Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Character Is Destiny In Politics + The Independent Mayor Making The Case For Post-Partisan Politics

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Full Episode - Character Is Destiny In Politics + The Independent Mayor Making The Case For Post-Partisan Politics · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todcast is brought to you
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  Speaker 1: so use that code. Hello, They're happy Monday, and welcome
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: to another episode of the check podcast. It is in
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: some ways, I've got a episode that has a ton
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: of stuff that I'm gonna touch on. Right, I'll touch
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: on a ron. I'm gonna touch on main Senate and
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: California governor and Texas governor and the presidency in America
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: to fifty and in many ways, I could sit here
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: and say I'm checklisting off of all these different topics
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: and headlines and the bidens and all of this stuff.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: But I'd also argue I have one issue in some ways,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: and in a few minutes, it's sort of the larger
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: point I want to make I'm going to get on
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: that in a minute, but let me give you a
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: complete rundown of today's episode, so you know what you're
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: getting yourself into. Like I said, I got there's a
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: lot of things that have happened over the last seventy
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: two hours. I think they all think there's a big
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: there's a large theme to them that I want to
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: get to about character in politics and whether it is
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: the people with bad character, the people that defend the
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: people with bad character that are the real problems in
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: American politics. And I'm going to get to that in
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: a minute. The Iran stalemate. You know, we in some
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: ways the more things, the more this is delayed and baited,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: the more likely the outcome that I've been outlining for
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: you for some time is going to come to fruition.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: It's just the question is how many stages does it take?
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: And we'll see where it goes. I do have a
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: little riff about you know, we sit here and worry
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: a lot. Where are the guardrails? The guard rails kind
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: of work this weekend. I'll get to it. I'll get
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: to that in a few minutes as well. Plus we've
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: got the big, first big primary in June likely one
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: of the largest single days that people will be voting.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Given the size of California's population, it obviously punches above
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: above the average primary day. But we also have Iowa,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: South Dakota, and New Jersey that all have some interesting
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: races all happening. Obviously in the next thirty six hours
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: we'll have some signaling there. And I think actually one
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: of the more intriguing aspects is, after all this hand
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: ringing from Democrats that they could get shut out, there's
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: seems to be if we're we're we there's some pulling
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: out there indicating that the Republicans could get shut out
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: of the top two in California. So the point is
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of interesting headlines to talk about. Plus I've
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: yet to weigh in on the mess that the Big
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Ten and the SEC are making of college football. Uh,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and of course we've got both the owners and the
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: players have released their first Uh. They're sort of their
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: their their dream scenarios, their dream pitches of how they
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: would solve baseball's labor and spending problems going forward, and
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: more of an equity issue that I think we know
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: baseball teams are dealing with. So it's a it's a
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: pact and busy show, and I'd like to think I'm
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: giving you guys everything you expect to come here for.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I want to just quickly deal with Iron here because
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: in some ways there is a there's quote I want
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: to share for my friend John Ellis, who if you
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: don't subscribe to news Items, it is a sort of
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: a a really well curated news of the day with
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: a focus a bit more on international politics, some domestic,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: lots of market stuff, lots of science and tech as well.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: I can't quite put my finger on exactly what I
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: would say is John Ellis's focal point, but I can
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: tell you it's a different type of aggregated newsletter, smart
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: news items, things like this, and you know, you get
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: his smart takes. John Ellis, for those of you who
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: don't know, he's actually the first cousin of George W.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Bush and Jeb Bush. He is if he is part
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: of the Bush family. He has been in and out
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: of Republican politics, worked in media over time. I think
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: it's pretty safe to say he is a one of
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: those never Trump right leaning folks. But you know, I
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: think his own politics is I don't think a clean
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: thing there, so point is is I think his newsletters
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: are outstanding, and news items is one of them, and
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I want to highlight a news item from the weekend
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: because it was just it was a very concise paragraph
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: that I think sort of sums up where we are
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: in Iran and is sort of almost the frankly, what
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I would just what I wanted to say is yeah,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: what he said. I want to quote this news item directly.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: But it was so good that it is also what
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: John Ellis did because it is the words of a
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Substack author named William Usher. He's a former CIA analyst.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: He's got this terrific newsletter on subsect that I'm not
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: a subscriber of what He's been quoted quite a few times,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: and John Ellis's newsletter seems to be maybe I ought
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: to think about subscribing, So mister Usher, you can think
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: of mister Ellis for potentially another subscriber. But he quotes
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: he quotes them here, and I just want to do
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: it word for word here. This is where things stand
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: at the end of May twenty twenty six. A ceasefire
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: that neither side fully observes, a framework that neither side
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: fully accepts, and a set of core demands that neither
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: side shows any willingness to abandon. The war has settled
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: into a costly stalemate, military operations paused but not ended,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: economic damage compounding daily, and the political clock ticking in Washington. Realistically,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Trump now faces three options, the clear victory and walk away,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: cut a deal, or restart the war. Look, everything that
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: mister Usher wrote there is not is something that hasn't.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you know, is something that I've been conveying.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: It's something plenty of us have been conveying, I think
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: for some time really since the since since the ceasefire began,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: and one realized what little leverage that the United States
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: had and how much more leverage Iran and ended up
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: with after this war started, thanks to ignorance or something
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: by our war planners having to do with the straight
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: up war moves. Well, I just think it succinctly sort
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: of tells you where we are. This is where we are.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: We're in this stalemate. Here's what I can tell you.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: The Iranians will continue to keep negotiating. Donald Trump does
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: not want any sort of deal. He just simply wants
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: the concepts of a deal so that he can essentially
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: declare some form of accomplishment. We need even call it victory, right,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: but some form of amp Okay, I've checked that off
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the list. I've got a plan to potentially implement a
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: plan that would prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Right,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: That might be the best we can hope for here
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: at this point. He's going to end up giving them money,
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  Speaker 1: But my guess is he'll do it in such a
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: way where he can claim he's not doing it the
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: way Obama did it when sanctions relief came. It'll probably
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: go through some third party country. It'll be either Pakistan
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: or Cutter that ends up cutting the actual check or
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: whatever it is to Iran, so that he can look
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: like he's not capitulating in a way that he had
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: criticized Barack Obama from doing. Because, again, other than restarting
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: the war, the only way out of this where they
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: where the United States can hope to save a tiny
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: bit of face here is to essentially create the USMCA
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: of Iran nuclear deals. And what am I referring to
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: when I say that, right, Trump, I ripped up NAFTA
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: only to renegotiate NAFTA. But ah, it's not NAFTA I've
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: renamed it. It's USMCA, it's NAFTA zero. Right, So here's
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: so anyway, that's where we are. You know, we're at
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: this point. It's nothing but market manipulation. Every morning, right,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: we all wake up to see, how's he manipulating the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: stock market today? Does a stock market thing? Things are
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: getting closer to a deal, Okay, then he has to
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: say nothing. If suddenly the markets are spooked, oh my god,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: he's got to let them know that a deal is
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: imminent or that oh they're they're exchanging paper, et cetera.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: So that's getting old, this market manipulation, which is really
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: what may has been about right since the seas fire.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: But the here's the real scary part that's coming and
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: why we really do need a deal sooner rather than later,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: is if you've been paying attention, very close attention to this,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: most of the economists and experts on our oil markets
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: have set, including the conversations I've had with people like
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Daniel Jurgen and some poem. We had these conversations in
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: March and April, and all of them said, look, it's
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: going to be starting in June that we're going to
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: start to feel sort of the longer tail of this,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: right that in June is when you would see strategic
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: oil reserves start to be run down. It was in
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: June that you would start to see fertilizer inventories at zero.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: That it's in June that you would start to see
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the almost the you know, you've heard of the hockey
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: stick moment when you're examining, when you're watching a company
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: where you know, you're you know, things are going well,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, you know, instead of you know,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: two million dollars in revenues, you have fifty million dollars
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: in revenues, and it all happens within like a six
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: month period. It's your hockey stick moment. Well, this is
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: a negative version of that hockey stick moment, but it's like,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: you know, we've been middling along and we've been surviving,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: and we can handle, you know, a six week disruption,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: and we can handle a twelve week disruption, and then
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, we can't handle that disruption, and
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: we go from handling it with a little increase in
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: costs and a little bit of this to suddenly the
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: hockey stick moment where it's holy s, we've got to
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: start rationing, and we've got to start doing this. And
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: all of the experts had pointed to the month of June,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: right that said, look, this needs to get done before June.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Well it's not before June anymore. Here we are, so
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: you know, every single day exponentially adds to the damage.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Like we are, we are in that period here, and
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: I know that's that's frustrating to hear. It's very you
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: could say, hey, you know, the media needs to you know,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: go in. It is hard to it is hard to
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: show right, it's very hard to to competently predict catastrophe
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: because you know how people handle a crisis. Moment is uneven.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: You know, some people suddenly quickly want to hoard, right,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Like the toilet paper situation we had at the beginning
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: of COVID, where all of a sudden, eybody decided that
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: they better go grab the toilet paper now. Then all
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: of a sudden we had a run on toilet paper.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: We had plenty of toilet paper, but people perceived that
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: we wouldn't and then everybody began hoarding. And I think
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: that's the type of situations that's why you're it is
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: you're never quite sure it exactly right. There's sort of
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: rationality to this until there isn't. And the thing that
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: we ought to fear here is that we may hit
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: an a moment where the consumers started to behavior irrationally
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: in their own very rational ways, if that makes sense,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: you know, like the hoarding of toilet paper. Like, they're
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: not wrong that we're going to have these supply chain issues,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: but they were focused on the wrong thing. It turned
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: out toilet paper was going to be the least of
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: our issues. It turned out we had other issues that
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: we should have been a bit more worried about, but
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: it was certainly symbolic. That's the situation we're starting to
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: head towards now and God forbid. By the way, speaking
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: of June, that's also the start of hurricane season. As
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: an East coaster, as a Florida boy, you know, June
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: first means is a big deal date on the calendar.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: It's when we're all sort of every morning you wake
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: up and you start looking at the Horn of Africa.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Anything out there, right, God forbid, we have a natural
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: disaster in the middle of this man made energy crisis
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: that the world is experienced. We're already seeing what happens
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: when you have a man made aid crisis like in
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: world health. With the United States pulling out of the
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: WHO no longer any expertise, We've now got one of
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: the worst of Bola outbreaks we've ever had to deal
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: with in the United States. His expertise is essentially on
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the sidelines because of Donald Trump's personal war against international organizations,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: and that is having a potentially calamitous effect in the Congo.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: And it's certainly something that you know, again, I go
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: back to something I mentioned last week, which is, you know,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the United States uses soft power not out of the
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: goodness of their heart, but also to protect ourselves. It's
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: national security. It protects the health and safety of US citizens.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: And pulling out of the WHO put human beings lives
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: at risks, which of course puts the United States lives
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: at risk. So you know, this is the These are
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: the type of you know, this is why the damage
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: that Trump has done to the government, to our international relations.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: You don't fully appreciate how bad the damage is until
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: you really until you hit some crisis, right, Abola is
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: suddenly we're realizing this crisis that Trump and Kennedy have
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: created in public health is now is now, you know,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: putting pressure on the entire world and could could take
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: something that would have been that essentially, had Kennedy and
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Trump not touched a thing, then we'd have probably a
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: hell of a lot more control over this outbreak than
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: we do at the moment and have a lot more
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: experts on the ground. Donald Trump's experiencing the same thing
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: with his inability to deal with the Iranians in the
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Strait before moves. If he hadn't beaten up every American
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: ally that the United States has had other than Israel,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: if he hadn't beaten up every ally in Europe that
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: we had, and maybe some of them would want to
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: help us out more. But alas, this is what happens,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: you don't, and this is what can be frustrating for
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: those of us that are in this space of trying
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: to call bullshit, trying to call balls and strikes. Let
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: you know, hey, this is what's happening. You need to
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: need to worry about around this corner. We need to
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: worry about now going around this corner. We can't tell
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: you exactly, We can't always tell you exactly how this
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: is going to have a negative impact on us. We're
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: just promising you. Unfortunately, it's going to have a negative
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: impact on us pulling out of public health, was going
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: to do this, how do we know it. We're now
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: starting to experience what this is with this, with the
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: with the struggle to to try to contain the same
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: ball out right. You want to understand why multilateralism has
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: been such a good thing for the United States, just
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: look at how hard it is to go it alone
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: in the Middle East when you choose to go it alone.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: So it is, it is, it is down the road
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: that you sometimes see these negativities, and it's it's it's unfortunate,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: but it also is why Winston Churchill famously said you
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: can eventually count on the Americans after they've exhausted every
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: other path. And that's why I have my own version
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: of optimism. That's how I stay optimistic even in some
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: of these darker moments and darker days. This episode of
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  Speaker 1: and use the word podcast. That's getsoul dot com promo
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  Speaker 1: code podcast for thirty percent off. And yes, I too
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: am a customer, But I do have a larger topic
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: I want to hit on today, and it is about
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the issue of character and politics. And if you think
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: about it, there's a lot of a lot of issues
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: over the last few over the last week which has
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: sort of resurfaced. You know, to me, what is a
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: constant in American politics, which is character is always destiny.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: The question is whether everybody sees it at the right
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: time to deal with it. Whether it is the success
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: of Ken Paxton and what that says about our politics,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: the potential success of Graham Platner and what that says
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: about our politics, the fact that we should We knew
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen that if Donald Trump became president, he
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: would somehow try to manipulate the government so that he
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: could escape a tax audit for the rest of his life,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: something which, by the way, we are now finding out
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: is among the real motivations of this slush fund, is
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: him escaping accountability from the government in a battle that
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: he's been having with the government for a couple of decades.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: There's the new revelations by Joe Biden where she clearly
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: was either lying in twenty twenty four about concern about
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: her husband's ability to run for president, or she's lying
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: now about her fears that he was having a stroke
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: at that infamous debate. It's all about It all gets
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: to this larger question, right, and it's one of the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: oldest questions in politics and still one of the simplest
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: right is how much does character matter? It's not about policy,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: not ideology, not party affiliation, but character. Generation ends up
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: having the same argument when it comes to this issue
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: of character and politics. Some voters think personal conduct is
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: highly relevant. Others think it's a distraction. Some voters care
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: more about what a politician says they'll do, others care
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: more about how they've lived their life. There's no right
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: or wrong way. It's called democracy. Right in the words
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: of Getty Lee, if you choose not to decide, you've
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: also you've still If you choose not to decide, you
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: still have made a choice. The point is everybody has
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: their own motivation for why they vote, why they don't vote,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and who they vote for or who they won't vote for,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: because in this country, everybody gets to make that decision
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: for themselves. Well, what I've been thinking about lately, though,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: isn't whether character itself matters. It's something else. It's who
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: ends up defending the character flaws, because the people who
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: coume up our politics the most are not always the
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: people with the character flaws, to the people who defend
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: the people with the character flaws. We spent the better
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: part of a decade having this argument about Donald Trump.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: One of the great frustrations many Democrats had with Trump
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: supporters was watching behavior that they themselves found disqualifying for
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the last few decades, at least if a Democrat did it.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Democrats found were frustrated when these Trump supporters would sort
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: of excuse things that he did or said that had
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: any other politician said it, they wouldn't have allowed it
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: to be explained away. The argument was always some version
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: of yeah, but right, Yeah but he's fighting for us,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah but the economy, Yeah but immigration, Yeah but the
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: alternative is worse. This whole flight ninety three mindset, it
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter, right, And eventually a lot of people stopped
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: evaluating the behavior and just simply started defending it. I'm
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: old enough to remember when Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: had cared about character in politics. They have chosen to
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: defend this bad character. Now, before anybody misunderstands me, this
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: isn't actually supposed to be a Donald Trump monologue. And
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: no it's not really a Grand Platiner monologue either. But yes,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: what's been happening around him and with him helped inspire this.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: But the reason I'm interested in the Platiner story is
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: because I think it reveals something a lot bigger about
