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Chuck’s Commentary - How Lindsey Graham Should Be Remembered + When Moderates Fail…The Radicals Ascend · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: dot com slash chuck. Hello thereon, Welcome to the Monday
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: episode of the Chuck Podcast. Where As I always promise you,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: it's politics for the rest of us, and wow, if
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: you always need a reminder, and it is. It is
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: something that that I've always lived with. They expect the unexpected, right.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: The thing about politics that can make it so compelling
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: sometimes is just the real world consequences that both impact politics,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: and then how politics gets impacted and changes, because no
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: matter what happens, the death of Lindsay Graham is going
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: to be a fork in the row moment. The question
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: is at a fork in the road moment for South Carolina,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: for the Republican Party, for the US Senate, for his
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: own legacy, and so I'm going to deal with a
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: lot of the potential fallout of what we're going to
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: be dealing with here with Lindsay Graham. I shared with
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: you some of my personal thoughts on Lindsay Grahm, and
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I'm going to share a little bit more in this episode,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: including one of the most striking interviews I conducted, and
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: had nothing to do with the interview itself, but everything
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: to do with the off the record conversation I had,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: and it was a joint interview I conducted with John
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: McCain and Lindsey Graham. Happened to tape on January sixth,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: twenty seven, team just before Donald Trump would take the
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: oath after he was certified as president. The interview itself
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: is semi unremarkable, but there's a reason for that, And
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: what was more remarkable was the conversation I had with
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: these two gentlemen off the record, And this point, off
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the record does as far as many journalists concern expire
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: upon death on this front. So I will share a
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: little bit of that conversation and what it was about.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Some of you may imagine giving the timeline of events,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: it's Lindsay and McCain coming back from overseas right before
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Trump's taking the oath of office, So you can put
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: together where that conversation is going to go. And it's
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: a reminder of what Lindsay's mindset was at the start
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: of the first Trump presidency, obviously how it evolved, and
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: we'll get to that. We get you through a few
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: other things, you know. I think we need to pay
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of attention to what's happening in the UK
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: and the political implications of Nigel Farage and what's happening there,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: given that in some ways breaksit in Trump. We've been
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: living these parallel lives, so there's a lot there and
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: I think it's gotten a little underplayed, and I want
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: folks to be paying attention because I think this is
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: something that could get imported into the US. Trust me,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of Americans are looking for their
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: own count binface when it comes to sending a message
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: to both political parties. And then I want to close
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: with sort of unpacking this battle of extremes. What's going
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: on right now? How is it that sort of ideological
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: movements can take hold? And I'm going to do it
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: through the prism of Ram Emmanuel's trip to Israel where
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: he sort of laid down a marker there about the
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: future of Israel's relationship with the United States, at least
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: on an official front. That it's obviously time machine, and
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I'll just drop you a little hint here. It is
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: at about an event that frequently gets used to this
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: day as a comparative when we're trying to figure out
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: what is happening in a battle between two ideologies. That's
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: that's my one hint for you on that. Do a
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: little questions. And if that's not enough, I gotta, I gotta.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: I got a modest proposal for fixing Baseball's Hall of Fame.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: So how's that for a thorough rundown. It's July. Remember
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: we're gonna do. We do two episodes. We have one day.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: We'll have my next one on Thursday. Obviously, when news breaks,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I will do my best to fill the vacuum, as
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: I did on Sunday with my initial reaction to Lindsey Graham.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: And I'm gonna begin there because I think I think
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: we've all seen it. And I know if you if
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: you listen to this podcast, I know you're sort of
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: perhaps one part partisan political junkie, one part perhaps you
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: know and partisan political practitioner, but another part sort of
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: student of politics. And I want to speak to sort
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: of my audience, this student of political side of your
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: brains here a little bit, and let's just have a
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: reality check. I think it's pretty clear you can see,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: judging by the reactions to the passing of Lindsay Graham,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: is that most people are expressing their own reaction through
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: essentially their own politics, or their own belief system or
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: their own set of beliefs of where they wish Lindsey
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  Speaker 1: Graham were or whatever it is, right, and you sort
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  Speaker 1: of see it, and I think that, Look, I've done
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  Speaker 1: this over thirty years, and I will tell you this.
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  Speaker 1: I think there's really two types of politicians, two types
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  Speaker 1: of elected excuse me, two types of elected officials, audiologues
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  Speaker 1: and politicians. And you may think, well, that's simplistic, but
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  Speaker 1: hear me out. The ideologue has a belief system and
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  Speaker 1: they essentially want to get elected, to pursue and to
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  Speaker 1: persuade and to get more people believing, and to sort
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  Speaker 1: of plant a flag, dig a hole whatever it is,
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  Speaker 1: dig a trench, to keep their movement alive. And essentially
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  Speaker 1: they want their movement to be the mainstream of American politics.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps they're fighting that make the movement the mainstream of
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  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. Perhaps they're trying to make their movement
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: the mainstream of the Republican Party. But you get my drift.
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  Speaker 1: You have your ideologues and then you have your politicians.
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  Speaker 1: What do I mean by a politician? So take Bill
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Clinton and Ted Cruz. I think these are two good examples.
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  Speaker 1: These guys are politicians first and ideologue second. You may think,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: what are you talking about? Both of them are. It's
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  Speaker 1: a partisan Democrat and a partisan Republican. But they're very
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: careful to try to follow where they think things are
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  Speaker 1: going a little bit right, and their goal was to
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  Speaker 1: be in the game, if you will, be in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of it. So with Lindsey Graham, I made this
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: comparison that many ways, Lindsey Graham and Joe Biden were
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: mirror images of each other as US senators. I know
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: some of you can't remember Joe Biden the senator versus
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden the Vice president and president. But Joe Biden
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  Speaker 1: the Senator politically was always that They always tried to
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  Speaker 1: make sure he was in the middle of where the
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  Speaker 1: Democratic Party was, not necessarily in the middle of where
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  Speaker 1: American politics was. Lindsey Graham I would describe as the
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  Speaker 1: same way that ultimately he was trying not to be
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  Speaker 1: in the middle of where American politics was. He was
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  Speaker 1: trying to be in the middle of where he thought
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  Speaker 1: the Republican Party was. He never wanted to be unfriendly
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  Speaker 1: with any wing of the Republican Party. Now part of
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  Speaker 1: that is pragmatic. He got elected state centered from South Carolina.
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  Speaker 1: South Carolina very much a state that, at least for
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  Speaker 1: the last you know, going to the sort of the
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  Speaker 1: original the rise of the sort of strong Thurman was
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: a party switcher. So really Carol Campbell, the late Carrol
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  Speaker 1: Campbell was in some ways, and you have Lee Atwater
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  Speaker 1: and all this stuff. You want to go real deep
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: there in South Carolina Republican politics, but sort of you know,
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  Speaker 1: we're the founding fathers of the modern South Carolina Republican Party.
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  Speaker 1: And Lindsay Graham was definitely a student of that modern
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  Speaker 1: movement of and in some ways a part of it,
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  Speaker 1: you know, sort of I think, you know, was young
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  Speaker 1: and was coming up when Carol Campbell was sort of
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  Speaker 1: the first of the Republican statewide office holders to find
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  Speaker 1: success without having to have been a Democrat first, right,
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  Speaker 1: which was which was some of the you know, seventies
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  Speaker 1: and eighties versions of the South Carolina Republican Party. But
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  Speaker 1: when you follow so there's two ways to look at Lindsay.
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  Speaker 1: When you see his you know, his shift from sort
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  Speaker 1: of being McCain's wing man to Trump's wingman, many people
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  Speaker 1: looked at it and saw him, well, McCain never never,
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  Speaker 1: you know, never bought into Trump, wided Lindsay. And I'm
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  Speaker 1: gonna even my answer as a political anthropologist, not necessarily
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  Speaker 1: we're my own principles. I think we all think we
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  Speaker 1: have an idea of how we would behave under that circumstance.
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  Speaker 1: But I do want to remind you how, you know,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps how Lindsey Graham's and what we don't fully understand
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: is Lindsay Graham's own relationship with that Senen See. I
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  Speaker 1: could tell you my belief. I believe that Senate seat
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  Speaker 1: was as important to him as a spouse. You could
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: have said the same thing about John McCain and his
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: relationship with the senac right. The Senate gave John McCain relevance,
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  Speaker 1: and he liked being relevant and he liked being in
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  Speaker 1: the middle of things. I think Lindsey Graham very similar.
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  Speaker 1: I think the Senate seat gives him relevance, gave him relevance,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: and he always wanted to be in the middle of everything.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: And whatever you think of Lindsay Grant, this is why
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  Speaker 1: when I say there's audiologues and there's politicians, he was
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  Speaker 1: definitely a politican. And sometimes we love a politician when
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: they adopt our point of view, and we think politicians
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: are incredibly unprincipled and bought off when they somehow, maybe
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: once flirted with our side. But it's somehow on the
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: other side love something. So I think we are understandably
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: can be harsh critics to that. Remember I'm not here
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: to say you're right or wrong about this. I am
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: trying to really be explanatory in this situation, and ultimately
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: right history is. We'll see how kind or unkind history
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: is to Lindsay and whether whether history will either reaffirm
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Lindsay what many believe many believe was a mistake by Lindsay,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: or whether he will somehow be proven correct on his
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: decision to do what he did. But the fact is
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: it doesn't change who he is, and that's who he was, right.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: He was a politician who yes, he was a Republican
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: because that was the only way to succeed in politics
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: in South Carolina in the as he was coming up
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: right in the in the eighties, going into the nineties
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: and deciding to make this a career. And that's why
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I always throw Ted CRUs in there at I think
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: these are I think there are certain people that are
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: political animals and would run would have run for office
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: as I think if Texas were a liberal, deep blue state,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz would have fashioned himself as a movement progressive
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: and done his best to try to get elected the Senate.
