Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - The U.S. Retreats From Being The Leader Of The Free World + Trump’s Transactional & Corrupt Pardons

Transcript

Chuck’s Commentary - The U.S. Retreats From Being The Leader Of The Free World + Trump’s Transactional & Corrupt Pardons · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: that code. Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome to another
1:52
Speaker 1: episode of the Chuck Podcast.
1:54
Speaker 2: Of course, I have to open up.
1:56
Speaker 1: To do a little representing here to say I'm relieved
2:00
Speaker 1: and surprised at the committee's decision with the University of
2:03
Speaker 1: Miami and football is an understatement. I don't think any
2:07
Speaker 1: of the sins that I've been identifying of this committee
2:10
Speaker 1: should somehow be washed away. What they have done with
2:15
Speaker 1: the SEC in Alabama is as suspicious as ever, and
2:19
Speaker 1: I have I do not blame anger out of the
2:22
Speaker 1: folks at Notre Dame. I think the strangest decision was
2:28
Speaker 1: including Alabama. Actually the strangest decision was including Oklahoma. We
2:33
Speaker 1: can have a longer discussion about that. And I have
2:36
Speaker 1: still had a bunch of stuff to say about this.
2:39
Speaker 1: I love the fact that now all these ESPA personalities
2:42
Speaker 1: at CURTA. Herdstreet are saying we should get rid of
2:44
Speaker 1: this TV show. Good luck getting your bosses to agree
2:47
Speaker 1: to do the TV show.
2:48
Speaker 2: But you are correct.
2:50
Speaker 1: The college football ranking shows created this antagonism of fan bases, suspicion, conspiracy, theory, ease,
3:00
Speaker 1: all of that, the behavior of the committee, the lack
3:05
Speaker 1: of sort of consistency, the decision, all that business it.
3:09
Speaker 1: You know, they have nobody to blame but themselves. I
3:13
Speaker 1: had a friend of mine quickly text he said, well
3:16
Speaker 1: all your whining worked, and I'm like, hey, don't encourage me.
3:20
Speaker 1: There's a I hope that's not the case in a
3:23
Speaker 1: weird way. I hope it wasn't outside agitators like myself
3:27
Speaker 1: and others pointing out facts that they were unaware of.
3:30
Speaker 1: I should hope they were. That they didn't need people
3:34
Speaker 1: to point these things out, but to say that how
3:39
Speaker 1: this went down and the it is going to do
3:44
Speaker 1: nothing but encourage more activity like the activity a bunch
3:48
Speaker 1: of US University of Miami partisans participate in over the
3:51
Speaker 1: last few weeks. There will be more of that come
3:56
Speaker 1: next year, until they finally get rid of this committee
3:58
Speaker 1: and allow basics what happens on the field dictates everything
4:03
Speaker 1: hard stop. But like I said, I'll have more to
4:06
Speaker 1: say about college football. And for those of you who
4:08
Speaker 1: don't care about sports or college football, or have written
4:11
Speaker 1: off college football because you don't like how they've been
4:14
Speaker 1: doing this for frankly one hundred years, they have never
4:17
Speaker 1: gotten their postseason, right, I get it, I understand, and
4:21
Speaker 1: I will put this at the end of this podcast.
4:24
Speaker 1: Let me give you a rundown of what I got
4:25
Speaker 1: going on today. We of course have got sort of
4:29
Speaker 1: I want to go through a little bit of the
4:31
Speaker 1: national of the of the new National Strategic Security Strategy
4:37
Speaker 1: Memo that gets updated every year by whoever's in the presidency.
4:42
Speaker 1: And to say there's a departure not surprising, but a
4:45
Speaker 1: departure of of what role America should play in the
4:50
Speaker 1: world is an understatement. Bottom line, the president of the
4:54
Speaker 1: United States does not want to be the leader of
4:57
Speaker 1: the free world, if you take the National Security Strategy
5:04
Speaker 1: update seriously. I want to get into that a little
5:08
Speaker 1: bit on this Trump pardon anger at Henry Quaar and
5:11
Speaker 1: what it really tells us about how the pardon system.
5:14
Speaker 2: Works in the Trump White House. But I want to
5:16
Speaker 2: start with.
5:18
Speaker 1: Sort of the news that wasn't That wasn't the headline,
5:23
Speaker 1: but I think it's something that I wanted to spend
5:27
Speaker 1: a few minutes focused on before I get to some
5:29
Speaker 1: of the sort of you know, hot take headlines that
5:32
Speaker 1: I know.
