer through say, you know, September October,
2:21:53
Speaker 1: I'd run into people who would say, hey, I miss
2:21:56
Speaker 1: you on meet the press. What are you doing now?
2:22:00
Speaker 1: Over the last three months pretty much since election day
2:22:04
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. You know, it's just sort of how
2:22:06
Speaker 1: I can tell it's building. It's like, hey, I miss
2:22:09
Speaker 1: you to meet the press, but I love what you're doing. So,
2:22:13
Speaker 1: you know, like everything, it takes time to build. But
2:22:16
Speaker 1: in some ways, I mean, thank you, mister president. Incredible
2:22:20
Speaker 1: endorsement of why you can't trust, you know, they're trying
2:22:25
Speaker 1: to extort the corporations that that that own broadcast media.
2:22:32
Speaker 1: He's acknowledged that I was one that spoke truth to
2:22:34
Speaker 1: power and they didn't like it, you know, I mean
2:22:41
Speaker 1: it is nobody had ever successfully you know, I'd all
2:22:46
Speaker 1: the attacks by sort of the right wing, you know,
2:22:48
Speaker 1: sort of message machine, you know, your sort of your
2:22:51
Speaker 1: your dumbasses, right the Fox and Friends world and Hannity
2:22:56
Speaker 1: and O'Reilly back before there was an O'Reilly, you know,
2:22:59
Speaker 1: the ones that that were just sort of like paint
2:23:01
Speaker 1: by numbers there. Every attack on me never was substantive.
2:23:06
Speaker 1: It was always a derivative of oh, I know a Democrat,
2:23:11
Speaker 1: or I'm related to a Democrat, or I'm married to
2:23:13
Speaker 1: somebody who's in partisan politics, or i'm there were always
2:23:17
Speaker 1: these derivatives. There was never they never. There was never
2:23:22
Speaker 1: the actual substance of what I did. And nobody would
2:23:24
Speaker 1: ever say I was an unfair interviewer. They couldn't even
2:23:27
Speaker 1: say that either. So it was always an attempt to
2:23:30
Speaker 1: do guilt by association, Guilt by association if I had
2:23:33
Speaker 1: if I interacted with people in the other political party,
2:23:36
Speaker 1: Guilt by association where I work guilt by association, and
2:23:39
Speaker 1: it was always just sort of ham handed, and it
2:23:41
Speaker 1: was it was done in such a way that never
2:23:43
Speaker 1: hurt my credibility, it only enhanced it. And this, I mean,
2:23:47
Speaker 1: my goodness, thank you, mister president. I mean, what a
2:23:51
Speaker 1: way to enhance my credibility as an independent journalist to
2:23:56
Speaker 1: note that you that you're your claiming you are manipulating.
2:23:59
Speaker 1: I mean, if I am at one of these broadcast networks,
2:24:02
Speaker 1: I hate what he did because he's put everybody in
2:24:05
Speaker 1: a terrible position. And again I urge the CEOs of
2:24:10
Speaker 1: these major corporations that own these broadcast news divisions to
2:24:14
Speaker 1: grow a frickin' spine and stand up and say, hey,
2:24:18
Speaker 1: I don't always like what they report, but I'm never
2:24:20
Speaker 1: standing in the way of what they're doing. Get out
2:24:23
Speaker 1: your big boy pants and put them on all right.
2:24:28
Speaker 1: Stop capitulating, Stop settling bullshit lawsuits, mister Eiger, Stop spinning
2:24:34
Speaker 1: off cable channels just to appease regulators, mister Roberts. And then,
2:24:44
Speaker 1: of course, you know, what the ellisids are doing is
2:24:47
Speaker 1: classic virtue signaling that the worst of all worlds we
2:24:51
Speaker 1: know is going to come as soon as there's a
2:24:53
Speaker 1: new administration, they're just going to cut loose the entire
2:24:55
Speaker 1: news division anyway and get rid of it, and that
2:24:58
Speaker 1: what the headache. You know what, please just sell the
2:25:01
Speaker 1: news divisions. Just sell them. Allow for truly independent board
2:25:07
Speaker 1: of directors, independent ownership. We cannot have anybody who can
2:25:10
Speaker 1: be extorted by any entity in government, whether it's a
2:25:13
Speaker 1: left wing government or right wing government, not if we
2:25:16
Speaker 1: want to protect what we care about as freedom of
2:25:18
Speaker 1: the presce. So anyway, I was amused, and at the
2:25:24
Speaker 1: end of the day, it was in many ways and
2:25:29
Speaker 1: I viewed it as an endorsement. So thank you for noticing,
2:25:33
Speaker 1: thank you for the question, and thanks for the support
2:25:37
Speaker 1: and the growth, because this is how we rebuild a
2:25:41
Speaker 1: trusted information ecosystem and I'm proud of what we're doing.