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  Speaker 1: I don't say this to criticize to I just think
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: there are certain people are political animals, and they or
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: attracted to politics, but they wanted and they're attracted to
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: politics to get access to power and influence and relevance,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: and so their own geography essentially pushes them to just
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: sort of decide that I'm going to be generous here
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: that is most pragmatic for having a successful political career
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: from that geographic area. Again, I you know, I think
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: you have to. You could say I'm being either too
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: generous or cynical all at the same time. I'm just
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: telling you making this sort of through my That's why
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: I joke that these days I call myself a political anthropologist.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to explain how these strange tribes interact with
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: each other. So look, I do think that the Lindsay
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: legacy is again going to be through this prism of
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: what you think of Trump and what you think of
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: the Trump era, and how existential you believe the Trump
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: arra has moved things. And for you, some of you,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: it's totally unforgivable that Lindsay's been too much of an enabler.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: I think for others you would say, hey, Lindsay was
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: just trying to be in the room. And I think
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: here's where some Republican senators would defend Lindsay very quietly,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: where your romney' would defend Lindsay. Shoot, where you're Chris
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: van Hollins or your Mark Warners with defend Lindsay at
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: least when it came to him being a United States Senator.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: And let me put it in these terms, you'll have
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: a hard time finding many senators say negative things about
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Lindsay Graham, not just out of respect, but genuinely. He
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: was somebody just about every senator found a way to
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: work with and there would be some issue you could
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: work with. When it came to Lindsey Graham, it's very similar,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: frankly to what you would hear, particularly in the last
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: ten years of his career in the Senate Ted Kennedy.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: What you'd hear many Republicans, maybe not say very loudly,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: but they would say and they certainly said it after
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: he passed away. Well, let me tell you about Ted Kennedy. Man,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: I was able to get this done because of Ted Kennedy,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: and it was these compliments were coming to the right.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Lindsay loved the Senate, and Lindsay wanted to be in
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: the middle of everything. That's why you found him in
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama's oval office, and that's why you found him
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: in Donald Trump's office. The same guy that found his
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: way to Obama is the same guy that found his
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: way to Trump. Because ultimately his north Star was whatever
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: it took to be relevant, to be in the middle
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: of everything, as he himself right, And I think the
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: there there. I think plenty of the critiques that come
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: at him are through the prism of well, I wouldn't
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: have done that. I can't believe he did. Here's one
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: thing I would like to I always remind people when
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: I do this in my own household, everybody has a
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: line that once Trump crosses it, there out there are
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: plenty of people that keep moving the line. You have
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: certainly plenty of rhetoric through the years where Lindsay himself
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: has moved the line on Trump. And this is where
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I would say, as if he were a navy man,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: we'd say he's a sailor because he knows how to
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: He will tack to where the wind is blowing. And
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: as long as the wind was blowing in Trump's direction,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: he was not going to feel comfortable being Liz Chaney.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: He wasn't going to feel comfortable. That's not who he is.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: And again you could say that that's weak, that is
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: what it is. But it is a subjective. It is subjective.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: And again, history, I think over time will tell us
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: whether that was something that was more destructive to the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: US Senate and to American politics and to the Republican Party,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: or whether it was helpful at the time, because here's
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: what you will hear, and this is where this has
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: real world impact on the near term, and this is
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: now the near term fallout. Look, by the way, one
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: more quick thing before I get to the fallout in
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: the United States Senate fallout in campaign twenty twenty six,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: both of which I want to get to in pretty
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: short order. You're going to see a lot of conspiracy theories.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: You already are seeing conspiracy theories. You're going to see
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: conspiracy theories having to do that somehow the Russians were
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: behind this. You're gonna have conspiracy theories that somehow the
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Iranians are behind this. And you're going to have conspiracy
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: theories about his personal life that are going to start
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: to surface. You're going to have people trying to sell
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: all sorts of stories on this. Some of them might
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: be true, some of them will be hard to verify.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: But I know that that's unfortunately a place at were
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: that the Internet is going to go, and it's going
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: to force itself into the mainstream whether we want it
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: or not. So I would say this. I think it
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: is healthy considering how distrustful our world is and how
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: our enemies are going to try to weaponize this death
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: the rings they're better be a just have the autopsy,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: just make sure it's a very just you know, it
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: is unfortunate that this is the world we live in,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: but I think it's healthier if people can see that.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: It's like the most likely result is a seventy one
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: year old man who flies around the world a lot,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: just came back from a ten hour trip, carries plenty
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: of stress that we know of, and frankly, there may
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: be plenty of stress in his personal life that we
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: know nothing about. Because that's another thing. There's a lot
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: of people, myself included, who all have their theories about Lindsay,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: who all have their ideas about Lynd. And there was
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: a time I considered I had a pretty good sort
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: of professional relationship reporter to source with him, and then
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: it was less so, and there was sort of a
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know what happened to him with to me,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I could just tell you a couple of incidents that
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: he knows are true, and perhaps it explains things. But
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: when I interviewed him and McCain on January sixth, twenty seventeen.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: We're sort of at the height of the Russia situation
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: and the concern about what did Russia, you know, how
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: did they infiltrate our politics? Well, off the record, they
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: were the ones telling myself and plenty of other reporters
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: about this. This spy overseas named Christopher Steele, who had
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: had his own sort of research that he'd been doing,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: the so called Steele Dosier. And it's always been something
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: that everybook. This is one of those things that everybody
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: in Washington knows, but it sort of doesn't get said
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: a lot, Which is probably the two people that helped
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: give credibility to the Steele Dosia more than anybody else
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: in sort of Washington was John McCain and Lindsey Graham.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: It wasn't John Brennan and James Comy that which of
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: course have since become sort of the central focus of
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. It really was Graham and McCain who brought
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: this to the FBI and to our intelligence folks. So
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: this was and there certainly were plenty of intelligence sources.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Now some of you who don't believe in any of
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: this may say Hey, you may think Graham and McCain
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: were being used. Others will say, aha, I knew it,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: and there it is. But I do think I owe
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: it to you to This is sort of how I've,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: why I've where I operate from. When it comes to
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: this story and its origin, story, I think has never
• 21:00
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  Speaker 1: vary again it's something that any a buddy that actually
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: covered that era and covered the first term. Oh yeah,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: that's right. Lindsay and McCain were two of the you know,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: they seem to be well briefed and well versed on
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: what was in that thing before many other people. Look,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: within four days of that interview, that thing would explode
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: and then of course the rest is history. BuzzFeed did, frankly,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest mistakes in journalism. But
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: that's a that's a that's something that I have litigated
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: in the past and I won't relitigate at the moment.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: But look, you can't tell the complete story on this
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: in that front. I'm sorry to his family. Look, I
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: think those of you, I hope you spend a few minutes.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: You may not have liked Lindsay Graham's politics. You may
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: think he has been all sorts of bad things, but
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you. You know, you may think you understand his
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: personal life and the decisions he may or may not
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: have made throughout his life, but do understand this fact.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Here's a young man who is in college when both
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: of his parents have passed away. One died of Cancer's
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: father dies of a heart attack. He's got a thirteen
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: year old sister at home, he's in college. He's suddenly
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: needing to raise her. That's what he does. He eventually
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: adopts her so she can be eligible for military benefits
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: that came to him while he served. So, you know,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: I do think when you're assessing somebody's legacy, don't leave
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: out their personal legacy. Don't leave out that that stuff either.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: We're all complicated, we're all human beings, so do know that.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: So none of us can crawl inside his head. Here's
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: a guy who had to immediately go into adulthood, who
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: maybe immediately never had a social life when he was younger,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: when most of us are trying to go meet people
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: and all this. So the point is that there's going
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: to be a lot there and we you know, and
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: again I have my theory. We all have our theories.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, I think that sentence
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: was a spouse. I think he love that sentence more
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: than anything. I also know he came from a generation
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: that perhaps he didn't think he could be successful in
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: politics in South Carolina. If he were, if if if
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: if he was publicly somehow a different kind of a
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: different person as far as the public is concerned. Again,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: I don't believe it's my place to sort of decide, oh,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: he must be this, and he must be that. I'm
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: not naive. I fully get it. I know what's been
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: out there. I know. In fact, I'll tell you a
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: funny little one of my early Lindsay Graham anecdotes. I'd
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: written a column back in my National Journal days, and
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: it was a column about people the dark course candidates
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: for two thousand and four presidential you know, if it
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: was really about two thousand and eight, you know, I
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: think now I know that's exactly what's right, dark horse
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: candidates for two thousand and eight, right after, right after
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Bush won reelection. And I had Lindsay grahamont there, and
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: I just had like a two liner. I'd do one
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: of these comms. It was called on the Trail back
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: in the day for National Journal, and I think my
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: one line was something like, but he's probably got to
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: get married if he's serious about getting involved in presidential politics.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: And I had a friend of his immediately say to me,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: he loved that you mentioned him as a presidential candidate.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: And he laughed and he said, well, he's probably right,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: I got to get married, so let me go find
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: a spouse, which in some ways was was That was
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: what was so charming about Lindsay. He could wink a
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: nod to everything that was being said about him. He
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: knew the rumors, and I think the fact that he rarely,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: if ever addressed them directly was a Lindsey winkn a nod.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: But again, I think none of us can crawl inside
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: his head, none of us live that early life that
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: he lived. So all I would say is, you know,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: we're all three dimensional human beings. Just remember that, especially
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: as we watch what is going to be a pretty
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: destructive conspiracy theory laden harabbitals. And you know what, I'm
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: not going to sit here and tell you I'm a one
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: hundred percent sure of anything, Okay, I don't operate life
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: through that way. I'm an Okham's razor person. And I
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: think the most likely scenario is the scenario seventy one
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: year old man is burning the candle at both ends,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: working seven days a week, always up, always doing these things,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: perhaps carrying around personal stuff that we don't know about,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: dies of cardiac arrest, whose father also that cardiac arrest.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: So sometimes Ockham's razor is just that Ockham's racer. Okay,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Now let's do the real world impact of the loss
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: of Lindsay Graham. Lindsay's chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: This is a gigantic problem for Todd Blanche, who is probably,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: in my opinion, the most unqualified person ever nominated to
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: be Attorney General. Matt Gates included. I say this because