5:34
Speaker 2: I want to dabble in.
5:35
Speaker 1: I've got a few things, just sort of what I
5:37
Speaker 1: would call a notebook item of news events that I
5:40
Speaker 1: think folks need to be following more closely. But finally,
5:44
Speaker 1: earlier this week, the Trump White House put out the
5:47
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five National Security Strategy Memo, and.
5:50
Speaker 2: Here's what it signals.
5:51
Speaker 1: It signaled to a significant and explicit departure from the
5:56
Speaker 1: long standing US foreign policy goal of actively spreading and
5:59
Speaker 1: supporting democracy abroad. Here on the eve, you know, of
6:05
Speaker 1: the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our founding as
6:11
Speaker 1: a small D democratic country as the sort of beacon
6:15
Speaker 1: of democracy for the world, this is not the role
6:18
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and the MAGA movement wants the United States
6:22
Speaker 1: to play. The America First ideology is strewn all through
6:28
Speaker 1: this document. It reorients US policy away from what's been
6:33
Speaker 1: a values based interventionism and toward a more strictly pragmatic
6:37
Speaker 1: America First approach, defining core national security interests as sovereignty,
6:43
Speaker 1: homeland defense, economic strength, and self reliance. No longer do
6:47
Speaker 1: we believe in spreading our value, supporting our values, supporting
6:51
Speaker 1: small D democracy when it's necessary. In fact, non interventionism.
6:56
Speaker 1: The strategy explicitly criticizes past efforts to impose quote, democratic
7:01
Speaker 1: or other social change that differs widely from their traditions
7:04
Speaker 1: and histories. It's just a clear rejection of the post
7:08
Speaker 1: Cold War consensus on democracy promotion in nation building.
7:11
Speaker 2: Right.
7:12
Speaker 1: This is where there was a strong, sort of broad
7:15
Speaker 1: bipartisan consensus that the United States should always first and
7:20
Speaker 1: foremost support freedom, support democracy when it is obviously how
7:26
Speaker 1: much do you use military to do it? Look, those
7:29
Speaker 1: are fair debates, but to no longer be in the
7:32
Speaker 1: business of supporting it or promoting it seems to be
7:35
Speaker 1: a big mistake. The strategy memo also generally favors accepting
7:38
Speaker 1: countries as they are, which of course is a cherry
7:42
Speaker 1: picked thing. I'll get to that in a minute. As
7:44
Speaker 1: their leaders quote as they are in regions like the
7:45
Speaker 1: Middle East, prioritizing stability and transactional cooperation over shared interests
7:52
Speaker 1: on shared interest rather than talking about internal political reform.
7:55
Speaker 1: Of course, we've seen the Vice President lecture Europe and
8:01
Speaker 1: not accepting Europe at face value. We've seen the President
8:05
Speaker 1: of the United States lecture Brazil on how it decided to
8:08
Speaker 1: deal with Bolsonaro, not accepting Brazil at face values.
8:12
Speaker 2: So this is this is clearly a.
8:18
Speaker 1: Philosophy that they will only sometimes follow depending on their
8:23
Speaker 1: personal relationships with said country or said leader. But for
8:28
Speaker 1: the most part, real politic is not something that you
8:31
Speaker 1: hear me criticize. I think sometimes you have to deal
8:35
Speaker 1: with the countries that you have, you have to deal
8:37
Speaker 1: with the leaders that you have, not necessarily the leaders
8:39
Speaker 1: that you want. But there's a fine line. Right, So
8:43
Speaker 1: for as far as this administration is concerned, they believe
8:46
Speaker 1: foreign policy to be judged by what makes the United
8:48
Speaker 1: States more powerful and prosperous period, not by the form
8:51
Speaker 1: of government of its partners. So it means we'll have
8:55
Speaker 1: closer cooperation with essentially undemocratic regimes haters. It is, there
9:01
Speaker 1: is no more value judgment on who the United States
9:06
Speaker 1: does business with or allies with, unless we've decide there's
9:10
Speaker 1: a value judgment on who the US. So you right,
9:12
Speaker 1: it's like under that scenario, why are we h why
9:16
Speaker 1: are we blockading Cuba?
9:18
Speaker 2: Right? Why why aren't we just dealing with Cuba as
9:20
Speaker 2: it is? Right? It's great, we have.