2:25:46
Speaker 1: So thank you. And with that, let's get to some
2:25:48
Speaker 1: serious business filling out your bracket. Look, I'm going to
2:25:52
Speaker 1: be very careful here. Here's what I will just tell you.
2:25:58
Speaker 1: I know everybody will tell you there's always a thirteen
2:26:00
Speaker 1: seed that you have to contemplate. And you know, usually, boy,
2:26:03
Speaker 1: those twelve five matchups are always tough, and you got
2:26:06
Speaker 1: to take a twe this is going to be a
2:26:09
Speaker 1: chalky year. Okay, I put it this way, I am
2:26:14
Speaker 1: the last thing I'd want to be is a seventh
2:26:16
Speaker 1: seed or higher in this tournament, because if you're facing
2:26:19
Speaker 1: a one or two seed in the second round, you
2:26:21
Speaker 1: are screwed. The number ones and number twos are so
2:26:26
Speaker 1: much better. There's a couple of stats you need to
2:26:28
Speaker 1: be paying attention to. Just it is okay to get
2:26:31
Speaker 1: chalky with your brackets. And here's why. There's some great
2:26:35
Speaker 1: analysis that this year's Bubble teams was the worst set
2:26:39
Speaker 1: of Bubble teams that have been in contention, meaning these
2:26:44
Speaker 1: essentially some of these teams wouldn't have even been on
2:26:46
Speaker 1: the bubble in previous years because their records aren't not
2:26:49
Speaker 1: that good. I'm looking at you, Auburn. Their metrics aren't
2:26:53
Speaker 1: that great. Like it just you know, look, you got
2:26:56
Speaker 1: to put sixty eight teams in and there's always you
2:26:58
Speaker 1: know where we'll get up. And yes, I'm for ninety
2:27:01
Speaker 1: six in case anybody's asking whatever it is, I think
2:27:05
Speaker 1: ninety six would would would would take you to another
2:27:08
Speaker 1: adding another thirty two. So I am in favor of
2:27:11
Speaker 1: it personally, but I don't think you're gonna see i'd be.
2:27:17
Speaker 1: I am highly doubtful. Put it this way, I am
2:27:20
Speaker 1: not betting on a single double digit seed to make
2:27:23
Speaker 1: it to the sweet sixty. Maybe a one seed loses
2:27:27
Speaker 1: in the second round, but I don't buy that either.
2:27:30
Speaker 1: This could be the year that all ones and twos
2:27:31
Speaker 1: make it through the first weekend and a lot of
2:27:38
Speaker 1: the And if you tell me you know there are
2:27:42
Speaker 1: more threes and fours than there are fives and sixes,
2:27:44
Speaker 1: it wouldn't surprise me either. It's the top ten is
2:27:48
Speaker 1: as strong as it's ever been, least amount of losses
2:27:51
Speaker 1: compared to previous top tens, and the bubble teams are
2:27:53
Speaker 1: The point is, you know I and the reason I'm
2:27:58
Speaker 1: saying this out loud because I'm one of those it
2:28:00
Speaker 1: screws up my brecket every year by trying. I always
2:28:02
Speaker 1: picked the wrong twelves, the wrong thirteen, the wrong elevens.
2:28:07
Speaker 1: I'm right that there's a couple of elevens that get
2:28:09
Speaker 1: there or twelve or that. What I'm saying this year
2:28:11
Speaker 1: is I'm avoiding those double digit seeds like the plague.
2:28:15
Speaker 1: That's my one piece of advice for you on that
2:28:19
Speaker 1: my rooting interest. In case you're wondering. It's always GW
2:28:23
Speaker 1: basketball first before Miami Basketball, and we had a fun
2:28:27
Speaker 1: little run, should have beaten Saint Louis, blew a big lead.
2:28:30
Speaker 1: It's the story of my time with GW. I can't
2:28:33
Speaker 1: tell you how many times in key critical games that
2:28:36
Speaker 1: GW's blown a double digit lead. I'm still still upset
2:28:40
Speaker 1: about one. Going back to the NCAA Tournament in the
2:28:42
Speaker 1: early nineties against Iowa, I think we blew a fifteen
2:28:44
Speaker 1: point lead with less than five minutes ago in a
2:28:46
Speaker 1: game in a first round matchup when Doctor Tom I
2:28:50
Speaker 1: think it was Doctor Tom Davis was the coach back
2:28:52
Speaker 1: then who never lost a first round matchup. It seemed
2:28:55
Speaker 1: any time it happened, we were the one that he
2:28:58
Speaker 1: should have lost and it didn't happen. That's always my primary.