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Matt Gates wasn't the personal lawyer for the president. I
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: think this couldn't be more unethical. And so the point
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: is Lindsay was going to be the protector of Blanche.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Lindsay's the guy that could sell Tom Tillis. Lindsay's the
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: guy that can sell Susan Collins. Lindsay's the guy he's
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: been the moderate senator whisperer those that don't like Trump
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: inside the Republican Party. It's Lindsay Graham that takes messages
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: from them to the President and from the President to them.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: In many ways. There's a huge loss for John Thune.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: John Thune does not have a great personal relationship with
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Lindsey Graham would be who he could use
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: and messages through. It's how Mitch McConnell operated when he
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: couldn't get along with Donald Trump. This is a massive vacuum.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Lindsay was a trusted senator inside that Republican conference. Whatever
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: you think of him from what you think the outside
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: reputation of his was, I can tell you inside he
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: was very trusted and very and seen as vital in
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: that bridge between Trump and the US Senate whenever there
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: would be problems there. There's no obvious replacement to fill
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: that vacuum. In fact, if you look at what's about
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: happened to the Senate Republicans here, you're seeing a massive
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: sort of the sort of the rational senators are leaving
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: us left and right. There's no Cornant, there's no Tellus,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: there's no Cassidy, there's no Graham. There might not be
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: a Collins. We'll see what happens in Maine. Right. That is,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: that was a ballast that kept the Senate Republicans from
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: behaving like the House Republicans. You take all five of
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: those senators away, you got like Todd Young and Jerry
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Moran and Lisa Murkowski left. That may not be enough,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: right each one of them. I think Andy Barr, who's
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: going to replace Mitch McConnell is not a real trumpy guy,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: so it's likely he's a bit ends up looking a
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: bit more like a John Cornyn for instance. Certainly a conservative,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: but not necessarily trumpy an. He comes from the Republican
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Party of the pre Trump era, and that's usually you know,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: did they get Yeah? I always say this, The way
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: to understand Republican politics and where these folks really are
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: is did they get elected pre Trump or not? Right,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: those that got elected since Trump came on stage are
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: going to be more trumpy and more deferential to Trump
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: and the MAGA movement than those that figured out how
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: to get elected before. That's just human nature, right, So
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: this is a massive loss. I think what was already
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: an uphill battle for Todd Blanche probably is even harder. Now.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: We'll see who ends up running this be given that
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: the he was chair of the committee. Whether there's just
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: the next person in line, or whether Thune decides to
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: have somebody else run it, I'm certain it's we're going
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: to be I'll be curious to see whether this slows
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: down the confirmation process a little bit, but make no mistake,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: that's an issue. But Lindsay also served as a way
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: to keep Trump from sort of going way down the
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: American first nationalist, borderline fascist rabbit hole. Right, Lindsay would
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: grab him and think right like he was constantly And
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: this is where, you know, some people can't stomach the
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: fact that this is a role that he played, and
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: you could. Again, I am just telling you the role
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: he played. I'll let you just judge. I'll let you.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I'm sure plenty of you will judge him on this,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: And I, like I said, I'm gonna I have one
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: more story for you and on him that will at
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: least let you understand where I stand on him. But
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to explain the role he played. He
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: did do that. He kepped Trump from from totally going
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: down some crazy, even crazier rabbit holes that is possible.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: So this has a this is a huge hole, you know.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: I look at the Senate Todd Young, I think shares
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Lindsey Graham's concern about the international rule world order. I
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: think sees Putin as the threat that he is unlike Trump,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: but he does not have Trump's He just doesn't have
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Trump's here or influence. Right. What made Lindsey unique in
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: this respect is here was probably you know, he was
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: just in Ukraine, right, he have Trump from abandoning Ukraine.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: He did, That's why you saw what Zelenski said. He
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: absolutely did. And you know you see baby Nat Yahoo.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Some of you may be ecstatic about the fault what
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: I'm about to say here, but he's probably was somebody
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: that kept Republicans from totally abandoning Israel. So the point
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: is he is going, he leaves a gigantic vacuum in
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: the Senate. Who fills it is not clear at all.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I think, like I said, Todd Young and him share
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Dan Sullivan and Alaska, though he's got his own if
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: if he wins re election. Sullivan, you know, he remember
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: when he first got elected, he told I asked him
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: who did he align himself with? And he called himself
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: a McCain Republican. Again, I don't know how often he
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: will say that these days, given who runs the party,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: but that's certainly Dan Sullivan's instincts. And in a Senate
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: where Trump's no longer president or even influential, perhaps that's
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: the direction it goes. But David McCormick's another one that
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: I imagine might want to and he's somebody that might
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: have an ability to forge the personal relationship with the president.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: That might be the go between between the sort of
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: the non Trump Republican wing, which does exist. It's not huge,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: but it's consequential and that so that's probably where I
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: would turn to to see, you know, but it's a
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: huge facuate and it's going to impact Trump negatively by
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: the way you start counting up votes. Now, the way
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: the South Carolina law works is as follows. First of all,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: it's very laid out. He's the nominee. There's literally we
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: already know the dates of the special elections because it's
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: written in the state constitution. It is filing deadline open
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: second Tuesday after the death. Well that's a week from tomorrow.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Two weeks after that is the primary, and if a
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: off is necessary, two weeks after that. So we are
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: looking at a mid August primary. I think the second
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Tuesday in August, and then two tuesdays later a likely runoff.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: And again I suspect you will see a crowded feel.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: I suspect you'll see Nancy Mays. I doubt Mikky Haley
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: runs because I don't think she wants to lose, and
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Trump may go out of his way, unless somehow she
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: became a consensus candidate, which I'm skeptical of the one
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: person that might become a consensus candidate. But I'm a
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: bit skeptical as Henry McMaster, the outgoing governor. Trump loves him,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: and it's his appointment to make for the temporary side
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: of things. Maybe, right, I could maybe see that happening,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: But I don't think that Deters Nancy Mayce. I don't
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: think that Deters the gentleman that primaried Lindsay, that kept Lindsay,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: you know, under sixty, right around sixty, if I'm not mistaken.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: So I suspect this is going to be crowded. And
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: by my goodness, congratulations political junkies, We've now got a
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: special sort of convention ish firehouse primary like thing going
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: on in Maine. We've got an actual new special primary
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: and runoff likely runoff in South Carolina, all filling what
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: is normally supposedly the slow news cycle of July and August. Well,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: it's a campaign here. There is never a slow news
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: day in the Trump era, let alone a slow news week,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: let alone a slow news month. So with that, I
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: think I want to pivot. This is where I want
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: to pivot here to a few other things that I
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: wanted to share with you this weekend. But look, we're
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: going to have a lot on this going forward. Oh,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: one other quick thing I want to I want to
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: mention here about Annie Andrews. She's I interviewed on this
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: podcast back in February. She is very much in the
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: mainstream lane of Democratic politics, probably a little more little
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: close to the center, more of a Joe Cunningham, you know,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: the last Democrat to win that House seat that Nancy
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Mace currently represents. Uh, they are so she's a doctor,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: she's no gatflaw. If this Republican primary gets super right
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: wing and super sort of you know, the nominee ends
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: up very hard to sell to your Charleston Republicans your uh,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: which is to me, it's sort of like that's that's
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: that's that's the swing vote. Right. It's uh, I think
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: I've described to you right the right around my son
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: goes to schooled Smu're right around SMU is a very
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Republican neighborhood, except they haven't voted Republican for president since
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Mitt Romney. And that's kind of how I would describe
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: the presidential at least when it comes to presidential vote.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: That part of Charleston is that sort of Republican chamber
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: of commerce, Republican, college educated, Republican, you name it. That's
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: why what happened here, and whether there is the inability
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I kind of think in today's politics where everybody's angry
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: at the establishment and doesn't trust the establishment, that if
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: you try to do a coronation, you will start a
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: bigger fight than necessary. That's what Maine Democrats realize, which
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: is why this is as open of a convention process
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: as I've seen in some situation like this, and why
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: I suspect it is just going to be let a
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: thousand flowers bloom. It's South Carolina. Politics is sport in
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: South Carolina. So pull up a chair and realize that
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: the next six weeks are going to feel like a
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: South Carolina presidential primary sort of sprint. If you will,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: I think it'll be that loud. I think it'll be
• 38:45
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  Speaker 1: this stuff, in cannabis and hemp derived. I do not
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: partake in alcohol. For the most part, I think this
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: stuff is a lot safer than alcohol, a lot less
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: addictive than alcohol. And yes, I have to say I
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: love these drinks. It is the glass of wine and
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: you know after work, that's what this is. So no
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: hangover and no excess calories like this. I'm a big fan,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: So bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: sold today. Right now, Soul is offering my audience thirty
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: percent off your entire order. Go to getsoul dot com
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: and use the word podcast. That's getsoul dot com promo
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: code podcast for thirty percent off. And yes, I too,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: am a customer. All right now, I want to share
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: with you sort of wear my own sort of personal
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: probably why why I could be a bit judgmental, certainly
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: why my spouse is a bit judgmental. On Lindesday, we
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: were on a plane, the three of us together, just
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: happened to be sitting on one of those shuttles to
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: New York. I was going up with my wife and
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Lindsey Graham was up there, you reckon. We had this
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: long conversation, very animated conversations after Trump got elected, and
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: many of you know, my wife is absolutely you know,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: it's been a Democrat for a long time, but an
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: active Democrat, worked in democratic politics. And she says to him,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: I'm just so nervous, you know, are you know, are
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: you gonna are you gonna protect us from the worst
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: parts of of him? Or the fear and all this
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: stuff that that she was expressing this time, and he
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: was like, no, no, no, no, you know where that that is.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: It was this level of reassurance, this sort of and
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: maybe this shows you just how an effective politician he was.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: He certainly had her condensed of who of of of
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: who he will, of what he was going to be
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: elect in the Senate. Now, a defender of Lindsay would say, well,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: he held his work that in order to protect packed
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: the country from the worst elements of Trump, he had
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: to get close to Trump. And as we know, there's
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of people who've rationalized that their decision to
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: keep power and say it was to get close to Trump.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: So I'm a skeptic on that stuff, but I do
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: know that is how some might defend And I think
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: and I just made out probably a pretty I think
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of element to that with him. But
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: I can tell you the passion with which he expressed
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: his concerns and what he planned to do versus the
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: behavior we would observe later was a one ade. I've
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: done my best to explain it how I think he
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: might explain it. I've done my best to explain it
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: is in a variety of ways. Ultimately, I can't crawl
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: inside his head, but that's what everybody sometimes, success or
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: failure in politics is about making a choice. He made
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: a choice and for him keeping that sentenceat you know,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: the fact is, had he gone hard on Trump, he
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: would not have He'd have already lost his Senate seat