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: what's going on in our politics. Because what I've watched
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: over the last few weeks is a lot of people
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: who spent years criticizing Republicans for enabling Trump suddenly sounding
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: awfully familiar. Not because the conduct is the same. It's not.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Not because the facts are the same. They're not. The
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: reasoning is the same. The reasoning goes something like this,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Yes there are concerns, Yes there are warning signs, but
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: that's what campaigns are for. Yes there are things that
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: make me uncomfortable. The cause is too important, but the
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: movement needs But the alternative is worse. That's the moment
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: when political judgment starts getting clouded, because every political movement
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: does this, and they've been doing it since the dawn
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: of time, every single one of them. When a movement
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: finds somebody it wants to believe in, yellow flags become
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: green flags, and red flags become yellow flags, and anybody
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: who points them out gets accused of helping the other side.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Everybody thinks they're good at spotting enablers do they just
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: think the enablers live on the other side of the
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: political aisle. The deeper issue here is one I don't
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: think we talk about enough of why do people run
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: for office? We tend to assume everybody runs for some
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: form of the same reason, but they don't. Some people
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: genuinely want to solve problems. Some people have ideas that
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: they think are unique to them and that they can
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: solve a political conflict with a unique solution. Some people
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: just simply want to serve believe that hey, that's what
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: citizenship's about. And there are plenty of people that are
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: driven by ambition they want a capstone on their resume.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Still others are driven by a massive ego, and some
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: people are searching for something, purpose, identity, community, meaning, validation, redemption.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Politics can offer all of those things. If you're a
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: washed up actor and you haven't gotten work in a
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: long time, you can run for mayor of America's second
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: largest city. And maybe you're pretty good at this. We'll
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: find out.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Politics maybe the most powerful identity building exercise available in
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: American life today. Right, we've really sort of almost abused
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: politics of this. Join a movement, find a tribe, find
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: your mission, find people who tell you you're changing the world.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: There's something incredibly seductive about that. Sometimes it's healthy. Sometimes
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: politics does give people purpose. Sometimes public service brings out
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the best in people. But sometimes politics becomes therapy, and
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: that's where trouble starts. I've become increasingly convinced that some
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: people use political campaigns and political movements in lieu of therapy.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Maybe they're lonely or washed up reality TV host and
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: they don't know what to do. They can't do business
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: because they've scared off everybody they've ever done business with,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: because they're a bad businessman. Maybe that's why they try politics.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Instead of confronting problems in their own lives. They throw
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: themselves into politics. Instead of dealing with personal struggles, they
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: seek validation from a movement. Instead of figuring out who
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: they are, they let politics tell them who they are,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: and for a while it can work. Politics is a
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: fantastic distraction. The problem is that distractions don't solve the
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: underlying problems that perhaps people did need therapy for. They
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: just simply postpone them, and eventually those problems show up again,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: only now they're attached to public power. And that's why
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: character matters, not because we're looking for saints. Politics has
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: never been populated by saints. Character matters because it is predictive.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: That's why it matters. That's why the phrase character is
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: destiny has meaning. Character flaws rarely stay confined to a
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: personal life forever. Eventually they influence decision making. Eventually, they
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: affect judgment. Eventually they affect how somebody handles power. When
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: people bring personal baggage into politics, eventually that baggage influences
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: their decision making, just as the Bidens who did preemptive pardons.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: We've seen this over and over again. There's Donald Trump.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: How many decisions of his presidency were influenced by personal grievances?
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: How many were influenced by his need for validation renaming
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: the Kennedy Center. Folks, how many were influenced by old
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: scores he wanted to settled. The character flaws did not
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: stay private, they became public. You can make a similar
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: argument about John Edwards. This is one of the examples
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: I use quite a bit when talking about this, because
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: I have a miss empathy for a mister and missus
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Edwards and what the late Elizabeth Edwards went to. But
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: they used politics in lieu of dealing with a problem.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party became enamored with a candidate who, in retrospect,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: was clearly carrying around unresolved personal issues. A family that
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: suffered an unimaginable tragedy losing a child also threw itself
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: deeper and deeper into politics, and eventually the entire party
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: paid the price. You can make a version of this
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: argument about Andrew Cuomo. You can make a version of
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: this argument about a lot of politicians. Frankly, you can
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: make a version of this argument at the Biden's Joe Biden,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, why they ever run in the first place
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: when their kids were in crisis. In twenty eighteen, one
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: of the tragedies of Biden's political career is that the
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: line between family struggles and public responsibilities became increasingly difficult
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: to separate the deaths he endured. Nobody wishes that upon anybody,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: the burden he carried, the challenges surrounding Hunter Biden, and
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: no doubt, his own guilts or whatever you know that
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: a parent has when grieving both a dead child and
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: trying to parent a troubled living child. All of those
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: experiences shaped him. He's an enormously empathetic figure because of
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: it in some ways, and he knows how to give empathy.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: And of course these tragedies shaped him. He's human. The
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: question is whether there were moments when family obligations began
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: competing with presidential obligations. Just A good example is the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: preemptive partons. As a father, I understand them completely. I
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: have the power to make sure my son is never
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: touched by this mess again. I'm going to use that
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: power to protect my kid. I get it. As a president,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: It's a huge mistake, such a terrible precedent, and might
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: undermines the legitimacy of the rule of law. As a father,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: protecting your child as instinctive as a president, your responsibilities
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: are broader than your family. It's not an easy distinction. Again,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: that's why we cared about character, but it's an important
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: one because democracy depends on public officials being able to
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: separate personal interests from public responsibilities. That's why the character
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: discussion matters so much. Not because we're moralizing, not because
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: we're pretending politicians should be perfect, but because power magnifies
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: whatever is already there. If somebody is running for something,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: power doesn't fix it. If somebody is searching for validation,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: power doesn't solve it. Somebody has unresolved personal baggage, power
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: rarely makes it disappear. Actually, it usually makes it more
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: consequential and ends up involving innocent people that had no
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: part of your personal issues. One of the things we've
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: lost over the last few decades is an appreciation for
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: why political parties existed in the first place. They weren't
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: just ideological organizations. They actually were vetting organizations. They weren't imperfect.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: They were imperfect. They weren't perfect. They made mistakes. Sometimes
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: they protected the wrong people and sometimes they kept out
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: the right people. But they did ask hard questions before
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: someone got too close to power. Today, social media allows
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: candidates to build emotional relationships with supporters before they've been
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: fully vetted. Movements fall in love first. The movement progressives
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: are just in love with so no new information. They's
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: got to be explained away right. Questions come later, and
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: by then it's often too late, because once people become
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: emotionally invested in a candidate, they stop evaluating. Then they
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: just simply start defending. We've seen it with Trump, and
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: that's the cycle I worry about. And not just on
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: the Rhine, not just on the laugh this is everywhere.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: As we've seen, this type of behavior is contagious. The
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: lesson of the Trump era wasn't that Republicans are uniquely
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: vulnerable to overlooking character flaws. The lesson was that every
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: political movement is vulnerable to overlooking character flaws. When the
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: cause feels important enough. The ridiculous Flight ninety three defense,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: the moment we convince ourselves that the mission is more
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: important than the flaws, we do enter dangerous territory, and
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the Republic is put at risk because the flaws don't disappear,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: they don't become less relevant, they don't magically stop mattering.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Those flaws show up they'll affect judgment, they'll effect of
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: other decisions, which then affects all of us. That's why
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: voters should pay attention not just to the candidate with
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: the baggage. They should also pay attention to the people
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: explaining why the baggage doesn't matter, because those are usually
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: the first warning signs that a movement has stopped asking
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: questions and has started making excuses. So look on when
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: it comes to what's going on in main center. I
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: don't want to also say, hey, this means that those
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: that were advocating for Janet Mills should be getting drunk
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: and I told you so juice, because I'm not sure
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Janet Mills was the answer. That's also misreading the moment.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: What has happened, though, is that and you see it.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: You see it when anybody that's part of a certain
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: wing of the party, when one of their well known
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: proponents gets accused of a character issue, there's this immediate
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: rallying around them that they're just under siege because of
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: what they believe, not because of who they are. Look,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: it's good, it's a good pr tactic, it's a good
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: crisis management tactic. Deflect and blame, right, I get it.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: But when you've spent when you've spent a decade absolutely
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: eviscerating one party for looking the other way on character
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: flaws that were so obvious. Even the character himself admitted
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: that he could shoot somebody and get away with it, right,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: That's when you know your movement is no longer sober.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: They are high on their own supply and the supply
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: of others. And I think this is where Democrats are
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: now in a very difficult spot here with Platter. I
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: don't know what to make I think it's there's a
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: lot of yellow flags here. There's a lot of issues.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: These issues with him are not from twenty ten. This
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: isn't like George W. Bush in two thousand and us
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: arguing about his behavior in the seventies, which happened twenty
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: five or thirty years, or the conversations around Bill Clinton
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: in the nineties, which were about his behavior in the
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: late sixties early seventies. He was accused of sexty in
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Folks, just checked my calendar again. Okay,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: it's twenty twenty six. This isn't a youthful indiscretion.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: I'm also aware that someone will say, well, he's been
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: going through a lot of stuff. I get that. The
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: question is whether politics should be used in lieu of
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: therapy and lou of dealing with your own problems. And
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: this is what has bothered me. Right, so many people
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: have figured out how to use running for president to
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: profit or to launder their public image, and so much
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: so that that you've seen it sort of right. I mean,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: you know Eric Swollwell create you know, essentially patted his
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: resume by a useless case and paying for president, and
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: it almost got him the nominee, almost got him to
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: the governor's mansion, until somebody decided those character flaws were
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: just too much to leave dead and buried. Mike Huckabee
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: had no interest in being president when he ran the
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: first time. He was just looking for a talk show,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: looking for money, and he got it. In fact, he
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: was almost too successful. He became a serious candidate for
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: the nomination for a brief period of time, and I
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: remember they struggled with it because I don't think they
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: ever planned on being that successful. Donald Trump never planned
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: on being that successful. He was just doing it for ratings,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: for his own Q rating, hoping to make himself relevant.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: And we've seen it, Gary Bauer, Al Sharp, that, Alan Keys,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Mike Huckabee, Ben Carr's Herman Kane, I mentioned Swallwell, Tulsa Gabbard, Right,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: we can keep Bobby Kennedy Junior. None of these people
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: were serious presidential candidates. None of them just wanted to
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: have a real job. They were looking for a shortcut
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: to some thanks to the celebrification of politics, right, which
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: really started to be an obvious career path when we
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: became a full three cable channel world back in the
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: late nineties, early odds and now with fragmentation. Right, Hell,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: look at what I'm doing. All right, I'm an individual
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: creator in that sense, I don't even need a network.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: But I promise you I'm not going to use politics
• 39:52
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• 42:13
  Speaker 1: true normal people to do it, and that's something I
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: don't know how we fix overnight. Now, Platner could still win.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: There's no doubt Susan Collins has worn out her welcome.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: She probably shouldn't have run again. And if Jared Golden
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: had agreed to run for the Senate seat, there'd be
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: no Graham Platner. Right, that was the ideal democratic replacement,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: But perhaps there should have been a bit more. I mean,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: it was folks were so you know, I think progressives
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: were so excited about having somebody who's charismatic, who didn't
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: look like a stereotype of a progressive that they may
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: have put blinders on. We'll see. Maybe Platner has figured
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: all this out, and the decision to put it all
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: out there is part of it. The voters have Manald
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: decide this. But i'd be you know, I'm watching a
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: lot of really, I'm watching a lot of people who mocked,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of Republicans who rationalized Trump support now using
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: some of the same language and same defense mechanisms to
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: explain away any thing that's uncomfortable regarding Platner, as I said,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: with redistricting, and look, I don't I wish I had
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: a better answer here as to what the alternative way
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: for the Democrats to behave other than I just happened
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: to think of you just sort of behaving your principles.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Eventually that might matter. But you can see this mindset
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: of if you can't beat them, join them tactics, use
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: the same tactics. It's a bad road to go down.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: If it was, If it was the wrong road for
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: Republicans to go down, why do you think that's the
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: right road for some Democrats to go down? If it's
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: wrong it's wrong. The same criticisms apply to the right,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: the same things they say is wrong. If you're offended
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: by Platner and you're on the right and you look
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: the other way on Trump or Paxton, you have no credibility,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: zero zilch. At some point, credibility is going to matter
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: to a majority of voters. It does more than I think.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: I think our politicians have such low disregard for you,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: the voter. They think they can bullshit their way out
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: of anything. Pay no attention to the guy who doesn't
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: pay his taxes honestly for the last thirty years. So
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: he's decided to try to come up with some convoluted
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: scheme to prevent the government from ever looking at any
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: taxes he has filed up up to the point he
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: leaves office. I'm referring to what we're learning more about this,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: but this crazy defense fund of Donald Trump's, the weaponization thought.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: By the way, he is a reminder now that we
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: have a judge sort of reopening the case and the
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: guardrails are working. You know, sometimes we think, oh no,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: you know, nothing matters. Well enough, Center Republican squealed, his
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: agenda got stalled. Guardrails are always going to get dented.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: I've got a little area over here near Glee Road
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: and Chambridge that a guard rail gets knocked over and
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: gets reput back up all the time because people take
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: the curve too fast. The guardrails there to minimize the damage,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: not to ever prevent any damage ever, but it's to
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: force it back on the path if you can, and
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: worst case scenario at least just sort of end the
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: destruction right there at the moment, mitigate the damage that's
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: done so our guard the guard rails are still working.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: I do think this weaponization Fund's never going to see
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: the light of day. It's such a political liability that
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: you have people leaking from the White House that they're
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: looking for a way to kill it. And it's guardrails
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: that got Donald Trump's name off the Kennedy Center. A
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: judge decided to read the Constitution and realize what article
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: won that it's Congress that named the institution, and it's
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Congress that has to rename the institution. Donald Trump can
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: lobby Congress to add his name to the Institution, but
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: he's got to have the votes. He won't have the
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: votes because Donald Trump's alienated a third of his own party,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: his own people aren't going to want to give him
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: this honor because of the way he's behaved. Comes back
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: to the irony I was painting earlier about every decision
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: comes with consequences. You just don't know when you have
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: to pay your consequences, pay that bill. Take take for instance,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: you know the fact that every everybody that was in
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: just about everybody that was invited to participate in the
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: America two fifty, which was really being done handled by
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: the Trump super pac version of it. This Freedom two fifty,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: which is has you know, America two fifty was a
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: bipartisan organization passed by Congress. Freedom two fifty is a
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: slush fund for Donald Trump and his cronies. Well, it
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: was Freedom to fifty that was inviting those artists. But
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: here's the irony. And I know we can't create a
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: personality transplant of Donald Trump. But let's say Donald Trump
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: had at least some check on his own ego. But
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: let's say Trump really wanted a massive turnout of great celebrities.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: A normal American president would have made all the living
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: presidents the honorary chairs of America two fifty, and all
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: of those presidents would have worked with this president and
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: had an array of artists get involved that they all
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: individually have relationships with and you would have had a
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: true celebration of America with cultures, with every culture or
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: every large culture in this country represented quite well. But
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's ego is such that he can't bring himself
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: to share anything, including the presidency, with which he has
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: shared with forty four other individuals. I guess technically forty
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: three other individuals, since he and Grover Cleveland are both
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: kind of twice. But he couldn't even share that distinction.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: And that's what I find sad about this whole America too.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: I want to celebrate America two fifty. Donald Trump is
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: making it very He's politicizing. He politicizes everything. The irony
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: is that he wrote to power by complaining that the
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: left politicized everything. All he does is politicize again. Two
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: rungs don't make a right. We have an entire right
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: wing political movement that is based on two wrongs make
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: a right. I am. If the left behaves the same way,
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: it's not good for any of us. Jokers to the left,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: clowns to the right, and here I am. Here we
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: are stuck in the middle with these guys, but we
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: can always do something about it. That's why character is
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: supposed to matter. Here's the thing. We knew all of
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's character flaws before he was elected president, and
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: everything that even his supporters don't like about it was
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: revealed before he ever became president. If you chose to
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: ignore those character warnings, you are now you know. Unfortunately,
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: you alone don't get to play the consequences. We all
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: are paying the consequences for your decision to look the
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: other way.