2:29:02
Speaker 1: After that, it's Miami, and then after that, I will
2:29:06
Speaker 1: tell you of the big top two seeds. You know,
2:29:10
Speaker 1: I'm kind of pulling for Houston. I kind of feel
2:29:13
Speaker 1: like they're the elite team that gets no respect. They're
2:29:16
Speaker 1: there every year, they seem to always get there. They
2:29:19
Speaker 1: can't quite Calvin Sampson can't quite get that ring. What more,
2:29:24
Speaker 1: you know, he's one of the few guys that seems
2:29:25
Speaker 1: to have transitioned from the previous era of how you
2:29:28
Speaker 1: do college basketball to this era of how you do it.
2:29:32
Speaker 1: They always play gritty, they're tough, they're physical. It's not
2:29:36
Speaker 1: always the prettiest game. But I find myself I'm kind
2:29:39
Speaker 1: of you know, and you know, I know most people
2:29:43
Speaker 1: either like to root against Duke. I don't have those
2:29:47
Speaker 1: strong feelings about Duke that others do. My strong feelings
2:29:51
Speaker 1: are always reserved for one and one school only, and
2:29:55
Speaker 1: it's the school that is in the most unfortunate geographic
2:29:58
Speaker 1: region in the state of Florida, the armpit of Florida
2:30:01
Speaker 1: of the Peninsula. It is Gainsville, the University of Florida,
2:30:05
Speaker 1: which of course means they're likely going to win back
2:30:08
Speaker 1: to back titles. But with that, there's my unofficial advice
2:30:13
Speaker 1: for how to manage your bracket. I know, I'm telling
2:30:16
Speaker 1: you to be chocky. Yes, be chockey, be chocky. I
2:30:20
Speaker 1: will say this. I don't trust you, U Khan. They
2:30:23
Speaker 1: seem flawed Looking backwards, it's amazing Duke didn't win last year.
2:30:32
Speaker 1: It feels like, you know, it feels like we're inevitably
2:30:36
Speaker 1: going to see some sort of Duke Michigan rematch. Here
2:30:40
Speaker 1: they seem to be up and above, but boy, the
2:30:42
Speaker 1: Big twelve. What I love about this tournament is that
2:30:45
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see some of these Big twelve
2:30:47
Speaker 1: teams play a few of these ACC teams and Big
2:30:50
Speaker 1: ten teams, and all four Power four conferences are going
2:30:53
Speaker 1: to have eight or more in this sucker. How many
2:30:58
Speaker 1: have three or more left by the second weekend that
2:31:02
Speaker 1: will determine prominence. It feels like it's the SEC that's
2:31:05
Speaker 1: going to take the beat down this year. That there's
2:31:07
Speaker 1: only Florida and maybe Vanderbilt has the capability of getting
2:31:11
Speaker 1: to the eight. Maybe Vanderbilt I kind of like them.
2:31:16
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard to call somebody that's essentially a
2:31:20
Speaker 1: top twenty five team a dark horse there in Vandy,
2:31:22
Speaker 1: but that's probably the only other SEC team. You know,
2:31:27
Speaker 1: you never want to rule out Calipari at Arkansas, But
2:31:31
Speaker 1: I think the SEC is the conference that gets you know,
2:31:34
Speaker 1: there's always one conference that you know falls on its
2:31:37
Speaker 1: face in the first first two rounds. Maybe I'm hoping
2:31:41
Speaker 1: it's the SEC because I love rooting against him as
2:31:43
Speaker 1: an ACC guy, But in all honesty, I the SEC
2:31:47
Speaker 1: seems the most vulnerably. They're the lead, they're the least
2:31:50
Speaker 1: top heavy of the conferences there. And I will say this,
2:31:54
Speaker 1: I do think the ACEC is getting disrespected that the
2:31:58
Speaker 1: idea that only do gets to be a high seat
2:32:00
Speaker 1: in none of the other schools anyway. Just think all
2:32:03
Speaker 1: the ACC schools feel like they're all seated about a
2:32:06
Speaker 1: slot too low. But they've been punished for what was
2:32:09
Speaker 1: a bad year last year. And then you know that
2:32:12
Speaker 1: stuff matters, even if they say it's not supposed to matter.
2:32:15
Speaker 1: All right, enjoy the tournament, Enjoy the next two next
2:32:19
Speaker 1: two weeks, which are amazing. I'll see you election night
2:32:23
Speaker 1: Tuesday night, Primary night in Illinois, and of course right
2:32:27
Speaker 1: back here on Wednesday morning,