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. And I think it's pretty obvious the
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: calculation he made. But like I said, between his role
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: in giving credibility to the Stele Dossi to so many
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: reporters and Intel officials and his and sort of the
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: things that he would like, I said, like a good politician,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: whoever he was talking to, he made them feel as
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: if he heard them, he was listening, and he was responding,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: all right, let's leave Washington for a minute, go across
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: the Atlantic, as I promised. One of the reasons I've
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: I'm always keeping an eye on British politics is that,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: you know, for about the last decade, the UK and
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: the United States have been living parallel political lives. Right.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: We may have different constitutions, we have different systems, we
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: have different political traditions, but boy has been remarkable in
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: how voters have expressed their frustrations both at the UK
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: politicians and at the US politicians. They had Brexit, we
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: had Trump, They've gone through It feels like I have
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: a dozen prime ministers in less than a decade. Doesn't
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: feel that way. They have. And we've now had three
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: consecutive one term presidents for the first time in more
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: than a century. We had two impeachments. They've had sort
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: of what they call votes of no confidence. Right, their
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: governing party collapsed. Ours traded control of Congress back and
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: forth twice in both the House and the Senate in
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: the last ten years, as voters keep firing whichever team
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: happens to be in charge. So again, different systems, but
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: the same restless electorate. Now quick refresher if you haven't
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: been following British politics lately and why I'm dumping them. Okay,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: Labor came back into power, and Labor, of course basically
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: their quote unquote Democratic Party. Labor came back into power
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: after fourteen years in the wilderness. Keir Starmer became Prime Minister,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: promising competence and stability after the chaos of the Conservative years.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Sounds familiar, right, Kir Starmer and the role of Joe Biden. Anyway,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: that honeymoon did not last very long. Hey, neither did
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Biden's honeymoon. Labor is now under new leadership, and if
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: you believe many in the polls today, the party with
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: the momentum though is not Labor or the Conservatives. At
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: some point they're going to have to sit for election
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: and you may see a brand new political party end
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: up in charge of parliament in the UK, the Reform UK.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: This is Nigel Farage's party Right, And for those who've
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: watched Farage for thirty years, it's actually a remarkable, remarkable
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: the fact that he is on the cusp of becoming
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Prime minister. The man who says spent decades as sort
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: of a professional outsider just throwing rocks at the establishment
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: now actually has a plausible path to becoming prime minister.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: But of course, since many anticipate him being the favorite,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: he's gotten a lot more scrutiny of late, and now
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: there's this scandal surrounding his financial disclosures and his lucrative
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: crypto dealings. Basically, he has tried to turn his political
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: fame into wealth, a familiar path that we've seen here
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: in this country. And whether voters ultimately decide those accusations
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: matter in some ways. Is besides the point. Farage's political
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: response to this scandal has been fascinated. He decided to
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: resign his parliamentary seat right and the idea seemed obvious.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Force a special election, turn basically a new election for
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: the same seat, and Farage would be on the ballot.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: Turn it into a referendum on Nigel himself ask voters
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: for a simple question, you still believe me? Do you
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: still want me? Politically? It was high risk, but it's
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: a high reward move. It's a way to just sort
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: of get this. He doesn't want this to linger when
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: the actual national election takes place, probably in a year
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: or so. Until something uninspected happened, the other major parties
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: mostly declined to give him the fight he wanted. Now
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: we're not going to field candidates, said Labor Tories, you
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: name it, Greens, etc. Instead, the race has become well,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: something else. One of the most recognizable challengers is count Binface.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: And if you've been following my Twitter feed, you know
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: where I'm going here. Yes, Count Binface, a man who
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: campaigns wearing what looks like a silver trash can on
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: his head. That is what the BRIT's called trash cans.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Over there, they call him Bins for what it's worth. Now,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: if you've never heard of count Binface, just don't feel bad.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing, and this is the larger point
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: I want to make. Britain has a long tradition of
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: these satirical candidates actually participating in elections. They're not just
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: making jokes from the sideline like our comedians do. They
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: get on the ballot, They campaign, they give interviews, They
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: make ridiculous promises that often sound only slightly more ridiculous
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: than the promises the actual, supposedly professional candidates are making.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: And now Nigel Farage, a politician who built an entire
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: career arguing that Britain's political class had become a joke,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: may find himself losing the spotlight to an actual joke candidate. Yes,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: if you're not a huge fan of these sort of
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: bs artists that just try to sort of ride waves,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: like Farage, doesn't strike me as a as anything other
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: than kind of a political grifter, right, take advantage of
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: the moment. So to say that there's something poetic, perhaps
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: wonderfully poetic about this is an understatement. The man who
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: made politics into political theater in the UK now is
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: to compete with the actual theatrics of a trash can himself.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: So watching this unfold, I found myself I was exchange
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: texts my old friend of mine from my hotline days,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: my buddy Steve Beilifer, and we were sort of laughing
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: about the whole count bin face, and somewhere in the
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: conversation we were just sort of lamenting that, you know,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: the American system doesn't allow for this, right, And I
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: think he tells you, like, America needs a count bin face. Right.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: We kind of this has become absurd at times, our politics, right,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: and we kind of we you know, we have the onion,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: yeah we have. We have certainly plenty of satire out there,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: but sort of forcing the satire into the system might
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: actually shake up the average voter to realize, wait a minute,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta start voting with my brain again,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: not with my emotions. Right. So we were going about
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: this and at first we're kind of joking about it,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: and then we started brainstorming, you know, maybe every healthy
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: democracy needs a count bin face, right. Britain's satire participates, right,
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: our ours as I said, observes, and what the beauty
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: of Count Binface is that he gives sort of frustrated
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: voter somewhere to go, right, somewhere to do the old
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: double shooter. Right. Here's my double shooters to the system, right,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: And that's what Count Binface is, right, He's the double shooter.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: God damn it, you guys suck. I'm going to vote
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: for a trash can, right, And it's a way to
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: essentially vote. I'm rejecting this entire spectacle without actually rejecting democracy.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: In fact, it's a very small the democratic response. So obviously, look,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: we don't have that tradition here in America. Our absurdity
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: has a funny habit of becoming reality. So that got
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: me wondering, do we take this to actually a more
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: absurd level. Maybe we're all approaching this all wrong. Maybe
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: instead of pretending politics has become entertainment, we should just
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: accept the premise of the entertainment. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: to the People's Entertainment Party. The nomination is not going
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: to be decided in Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina. No,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: we are going to The nomination is going to be
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: decided on candidate islands. Right, we have an island off
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: the coast, you know, just pick one. Right, we can
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: go off the west coast, off the east coast. Right,
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: we'll pick an island. We'll call it candidate Island. Our
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: host Harvey Levin of TMZ, and I say him, I'm
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: not trying to take a shot at Harvey. He's built
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: himself quite a business. I actually think in some ways
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: Harvey is is sort of the perfect mediator here, given
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: I think his sort of dispassionate disdain in some ways
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: embracing of the crazy right. Who's better? You spent decades
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: deciding which celebrity meltdowns deserve our attention, and modern politics
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: is basically his beat. Now every week, candidates could compete
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: in elimination challenges. Week one the Viral clip Challenge. You
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: have thirty seconds to accuse your opponent of destroying America.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: Go extra points if nobody can explain what you were
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: actually arguing about. We two, you go on Donor Island.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: Contestants race through an obstacle course collecting super community idols.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Week three it's the three hour podcast endurance challenge. You
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: have to survive in appearance with Howard Stern or Joe
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Rogan without contradicting yourself. Once week four policy week, never mind,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: ratings would collapse. Producers would have to immediately replace it. No, no,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: let's do outrage week. No more policy. Okay, I'm kidding,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: but you see where I want to go here. Underneath
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: the joke is something that genuinely bothers me right now.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: And this is why, in a bizarre way, going to
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: the most absurd corners might actually bring us back to
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: caring about expertise again. Right. Politics maybe the only profession
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: in America where experience has become a political liability. Nobody
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: wants an inexperienced surgeon, Nobody asks for the airline pilot
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: who's never landed a plane, Nobody hires the lawyer who's
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: never tried a case. But every election side, millions of
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: voters are told that governing experience is exactly why they
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: shouldn't trust someone to govern. Does it get any stranger
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: than that? Now? I don't blame the voters for this,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Actually blame our institutions. They're the ones that stopped rewarding competence. Right,
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Congress stopped looking like the first branch of government and
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: started looking like another television set. They abdegated their responsibility,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: so they earn this sort of well, screw you, guys,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna blow up the system because you don't know
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: what the hell you're doing. You don't even know how
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: to read the Constitution. And then, of course media and
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: thanks to the changes that came thanks to the oj
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: simpsonification of all things media, that created this algorithm of
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: ship storms that we all have to deal with. Right,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: redir rewards performance more than competency, and maybe we've all
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: adapted to these incentives. So Harvey Levin of TMC, we
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be changing politics. He'd just be honest about the rules.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: And it brings me back to count Penface. He's funny.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: By the way, there's a music video that is just
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: it's like right out of MTV in the eighties. I
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: wish I could describe it, but it was just like
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: an eighties retro nostalgic music video that just lambasts farage
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: and promotes the trash can but with such passion. It's fantastic.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: But the fact is it's a reminder that politicians that
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: they're allowed to be mocked before they're worshiped. Right, we
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: are worshiping way too many politicians. They do not need
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: to be worshiped, and Benface reminds voters that at least
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: these guys deserve more skepticism than we give them, and
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: it reminds people that politics is important. But politicians don't
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: have to be larger than my figures. So maybe every
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: democracy needs someone to say this is getting ridiculous. Britain
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: allows that person beyond the ballot. America usually waits until
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: after we've elected ours. So let's be honest. If this
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: does happen, and I don't look this, Nigel Farraj is
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: so obviously you know this would be you know, but
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: if he happens to lose, is there a more fitting
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: end to Faj's political career if it comes at the
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: hands of a trash can? All right, I want to
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: hit one other topic here, and it's there's a couple
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: of things that have happened in Israel, uh and in
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: the West Bank or the last week. There's rama Manuel's speech,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: there's what happened to Rocanna, and he's been telling the
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: story and I want I want to probably do more
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: Rocana later in the week on that front, but I
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: think it all signals the same thing, which is a
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: a collective retreat that you're going to see from from
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: the deep partnership between the United States government and Israel
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: that we've that we've all gotten used to over the
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: last couple of generations. But I want to sort of
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: you know, here we are in the year twenty twenty six,
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: and you know, it wasn't that long ago that we
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: were this close to the Middle East piece, And it's
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: shocking to me if you just look at it. You know,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: if I were in a coma for the last twenty