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: So we can't.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: This is ultimately right. When you know, last week I
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: brought up and I spent a lot of time on
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: what the on the pope's encyclical when it came on
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: artificial intelligence. And the reason I did is because I
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: do think that this is American pope, because he doesn't
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: just speak English, he speaks American. He is going to
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: be a He's probably going to be the moral leader
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: America's desperate for some new pulling out last week that
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: showed that a larger, growing chunk of Americans are concerned
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: about America's moral values. We've become Donald every Donald Trump
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: is the north Star. This is why I've talked about
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: this when it comes to all of this, right, he
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: is in charge. The American president is in charge of
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: America's thermostat, whether that's on whether violence or a culture,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: or in anything else. His behavior is a role model,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: whether he chooses to be the room, whether he wants
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: to be a role model or not, people model it.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: It's why we need to get back to character counting
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: for a lot more than it has in our politics
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: for a while. And I get it right, you're a
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: little nervous about institutions, you're a little miss about group think,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: and look at you know these people that were sorely
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: good character people got it. Look people with good character
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: have bad ideas. I'm not saying they don't. You vote
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: them out. And when they're voted out, they respect the decision.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: See George W. Bush. That's what you're looking for. And
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: a good character person, Barack Obama George W.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: Bush.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: Two high character people. They accepted the premise of when
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: they were right or wrong. They listened to voters when
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: voters expressed concern, and they and they and they and
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: they calibrated. That's all we can ask from our leaders,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: and that's all we really can look look for when
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: we're trying to figure out whether you know, we're the vetters.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: Now there are no political parties vetting anybody. All parties
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: want to know is who gives them the fastest track
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: to power. Parties are no longer seems to be worried
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: about finding the responsible actors. And I know someone'll say, well,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Chuck Shumer try to get Jana Mills. He didn't. He didn't. Really,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: he still misread the room. He was right about He
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: may have been right about Platner, but he may have
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: been right about platter for all the wrong reasons. So
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: it's a It's funny, you know, I was tracking all
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: of these different stories and was thinking about doing them
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: as as sort of these separate things, and you realize
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: it's really sort of this larger crisis that we have,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: which is we stopped. We decided collectively not to value
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: character and morality, and that was a decision we made
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: with Trump. And now we're getting folks who have decided, well,
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: this is what this must this must be better. So
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: now the Democrats are copying right in some ways. And
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: this is why I've said Plattner Collins feels like a
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: rerun of Trump Hillary from sixteen parties are in reverse
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: similar sort of mindsets, one side rationalizing their support, the
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: other side struggling to convey why status quo is changed.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: But I think this platinum election is going to teach
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: us a lot about where the Democratic Party is headed
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: and where twenty twenty eight is headed. It's also why
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: we're not one election away from sort of getting past
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: this moment we've been living in. We have a couple
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: more false starts, I think before we truly sober up
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: enough and realize that both parties have gone off the
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: deep end in different rays for different reasons. A few
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: other notes, a few other notes on the weekend, just
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: a few other things. Jill Biden, like I said, I
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: was part of the reason for my long monologue was over,
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: you know, was this sort of changing explanation. You know,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: it's interesting the I don't you want to talk about
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: a group of people who have been totally insulated from
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: what the rank and file really thinks. I think it's
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: the bidens I you know, I'll be curious. I'm not
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: sure people are going to want to read this book.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: I maybe hate readers angry readership, but that was it was.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: If you don't know the Bidens. What she said seemed
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: like an empathetic spouse. But if you covered the Biden
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: dis closely, you covered this story closely, it doesn't ring
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: very honest at all. And that's a shame.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: You know, it's so funny. Before Biden decided to run
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: for president in twenty nineteen, I think that they probably
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: had the highest approval rating of any family in the
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party. There was empathy for them, there was sort
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: of this he was sort of this beloved, sort of
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: wingman of the presidents, referring to President Obama. But you know,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: it's funny what ambition does to people. He wanted something
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: so bad that he ignored everything around him that was
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: going on, and they did enormous damage to their Their
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: own irony is that they did enormous damage to the
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party, enormous damage to their own legacy, and they
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: did some I think they did real harm to their
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: own family. And I'm sorry to think that.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: Is.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: Every interaction I've had with every Biden living or dead,
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: was nothing but a good interaction. These are good people,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: and good people can go down certain roads. That happens.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: Bad people can do it too, so can good people
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: just like you. Know, so I saw, you know, I
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: think that that there was a lot of us that
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: had a lot of good will that overlooked some of
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: these flaws. And I you know, when I when I
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: heard this interview again, I was just reminded, why did
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: they run in the first place? And the alternative would
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: have been probably Pete Pootage and Bernie Sanders fighting it
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: out to the end in twenty twenty and probably wouldn't
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: have mattered, Meaning COVID was going to elect the Democrats
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: no matter what. So who knows where this would have
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: had it. But this is the world, this is the
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: timeline we're on, this is the one we live in.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: Uh quick preview. I'm we're gonna have live coverage of
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: the big primary night on Tuesday night. The most interesting
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: development over the weekend has been in the governor's race.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: It shows polling now Javeer Basera and Tom Steyer could
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: both finish in the top two slots, locking out Republicans
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: from this, which of course would be a nightmare for
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: Besara or of styr Right. They both want Hilton in
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: the top two, and for a while Democrats are worried
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: they'd get locked out completely. The trump endorsement of Hilton
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: has sort of prevented that, And now it's possible that
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: this just ugly race for governor, which you know, it's funny,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: with its serial sort of front runners and constant searching
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: for something else and alternative and dissatisfaction with the candidates
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: that are there. Is this going to be a preview
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: of the twenty twenty eight presidential primary season, Because that's
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: one theory I have, is that we could have a
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: series of front runners, meaning that people are just constantly
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: you know, they know what they don't want, and they're
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: going to keep trying different trying on different outfits and
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: seeing which one they decide looks best. That's kind of
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: what we've been watching with California governor. Eventually the primary
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: comes and they have to make a decision. But the
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: lack of people turning in their ballots and the fact
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: that people are turning in as late as they have
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: is proof that they're waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: They don't love their choices. They know they're settling. They're
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: just trying to decide is this the last thing they
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: have to settle for? Anyway, It's just one way that
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: I think you could watch California government and the other
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: race that I'm intrigued by. Of course, on Tuesday night
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: we've got Iowa Senate, a little progressive versus establishment going
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: on there between Josh Turrick and Zach Wallas. I think
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: in this case a lot of money's been spent on
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: behalf of Josh Turick, and I certainly I think would
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: rather be him than Walls, but we shall see. And
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: then there's an LA Mayor where Karen bass is playing
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: an interesting game here. She's not really responded much to
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: Spencer Pratt, and people have probably have been wondering how
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: come she doesn't respond to all this and how much
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: is Spencer Pratt a right wing fever dream that sort
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: of doesn't really exist in the real world. Look, I
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: think it's I think practic certainly going to do better
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: than you think, probably will underperform the polling in general.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: LA Mayor polls usually you know, under under pole African Americans,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: So she's probably gonna be a little stronger in this
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: top two. But secretly she wants to face Pratt. She
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: wants Pratt finished second, not the not the Democratic Socialist,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: not the mom Donni Acolyte to finish second, that's a
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: much tougher top two general election for her. So if
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: you're wondering why Bass has been weirdly silent on Spencer
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: Pratt and sort of the these Fox News manufactured this,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: this sort of AI campaign for mayor that uh feels
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: like more of us. I think this is a little
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: bit more of a phenomenon online than in real life.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: But we're going to find out on Tuesday. But secretly,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: the Bass people, I think, are hoping for Pratt as
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: their number two opponent, as they think that he he
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: is somebody that won't wear one. They're probably right on
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: that one, but hey, you know, this is a this
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: is an angry electorate, especially out in California, where it
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem as if anybody is satisfied with their current
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: set of elected officials. All right, speaking of not finding
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: satisfaction with partisanship, my guest for this episode today is
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: Mayor Jemmy Mobilade of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Now why am
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: I having this Mary Emi? On? Well, number one, he's
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: the largest I believe he's the mayor, he's the only
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: he's the he's not the only independent mayor in America.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: But I believe he's governing the largest city of any
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: independent in office at this moment. And I'm not talking
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: about people that run a nonpartisan primaries, but really, no,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, he really is truly an independent. What made
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: him unique even more unique is after he lost, he
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: hired his opponent, a Republican, to be his chief of staff.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Ready for more about Mary Jemmy Maryemy wasn't even a
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: US citizen ten years ago. He got to listionenship in
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: the last six or seven years, and he's mayor of
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: Colorado Springs. He's a fascinating political figure. He is truly
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: trying to govern from an independent lane. Not necessarily a
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: center lane, but an independent lane. And it's interesting the
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: challenges he faces doing that. Where it's works, where it doesn't.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: You know, he's caught between in some ways. I think
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: he believes a democratic legislature that is too that is
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: further to the left than his city, and a Republican
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: presidency in Congress that's further to the right of his city.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: And it's interesting how he juxtaposes the two. As you know,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: this is I've been highlighting people running as independence, but
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: I thought it's important to highlight somebody who's governing as
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: an independent. So I hope you enjoy this conversation with
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: Mary me.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: by Quints. This time of year always makes me rethink
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: what's in my closet. I'm trying to keep fewer things,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: but better ones, pieces that are well made, easy to
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: wear all the time. Trust me, I am constantly on this.