9:22
Speaker 1: Select this is there's there's a clearly not.
9:28
Speaker 2: This is this is a a.
9:31
Speaker 1: An aspirational document, not one that they plan on following
9:35
Speaker 1: when it's inconvenient to their own beliefs. On this one,
9:41
Speaker 1: what's interesting is that the document also took a shot
9:43
Speaker 1: at Europe. It criticizes the European Union and e integration efforts,
9:47
Speaker 1: claiming they have suppressed political liberty, prevented innovation, and fostered
9:51
Speaker 1: Europe's decline. Basically, they're on the side of the Brigsteers,
9:56
Speaker 1: and they're on the side of everybody that and on
9:58
Speaker 1: mister Orbon who's all anti EU. This is a document
10:03
Speaker 1: even though these many of these countries are choosing to
10:05
Speaker 1: do this. So out of one mouth they're saying, we've
10:10
Speaker 1: got we've got to judge by what the United States
10:14
Speaker 1: makes a more powerful and prosperous not by the form
10:16
Speaker 1: of government of its partners. And then the next prep, hey,
10:20
Speaker 1: you Europe don't try to get together and have a
10:22
Speaker 1: powerful EU. So obviously there is a political dynamic to this,
10:28
Speaker 1: which is this administration is going to support other nationalist movements, right,
10:32
Speaker 1: whether it's a nationalist movement with Nigel Faraj in the UK,
10:36
Speaker 1: a nationalist movement in Hungary that is pretty clear, and
10:41
Speaker 1: with the controversial political party and the political movement in
10:44
Speaker 1: Germany that AfD. It explicitly signals support for quote patriotic
10:49
Speaker 1: European parties often interpreted as far right nationalist parties, calls
10:52
Speaker 1: for the US to cultivate resistance to Europe's current trajectory.
10:56
Speaker 1: So again, on one side of their mouth, this security
11:00
Speaker 1: strategy memo says, hey, the United States is going to
11:02
Speaker 1: accept countries as it is. Then in its next breath,
11:05
Speaker 1: when it comes to Europe, they're saying, we're going to
11:07
Speaker 1: get involved in the internal politics of European countries on
11:11
Speaker 1: the side of nationalists. Sorry, if you were looking for consistency,
11:15
Speaker 1: you know, the Trump administration is not a place to go.
11:18
Speaker 1: This would be a dramatic intervention into the internal politics
11:22
Speaker 1: of key allies, and we would be disrupting NATO, disrupting
11:25
Speaker 1: the EU, essentially America's most important cultural as well as
11:33
Speaker 1: sort of traditional allies for the last one hundred years.
11:38
Speaker 1: I mean to do this to Europe feels like just frankly,
11:43
Speaker 1: a little bit of a troll rather than anything that
11:46
Speaker 1: is in the best interests of the national security of
11:49
Speaker 1: the United States. Now, there's still some soft power that
11:54
Speaker 1: this memo that this strategy Memo does support. When discussing democracy,
12:00
Speaker 1: the strategy member primarily focuses on defending and renewing American
12:04
Speaker 1: principles at home, like limited government, the rule of law,
12:07
Speaker 1: constitutional fidelity, and calling that the foundation of US strength.
12:12
Speaker 1: And then it calls for respectful influence, stating that the
12:15
Speaker 1: US will maintain its quote unrivaled soft power through which
12:18
Speaker 1: we exercise positive influence throughout the world that furthers our interests,
12:22
Speaker 1: but adds that the US will be quote respectful of
12:24
Speaker 1: other countries, differing religions, cultures, and governing systems. Apparently except
12:28
Speaker 1: when it comes to Europe. In the EU, it's a
12:31
Speaker 1: key line that minimizes the impetus to push for political
12:34
Speaker 1: change abroad. But the bottom line is this, This twenty
12:38
Speaker 1: twenty five National Security Strategy memo effectively ends the era
12:42
Speaker 1: of America wanting to be the leader of the free world.
12:47
Speaker 1: You know, I've always said the presidency of the United
12:48
Speaker 1: States is really three jobs in one. When you're running
12:53
Speaker 1: as a political candidate, you're running to be leader.
12:55
Speaker 2: Of your party.
12:57
Speaker 1: You're running to be the actual president of the United
13:01
Speaker 1: States and of the three hundred and thirty million people.