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: five years, I woke up and be like, oh my god,
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, we are further away now than we were
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: in nineteen forty eight. And it got me thinking, Like,
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: if you caught my column last week, it was about
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: how I've been obsessed with the fact that the caricatures
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney painted of each other
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: in twenty twelve actually is representative of the basis of
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: the two parties today. And I've been trying to figure
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: out how we got there, right, And I think, and
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: some of you are going to say, well, here he goes,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: he's going to defend moderation. Your goddamn right, I am
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: I think, actually, this is what happens when moderation stops working. Right, So,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: like I said, this whole I'm gonna walk you through
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: this year, this whole thing I've been dealing with. I
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: went back and read the campaign speeches, even more of
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: them in four eight and twelve, right, because I went
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: looking for the insults. How is each party trying to
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: be a character? Right? Things Republicans would call Democrats, things
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: Democrats would call Republicans. And what was amazing is if
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: you read most of those attacks that took place then today,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: and I didn't tell you when they were said, they
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: wouldn't sound unusual at all. They just sound like mundane
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: every day back and forth between the two parties. Republicans
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: calling Democrats socialists, Democrats warning Republicans were becoming nativists, grievance driven,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: hostile to immigrants. Twenty years ago, those were considered exaggerated caricatures.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: Today they most sound like descriptions. So why does that happen? Well,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: my first answer was the it was an easy one.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Social media algorithms, echo chambers, all of that matters, and
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: I'd still believe that, But I don't know if it's
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: the if it's the right answer, right. I think it's
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: that those have an impact that that certainly helps amplify
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: where we are. But I think it's something deeper. When
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: moderation repeatedly fails, and by this case, moderation is compromised, right,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: radicalism stops looking radical. It actually starts looking realistic, because
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: if you can't compromise, then maybe one of the two
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: polls are right. Moderation doesn't usually lose because somebody else
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: made a better argument. Moderation loses when it loses credibility
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: when you can't get a two states solution. Right, If
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: negotiations never seem to produce results, if the status quo
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: keeps disappointing you and people, eventually the people who he
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: said enough, we've tried it earway stopped, they don't. They
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: don't sound like extremists anymore. They end up starting to
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: sound like the only people worth paying attention to, and
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: that perhaps they were the only ones paying attention, right.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: And Look, this is not an American story, I think, frankly,
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: it's the story of politics in general over centuries. But
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: it's certainly the story of the Middle East. Go back
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: to the turn of this century. Okay, no, Israelis and
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: Palestinians were not at peace, but boy were they close.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: There was a serious argument inside both societies over whether
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: a negotiated peace was possible. People can debate forever why
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: Camp David failed. There's Raelis have one version, Bill Clinton
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: has one version. I certainly think it's the it's the
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Palestinians that walked away from In hindsight, was just it's
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: ridiculous that they walked away. But of course Palistinian have
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: another belief. But either way, we were this close, and
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: everybody walked away. But that's not the point I'm making here.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: What mattered politically is what happened afterward. Right, they get
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: this close, then right after we get the second Intofada,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: the suicide bombings, the sharper Israeli military responses, the return
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: of BB. Right, you know, you had those that were
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: not BB trying to be the more moderate forces. You
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: had settlement expansion, more failed negotiations, more wars, a United
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: States that rhetorically criticized the settlements, but that's all they
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: did because we knew the more the settlements expanded, the
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: hard it was going to be to get the two
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: states solutions. And then of course every disappointment made it
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: harder for moderates to defend moderation people like myself who
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: are sitting there going, look what, there's a solution here.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: But if they're not going to take the solution, who
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: looks like the naive idiot. So if you were in
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: Israeli who believed negotiations could eventually bring peace, every bombing
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: made your argument harder. If you are a Palestinian who
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: believe negotiations could eventually produce a viable state, every failed summit,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: every new settlement, and every war major argument harder. So
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: every failure became exhibit A for the people who had
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: always said they wanted a maximualist. Right, there are those
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: in the Palestinian society who don't want Israel to exist.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: That's what a maas. This is why so many people
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: can't deal with a moas. And there is a growing
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: movement in Israel that do not want it to stay solution.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: And then they get to say, I told you they
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: don't want peace. Negotiation is a waste of time. We've
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: been naive and I could be speaking for either Palestinian
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: hardliner or the Israeli hardliner. That's how the political center collapses.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: Not because moderate suddenly becomes stupid, but they become a
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: less credible, less believable. The caricature becomes the movement. The
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: movement goes mainstream. And this is why I found Ram
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: Emmanuel's speech in Israel so fascinating this week. It's not
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: about because he criticized BV NANYEO. That's easy, that's low
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: hanging fruit. That guy's been a terrible prime minister, right,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, look what he's done to Israel's image. Look
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: what he's done to safety and security. Right, Israelis are
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: more unsafe with BB in charge than they were before
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: he was there. Okay, that is something. It's just a fact.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: I happen to believe it's him. Others may say no,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: he's the only one that will defend him. But I
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: just look at there was more peace and stability pre
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: BB than there is today. But it is remarkable who
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: was saying this. Ram Emmanuel spent his entire public life
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: essentially inside the pro Israel mainstream of the Democratic Party.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: His father fought for Israel before independence. Ram worked for
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, represented Chicago and Congress, was Barack Obama's chief
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: of staff. So you're not going to mistake rama Manuel
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: for someone that's going to just use the G word
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: and become part of the anti Israel left and virtue signal,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: That's not what he did with the speech. So when
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: rama Manuel stands and tell of even says that the
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: US Israel relationship is reaching a crossroads, it is worth
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: paying attention to. His message wasn't simply net Miya who
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: is wrong. It was a lot more uncomfortable than that.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: Here that Israel cannot assume unconditional American political support forever. Right,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: if American policy was a two state solution and they're
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: not going to pursue one, then why should we keep
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: supporting everything they're doing? Right, we should be doing everything
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: we can to protect Israel's right to exist, but that
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean you have to support every domestic policy decision
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: they make. And he warned that military success has to
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: be connected to a political strategy. He argued that Israel
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: has to present a credible vision for what comes after
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: the war in goes, because simply saying more war is
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: not a strategy. And he was highly critical of the
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: expansion of the settlements in the West Bank, something frankly
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: that every president other than Donald Trump is criticized. Even
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: Trump has said it's getting a little much a few times,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: depends when you find him. But we only rhetorically complained
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: we looked the other way as they kept letting it happen.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: That if you're going to look at various missed opportunities
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: to sort of not allow Bob to end up doing
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: what he did, not stopping them not punishing Israel more
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: during settlement expansion, that is a huge mistake. It's been
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: a huge mistake. Now you warn that Israel risk isolating
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: itself from younger Americans and from the political center of
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. This isn't a fringe movement, folks. At
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: the same time, he also make clear you he's not
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: joining the anti Israel anti it's an anti Jewish left.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: And trust me, it's hard to see the difference with
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: some of the people who espouse this rhetoric. This is
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: why this is why this gets so complicated for some
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: of us, and why it gets complicated for me, because
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: some of these critics are people who are not genuine
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: in their critique. They still have a bit of prejudice
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: in their eyes, and it's hard to it's hard not
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: to see that. Okay, rom def Israel's right to exist.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: He defended the need to stop Iran from attaining a
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: nuclear weapon. This is a friend of Israel. And if
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: Bibe doesn't see him as a friend of Israel, Bbi,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: he's got the problem. He also rejected slogans that had
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: become fashionable in parts of the American American laughter, So
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: in other words, he didn't go after Israel. Speaking from
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: one of the polls, Ron was trying to rescue the center. Now,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: maybe it's not going to work for him, maybe he's
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: the wrong political messenger for this, but it's important that
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: he did it, because whether you agree with Ram's conclusions
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: or not is almost beside the point. The point is
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: that somebody who has spent his career representing the political
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: center now sounds like somebody trying to save the center
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: before disappears. And that's why I sort of blended it
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: with the column I wrote last week, because this is
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: one of history's cruelest patterns. When moderation repeatedly fails, the
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: radicals don't have to prove their right. They only have
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: to convince people moderation doesn't work. It's a much easier
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: argument to be made. Right. The billionaires and the millionaires,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: the globalists, and the elites right, the woke academia. It's
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: a much easier argument. So, especially after years of just
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: not getting stuff done, years of disappointment. There's one more
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: angle to this, and this I said in my column, right,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: we fear extremists, but we root for rebels. The two
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: aren't the same thing. Extremists make us uncomfortable. Rebels are
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: easy to romanticize. And that's the trick in modern politics
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: is convincing people your radicalism isn't extreme at all, that
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: it's a rebellion against a broken establishment. That's true whether
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: you're talking about democratics, socialism, or Magan nationalism, the Israeli
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: right or the Palestinian rejectionists. The ideology may change, the
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: psychology does not. And that brings me back to, oddly enough,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: where we started today's show. I spent a bunch of
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: time remembering Lindsey Graham and sort of the type of
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: politics he represented, pretty transactional, but always trying to Again,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: if you're coming up with the best expression of this,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: it's searching for what is possible, no matter what. And
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: Lindsay was somebody who every once in a while he
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: came from an era of leaders who actually believed that
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: part of their job was occasionally telling their own party. Now,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: certainly McCain did it, Biden has done it, probably not
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: enough while he was in the White House. Ram Emmanuel's
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: trying to do it now, and you can pay a
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: political price for doing it. And that's the real lesson.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: Moderation doesn't disappear because extremists suddenly discover better arguments. Appear's
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: because enough people conclude the moderates have run out of answers.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: I think that's what's happened in Israel, in the Middle
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: East in general, nobody trusts the moderates to figure this
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: out anymore. The challenge for every democracy isn't simply defeating extremists.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: It's making moderation credible again before enough people decide they're exhausted,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: they've exhausted every single other alternative. Because once that happens,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: the caricature doesn't stay. A caricature becomes a movement, then
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: it becomes a party, and if you're really unlucky, it
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: becomes an authoritarian government. That's the thing here, and that's
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: the lesson to take away from this. Some of you
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: may hate this moderation, but Without it, we don't have
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: a pluralistic small dey democracy. History will show you, in fact,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: the time machine is coming up and I'm going to
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: get there that it doesn't matter which extremist side wins
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: the argument. If they get control, they want control. That's
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: not a democracy. Keep that in mind. This episode of
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: the Chuck Todcast is brought to you by Fan Duel.
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  Speaker 1: are going. As you know, this is what I do.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: Every week. I take a anniversary of the week in history,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: extrapolated out because I think it's relevant to what is
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: happening today? So where are we going on our time machine?