• 1:05:19
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• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: As many of you know, very fascinated with this current
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: period of American politics where we have a lot of
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: frustration with the two major parties and you see various tempts.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's in red states you see independent candidates. I've
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: featured them here. In some blue states where you see
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: independence that may lean wright, but there's been very few
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: examples of independence winning and governing. But one of those
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: places where we've seen that recently is in Colorado Springs,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: and my guest right now is the mayor of Colorado Springs,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: Mayor Yemmy Mobilade. Everybody calls him mayor Yemmy, like mayor Pete,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: mister mayor. Welcome to the podcast, Suck. It's an honor
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: to be on your show. Truly, thank you for having me.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you for saying that. So look when the most interesting.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, in some ways, you were a big splash
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: to me when you first got elected, not just because
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: you got elected as an independent, but you hired your
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: opponent to be your chief of staff. That is what
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: everybody's like, WHOA, this is different. Okay, walk me through
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: that campaign and what you were thinking on hiring your opponent.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, at the end of the day, I was elected
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: to do a job. And the job I was elected
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: to do transcend red and blue, transcend politics. It's about
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: human flourishing, It's about city flourishing. It's about a quality
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: of life. And Americans are feeling the pain of they
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: feel like they're losing that. And when you are elected
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: by your people, your representative, they expect you to get
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: the job done. While most Americans do hold a political identity.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: When it comes to the quality of life, they really
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: do not care. And when I was running, I meant
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: it when I said that this leader embraces the team
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: of rivals approach. I am an immigrant. I have this
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: August eleven, in a couple of months would be my
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: thirty year anniversary when I came into this country right
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: the Chicago O'Hare airport, went to college in Indiana and
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: South Bend, Indiana. And one of my connections to the
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: American story is that I share a birthday with Abraham Lincoln,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: and I'm drawn into that period of American history because
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: I'm drawn to his story.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: And division in our country.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: Was present, was present at that time in the mid
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: eighteen hundreds, and we have a president that united the
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: country at all odds, and one of the examples he
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: showed was his ability to bring in the best talent,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: regardless of whether or not they were rivals of his.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: And so my leadership, while it feels new and fresh
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: in these times, and I'm happy that there are some
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: good reminders of who we've always been as Americans, I
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: want to be clear, this is old school, So.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: We're bringing We're bringing old school.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: Leadership and making it new school at a time that
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: desperately needs new examples of political leadership.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Colorado Springs. I'm I'm gonna paint a
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: picture for you. That's that what some people if you
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: think you know Colorado for a long time in politics
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: and certainly the politics you know in the nineties, Colorado
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: Springs was the home of cultural conservatism, Yes, absolutely, now.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: Colorado Springs also home of the Air Force Academy.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 4: Yes now, and it's which is an army base. Yeah,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: so army and air Force, right, yes, So I think
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: for some people of a certain era, and I'll put
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 4: myself there to see an independent get elected as a surprise,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 4: somebody not not from from you know, obviously from from
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: the right side of the aisle. But there had been
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: some evidence of the last decade I've seen in that
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: congressional district got a bit more competitive and you start
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: to see and and a lot of that I think
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: is you chalk it up to to Colorado Springs. But
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 4: you chose to move there, And I'm just curious how
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 4: how clearly you embedded yourself in the community pretty quickly
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 4: to be asked to be mayor. And I'm just curious.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: How would you describe how you were able to convince
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: people that have probably lived there a lot longer than
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: you have that you'd.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: Be the best person.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: That's a great question, And Chuck, I'm still trying to
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: figure it out.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: If I'm being honest, how.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like you connected? Tell me how you
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: connected it? You clearly have connected to the community. Do
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: you believe it is?
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: Is it?
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: Faith?
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: Is it?
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: What is it?
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: It's all of the above, it truly is.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: I am the first non Republican to be elected since
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: Colorado Springs started doing mayor elections in nineteen seventy nine,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: the year I was born. I am a true independent.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: In fact, I take a lot of pride in being
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: dead center. I It's complicated, Chuck, And this is the
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: politics of most Americans. We try to put them in
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: these polarized and opposite and I when you sit down
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: and actually talk with people, you realize it's it's competent.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: It's complicated. I'm a business leader in Colorado Springs. I'm
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: I'm an immigrant. I'm the first black mayor as well.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: I am I am a bus I'm a former pastor
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: in Colorado Springs. You can already see pieces of my
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: story that it's hard to box me. And even though
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: people try to box me and I and I went.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: I ran for office because I love this community and
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: I want to be the change that I do want
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: to see in the world. It's nobody else's response. We
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: can we can complain about the state of affairs. We
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: can say, Okay, what are we going to do about it?
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: And part of me chuck between us. I wanted to
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: see what it looks like to have a regular person
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: with a compelling message, and people the silent majority like
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: me that I'm not supposed to be in politics, that
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: you should be running away. I have a front row
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: seat into this experience. And I still hate politics, I
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: want to be clear, but I love public service and
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: it's rewarding and meaningful to serve.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: Politics suck.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: But I wanted to say, is it possible for a
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: regular person with a story like mine to disrupt the
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: world of politics as an independent and this miracle story.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: I'm still trying. I'm still trying to wake up on
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: this dream. And I put out a message that was compelling,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: that connected with the hearts and minds of Americans and.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: It paid off.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: And it shows you that there is an appetite for
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: different kind of leadership that is not red or blue,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: that is about a shared vision about the future of
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: our floorish and as Americans.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about some of the challenges you're dealing
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: with right now. Is mayor probably the biggest one or
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: at least symbolically that nationally people may be wondering about,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: is the loss of the Space Command to Huntsville, right.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: You know, this is a delegate political situation. As a city,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: you chose not to sue and instead, I think there's
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: still an attempt to cooperate. You know, sometimes these decisions
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: are very partisan. It feels as if he wanted to
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: reward a red state over a blue state. Is that's
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: how you feel, is if you guys got caught in
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: the middle of that.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: Because absolutely, yeah, yeah, absolutely, I came into office and
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 3: the decision was reversed. So before President Trump left in
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty, he moved it to Alabama. Biden came moved
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: it back to Colorado. But you thought, with two different
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: president and it got reversed. But behind it all a
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: group of Americans he rose, who wake up every day
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: to serve our country. When I speak with them. They're
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: caught up in this political dynamic. Do I want to
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: Space Command? Absolutely not. We are proud military community, Chuck.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: One hundred thousand veterans, forty five thousand active service members.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: That's about when you think about it, that's almost about
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty thousand, and we're a city of
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: half a million. We're talking about a quarter of a population.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: About city of military oriented, high quality of life. This
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 3: is a top city for many of our military members
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: in many ways. I'm wearing this right, white and blue
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: today because I got to participate at for Carson in
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: the memorial service to honor our fallen. That is who
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: we are, so we fought hard to keep Space Command
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: in this city that rightfully belongs. I can't do anything
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: about politics, but what I can do is to understand
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: the political dynamics around is what is the best decision
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: for both the active members of our active military members
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: that are serving Space Command, the civilians here from them,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 3: as well as how do we keep moving moving forward
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: as a community. While we knew that decision was coming,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: and I'm proud to say that I still have a
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: great relationship with the commander of Space Command. We've actually developed.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: I've developed a good relationship with Huntsville, the city that's
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: moving to. I've connected with the mayor. We're going to
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: work together on behalf of military members and in behalf
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: of this country. And to his credit, when I met
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: him at actually General white In's house, he looked at
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: me and said.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: Mayor, don't worry. We're going to take good care of
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: your people.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: That's another mayor that is putting politics, I mean putting
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: people ahead of politics.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: So we do the best with that is leadership.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: We do the best with the political dynamics, and at
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: the same time, we find ways to fill in the gap.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: And I'm proud to say so.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: Many more opportunities are coming to Colorado Springs, even though
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 3: Space Command is moving.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: So it sounds like, I mean, you could have picked
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: up You could have followed lawsuit, picked the political fight.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: It might have made some people feel emotionally better. It's
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: also possible that he could have decided to take more
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: away from Colorado Springs, right right, I mean, I assume
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: these are the type of things you guys had to
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: think about every day.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: I still get criticized for not suing MH. I'm both
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: I want to be clear on both sides, because there is.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: But I don't know what a lawsuit as much as
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: I understand, I'm you know, I'm sitting here going lawsuit
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: against the administration, right, good luck? Right?
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, I you know, I am the chief executive
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: in my city organization. In fact, I was at a
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: DC trip and I had interviews with her two or
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 3: three media folks over there, and he asked me about
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: my opinion, and I said, but whether or not you
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: agree with the president, I understand it is within his purview.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: I make decisions every day on behalf of the city.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: Every time I make a decision, half of the people happy,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 3: the other half not happy. It is within his purview.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: So in that way, the president is within his right.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: I don't like that decision. We fought hard to make
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: a case to keep it here. We worked hard, Chuck
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: to keep it here. Every time I'm in DC, I'm
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 3: at the White House. I did that under Biden's administration.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 3: I'm also doing that on the President trum It's my
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: job to advocate for the city and in my case,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: advocating for our military members as well their spouses and
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: family members. We fought hard to keep it, but the
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 3: President moved that, and it's within his right suing. It's
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 3: really just political posture, and I think Americans are tired
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: of political paustring.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: So you're running for reelection and so why do you
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: believe you just another term?
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: Because One, my leadership is still needed more than ever.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: We're talking about this independent way of leading, a leadership
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: that is not tied to red or blue, but a
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: share vision about the future of my city. Two, I
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: am proud of my accomplishments. This city is a lot
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: safer than when I first took office. We have hired
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: nearly three hundred officers in a very short amount of time.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: You know, you think about where we've come from in
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: terms of twenty twenty George Floyd and how that has
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: that impact on our police department and to see this
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 3: wave of officers leave.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: And now we have strengthened the force.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 3: A nine to one call center operation is it fully
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 3: staffed the first time since twenty eighteen. What that means
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 3: is now eighty six percent of calls and now answered
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 3: under twenty seconds or less. We have improved response times
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: from twenty four minutes to eleven minutes. Practically every area
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 3: of the data we're showing an impressive decline. We have
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: brought I have brought the community together in ways. We
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 3: talk about my chief of staff, who was my political rival.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 3: Here's what's happened in Colorado Springs. A police chief, deputy
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: chief of police in the same room, in a formerly
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: incarcerated resident, working on public safety priorities and policies together.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 3: That is a kind of leadership I have brought to
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 3: the city, and it is a leadership that has moved
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 3: us forward and have had so many deliverables. I haven't
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: even talked about economic development at a time where affordability
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: is a pain point. We are have had the most
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 3: economic development wins in our city's history. And it takes
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 3: a different kind of leadership that doesn't start from red
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: or blue, but sees opportunity and brings people together to
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: accomplish those deliverables.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: There's some things you can't do that out of your
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: purview that people may think is in your purview. Maybe
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: it belongs to the state, or it belongs to the FEDS,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: and and I know that that can do. And sometimes
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: voters they don't want to hear. Yeah, but right, you know,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: they just wanted to hear. But what's something that you're
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: dealing with the state on that you wish the state
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: understood should be more of a priority than they make it.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 3: Oh, you truck in Colorado Springs politics. My guess is
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 3: your trucking Colorado politics? And one of this, this immigrant
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 3: and the outside looking in now participating fully in the
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 3: American experiment, experience experience. I've only been a citizen not
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 3: that long. We're talking six seven years ago when I
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 3: finally was able to I've been in the country who
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 3: was thirty and so to be able to vote, and
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 3: not just vote, but also run for office. And the
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 3: reason why that's important is I came from a world
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 3: of tribalism, political tribalism, where a world that we with Todd,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: your main mission is for your tribe to dominate and
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: to lead and destroy the other tribe. When you look
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: at many parts of the world that operates that way,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 3: you see very little progress. You see the same challenges
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 3: over and over. I chose this country that I love
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: so much, and one of the thin parts of this
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 3: that I love about our country is this thing we
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 3: call democracy. The very essence of democracy welcomes the competition
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: of ideas and values that is changing on the national level.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 3: Surely on the state level, I have no issues against
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 3: my Democratic colleagues, but we have a state that is
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 3: led primarily by Democrats, and because we lack the competition
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: of ideas, we're now hurt in the areas of public safety,
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 3: in the areas of economic opportunity, you name it. I mean,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 3: the recent rankings came out and Colorado is now the
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 3: third most expensive place to live in a country that
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: is not a rank And then I'm proud that I'm
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: proud of.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: And so I can't do much about the.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 3: Bills that get push forward on a state level, that
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 3: gets signed into law.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: We do our best to get ahead of it.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 3: We do our best to welcome our state legislators into
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 3: our local dynamic thing. I sometimes I give them toward
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: let's go in a business tour, talk to business owners,
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 3: talk to staff, get the real story so that you
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 3: can represent us well. And that is frustrating as heck,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: not much I can. How would you describe your how
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 3: would you describe your relationship with the governor?
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: It's good, I am.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 3: I take I take great pride in having a good
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: relationship with with leaders from both all sides of the aisle.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: I have I have.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 3: I have relationship that I spend all the way from
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 3: MAGA to DSA.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: Now I am frustrated with because.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: I I my my idealism believes that if I can
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 3: meet with them, if I could sit with them, if
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 3: we can we can debate the issues we I believe
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 3: in task conflict over a relationship conflict. Where we're getting
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: at as a country is we're name calling and we
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 3: need a debate.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: Around the issues. And sometimes that works.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 3: Many times I feel like people are stuck in those
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 3: values and chuck, I gotta be honest. I got to
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 3: be honest. I get weary in this work of unity.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 3: It is harder. It's so hard. I met with a
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 3: group of leaders today two evenings ago, and leaders that
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 3: I don't I get to see in the community, and
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 3: they represent these I would call the silent majority.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: And what though, this.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 3: Leader put his arms on me and said thank you
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 3: for fighting for unity, and I just got really tary,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 3: and I said, I'm weary.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: I don't know how long I can do it. I said,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: I'm tired. I'm working hard.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 3: I maybe this dream it's just a pipe dream, it's
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 3: not real. And he looked at me and he said
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 3: there's so many of us that I like you in
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 3: this city.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: Keep going. We're behind you.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: We don't show up at city Hall, we're not calling
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 3: your office, but we do exist.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 2: We see you.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 3: We represent a big group of Americans that love the
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 3: work you're doing. Keep going. And that was really important
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 3: for me to hear.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: Look, you wouldn't have gotten elected if there wasn't that belief.