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: July seventeenth, nineteen thirty six, or in Spain? This is
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: the war that every generation believes is about them. If
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: you're a real student of history and politics, this is
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: something you too may have noticed over the years, because
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: if you spend enough time reading serious books about politics
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: or even longer essays trying to explain why certain democracies
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: succeed or fail, eventually somebody's going to bring the Spanish
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: Civil War. It happens over and over again. George Orwell
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: did it? Ernest Hemingway, Abraham Lincoln, Brigade Picasso's Garnica. Spain
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: becomes the analogy. Every generation seems to rediscover it. Sometimes
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: the comparison is insightful. Sometimes it feels like the writer
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: has been waiting twenty years for an excuse to quote Orwell.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: But after seeing Spain come up again and again and again,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: I thought it would be fair to ask start asking
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: a different question, why Spain? What was so extraordinary about
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: one civil war in one European country that writers, historians,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: and political thinkers have been returning to it for almost
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: one hundred years? The answer, I think is that every
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: generation eventually believes the Spanish Civil War was about their
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: politics or about them. And of course the irony is
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: that most of us don't actually know very much about
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: the Spanish Civil War it so it's not like taught
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: it in American grade school or American high school. You know,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: you probably had to go to a little deeper dive
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: into European history in the twentieth century if you were
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: going to get a get scholarship on the Spanish Civil War.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: By the way, at the end of this segment, I'm
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: going to give a few book recommendations for you on this,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: which I want to By the way, I'm going to
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: start making a a regular thing if you want to
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: know more about this. Here's the Here are the two
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: or three books I would recommend. So here's the basics. Right,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: we know Franco, we know Hemingway, we know orwell maybe Picasso,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: some of you know. Maybe you know the Abraham Lincoln brigade.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: Beyond that, the story may get a little fuzzy, right,
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: that's okay, And you may remember, oh, this is like
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: the fascist versus the socialists. Right, there's truth to that,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: But let's be honest. All of that is hopelessly incomplete
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: because Spain wasn't simply a war between left and right. Right.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of people who cleanly always want to
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: make that case. It was what happened after millions of
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: people gradually stopped believing the other side had a legitimate
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: right to govern. By the way, do you know it's
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: a theme with my show today, But I digress that
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: lesson has never really stopped haunting democracies. So let's go.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: Spain became a republic in nineteen thirty one after King
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: Alfonseau the thirteenth left the country. The Republic inherited almost
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: every division imaginable. There was rich and poor cities versus
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: the countryside, landowners versus labor unions, the Catholic Church versus
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: the anti clerical reformers, regional nationalists, right those separatists, monarchists, liberals, socialists, communists, anarchists,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: the military. The Republic was trying to modernize Spain. There
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: was land reform, education reform. They were trying to reduce
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: the influence politically of the church. They wanted civilian control
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: of the military. They were fighting for women suffrage, give
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: women the right to vote, to supporters. These all looked
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: like long overdue small D democratic reforms, but to many
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: conservatives they look like revolution. And power kept changing hands
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: through elections, each side increasingly treated the other's victories as
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: something more dangerous than an ordinary small D democratic loss.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: Political violence became more common. Churches were burned, political assassinations multiplied.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: The political center kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: And that's arguably where our story begins. Not with the
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: Civil War, but it was with the collapse of something
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: I've been trying to make mainstream again, pluralism. The election
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: of February nineteen thirty six, a left wing Popular Front
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: coalition narrowly wins. The coalition itself is hardly unified. Think
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: of him as it was, like moderate Republicans and Republicans
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: at those believers in the Republic over there, socialists and
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: communists anarchists were kind of operating. Nearby, you had the
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: regional nationalists, and they all kind of were in coalition together.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: They agreed on defeating the right, and they agreed on
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: remarkably little else. Is that sound familiar to you. The right,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: of course, was convinced Spain was sliding towards revolution. The
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: left became convinced the right was preparing to destroy the
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: democracy itself existential right, right, It makes it easier to
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: go after the other side if you think they're trying
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: to eliminate you. So then came the event that pushed
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: everything closer to the edge. Jose Calvo Sotelo, one of
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: the country's leading conservative politicians, was abducted and murdered by
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: members of the republic's owned security forces, along with some
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: left wing militants. To much of the political right, this
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: wasn't simply another political assassination. It suggested the republic itself
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: could no longer guarantee political neutrality or basic security for
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: those that disagreed with the government. So the military conspiracy
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: took hold. The murder accelerated it. On July seventeenth, military
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: units stationed in Spanish Morocco revolted. The next day. That
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: uprising spread into Spain itself. And here's the part that
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: many people forget. The coup failed, because that's what this is,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: how this begins. It was with a coup, right, it
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: failed to do what coups are supposed to do, didn't
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: seize the country, divided the country. The failed coup essentially
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: became the starting gun for the civil war. Now, the
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: nationalists were hardly one thing themselves. He had military officers, monarchists,
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: traditional Catholics, conservatives, the Falange. This was the explicitly fascist movement.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: They were the fascists. Franco gradually welded them together into
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: an authoritarian coalition under military command. Now the republican side here,
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: and this is not republicanisn't the American Republican Party? Just
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: the pro democracy, pro republic side of things. They were
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: not very unified. Yes, they included the liberals, the socialists,
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: the communists, the anarchists, the regional nationalists, the anti Stalin Marxists.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: They fought Franco and they fought each other. The communists
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: didn't trust the anarchists. By the way, who could trust
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: any anarchists? But I digress. The anarchists, of course, right,
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: distrusted everybody. That's kind of on brand. The arguments weren't
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: merely philosophical. Some allies arrested one another, some disappeared, some
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: were executed. The left's internal divisions became one of Franco's
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: greatest advantages. Again sound familiar. Spain wasn't simply democracy versus authoritarianism.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: Also a reminder that coalitions can destroy themselves from with
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: them well. The outside world quickly arrived. Britain and France
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: declared non intervention. History's great diplomatic ironies. The policy applied
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: most strongly to the countries willing to hopey it. Germany
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: and Italy openly supported Franca. The Soviet Union supported the Republic.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: Spain became a rehearsal really for World War Two. German
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: pilots tested bombing tactics, Italian troops gained combat experience. The
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: Soviets expanded their own political influence. One bombing became symbolic
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: if you watched Oppenheimer or read the Chaibird book, you
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: know Oppenheimer was a donor to the cause of the
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: communist side of things, which was on the pro democracy
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: side in Spain. There was one bombing in particular that
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: became very symbolic, Guernica. This is Picasso's painting made the
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: destruction itself famous, but Guernica represented something else as well.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: The twentieth century was learning that civilians themselves had become
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: part of the battlefield. Right, civilians were targeted, and that
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: used to be like, well, this is something you just
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: didn't do anymore, and that Lesson obviously did not stay
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: confined to Spain. There were Americans that showed up. There
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: were twenty eight hundred who volunteered in what became known
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Many of them were actual communists,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: some of them were socialists. Some of them believed fascism
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: had to be stopped before it ever spread across Europe.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: Of course, one of the most remarkable contradictions of this
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: war is what black Americans did. They served in integrated
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: units in Spain, years before the US military integrated. Oliver Law,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: a black labor organizer from Chicago, commanded white American volunteers
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: in combat in nineteen thirty six and thirty seven. Folks
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: that happened in Spain before it ever happened in America.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: Man history has a way of producing some fascinating ironies, right,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: and then, of course there were all the famous writers
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: that showed up. Hemingway arrived believing the Republic represented civilization's
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: best hope. His Spain eventually became for whom the bell
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: tolls for generations of America. It was Hemingway who was
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: the emotional narrator of this war. George Orwell's experience could
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: hardly have been more different. He joined a militia, he
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: was shot through the throat, and then he watched Soviet
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: back communists begin suppressing other anti fascist groups. He fled Spain,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: convinced that propaganda and totalitarianism were not monopolies of the
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: political right. The road to him writing Animal Far in
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four runs directly through his experiences in Barcelona.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: John Doe's pastors came to Spain sympathetic to the republic.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: The disappearance and execution of his friend Jose Roblez shattered
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: that confidence. He returned believing too many idealists had become
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: willing to excuse political murder as long as their side
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: was committing. Spain didn't simply divide a country. It divided
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: some of America's greatest writers at the time. So it's
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: another reason every generation keeps returning there. Spain seems to
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: contain almost every political argument of the twentieth century in
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: one convenient package. Militarily, Franco gradually gained the advantage as
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: coalition was more unified. Germany and Italy supplied aircraft, troops
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: and equipment the Republicans possessed courage sympathy from the world
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: and major cities, but the sympathy wasn't ammunition. Madrid fell
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: in thirty nine, the Republic collapsed, an authoritarian coalition with
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: the Falange providing the fact its fascist wing won the war,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: and Franco ruled Spain until nineteen seventy five. Folks, because
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: people sometimes forget the full outcome of this story. In fact,
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: they sometimes tell the story as though moderation somehow prevailed
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: at the end. It did not. Authoritarianism prevailed for almost
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: forty years. Political parties disappeared, free elections disappeared, Regional languages
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: were pressed. Tens of thousands of Spaniards were executed. After
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: the war ended, many more spent years in prison. Hundreds
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: of thousands went into exile. Pluralism didn't emerge from the battlefield.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: It emerged only after decades of a dictatorship convinced enough
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: Spaniards that, guess what, we need moderation again, because no
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: extremist faction could permanently govern by denying that anyone else
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: had no place in the country. In fact, when Franco
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: died in seventy five, Spain faced an extraordinary question, how
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: do you build a democracy after a civil war in
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: nearly forty years of a dictatorship. Something Cuba's got to address.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: It's something that as well is going to be addressing.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: It's something that Russia couldn't successfully do right. Their democracy
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: lasted all of eight years before Putin took over. But
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: you know what have you seen Spain today? Because the
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: answer became Spain's democratic transition. Political parties were legalized, elections returned,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: a new constitution was written. Former enemies agreed to compete
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: again rather than eliminate each other now. Unfortunately, people had
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: to die and rights had to be gone for forty
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: years for people to realize that moderation and pluralism is
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: the only way to make this work. Part of the
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: transition rested on what became known as the Pact of Forgetting.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: The idea was simple, Spain could stop using the civil
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: wars a political weapon long enough to build a democratic future.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: That decision, by the way, still remains controversial to some.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: Many victims never received justice from the Franco years. Many
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: mass graves actually remain unopened, Families waited generations for answers.
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: Modern Spain still argues whether democracy required too much silence,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: so the transition is not morally clean. Let's not pretend
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: it was what in our country either was it it
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: was politically practical, It wasn't built on agreement, it was
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: built on exhaustion. Enough Spaniards finally concluded that politalism, it's
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: not idealism. It's survived. And perhaps that's why every generation
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: rediscovers pain. It's not because history repeats itself so neatly.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: Every generation that invokes the Spanish Civil War is really
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: talking about itself, its own fears and polarization, its own
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: uncertainty about whether democracy is still strong enough to survive.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: It's a debate we have every generation. It's frankly normal.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: But just don't forget that Spain was talking as well.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: And what Spain had to say was painfully simple. Democracy
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: isn't tested when everybody agrees. Democracy is tested when you
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: believe your opponents are profoundly wrong and you still accept
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: the right their right to compete with you for political
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: power in a democracy, and sometimes you're oponent, who you
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: adamantly disagree with, is going to win and be in charge.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: Can you handle it well? Spain failed that test. They
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: had to go through a civil war and then forty
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: years of a dictatorship, a painful democratic transition, left many
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: wounds still not fully healed before enough Spaniards conclude it
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: that sharing power with people you deeply dislike was preferable
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: to try to try and to kill them. So America
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six, let's not pretend we're Spain in
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six. We are not. Every polarized democracy is
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: not headed towards civil war, all right, And every commentator
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: who invokes Spain is a pale imitation of George Orwell
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: or Hemingway, no matter how badly they want to be
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: George Orwell or Hemingway. But Spain does remain worth studying
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: because every generation eventually thinks the Spanish Civil War is
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: about them. The truth's a little different. Go look into
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: Spain for answers to your own questions. Maybe you'll find them,
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: but you'll find out all the wrong ways to do this.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: That's the reason to understand this. The least we can
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: do is understand what Spain was actually trying to teach.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: Let's hope the rest of us never need quite that
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: much of an education of an actual civil war. A
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: second one here and somehow forty years of authoritarian rule
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: before we figure out what we figured out better than
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: anybody else, and what every other country eventually tries to emulate.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: The only way to govern a huge democracy is through pluralism.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: By the way, as I promised here, I'm gonna do
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: this here. Sorry, as I promised a couple of book
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: recommendations on the Spanish Civil War. If you want to
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: go deeper on this, let me give you two. One
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: of course, is or While right, you might as well
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: read him Homage to Catalonia. It's his first hand account
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: of being there, so that I thinks that one on ramp,
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: but frankly a better one. If you're if you're sort
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: of if you're listening to me, you're kind of an
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: American political junkie. So this next book, it's by Adam
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: Hawk's child. It's called Spain in Our Hearts and it
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: really does sort of over index on the American you know,
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: sort of Americans that went there and sort of the
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: American side of things. So I think it'll it'll just
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: feel familiar and probably be an easy way in. And
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: then after that, you know, if you get hooked on more,
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: you can go deep, deep, deep. There's plenty of great
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: scholarship out there on the Spanish Civil War. But there's
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: just two quickie book regulations, ask Chuck. All right, let's
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: do a few questions. Uh, and then I got my quick,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: modest proposal for fixing Baseball's Hall of Fame. All right,
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: first question, all right, let me get this here comes
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: from Brad Greetings from Michigan's third District. As someone who
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: doesn't enjoy partisan politics, I really appreciate your presentation of
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: politics for the rest of us. Thank you. Let's make
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: that slogan great again. It feels like we're stuck on
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: a hamster wheel where each new president can simply undo
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: the last administration through executive orders, appointments, funding decisions, and
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: shifting agreements, while Congress and the courts do little to
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: stop the cycle. How do we break the pattern and
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: get back to the lasting governance and real progress? Brad Well,
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: you ask how we get there, and the answer is,
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: we've got to figure out how to make Congress great again,
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: how to make Congress relevant, how to accept the premise
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: these are not coequal branches of government that actually our
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: Constitution indicates essentially that Congress is the supreme branch of government.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: Right there is a bit supremacy there. Unfortunately, our partisan
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: divide inside of Congress makes it where the speakers are
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: more partisan than they are institutional. And the only way
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: to make Congress sort of get its power and influence
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: back is to have a speaker that frankly speaks for
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: the Institution and the Constitution over above their own party.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: Now you may think, well, that sounds both easy and impossible. Correct,
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: it is. It is It should be the easy part
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: of this, and yet it is so hard. Mike Johnson
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be there but for his loyalty to Donald Trump
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: and the most furthest right wing. And I promise you
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: Aqim Jefferies, if he does not play kate his far
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: left wing, he will not be if he becomes, if
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: he gets enough votes to become speaker, he will be
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: a very weak speaker. Tip O'Neil is probably the last
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: speaker we had who I think was at least equally
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: put the Institution and the party. At least he's sort
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: of I don't want to say he was country over party,
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: but he was country and party at the same time.
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: Now he had the luxury of that. Democrats have been
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: in charge of the House of Representatives for forty years,
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: and so there was an institutionalist mentality that tip O'Neil
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: b in. Heerded from previous speakers and sort of kept
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: and governed, and he was sort of now. He also
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: had an extraordinary diverse Democratic conference because back then you
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: still had the solid Democratic South who were very conservative
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: the Reagan Democrats in the eighties, so you had a
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: third of his constituents a speaker and as leader of
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party were actually siding with Reagan. So frankly,
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: the circumstances and the incentives were actually there for him
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: to be the institutionalists first literally with Tom fall I mean,
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: and then you just saw the whole thing broke down, right,
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: and it was literally, Tip O'Neil is the end of
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: the year, if you're doing your historical marker here, right,
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: Jim Wright becomes speaker and new Gingridge rises to just
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: takes right out and we have what we had all
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: the you know, the politics of today's Congresses were essentially
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: born out of the feuds between Jim Wright and new Gingridge.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: So ultimately that's our issue. By the way, this is
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: my way of telling you go to new sphere this
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: week and check out my conversation with Jamie Raskin. Jamie Raskin,
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: before he was a Democratic Member of Congress from suburban
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: from suburban DC inside of Maryland, he was a constitutional
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: law professor. He's been thinking about this for decades, not
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: just years. And I had a conversation where I said,
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: I want to interview Professor Raskin and talk about this
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: sort of systemic issue that we have, and then there's
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: the Democrat from Maryland that I want to speak to.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: And so, to his credit, he accepted both premises and
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: he talked about at times there are some things that
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: he believes in that he knows his party would not
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: necessarily because in the near term could quote unquote give
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: up some power. But he talks about various ways. But look,
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: we both are in the same camp. We know Congress
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: is too weak. The question is how to you strengthen it,
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: and can you strengthen it in this current polarized environment
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: that we're in. That's where I'm skeptical. We know what
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: we need to do. The question is do we have
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: a politics that can make it happen. And I'll tell you, Brad,
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: I'm not convinced that we are what I think we
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: need is a coalition speaker, right, we need, and we
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: may get there. I think if you see if the
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: two parties are become controlled by the Progressive dsa adjacent
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: wing on the left, and MAGA and a Nationalists stay
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: in charge of the right, then I think you may
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: have a group of Democrats who aren't comfortable with their
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: leadership and Republicans aren't comfortable that there might be the
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: opening and you might get what you've got in Texas
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: a coalition speaker. There have been coalition speakers and a
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: couple of other state legislatures around this country. Like I said,
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: people don't realize that this just happened in Texas in
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: the last five years. So I think that that's our
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: only hope here to get an institutionalist who realizes that
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: Congress is no longer functioning the way our founders envisioned,
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: and that's ultimately that's at the heart of everything. Our
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: over reliance in the courts. And if you're on the
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: left or right, you get frustrated that the courts have
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: to weigh in. But why do the courts have to
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: adjudicate because Congress won't do its job. So I know
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: some of you get so mad at the Supreme Court
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: and the Judiciary, but they shouldn't have to be dealing
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: with about half the issues they have to deal with.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: You didn't have a dysfunction of Congress who didn't have
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: the guts to deal with these issues themselves, including abortion rights.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: By the way, all right, next time, Charles. All right,
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: a fellow, Charles, I'd love to discuss with you all
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: of our various nicknames where you chas at Charlie, at
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: Chad Chuck. Right, But I digress, he says, Chuck. I
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: heard your answer about how Trump could potentially serve another term,
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: but I don't think this you propose works under the
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: twenty second Amendment because the to year exception applies to
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: a term in which someone else was elected. Could a
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: more plausible route be running as VP and succeeding a
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: president who resigns, or becoming Speaker and moving into the
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: presidency through succession. I'd love your take on whether either
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: of those scenarios could legally work. Go use Charles, by
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: the way. In my scenario of making that work of
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: I also have the president secretly getting an office an
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: OLC memo written that would reinterpret the twenty second Amendment
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: through the prism and then once you have an official
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: government take on that, it does have different type of
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: influence on the courts. But I don't want to get
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: into that. Your other two scenarios, look, I think the
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: I think both both. Here's the thing, you are not
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: eligible to look read the twenty second. You are not
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: eligible to be vice president if you are not eligible
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: to serve as president. That is my one question mark
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: about the running mate, right, It's very explicit in there.
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: So that's one thing. The speaker thing is a different story.
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: But I also think it's a temporary because then you'd
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: have to have the House sort of a ferment. Again,
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: you might have a different situation. That one is the
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: one I think you is probably if you're looking for
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: the this is a weird thing to say the cleanest
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: constitutional workaround. Speaker of the House is the one that
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: strikes me as potentially that way to go, or even
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: I'll give you another one, Secretary of State, but then
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: that the problem with that is Secretary of State comes
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: after the speaker right in the role. So then you're
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: you're having a Now do I think Donald Trump could
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: tell Mike Johnson what to do? Yes? Do I think
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump could tell you know. And that's the part
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: of this is I'm not one hundred percent convinced that
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: if JD. Evans assumed the vice presidency that he would
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: somehow then just back away and let Trump have it.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: And I don't think you have it unless the voters
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: explicitly know that's what you're going to do, And if
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: you had popular support for something like that might be
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: harder to stop than you think. I don't buy that
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: you'd have popular support for that. So I think I
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: think your speaker is the one that's more plausible. I
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: don't know if he ever gets on the ballot, and
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: the other one because again the Constitution's pretty explicit you
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: can't serve as vice president if you're not eligible to
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: be president, and I don't think he could go the
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: whole way. This is why I think the potential and again,
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: what it creates is a legal question. I take your
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: point on the twenty second amendment. That's why I think
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: resigning before January third is about the only way to
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: make that work. I think the only other one that
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: works if he serves the full two terms is the
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: speaker of the House route which also seems absurdly precarious.
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: All right. Last question comes from Gary are Hey checking team.
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: After watching Joe Cernin's recent interview with Trump, I was
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: reminded of a long standing question I have as an
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: expat who's lived in France for fifteen years, where political
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: interviews often feel far more probing and substitute. Why do
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: so many high profile American interviews lack tough direct questions
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: and meaningful follow ups When politicians dodge our audience expectations,
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: shorter tension spans, friendly partisan outlets or access journalists in
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: the Delaine. There are certainly strong journalists in the US,
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: but why do so few prominent ones consistently press for
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: actual anths? Thanks? Gary, are part of it's our culture, right.
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: There's a culture of it in the UK that's different
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: where and we have such a This is a free press, right.
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: The UK doesn't have a fully free press. Right. The
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: government can come down in some ways. We have a
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: fully free press, which means you have a fully free
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: way to dodge certain things. Trust me, there were people
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: who stopped coming on my show because they didn't want
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: to be interviewed by me. Lindsey grant him John Kennedy,
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: Republican from Ted Cruz right, these guys Nancy Pelosi right.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: It was mostly on the right, these at the at
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: the end, but certainly plenty on the left as well,
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, so you know that there. So what you
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: have is too many politicians can cherry peck and yes, right,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: Joe Kernin is supportive of the president's general agenda. So
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: Kernin has to be the lead if CNBC is going
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: to get access to Trump. Right. So it is it
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: is really that transactional relationship that you see. But let
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: me there's you know, I let me let me defend
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: the non you know, there's there's to me I viewed.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you how I viewed interviewing how I
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: still view interviewing politician, which is I want to learn something.