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, there clearly is an exhaustion. It's out there.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: And you know, in some ways you have an advantage
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: because you you've identified your advantage. You've been both You've
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: been able to be here as an observer and at
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: the same time you came from somewhere where you have
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: a comparative. And it is this you and I and
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: I think my guess is people like the fact that
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: you can see it that way and realize it's, yeah,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: that's work.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, we.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: Know it doesn't work. And you know, look, I I
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: I bow at the altar of the of the cliche
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: politics ab horrors of vacuum. And it's why politics abhorrors
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: a vacuum, meaning there's always a desire for a check,
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: always a desire for some sort of you know, full
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: Crome right, whatever, and and so you know this stuff
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: goes in cycles. You know, I think I think the
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: lack of two party competition in Colorado is a is
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: a certain brand of Republicanism. And you know the Romney
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: Republican Party can be competitive in Colorado.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, I I I think it's.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: More on the Republican side than the And then, of course,
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: you know that's why the Democratic tent looks bigger at
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: the moment. I think it's in Colorado.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: No, that that that is well said. I I long
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: for the days.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 3: You have a former governor of Colorado, Governor Ritter, who
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 3: was after Governor Owens, who was a Republican governor. Governor
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 3: Ritter is a Democratic governor. I remember when Governor Ritter said,
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 3: I'm a conservative Democrat. I'm a pro life Democrat. I'm
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 3: not even sure my party accepts me anymore. And that's
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 3: what I mean that it's complicated. That's what Colorado used
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 3: to be.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: The pink purple is state where.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's there's a few states out there that I
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: think have an allergy to this brand of conservatism.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 3: Well, I'll say our state is no longer purple. I
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 3: think it's my city, my city and I believe that
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 3: we are the last stronghold to decent.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: Good politics in the state.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 3: I think the road to a future Colorado runs through
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 3: Colorado Springs. We are going to teach the state in
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 3: the world what good not just good politics, but good
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 3: policies look like. And we and hire Wayne. It's a
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 3: great example of that. Let me, can I tell you
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 3: a little bit more of that relationship?
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm just curious. So you guys running against each other? Yeah,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: did you attack each other like on substance? I'm sure
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: you did.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 2: Me.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: Let me just Wayne, why do you believe you should
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: have been mayor and not him?
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 3: That's a great question because now I've brought him onto
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 3: my team. Man, sure you're good.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: But she decided you didn't think he was qualified for
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: the job?
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 3: Why No, I didn't. I don't think I did not
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 3: say he was not qualified. Let's be clear, Wayne how
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 3: Wayne is a former Secretary of State for the State
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 3: of Colorado. Wayne is a former city council member. Wayne
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 3: is a former county commissioner two terms. Wayne is a
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 3: former county clerk and recorder. You can see he clearly
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 3: has twenty plus years of experience. What I bring to
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 3: the table is a different level of leadership than politics.
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 3: Wayne ran his campaign that was more traditional and when
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 3: you go from Redo Blue into the political dynamics of
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 3: Colorado Springs and most American municipalities have this challenge. You
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 3: have a good boys club, a political dynamic. It's not
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 3: even about retro blue. It is about just a small
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 3: group of people that make decisions on behalf of everyone.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 3: And I represent a new generation of the tables, bigger disables, longer.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 3: Let's get more voices at the table to help shape
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 3: the future of our city.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: And that was the main difference.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 3: We started with a field of twelve of us six
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 3: seven of them all had political experience. I'm a political newcomer.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 3: I am given a message that resonates with people. And
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 3: also keep in mind, I also have a lot of
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: community leadership. My leadership, what I was saying has been tried,
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 3: tested and proven. Everything I've done up to that point
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 3: was about radical collaboration, bringing people together to accomplish things
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 3: that are bigger than any one of us. This community
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 3: was willing to give that a chance. And I also
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: ran a campaign that was clean. I was attacked, some
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 3: of the candidates attacked each other, but my campaign was
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 3: clean and that sent a message through a lot of
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 3: residents and they wanted to give that type of leadership
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 3: a try.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: So I want to talk about a few things that
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: many cities deal with. And you know, so right now
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: data centers, ye are this are a pain point in
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: every local community, it seems in the country.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 2: Were you my meeting this morning? Yeah?
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: So that's it. So I just did. I was just
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: just came out of an interview with the Congressman Frankly
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: on the East Coast, who represents probably on the East coast,
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: one of the hubs of the data centers at the moment,
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: Louden County, Virginia. And just the public's on fire on it,
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: you know. And whether it's about the issue itself or
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: just AI scares them, I don't know which. How how
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: is it playing in your community? And what's where are
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: you on this?
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 3: This is fleshing out in real time. It's interesting you
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 3: asked that question. I had a meeting to this morning.
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 3: I called an emergency meeting seven o'clock yesterday morning to
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 3: bring the key leaders around this around this issue and
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 3: to ensure that we create a better we have a
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 3: better strategy, and we create alignment. And this is one
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 3: of those areas, Chuck, that I feel like where my
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 3: leadership shines because here is the current crisis now in
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 3: most many American cities, and now we're we're dealing with
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 3: this is you are You only have one of two options.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 3: Either you are pro data center and growth of all costs,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 3: while you are against it because of all the issues,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 3: whether it's environment AI taking jobs, and there's a long.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: List of them.
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 3: The answer is in the middle. In seminary, I learned
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 3: a term called churchham quid. It's Latin for a third way.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 3: Churchham quid means a sense of belonging to two opposing values,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 3: but neither one of them are the answers.
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: The answer.
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 3: The sweet spot is in the middle, and we are
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 3: in the We're right in the center of developing that
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 3: middle solution of a balanced but responsible growth. We must
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 3: grow as a city. I do not want to become
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 3: a ghost down. We need to add more jobs, we
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 3: need more housing like most American cities, but we cannot
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 3: do it in a way that is tone deaf and
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 3: not listen to the values and the needs of our residents.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 3: And so it's around policies that allow us to say
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 3: what do we say yes to, what do we say
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 3: no to? And how do we put on display to
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 3: our residents all their needs around infrastructure concerns of which
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 3: they believe that these data centers will take away from
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 3: their quality.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: Let me let me put a few things at you,
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: because it's there are a few ideas circulating, and it's
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: in some ways it's just what this member of Congress
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: just sort of through out there, not as just different
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: ideas that are being debated. That these data centers, because
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: they can become security concerns. They've been attacked in when
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: that's another reason some communities are nervous about them that
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: they ought to only be on military basis.
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: M hmm again have you been have you what you in
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 2: my meetings? Yeah, and that's what makes Coloradists bring such
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: a unique city.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: I was just going to say in that sense, Yeah,
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: you know, you guys have a big military base.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: They have their military installations.
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: Right, and they have plenty of access to power that
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: doesn't disrupt your community.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 2: I assume correct, Yeah, I would it.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 3: So I I over the weekend I called two of
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 3: the four stars just to get the perspective, and I
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 3: called it two star to get their too. What I
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 3: love about our military partners is that they're like me.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 3: And this is why, by the way, some of my
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 3: best relationships chuck when it comes to politics, believe it
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 3: or not. Some of my best relationships with our military
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 3: partners and also our Western folks, the cowboys, and what
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 3: they have in common is just old school, traditional work ethics,
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 3: good people and they see that in me. Our military
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 3: partners will say, we like it because may are you
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 3: a mission critical So checking in with our military partners,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 3: they actually share the same values.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 2: Around data centers.
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 3: One of the things non negotiable is I heard that
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 3: data storage is really important in terms of our nation security.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 3: We need it too, is and we don't want anything
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 3: that takes away from our quality of life because we
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 3: two are members of this community and we depend on
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 3: our utility infrastructure for our standard operations.
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, I love it that they are.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 3: And it so how do we get how do we
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 3: get to yes with the fens that support our operations?
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 3: And I've since learned, like you said, yeah, there are
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 3: some data centers that will reside within the installations. There
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 3: are and because of you know, higher classification and security needs,
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 3: there are some too that they've told me will be
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 3: outside of the installation, and these are data centers that
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 3: support the contracts, the the the Boeings and the aerospace
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 3: defense companies that do support the military. So it puts
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 3: us in a very unique place in terms of what
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 3: I can help champion and as a mayor and what
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 3: I frankly have to say no to because there are
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 3: certainly throughsholds where if it's going to have a big
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 3: impact in my community, I would not be a good
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 3: mayor to sit on the sidelines.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: What's your one of those red lines? You must have
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: a couple of red lines. Well we have we have
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: so right now. So Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs has its
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: own own utilities.
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 3: That provides power, water, stormwater and what's the oh yes
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 3: and seword. Yeah, And it's a city owned enterprise. It's
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 3: its own business and functions as itself. It's supposed to
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 3: be profitable and help reduce the the the rat payers
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 3: cost it's working and because we have to control those decisions,
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 3: it's a it's a government run entity, so we're benefiting
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 3: compared to a number of communities where it's run by
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 3: private entities. So we are looking at it in terms
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 3: of where are those thresholds, for example, anything ten megawatts
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 3: and bigger. We have terrorists, and we put the ownership
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 3: on the data center, and many, many, many times we
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 3: expect them to say no, thank you. So tim megawatts
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 3: and and and less. Our utility company will support not
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 3: just data centers, but the Swire, Coca Colas and Freedom
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 3: Lay and many of these companies that are also need
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 3: power for their operations. So that those are things that
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 3: we have put in place. And we've done the same
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 3: thing too with a water conservation and restriction.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 2: We we have.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 3: Been I'm really proud of my city that we have
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 3: been way ahead of the times that we're in right now.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 3: As I check in with my colleagues across the state
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 3: and across the country, many of them are trying to
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 3: enact a lot of the things that we as a
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 3: city have have already done.
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: So you expect to have more data centers, expanding color
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: and color.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: Response not necessary. I expect to have a data center
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 2: or two.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 3: I don't know yet, but we're not going to be
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 3: the community that just says come because so we're tightened
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 3: our we're tightened now to ensure that any projects not
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 3: just data centers. I know data centers are now the
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 3: new political weaponize, right, no, no, no, And as we fight
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 3: over the new weaponize, and sometimes we missed that the
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 3: fact that what if there's a project that is about
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 3: to come to our city as actually requests a more
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 3: power than the data center, we'll say no to.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: So we have to look under the hood. And so
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: we were in Colorado.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 3: We talk about large load users, okay, and our utility
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 3: company is very intentional about we're not just weaponizing that.
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 3: We're looking we're assessing the right companies as a whole.
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 2: Colorado Spain says yes too, and frankly, we say no to.
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: Do you feel that because you have a little more
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: control of your utilities, you have a little more leverage
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: we do.
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 3: I'm frankly our residents have more control because it's a
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 3: and it's our board of directors are a nine city
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 3: council member board, so we do have that in some
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 3: ways that advantage.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 2: I also think we.
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 3: It's weird to bring it back to me, but we're
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 3: living in a time where independent leadership is needed more
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 3: than ever. I am independent of special interest groups, I
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 3: am independent of red blue. I get to make decisions
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 3: that are in the best interest of my community. I
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 3: am forty seven years old, I am four three years
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 3: into a four year term, Lord Will and I get
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 3: to serve four more years and guess what, I am
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 3: going to be a community member in this city, so
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 3: I get to live with the decisions that I make.
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 3: So I am not just fighting as for the right
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 3: decisions as mayor. I am fighting for the right decisions
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 3: you know when I am, not when I'm fifty three,
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 3: fifty two years old and my kids are living in
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 3: this in this community either benefiting of being hurt by
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 3: the decisions that I made in my time of service.
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: The uh, the upside of these data centers is that
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: they do it's a way to bring some more tax dollars, right.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, uh to pay for things, and I need it.
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 3: I want to be clear, what do you I was.
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: Just gonna say, I'm sure there's some residents who don't
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: like hearing that that you're going to consider this. What
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: do you tell them? Tell them, tell them why these
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: tax dollars matter.
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 2: So much well to those residents.
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 3: And you've you've asked me, asked me to fix your
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 3: pop poles, You've asked me to repave your roads. You've
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 3: you've said you need more police presence in our community.
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 3: You've said that you we have to do something about
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 3: traffic safety, about road rage and some of the a
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 3: lot of number of these issues.
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 2: You've said that right now.
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 3: You you want higher paying jobs, You've said that you
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 3: it's it's hard to live in this in this community,
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 3: and we have to go after some of those of
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 3: companies and and provide meaningful incentives. Everything that my residents
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 3: have asked me to do demands money. Our city budget
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 3: in the city outside the thirty ninth largest city in
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 3: the country, our city budget is minimal.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 2: When I check in with my colleagues, I'm off from jealous.
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 3: Not that they don't have needs, but they have much
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 3: three to four times their budget size.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 2: And so you can't have it both ways.
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 3: What is because we have competing interests and that's what
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 3: I mean again independent leadership. To sit in the middle
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 3: of these competing and.
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: The data set argument's harder. I mean, because it doesn't
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: create jobs.
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 2: No, it doesn't. And as an economic developer, I'm aware
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 2: of that.
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, in fact, five six, seven years ago and we
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 3: were saying no because it doesn't great job. But What
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 3: we do know too, is that their technology is evolving.
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 3: But that's not even why we're making I have to
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 3: look at everything from a very from an area that
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 3: is calculated, systematic. We believe the right project could bring
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 3: the right investment, and that investment could be used to
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 3: further other investment in the city. What I'm not saying
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 3: is that we're going to be a city open to
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 3: all data centers. What I am saying is that we're
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 3: going to go through a criteria. We're going to have
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 3: policies to who we say yes to that I don't
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 3: know how many we're going to see.
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 2: Is that one? Is that too?
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 3: But we're not going to be the community that says welcome.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 3: We're going to look at it in a very calculated
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 3: form to say, what does our community need and how
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 3: can we take those revenues to actually court jobs that
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 3: court companies that actually provide more jobs for our residents.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 3: These things are not a yes or they're not binary.
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 3: They are very much systematic, calculated, all about strategies. One
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 3: decision that unlocks opportunity to for more opportunities.
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: All right, before I let you go, I'm going to
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: hit you with one more, which is on housing. I'm
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: very familiar with Pensacola, which is another military community, and
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: it is over the last five years they have suddenly
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: started to run out of housing and run out of
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: rentold And my guess is you're running into some similar
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: issues in Colorado Springs. It's just like Pensacola. There are
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: desirable places to live. People keep coming. You've got government contractors,
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of temporary housing, all these things that are
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: that there's demands on that. Sometimes a smaller city like
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: yours doesn't have that capacity and desperately need you know,
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: what is your housing situation.
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's like many cities across the country. Colorado
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 3: Springs is not immune to the housing crisis in many ways.
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 3: What makes ours so unique is, like you said, Pensacola,
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 3: we are We're not only a desirable city from military partners,
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 3: we're a desirable city for the country.
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, for.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: Seven years we were showing up in there. You're like
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: all these other people. You move to Colorado and you
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: never leave. Trust me, I hear that from my real
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: from Native Colorado and says, yeah, everybody who visits don't
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: visit because nobody leaves.