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not there to be a candidate to debate. I
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: think the the some of the things that some people love,
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: you know, like and I could tell you I used
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: to do, like well you did a great job, you know,
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: and those you know, it would always come from partisans
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: because I supposedly exposed some hypocrisy. Right, you'd ask that
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: question and now they didn't give you an answer that
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: told you anything. But it was always good for you
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: for exposing the hypocrisy, which I think. I think our
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: job is to let people know, hey, you're saying this,
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: but it seems to be this, and you make them
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: explain their contradiction. Now, some people will say, well, you
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: need to tell them their contradictions full of shit. Okay,
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: you can do that once and never interview somebody again,
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: or you could do what I believed I was doing
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: for my audience, which was making it plainly obvious that
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: somebody was obfuscating and somebody was full of shit. So
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: I think every interview deserves different styles. I went pretty
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: hard one time at Ted Cruz because I know he
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: was purposely avoiding something, and I just kept going and
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: going and going. There's a famous YouTube you can go
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: see of Creuse refusing to endorse Trump and we go
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: back and forth and it goes. There's another one where
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: you Know Trump, where Cruise comes on. It is the
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: last time Cruse was on with me, where he talks
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: about you know that, the idea that Trump could ever lie.
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: And then I brought up what Trump said about his
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: wife and his father and say, of all people that
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: might have an idea of Trump's capability of lying, I
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: would assume it would be you, and he just got
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: mad at me from bringing his family into the conversation
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: rather than you know, the point is that I didn't
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: you know, the audience got something out of it, I guess,
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: but how much did we really learn about what they're
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: thinking about? So I can tell you that I would
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: always balance those things and sometimes if they were just
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, as an interviewer, I think I
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: was always trying to channel the audience. You tuned in
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: to meet the press to be informed. Some people tune
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: into a cable channel to go rob wra So look,
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: I could tell you that was my style, but I
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: believed you can have and I think we're proving it
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: here with the check toddcast is you can have a
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: more substantive interview, understand every contradiction the politician holds without
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: being an asshole. And I think that some people equate
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: tough interviews with a member of the press behaving like
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: a like an asshole. Sometimes that is necessary to channel
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: the rage of the public. When you feel like government
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: isn't responding to a crisis, that's when I always have
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: felt the most compelled to be angry. Angry on behalf
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: of everyday people not angry on behalf of an ideology
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: or a politician or a party. But I think there's
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: a sort of look I'm not I think Kernin is
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: never going to ask Trump a tough question because he
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: doesn't want to make Trump mad, because he doesn't want
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: to lose his relationship with Trump. But Kernin is not
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: going to sit there and be he doesn't that's not
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: that's actually not the compact he has with his viewers.
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: Joe's compact with his viewer or is that he's the
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: conservative at the table. So I think that audience expectation
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: and you setting it with the audience also matters in
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: the different form. So I understand where you're coming from.
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: You're like, well, this is the only American journalist I've
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: seen interview the president where you're standing in France. But
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: I think that that's I'm trying my best to explain
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: sort of how it is. You know, do I wish
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: politicians enjoyed going back and forth? I mean, this is
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: why my favorite interviews are people like Dick Cheney who
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: didn't who accepted the premise of tough questions, John McCain,
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: who accepted the premise of tough questions. Barack Obama would
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: take one, but he'd lecture me and tell me why
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: I was. You know that I'm looking at it this
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: way and I should be looking at it that way.
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I got a little wonky when he and I
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: would go back and forth on certain things. But ultimately,
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: sometimes sugar works every once in a while, splash of
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: cold water works, every once in a while, heat works.
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: But I promise you light always works the best. Heat
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: can expose some hypocrisy or certainly put a put a
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: put a spotlight on it, but light teaches you more
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: than any other aspect of conducting interviews. All right, With that,
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: a quick little sports rant. The announcement by Justin Verlander
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: that he's going to retire is reigniting one of my
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: favorite baseball debates. Who was the best picture of this,
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: of this basically this generation that's retiring Kershaw, Suersier or Verlander.
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: Now I've got two. I've got two cats in this
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: fight for what it's worth. When his career began, I
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: was a Kershaw guy. I have a Kershaw jersey. As
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: my son was growing up and became a Nats fan,
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: I dropped my Dodgers jersey and you know, for me,
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: my Dodger fandom ends now, and as far as I'm concerned,
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and five, the year the Nats were born.
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: I love Clayton, I love watching Kershaw. I really enjoyed him.
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: I love Max. So I am invested in this debate
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: just as a fan, Max versus Kershaw versus Erlander. What's
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: fascinating about these three is what I what I did,
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: and I went through a various deep dives. It's like,
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, and look, I can make the
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: argument I'd rather have Max pitch Game seven. I'd rather
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: have Clayton be my ace in the regular season. You
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: know you can, and certainly Vernlander is the one that's
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: going to be the most durable. So I think you can.
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: I can. I could spin any of the three and
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: spin them all at one. But obviously the best argument
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: for Max is actually not the regular season, although a
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: great He's got great stats there too. What separates Max
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: from both Kershawn Verlander is his success in the postseason.
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: And so then I went, I went down this rabbit hole,
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: and I wanted to compare. I was like, looking like,
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: you know, the big three here versus say Randy Pedro Shilling,
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: you know, of the of that sort of late nineties
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: early ATS era. You know, we keep sort of the
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: various the various entities that you could go in different ways.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: You've got Steve Carlton, Nolan, Ryan, Tom Seaver kind of
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: in a grouping. Maybe you throw Jim Palmer in there.
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: And it made me realize, especially when you look at
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: the following metric in the particularly in the eighties, nineties
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: ATS and arguably even today, which is you have your
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: regular season argument, which ninety five percent of Hall of
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: Fame voters focus on, and then you have the postseason argument,
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: which clearly doesn't have the sway that it does perhaps
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: in other Hall of Fames. And so I want to
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: propose a small little thing. It is increasingly clear to
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: me that the best way to handle these debates about
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: who's the greatest of all time in baseball in different ways,
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: we should have two Hall of Fames. We've got the
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: one we have now in Cooperstown, which is your career
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. We need a postseason Hall of Fame. Now.
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: We've had a postseason now going back to the mid seventies,
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: right early to mid seventies. So this is now fifty
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: years right, Baseball was approximately just under fifty years old
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: when Cooperstown, you know, sort of came to be. So
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: this is a good mark. We have fifty years of postseasons,
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: never mind the World Series before that, but we've had
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: postseasons that were bigger than the World Series. Because here's
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: what you realize that as our postseasons have expanded, there's
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: a real difference between some of the greatest pitchers of
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: the regular season eras versus the greatest pictures in postseason.
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: Two people really three people jump out at me in
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: different eras. Dave Stewart of the Oakland A's who beat
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: Roger Clements twice in Game sevens. Kurt Schilling, mister bloody sock,
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: who's you know, this has never been about politics, And
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: this is to me, I really believe it's his regular
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: season just doesn't quite add up, but his postseason does.
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: And actually, if you look at the stats, Steven Strasburg,
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: because once you go after the next three, the number
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: four picture of this era is Strasburg. And I think
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: sometimes because Strasburg came in with so much height, and
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: it's like, but he's not a Hall of Famer. He
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: didn't win all these cy Young's and no hitters. But
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: he had a really, really good career, and he was
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: really one of the greatest pictures of his era, probably
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: one of the five best pictures of his generation. It's
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: just that in the accumulation of statistics, he doesn't cut it.
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: Here's why I would love to see a postseason Hall
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: of Fame, because the really special players are Hall of
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: famers in both. Right, Max would be a Hall of
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: Famer in both, Sandy Kofa's a Hall of Famer in both,
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: Bob Gibson a Hall of Famer in both, Reggie Jackson
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: a Hall of Famer in both. And that would be
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: you know, Bill Simmons has this idea of creating a
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: pyramid of that, you know, to try to separate out
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: the guy who took ten years to get in or
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: the Veterans Committee or Harold Baines versus your universe nearly
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: universal guys you know that got into the Hall of Fame,
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: like what's coming in an Albert Pools or something like that.
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: But the postseason what here's the way I look reason
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: why I think this matters. Fans memories are postseason driven now,
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: not regular season driven, and so the greatest memories we
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: all have are not of what happened on May seventeenth
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: at a four h five start, but it's what happened
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: in game six or game seven of the division series,
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: the you know, game five of a division series, game
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: seven a of a of a championship series, or of
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: course game six or seven of a World series. I
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: think it'd be a lot of fun to have. I
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: think it's something fans care about, and I think if
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: you again, it allows us to create a real sort
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: of tier. Are you a two Hall of Fame guy
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: or a one Hall of Fame guy? And you know what,
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: there are careers that are very postseason heavy and deserve
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: acknowledgment in the postseason. I'm talking to you Andy Pettitt,
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: and I'm talking to you Fernando Allen's well right. And
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: then there are guys who have this irregular seat, like
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: a Justin Bernlander. And then there's guys like my man,
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: Mick's Suser who would easily be And I tell you
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: I would have a few things. You have to have
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: a ring. If you didn't win a ring, I'll say
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: there's another gnat that might make it. If it's just
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: a post if there's a postseason Hall of Fame. Ryan
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: Zimmerman is gonna come up short in the in the
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: career Hall of Fame by the metrics that are used.
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: But go look at at at his performance in the
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: postseason generally, and by getting you that that that ring,
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: you get a little bit of a different look, right.
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: I would say it's a ring and a minimum ten
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: games of postseason work that you're judged on. But again,
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: the reason for this, I don't want to hear from
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: you baseball purist, but honest, you know it's a small
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: sample size. This is about the fan experience, our memories. Ultimately,
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: hall of Fames are about the greatest moments that matter
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: to us, the fans, and the postseason is a huge
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: part of this. So come on, mister Manfred, let's do it.
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: Let's launch the Postseason Hall of Fame. And it's basically
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: all of these things celebrating just the postseason. Maybe it's
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: a wing on Cooperstown, maybe it's m LB, and maybe
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: it's something you do uh in a in an in
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: another in another area, another city, But I think it's
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: I think it would it's a way to create more
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: debate and in some ways settle some of the greatest debates.
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: All right, with that, I will shut up. I had
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: a lot to say. These two days a week means
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: I'll have more to say. And by the way, you
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: get a special third episode because you know what comes Tuesday.
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: It's Super Tuesdays with Crystallizen. So we've we're actually sneaking
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: in three different episodes this week just for you, my
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: favorite political chun tison. With that, I'll see whend we
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: upload again. H