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 5: Yes, that's what they say, don't. Don't tell them we're
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 5: a desirable city. When we promote those rankings, people say stop, stop,
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 5: we don't want that to come. No more people, right,
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 5: no more people.
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 3: But and we you know, we were hit like many
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 3: cities around the Great Recession. So at this current season,
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 3: we are twenty seven thousand units short of the housing
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 3: that we need. And when you project to about twenty
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 3: thirty two, twenty thirty five, that's another six we're about
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 3: sixty thousand short.
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 2: So what are we doing about it?
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 3: It's all hands on deck approach, same thing with homelessness.
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 2: All hands and deck approach. From the zoning.
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 3: Laws that we that I have control over to promote
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 3: more housing, to the rapid response process, through the permitting
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 3: process that I can use to encourage your development to
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 3: to get to ribbon cuttings faster to move at the
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 3: speed of business. To our partnerships with the state and
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 3: a lock unlock and funding there, to a partnership with
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 3: the Feds. And because of a lot of the hot
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 3: funding that we have received, a lot of that money
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 3: that has come through me in the last three years
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 3: have now resulted in about three thousand units that are
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 3: currently open under construction are about to be open to
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 3: our partnerships with the private developers, and many of them
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 3: now are being a part of the house.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: What is the biggest what's the biggest hold up? What
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: is the is it? What what keeps this from because
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of places are short catch up? Is that
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: that's just what it is? Just catch up enough we.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 3: Have we're playing catch up because the recession, after the
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 3: recession of OA, not much development, is what's happening. People
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 3: were developered, hesitant.
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: You get a surge of population during COVID.
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 3: And we then we got a surge of population Colorado Springs.
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 3: When I moved in twenty ten, moved from we were
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 3: that city where young people were saying, well the city
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 3: is not cool enough. Now for two years Zilla name
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 3: does the number one and two city for young people
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 3: to move in. And so now it's it's it's plain
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 3: catch up. We need to unlock the supply and the
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 3: diversity of housing. But frankly, it is also connected to
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 3: what we talked about the role of the state and
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 3: in legislation that the state often passes, it actually makes
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 3: our job harder.
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 2: That makes it harder for.
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: What's something that they passed that made.
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 2: One of them is.
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 3: A construction defect. The trial attorneys have these perfection scenario
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 3: for them where they can sue developers, primarily around condos.
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 2: They work with owners. So when there are mistakes that.
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 3: Are made in and some of them are minor in
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 3: these housing developments, they work with the owners. And I
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 3: don't want to minimize you as an owner. We're owners
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 3: and you buy a home and you go, that's not
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 3: what I purchase. But what we've been asking from the
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 3: state is the right to remedy for these builders to
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 3: go back and make it right. But right now, the
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 3: way the laws are set up, it really penalizes to
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 3: develop us for millions and millions of dollars.
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 2: So what they've said is we're.
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 3: Not building condos and town homes anymore, and so we
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 3: have this missing gap.
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: Of that's what do you feel like is the the
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: status you're missing the most exactly.
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 3: That's why I say it's multi faceted. It's multi there's
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 3: so many solutions. It's not just one thing. That's a
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 3: number of things that we have to address to unlock
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 3: the supply of housing. And one that is really near
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 3: and there, to me, Chuck, is just housing innovation. The
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 3: building materials are way too expensive. We're trying to do
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 3: the same things that we've been doing for the last
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 3: eighty years and expect the result to be different. I'm
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 3: a big proponent of we have to start thinking of
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 3: new ways to build homes, whether it's three manufacturing, whether
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 3: it's manufactured homes. I live in a home that was
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 3: built eighteen ninety eight. I live in an historic part
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 3: of Colorado, Sphinx. If you try to build the type
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 3: of house that I live in today that was that
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 3: is about eight hundred thousand, but it would be probably
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 3: three million. But we don't build homes the same way
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 3: that we used to back then. But we've been building
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 3: homes the same way over the last eighty years, and
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 3: it's time to start rethinking how we build homes in
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 3: a way that still retains a quality and value of
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 3: those homes, to catch up to speed of this most
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 3: innovative technologically time that we live in human history.
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: Mary Emmy, it's been great to get to know you.
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 3: Passionate about a lot of issues. Chuck, no, no, no,
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 3: I mean I a reminder of why why I'm doing this, thank.
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: You, And you know I also want you know, people
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: both to get to know independent leadership, but frankly to
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: talk about issues that everybody's talking about in their own
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: neighborhoods and just hear how's one community tackling it right.
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: And it's been interesting that there.
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 2: Would be some final way.
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 3: I really do believe the leadership of our future, whether
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 3: even if you're red or blue, it's still you have
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 3: to be you have to have some level of independent leadership.
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 2: I think. So.
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: Look, our first president was an independent. Hmmm, come on,
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: you know, and there's something there's something something to be
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: said about it. But uh, you know, we only apparently
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: tried it once.
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 2: That we preach. You can say that again.
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 3: No, thank you for the role you're doing and telling
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 3: these stories, and I hope our conversation can bring hope
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 3: America people.
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: It's about these things.
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: The polls always tell you they want to elect an independent,
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: but then you know they never vote necessarily the way
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: they say not funny, yeah, and so but once they
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: see it in action, then you know that's what you
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: have to do. It just takes time, one office at
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: a time. Mary emmy, good luck, thank you, It's all right.
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: It's time machine. Time let's go into the podcast time machine.
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: As you know, for those of you new to this,
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: I try to take something that's happening in the next
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: week in history and do a deep dive on it.
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: And this week we're going we're going back into the
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: time machine on June fourth, nineteen eighty nine, that the
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: futures split into.
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: When Americans think about June fourth, nineteen eighty nine, if
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: you go ahead and google it right, look it up,
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: you'll usually think about one image the minute you realize
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: what anniversary. I'm talking about a lone man standing in
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: front of a column of tanks. Tank man. It's one
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: of the most famous photographs ever taken. It was a
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: symbol of courage, a symbol of resistance, a symbol of
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: freedom standing up to oppression. Right, you know the expression
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: of picture as it's worth a thousand words. I think
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: that's two volumes of books in that picture. But here's
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: the thing that most people don't remember about June fourth,
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine. The most important thing that happened that
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: day may not have happened in Beijing. It may have
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: happened in Poland because on the very same day, while
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: tanks were moving towards Tenement Square. Polish citizens were casting
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: ballots in their first semi free actions in the Soviet Bloc.
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: On one side of the world, people voted for the
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: first time in decades in a free Ish election. I
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: had a little lish there. On the other, the government
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: prepared to send in the army. One communist system responded
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: to public pressure with elections. Remember the wall hadn't fallen yet, folks.
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: Another responded with force. The world remembers the tanks, but
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: understanding both stories may be the key to understanding why
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: the world looks the way it does today and why
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest assumptions of the post Cold War
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: era turned out to be wrong. Look. I remember those
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: days vividly. I was in high school. Like a lot
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: of Americans, I became really fascinated by what was unfolding
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: in China. I was you know, this may not come
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: as a shock to you, but I was usually the
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: student in my group of friends that was paying a
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: little bit more attention current events. So I got a
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: bunch of us to wear black armbands in solidarity with
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: the students at Tenement. In fact, I was pretty proud
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: of it. I got I think I got I got
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: folks from all walks of mine I had I had
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: at high school in Miami that was a third to
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: third a third. And if you know, you know, the students,
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: of course looked familiar. That's they were easy to uh
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: to empathize with. They looked like students anywhere. They weren't
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: armed revolutionaries. They carried banners, they held vigils, they demanded reforms,
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: They talked about corruption, accountability, political openness. When the crackdown came,
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: I remember trying to wondering something else as we were
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: trying to organize global empathy for these students. And it
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: was this the overwhelming assumption shared by almost everybody paying
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: attention to world events at the time. Man history all
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: seemed to be moving in one direction. Freedom was advancing,
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: America was winning. We were winning right, Communism was retreating,
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: Democracy was spreading. The future appeared obvious. Looking back, that
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: confidence may have been one of the great misreadings of
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: modern history, because to understand Tiana Men, you have to
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: remember the broader context of nineteen eighty nine. The protests
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: were not happening in isolation. The entire communist world was
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: under pressure across Eastern Europe. Reform movements were gaining momentum.
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: The Soviet Union was still around, but it was weakening.
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: Mikhail Gorbachev was introducing reforms. The old order was clearly wobbling.
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: And then came June fourth, because on that day voters
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: in Poland delivered a stunning verdict. What's often forgotten is
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: that these elections were supposed to be controlled. The commun
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: Us government had negotiated what become known as the Roundtable Agreement,
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: allowing partially free elections while reserving many seats for the
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: ruling party. The idea was to open the system without
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: surrendering power. Instead, voters delivered a political earthquake. The Solidarity movement,
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: led by the now famous Lek Wallessa one virtually every
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: seat it was allowed to contest. The Communist government in
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: Poland was humiliated. The results sent shockways throughout the entire
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: communist world. Five months later, the Berlin Wall would fall.
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: Within two and a half years, the Soviet Union itself,
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: which ceased to exist, and a whole bunch of US
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: twenty somethings had to figure out what the hell had
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: to figure out the names of a whole bunch of
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: new countries on the map what looked like a carefully
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: managed opening had become the beginning of the end, and
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: Chinese leaders were watching all of it. And this is
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: the part of the story many Americans either memory hole
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: or forget, because the story of Tianaman isn't simply a
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: Chinese story. It's also a story about how China's leaders
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: interpreted what they were seeing elsewhere, Because while Europe was
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: moving in one direction, China was debating whether to follow.
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: The protests themselves began after the death of hu Yaobang.
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: He was a reform minded communist leader who had become
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: popular among students. What began is mourning quickly evolved into
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: something larger. Students gathered in Tanaman Square, then workers joined,
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: intellectuals joined, journalists joined, ordinary citizens joined. The demonstrations grew
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: into one of the largest protest movements in modern Chinese history.
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: At their peak, hundreds of thousands of people filled Beijing
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: streets some estimates, but participation at more than a million.
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: And the timing could not have been worse for China's leadership.
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: Because Gorbuschev was this in Beijing, the world's media had
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: already arrived. Instead of covering a diplomatic summit, cameras focused
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: on the protests. The symbolic heart of communists China had
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: become occupied by its own citizens. The entire world was
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: indeed watching. What many people forget is that there was
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: a real debate inside the Chinese government. History often gets
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: simplified into students versus the Communist Party. The reality was
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: a bit more complicated because there were some leaders who
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: favored compromise. There were some who favored dialogue with the students.
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: There were some who believe reforms should continue. Others believed
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: the party itself was at risk. The road not Taken
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: had a name, Zao Xiyang. He was China's General Secretary.
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: He was considered a reformer. He was a believer in
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: gradual political opening. In fact, a few weeks earlier, on
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: May nineteenth, nineteen eighty nine, he visited the students that
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: had gathered in Tenement Square on a hunger strike. He
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: spoke to them directly, We came too late, was the
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: quote that gets remembered the most from his visit. It
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: would be the last public appearance that Zaoxiyang would ever
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: have in his political career. Within weeks, he was removed
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: from power. He would spend the rest of his life
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: under house arrest, dying essentially in house captivity. In two
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: thousand and five, every turning point as a road not
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: taken for China. In nineteen eighty nine, that road was
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: Zoosi Yang. But there were others inside the leadership who
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: saw a different lesson. They had just watched the events
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: unfolded Poland, where a gradual political opening turned into a
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: nightmare for the powerty and power. They had watched a
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: Communist government attempt to keep some control over free elections,
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: and they had watched that opening escape its control. To them,
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: Poland was not an argument for reform, it was an
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: argument against it. The hardliners prevailed, Martial law was declared,
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: Troops moved toward Beijing. Residents blocked roads. For weeks, there
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: was uncertainty where was this headed. Then came the night
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: of June third and the early hours of June fourth.
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: The military entered the city. Live ammunition was used. Civilians died,
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: students die, workers died. To this day, no one knows
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: precisely how many. The Chinese government has never provided a
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: full accounting. The death toll may have been in the hundreds,
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: may have been in the thousands. The exact number remains
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: one of the most disputed facts in modern history. Perhaps
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: it's something kind of like Chernobyl, where it's going to
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 1: take the fall of the Chinese Communist Party for us
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: to ever find out the truth. But then came the
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: image that everyone remembers actually was not on June fourth.
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: It was on June fifth, the morning after a lone
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: man standing before in line of tanks tank man. The
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: photograph became the defining image of Tieneman. But in some
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: ways the image has obscured the larger story, because while
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: the world focused on the courage of one individual, a
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: much bigger question was unfolding. What would happen next? Most
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: Western observers believe they knew the answer. China had only
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: delayed the inevitable. Maybe reform would tick longer in China,
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: but it would happen. Maybe democracy would arrive more slowly,
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: but eventually economic modernization would produce political modernization. It was
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: inevitable because look, that's what seemed to be happening everywhere
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: else Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union. The
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: assumption was simple, growing middle class would eventually demand political rights,
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: Markets would lead to democracy. Economic freedom and political freedom
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: were ultimately linked. It seemed op and yet Tianeman should
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: have been the first warning that perhaps they weren't. At first,
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: China's future was uncertain. The crackdown produced international condemnation, reformers
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: were sideline, economic changes slowed. There was a genuine debate
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: about what came next, and in nineteen ninety two, Dang
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: Jao Ping settled the argument. Deng is one of history's
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: great paradoxes. He was the architect of China's economic transformation,
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: and he was also the leader who ultimately backed the crackdown.
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: The same hand that approved the tanks helped design the
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: system that followed. During his famous Southern tour, Deng pushed
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: China back towards market reforms and rapid growth, but political
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: liberalization would not return. That message became clear, get rich,
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: build businesses, invest, innovate, participaying global markets, but do not
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: challenge the Communist party. Political reform ended, economic reform accelerated,
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: and that formula changed the world. In retrospect, Tianamen wasn't
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: simply a story of failed of a failed democratic uprising.
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: It was the birth of a different model, a model
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: many Western leaders spent decades under estimating. Bipartisan mistake in
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: this country. The assumption in Washington remained remarkably consistent. As
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: China became wealthier, democracy would eventually follow. That belief helped
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: shape American policy for years. You can see it most
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: clearly in the debate over China's entry into the World
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: Trade Organization back in two thousand and one. The logic
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: was straightforward, trade would create prosperity. Prosperity would create a
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: middle class. A middle class would demand political rights. Political
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 1: liberalization would eventually follow. That was the bet, But it
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: was a bet Tianamen had already called into question. Today
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: we live at the consequences. The defining geopolitical competition of
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: the twenty first century is increasingly between the United States
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 1: and China's unique system. We always wondered what happened if
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: a authoritarian communist regime, what essentially dropped the ideological part of communism,
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: shared everything and instead create open economic freedom coupled with
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: political repression. It's not simply two countries. It's two models,
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: one rooted in democratic governance and one rooted in authoritarian control.
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: Both claim to be good for your economic well being.
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: One believes political freedom and economic freedom reinforce one another.
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 1: The other obviously believing they can be separated. And that's
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 1: why I think June fourth, nineteen eighty nine deserves to
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 1: be remembered for a variety of different reasons. It's not
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: simply as the day democracy was christ in China. It's
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: not simply as the story of tank Man, but as
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 1: a day that the future split into two. It's the
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: birth of this sort of bipolar world would suddenly have
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: stumbled into. In Poland, voters use ballots to begin dismantling communism.
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: In China, leaders used tanks to preserve it. Now that's
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: a reminder nobody will if given the choice of keeping
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: communism or dumping it. If you have free will, you're
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: going to dump it. That's the other lesson of Poland,
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 1: and that's why the authoritarian leaders realized they needed tanks.
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: One path led to the post Cold War Europe we
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: know today. The other led towards China that now stands
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: as America's principal rival. Back in nineteen eighty nine, many
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: people believed history had chosen its direction. Democracy was winning,
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: Communism was collapsing. The debate seems settled. But on June fourth,
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, two communist governments confronted the same challenge
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 1: and arrived at two very different conclusions. Poland chose the
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: ballot box, China chose a tank. Thirty seven years later,
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: we're still living with the consequences of both decisions. There's
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: your history lesson for the day. Now, one other thing
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: to look for in June fourth. Now that there's supposedly
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: American control and ownership of TikTok, let's see what kind
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: of Tieneman Square remembrances show up on TikTok this year.
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: I know we won't find them on we check, ask Chuck.
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: All right, let's take into some questions. First one comes
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: from Jamie ka Hey check longtime listener, first time writer.
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 2: Hear me out.
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: Would you ever consider running for president? Maybe even on
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: the ticket with Stephen Colbert? You have a way of
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: dealing complex issues clearly, and you're not seen as a
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: culture warrior. Plus you're willing to call out both sides.
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: Could you build a broader coalition? What say you?
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 2: It is?
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: I guess you could say, why don't you put your
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: money where your mouth is? Right? I certainly have plenty
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: to say. I'm a pretty good backseat driver, et cetera.
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: Look will I just I've never had the ambition to
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: personally run for office. I've not wanted to deal with
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: the sort of you know, when you're a quasi public figure,
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: and I was for a period of time. I guess
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 1: I still am in some ways. You miss your privacy
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: when you're not a public figure. You think you want
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: the attention, and then you get the attention and you're like, oh,
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: I want the attention on mind because you never Here's
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 1: what you learn is none of it ever gets to
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: be on your terms. And I think when you run
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 1: for president. Now that said, I think I'm in a
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: stage of life where it is I'm in a better
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: place to run for office than when a lot of
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: people choose to do it. You know, where what I
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: think is wrong is running for office because you don't
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 1: know what to do with your life, running for office
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 1: because your celebrity is wearing out. Running for off is
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 1: because you're you're just you know, putting off making you know,
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: dealing with the with the problems in your life, which
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: is sort of the point I was making it first.
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 1: But I will say this, I've certainly been more empathetic
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: of people that are trying to challenge the system, and
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: I do think the duopoly has broken us, it doesn't,
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 1: you know. And I do think both parties need massive reform,
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 1: and I think we need to open up, open up
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: the system for more, for more points of view, but
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: have a system that allows for it to work so
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: that people can be feel both heard represented at the
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: table and realize not everybody's going to get one hundred
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: percent of what they're advocating. So you're you're, you're oddly
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: not the first person to throw that out there, But
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: you know, I also feel like a trader to journalism
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: in some ways, like I'm happy to help others figure
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: out how to get into the reform aspect of it,
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 1: but you know, I was. You know, if I ever
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 1: did contemplate office, it wouldn't be with either party, That's
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: for sure. I would never feel comfortable doing that to
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: my fellow journalists at the end of the day. But
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 1: I will say this, whoever runs, I think a little
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: bit of an education component to running wouldn't be such
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: a bad thing. But I'm not sure the constituency for
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: that is as large as you may think, But who knows.
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 1: All right, we get fifty million subscribers to this YouTube channel,
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 1: before the end of this calendar year, and then maybe
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: I'll have to change my mind. That's not a challenge, folks,
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: that's just me being snarky. Jamie, thanks for the kind words.
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: Paul k right Hey, Chuck, proud of you for the
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: move into independent media. It's great to see. I was
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 1: struck by the recent Center primary results and had a question,
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: do you think Paxton heads into the general election over
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: confident or will he lean more into a grassroots approach.
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: I also curious how you see the broader impact of
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: negative campaigning and races like this. Paul Ka, Look, I
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: think packs you know, it's funny Paxton's never lost a race,
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: and you know, for the longest time, until Donald Trump,
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: we had had an interesting We had had an interesting
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: list of presidents and presidential nominees whose hallmark, in many
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 1: ways was an election defeat that helped make them a
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 1: better candidate. So I would say this meaning, I'm always
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 1: when somebody's never lost a race, the possibility of over
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: confidence is through the roof. When you've lost an early
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: race in your career, you just simply are usually a
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: bit smarter about how you go about things, and you're
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 1: a bit more I don't want to say you're risk averts,
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 1: but you're more aware of pitfalls. I think that Barack
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: Obama losing a race for Congress against Bobby Rush was
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: a huge lesson for him and how to run the
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 1: next time he ran. George W. Bush losing a race
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 1: for Congress in the seventies was incredibly helpful that you
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: know understanding that loss there. Bill Clinton lost a race
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: for Congress before winning his first race for governor. Jimmy
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 1: Carter lost a campaign before he became governor of Georgia.
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: Richard Nixon lost a campaign for governor before winning the
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 1: presidency in sixty eight. The point is Ronald Reagan lost
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 1: a race for presidency in seventy six before successfully winning
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 1: an eighty George H. W. Bush lost a racers say, anyway,
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: do you see where I'm going here? Up until Bill
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: Clinton and then Bill Clinton, up until Donald Trump, it
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: had been remind me. Milt Romney lost a race for
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 1: US Senate. John McCain lost that presidential primary in two
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: thousand before it became the nominee. John Carrey lost a
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: race for I think it was lieutenant He ran early
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 1: in the in the eighties and lost, and it was
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: an important lesson to him, so it was there was
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: always I think that there's something that you learn that humility.
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: I prefer an elected official that's lost an election once
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 1: because I think that they understand that they have to
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 1: listen when the voters are speaking. And usually a somebody
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 1: who has lost once is more likely to pay attention
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 1: when poles turn against them versus somebody who's never lost. Now,
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 1: you could say, just in theory, Donald Trump should have
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: learned a lot from twenty twenty. But if you refuse
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 1: to acknowledge that you lost, you learn nothing from it. Right,
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: It's I think Paxton will be a bit overconfident. I
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: think that there will, and you know, my guess is
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 1: he's going to live more in his grassroots on this.
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 1: But I also think we ought to be a bit
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 1: show some humility here. He clearly has a hold over
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 1: his constituents. A question I have is can he grow
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 1: his movement and how will he handle It's one thing
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 1: to be a Texas feeding frenzy, It's another thing to
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 1: get the national attention that he's going to get. Now,
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 1: maybe he thrives in it, but he couldn't melt down too.
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: So if I were him, I'd lean into the movement
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 1: that got me there, and I'd be running as an outsider.
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 1: I'd be portraying Tall, Rico and Cornyn as part of
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 1: the same movement in some form, and I'd be staying
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: as the outsider. I don't know if he will. He's
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: got his own financial issues and then don't forget, he's
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 1: got his own court cases that are all starting to
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: pile up. He's still got his divorce and all this stuff.
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: So that's why he probably needs to lean on those
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 1: that have stuck with him through all of this, because
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 1: in some ways they're a and there will be a
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 1: bit of a safety net for him and may be enough.
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think we've all underestimated Paxton's hold on
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 1: his on his voters. I know, I know I have,
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 1: and I'm not going to underestimate them again. But you know,
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: I will say this, I think the Paxton strategy. If
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 1: you're not for Paxton, but you're just want to stop
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: Talla Rico, you're asking the broader impact of negative campaigning
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 1: and races like this, It will be a battle of
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 1: the bases. What you will likely see is that the
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 1: more the swing voters are going to be as likely
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 1: to skip the race as they are to pick aside.
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 1: And I think that's why Paxton would prefer a just
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 1: a race to the bottom, because in a race to
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 1: the bottom, their base is slightly bigger than the Democratic base.
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 1: Can Taala Rico keep his keep that sort of optimistic cheerfulness.
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: I think it's its only path to victory is to
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 1: literally zag if he if he sort of fights fire
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 1: with fire, it undermines whatever identity he has established for himself.
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 1: By the way, that may not work either, But I
• 2:15:19
  Speaker 1: know just going negative ad for negative ad isn't going
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 1: to work because they're basic, because because that is a
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 1: universal way that those campaigns play out. What we don't
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 1: know is does does running the turn the page? Aren't
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 1: you exhausted? I'm not going to respond to every negative
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: with a negative. That's probably I mean, it fits his brand.
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: You always should run the campaign that fits who you
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 1: are best. And I think that fits somebody who's who
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 1: fashions themselves a Sunday pastor Brent and Phoenix Arizona Rights,
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: Hey aspiring remember the five question club? Well, Brent, are
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 1: we close?
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 2: No, We're not.
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 1: You said this is your second attempt, all right, two down,
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 1: three to go. I agree with you on expanding the House,
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 1: but wonder if something like the Wyoming rule might be
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 1: more realistic path in today's environment. Do you see that
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 1: as a viable step towards better representation or does it
• 2:16:12
  Speaker 1: run into similar challenges? I don't know if I've cut
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 1: off your question by the time I saw it. Of
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: what you meant like the Wyoming rule?
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: Is Wyoming the baseline? Like? What you know? What are
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 1: you gathering like the Wyoming rule? You know, should we
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: set a bar that no state should have any more
• 2:16:32
  Speaker 1: than two and a f times the voting power of
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 1: any of of any other state? You know, no states
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 1: should have more than two and a half times voting
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: power than any other state in the electoral college? Is
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 1: that what you mean by a Wyoming rule? Look, I
• 2:16:49
  Speaker 1: do think that the best argument I would come up
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 1: with for expanding the House is to that this is
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 1: design political power to Texas, Florida, California, and New York.
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: And that's two blue states and two red states. It's
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 1: just simply denying political power for big states, and it's
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 1: certainly denying political power for medium sized states too. I mean,
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 1: this system is only good for small states. It is
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 1: not good for where everybody lives. So that's you know,
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: but you're right, in these times, you've got to come
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: up with sort of an a political answer or a
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: nonpartisan answer. Right. That's why I'm you know, of looked
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 1: that Texas and California both should share the same concerns,
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 1: right that there this system denies them voting power in Washington.
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: And that's that there was a time that that would
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 1: have been enough. Maybe there needs to be more, but
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 1: what you're talking about might Maybe that's where if you
• 2:18:00
  Speaker 1: had a constitutional amendment that stipulated in certain things, then
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 1: it would force the hand of Congress to do things
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 1: like expand expand the size of the House, you know,
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 1: say by ten members for every ten million. You know,
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: for every ten million that the population expands, we had
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: to expand by ten members through a certain period of time, right,
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: Like you could do it that way. I mean, there's
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 1: all sorts of ways you could come up with metrics
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 1: that could force the hand here. But if I misread,
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 1: if we shorthanded your question too much, if you have
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 1: a better explanation of wyoming role bread, please please share.
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 1: Andy from the Quad Citi's Rights, Hey, longtime listener, first
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: time email Aer here. I'm currently in a production of
• 2:18:49
  Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six Nice, which got me thinking about how
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 1: some founding fathers are portrayed versus their real impact. Do
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 1: you have any lesser known figures from that era you
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: think deserve more credit or are often oversimplified? Best Andy
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: from the Quad Seti's huh oh gosh. I mean, I
• 2:19:06
  Speaker 1: think you know, the more I why watched the ken
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 1: Burns Ben Franklin thing, the more you realize Ben Franklin's
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: both over sort of an overrated and underrated founder in
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 1: different ways for different reasons. I think it's fair to
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 1: say all of our founders have been oversimplified and and
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 1: and undercomplicated a little bit. I need to put more
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 1: thought into that question. You know, I don't think John
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: Hancock is is is. I don't know if everybody would
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 1: align with the character of John Hancock the more they
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: knew about John Hancock, right. But that is also why
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: I love the ken Burns American Revolution series, because it
• 2:19:47
  Speaker 1: it just sort of noted that these were these were
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 1: all people that had a normal set of flaws like
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: all of us do. So I mean, look, I think
• 2:20:04
  Speaker 1: that I believe it or not. And this is going
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 1: to sound crazy when you say it, but if you
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 1: spend some time looking for scholarship on this person, you'll
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 1: realize what I'm talking about. I think we undervalue, under rate,
• 2:20:17
  Speaker 1: and under examine George Washington. There is this, you know,
• 2:20:24
  Speaker 1: there's this. There's only been a couple of really good
• 2:20:34
  Speaker 1: books on him. And part of it is, you know,
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 1: there's always been this quiet like, well, he wasn't as
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: book smart as Jefferson, you know, or or you know
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: that you both Adams and Jefferson were more intellects than
• 2:20:47
  Speaker 1: Washington was, whatever that was supposed to mean. So there
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 1: was sometimes a dismissiveness among some historians and I think
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 1: even among other others in the movement that Washington was
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 1: this great figure head, but he really wasn't that smart,
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 1: really wasn't that bright. And I just think that we
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: we sort of we both lionize him and certainly make
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 1: him this incredibly large figure when we're little kids, but
• 2:21:20
  Speaker 1: we don't spend enough time on him intellectually. And I
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 1: don't think we've you know, I think you know, I mean,
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: his Pharaoell address is more brilliant than you know, get
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: it gets more brilliant to me the older I get, So,
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: you know, it's it's I know you may think I'm
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 1: doing a cop out here, but I really think that
• 2:21:44
  Speaker 1: Washington is sort of you know, the the you know,
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 1: the guy who you know, the actual founding father of
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 1: the of you know who many people would put in
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 1: the you know, literally on the Mount Rushmore right of
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: our founding president. He's I think the most famous person.
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 1: People don't know a lot about it, and I don't
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 1: think we weirdly enough study Washington enough. I feel like
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 1: we study Jefferson and Madison and Adams even and I don't.
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 1: And again, part of it is that the scholarship on
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 1: Washington is I don't want to say it's simple. Simple
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 1: is not the right word I'm looking for. It's just
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 1: it's it's not as rich and dramatic and as controversial
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 1: as Jefferson, right and so right. Jefferson just has a
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 1: lot more interesting country. You know, we love contradict It's
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 1: more fun to write about contradictions than than to write
• 2:22:42
  Speaker 1: about somebody who is pretty easy to explain. And I
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 1: guess that's why we, in a weird way, have fewer
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 1: books on Washington than we do on Jefferson. Why there's
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 1: sometimes less debate about Washington than Jefferson Anyway, There's just
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 1: a it is I've I've every time I read a
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 1: new Washington biography, I'm always feeling like, is there's something
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: I and I guess it's it's that I hold, you know,
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 1: It's like, it's it's this this, what there is everything
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 1: we know about Washington? What there is right, there's no
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 1: hidden this hidden that. But I've always I've always felt
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 1: that Washington is both incredibly well known. You know, this
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 1: used to be said about Harlely Clinton. Here the most
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 1: famous person nobody knows anything about. And I think George
• 2:23:36
  Speaker 1: Washington is this famous founding father that people know much,
• 2:23:40
  Speaker 1: people know much less about than they realize. Next question, Ah,
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 1: Kevin rts Hey, I have a question about the Catholic
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 1: Church's role as a moral authority. Do you see any
• 2:23:59
  Speaker 1: real movement on his like women in leadership, celibacy requirements,
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 1: or recognition of same sect marriage. Curious how you think
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 1: about the Church's influence on these debates today. Well, it's
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 1: a good question, and it may prevent the opportunity that
• 2:24:10
  Speaker 1: I think Pope Leo has in this moment now, I
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 1: think Pope Leo, because he sort of shares the moral
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 1: concerns that many other people have about the Trump era,
• 2:24:23
  Speaker 1: that people will start looking to him and maybe overlook
• 2:24:25
  Speaker 1: some of these other issues that they have at the
• 2:24:27
  Speaker 1: Catholic Church. But it's pretty clear that both that Pope
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 1: Leo is going to be similar to Pope Francis, and
• 2:24:34
  Speaker 1: that he is trying to move the church from the
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: eighteenth century to the nineteenth century and some of these issues.
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 1: I know, I'm being a little facetious here, or maybe
• 2:24:42
  Speaker 1: he's trying to you know, Pope Francis, you know, in
• 2:24:44
  Speaker 1: the twenty first century, tried to get the church into
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 1: the twentieth century. And maybe the argument is, you know,
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 1: can they get the church out of the early twentieth
• 2:24:54
  Speaker 1: century and into the late twentieth century with women in
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 1: leadership or letting priests marry and we'll see. I mean,
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 1: I think it's a that is going to be the
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 1: other way that plenty will judge the papacy of Poplio.
• 2:25:23
  Speaker 1: But if you're going to speak in basic human rights,
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 1: then having women treated as second class citizens is a
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 1: tough place to keep hanging your hat on. And so
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 1: if I look at all of the things that the
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 1: church hasn't shifted on that could I expect the church.
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: Maybe we'll see. I am I expect the church in
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: my lifetime to have women priests before they get there
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 1: on same sex marriage, before they get there on celibacy
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 1: or on priest marrying. I think some of it is
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 1: just going to be a numbers game. They need priests,
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 1: and I think they will start to tap nuns and
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 1: then that's where this comes. It's my own speculation. Everything
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: is always, you know, very much incremental steps in these
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 1: institutions that are hundreds of years old. But that would
• 2:26:25
  Speaker 1: be my guess is that they would move in that direction.
• 2:26:28
  Speaker 1: Everything would be out of necessity right, necessity of keeping
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: the membership going, necessity of right, different reasons. So that's
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 1: why I don't expect the movement on same sex marriage,
• 2:26:39
  Speaker 1: given how you know, this is not something that the
• 2:26:42
  Speaker 1: continent of Africa is embracing in the way that Western
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: the Western civilizations are, So I don't know if they
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 1: make that's and they made that same movement towards recognition
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 1: of same sex marriage. I'm more inclined to believe that
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: they equalize women in the church before they take any
• 2:27:03
  Speaker 1: of those other steps. But you know, I will also
• 2:27:12
  Speaker 1: confess that it's hard enough for me to what i'd
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 1: like to think is correctly or coherently explain American politics.
• 2:27:26
  Speaker 1: Trying to decipher the future of the Catholic Church probably
• 2:27:30
  Speaker 1: belongs to my friend mister Weigel. George Weigel's somebody I
• 2:27:34
  Speaker 1: am a long time intellect about the Vatican here in
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: many American publications, and he's certainly somebody that I may
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 1: invite on this podcast very soon because I think he
• 2:27:48
  Speaker 1: does a good job of at least explaining the internal
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 1: machinations of the organization that is the Catholic Church. All right,
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 1: last question, big fan, I've been listening for years, Yes,
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 1: even the Meat the Press podcast. I'm in the early
• 2:28:05
  Speaker 1: I'm in my early forties, and my parents now in
• 2:28:07
  Speaker 1: their seventies, have the news on constantly, which seems to
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: be fueling a lot of anxiety. Do you have any
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 1: advice for helping people step back from the twenty four
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 1: to seven news cycle while still staying in form Thanks
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 1: for all you do, Lenny and Ipswich, Massachusetts. Well, yeah,
• 2:28:20
  Speaker 1: you know, whether it's turn off the Fox or turn
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 1: off the MS. Right, we all have this conversation about
• 2:28:25
  Speaker 1: our parents or older relatives because they you know, during
• 2:28:31
  Speaker 1: the day, they're looking for company. I get it. Look,
• 2:28:35
  Speaker 1: if they're sports fans, try to introduce them to the
• 2:28:38
  Speaker 1: MLB app especially during baseball season they have a lot
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 1: because I think a lot of times people turn the
• 2:28:43
  Speaker 1: news on for company, a little noise in the house,
• 2:28:47
  Speaker 1: and you don't just want a boring TV show or
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 1: just a rerun of something. This used to be what
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 1: you know, Oprah's popularity was sometimes just to have some
• 2:28:58
  Speaker 1: noise on instead of music in the house or whatever
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 1: it is. Right, So, look, there are other things there
• 2:29:05
  Speaker 1: are you know, there's there's sports podcasts, there's you know,
• 2:29:11
  Speaker 1: now that all of us have turned podcasts into video things,
• 2:29:15
  Speaker 1: they can find something on their interests that do this.
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 1: Introduce them to these ten and fifteen minute news little
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 1: updates that you get from like you know, whether it's
• 2:29:29
  Speaker 1: a legacy news network, an independent news aggregator, you know,
• 2:29:36
  Speaker 1: you can curate something that can essentially replace the cable
• 2:29:40
  Speaker 1: news sort of vacuum filler, which is what I think
• 2:29:45
  Speaker 1: cable news became in a lot of households. You're just
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 1: sort of filling the air, filling noise keeping you company.
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: There's a lot more interesting people on YouTube, right, it
• 2:29:56
  Speaker 1: can keep you a company. And there's a lot of
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 1: other subject areas. When I have a day off, I
• 2:30:03
  Speaker 1: used to just you know, when I when I had
• 2:30:08
  Speaker 1: one of those week days off and I was at home,
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 1: and I was like, I will I can keep up.
• 2:30:13
  Speaker 1: I get enough of a news feed on here and
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 1: all the different things I get, and I don't need
• 2:30:21
  Speaker 1: to listen to handwringing about the headlines all day long.
• 2:30:28
  Speaker 1: But I'm in the middle of it, right, I'm in
• 2:30:30
  Speaker 1: the business. So I'm looking for in some ways a
• 2:30:32
  Speaker 1: palette cleanser. And so I've always used sports talk is
• 2:30:36
  Speaker 1: that although I can't stand these ESPN shows in the
• 2:30:40
  Speaker 1: in the daytime, I mean the only you know, there's
• 2:30:42
  Speaker 1: PTI that's fantastic and everything else, the manufactured chat shows
• 2:30:47
  Speaker 1: they're sort of just trying to you know, that's that's
• 2:30:50
  Speaker 1: a little much for me. So not a huge fan.
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 1: But that's what I would do, is if you've got
• 2:30:57
  Speaker 1: if your parents have another interest, well I promise you
• 2:31:01
  Speaker 1: there's a daily podcast that would scratch that interest. So
• 2:31:05
  Speaker 1: find them a couple that's the best I can help
• 2:31:08
  Speaker 1: you with. Well, look, I've gone long on this one.
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 1: I have a you know, I had a bunch to
• 2:31:14
  Speaker 1: say about the latest on the mL what both the
• 2:31:18
  Speaker 1: players and the owners are putting on about baseball. By
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 1: the way, I have an interview coming up with the
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 1: owner of the Chicago Cubs later this week, Todd Ricketts.
• 2:31:26
  Speaker 1: It's mostly about a new app that he's got out
• 2:31:29
  Speaker 1: that's a way to try to cut through the partisan
• 2:31:33
  Speaker 1: noise that's out there. It's a very interesting technology, and
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: I think it's worth a look at. But we actually
• 2:31:39
  Speaker 1: spend a few minutes talking about, you know, the likelihood
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 1: or unlikelihood of there being a work stoppage in baseball
• 2:31:45
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty seven. I just want to I don't
• 2:31:50
  Speaker 1: I'm I will say this. I think a salary cap
• 2:31:54
  Speaker 1: is coming, but but how do you define salary cap?
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 1: You know, we could have this huge cap that eventually
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 1: becomes relevant in ten years down the road. That would
• 2:32:04
  Speaker 1: be my advice to the owners. You know, if you
• 2:32:07
  Speaker 1: want to get the players to agree to a cap,
• 2:32:08
  Speaker 1: have the cap be absurd for the next ten years.
• 2:32:12
  Speaker 1: Then eventually you'll value yourself closer to it, and then
• 2:32:16
  Speaker 1: it might actually be an acceptable cap. But it might
• 2:32:19
  Speaker 1: be the best of both worlds there for everybody. But
• 2:32:23
  Speaker 1: that's thinking like a compromiser in a ration when we're
• 2:32:25
  Speaker 1: in a collaborator. But who knows. And I don't want
• 2:32:30
  Speaker 1: a twenty fourteen playoff. I can get behind a sixteen
• 2:32:34
  Speaker 1: team playoff. I think I've advocated for one. I think
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 1: sixteen teams is the perfect size. Any bigger and you
• 2:32:40
  Speaker 1: get teams that don't belong any smaller, and you will
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: always leave out a team or two that would have
• 2:32:46
  Speaker 1: been better in the right twelve left out probably two
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 1: teams that belonged Texas and Notre Dame. Sixteen probably would
• 2:32:54
  Speaker 1: have allowed one more team in that shouldn't have gotten in,
• 2:33:00
  Speaker 1: rather have one, you know, that's probably the right twenty
• 2:33:03
  Speaker 1: four I don't want eight and four. We don't want
• 2:33:05
  Speaker 1: four loss teams in the playoff. You really don't want
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 1: three loss teams in the playoff. And that should be
• 2:33:11
  Speaker 1: the be the be the goal, because if the regular
• 2:33:14
  Speaker 1: season starts to get diluted, and and and and a
• 2:33:19
  Speaker 1: third loss is accepted, but a fourth loss and literally
• 2:33:22
  Speaker 1: you can get in with a fourth loss, then what
• 2:33:24
  Speaker 1: are we even doing here? What's the point of the
• 2:33:26
  Speaker 1: regular season? It just you know it's sort of as
• 2:33:28
  Speaker 1: bad as the NBA, and again, nobody wants to become
• 2:33:31
  Speaker 1: the NBA regular season, right? Is there a sing? It
• 2:33:34
  Speaker 1: is all? It is? All it is. All it did
• 2:33:36
  Speaker 1: was decided who hosted Game seven in the Western Conference Finals,
• 2:33:39
  Speaker 1: and it turns out that home court advantage didn't matter.
• 2:33:45
  Speaker 1: So I'll admit I had a lot more in both.
• 2:33:49
  Speaker 1: But I'm mindful of your time. I'm mindful of my own.
• 2:33:52
  Speaker 1: I appreciate how much time and devotion you do give
• 2:33:55
  Speaker 1: to the hard work that gets put into this podcast.
• 2:33:59
  Speaker 1: And with that, see it forty eight hours with a
• 2:34:02
  Speaker 1: new episode. But hopefully I'll also see you Tuesday night
• 2:34:05
  Speaker 1: for our live election coverage of the June second primaries.
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 1: And this is a big one California. We're gonna be
• 2:34:12
  Speaker 1: on for at leite. We're gonna be on for a
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 1: good four hours. We're gonna go past midnight on the
• 2:34:17
  Speaker 1: East Coast. Trust me, we're not gonna go days, which
• 2:34:21
  Speaker 1: is how long it actually will take the count all
• 2:34:22
  Speaker 1: the ballots in California. But we're gonna go past midnight
• 2:34:26
  Speaker 1: and then some and have a nice good West Coast
• 2:34:30
  Speaker 1: flavor to our election life coverage on Tuesday, So if
• 2:34:33
  Speaker 1: I don't see you Tuesday night, then i'll see you
• 2:34:35
  Speaker 1: Wednesday morning. But either way, i'll see you then. Thanks
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 1: for listening, and until we upload again.