13:03
Speaker 1: So that's sort of job too, right to essentially actually
13:07
Speaker 1: execute the office. And then the third job is leader
13:11
Speaker 1: of the free world. But as far as Donald Trump's concerned,
13:15
Speaker 1: that is no longer a job he we know he
13:17
Speaker 1: has never saw him See, he does not believe he
13:21
Speaker 1: should be the promoter of democracy around the world, the
13:25
Speaker 1: promoter of freedom around the world. He is you know,
13:27
Speaker 1: this is not as if he says one thing and
13:29
Speaker 1: does another on that issue. He has never said he
13:33
Speaker 1: wants to do. That's what's been inconsistent is he says, hey,
13:36
Speaker 1: we should be just dealing with countries as they are, right,
13:40
Speaker 1: this is what the decision we've made about China and Russia,
13:43
Speaker 1: rather than hope we can make change subtly with soft
13:46
Speaker 1: power or at times hard power, except of course, when
13:50
Speaker 1: he decides he doesn't like somebody or he doesn't like
13:53
Speaker 1: a political movement. So it is like many an ideological
13:59
Speaker 1: de declaration that Donald Trump has made. There are so
14:03
Speaker 1: many holes that there is Swiss that it's sort of
14:06
Speaker 1: like a declaration of Swiss cheese. And this National Security
14:10
Speaker 1: Strategy memo in many ways does echo the broad sort
14:16
Speaker 1: of definition of what somebody would describe as an isolationists
14:20
Speaker 1: of America, first of sort of detaching the United States
14:24
Speaker 1: from the world, very much articulating what the philosophy of
14:28
Speaker 1: the Republican Party was before World War Two. The problem
14:32
Speaker 1: is that is not how he actually executes the presidency right.
14:36
Speaker 1: It is really there is no ideolize, there is no
14:39
Speaker 1: Trump doctrine beyond what's good for Trump. Right, he gets
14:43
Speaker 1: involved in a country. If somebody asks him to get involved,
14:46
Speaker 1: he wants to be. You know, if he thinks there's
14:48
Speaker 1: some benefit to him, he'll get involved. I mean, you know,
14:51
Speaker 1: you there's when you look at the deal he cut
14:55
Speaker 1: with Cutter to give them this NATO like defense agreement.
15:00
Speaker 1: Does that happen without the airplane? I think we all
15:02
Speaker 1: know the likely.
15:03
Speaker 2: Answer to that.
15:05
Speaker 1: And I just put that out there because this is
15:07
Speaker 1: a huge departure, and I know that there is This
15:10
Speaker 1: is not something that a lot of people are going
15:12
Speaker 1: to vote on, but I will tell you this, this
15:14
Speaker 1: makes us weaker, and this makes us less safe. There's
15:19
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of people who feel let
15:20
Speaker 1: down by the United States. Feels as if the United
15:23
Speaker 1: States doesn't ever really care about freedom and democracy, no
15:28
Speaker 1: longer cares about human rights. And there's always been a look,
15:31
Speaker 1: we've we've always been better on human rights rhetoric than
15:36
Speaker 1: we've been on trying to use our influence to improve
15:40
Speaker 1: a situation. Because there's you know, you know, just what
15:46
Speaker 1: should our military be used for? Okay, I think those
15:49
Speaker 1: are those are bare debates, but this is a total
15:52
Speaker 1: sort of washing our hands of the debate about what
15:57
Speaker 1: you know, should would the world be off if we
16:00
Speaker 1: all lived under a democracy, and if you, as leader,
16:06
Speaker 1: as president of the United States, don't believe that, I
16:10
Speaker 1: don't think.
16:10
Speaker 2: You should represent America.
16:13
Speaker 1: We're an idea. We are not an ethnic based anything.
16:17
Speaker 1: I know that the President would like us to be,
16:20
Speaker 1: but we are not. The whole point of this country
16:23
Speaker 1: was to was an idea that anybody could be an
16:26
Speaker 1: American if they believed in the idea of America, the
16:30
Speaker 1: idea of freedom, the idea of democracy, didn't matter what
16:35
Speaker 1: ethnicity you were, what religion you practiced. That ultimately, do
16:39
Speaker 1: you believe in that core idea of individual liberty? And
16:46
Speaker 1: what this memo sadly does is sort of reject that
16:49
Speaker 1: and isn't interested in promoting it, which should make us,
16:54
Speaker 1: should make you feel concerned that if we're not interested
16:57
Speaker 1: in promoting it, then are we really interested in and
17:01
Speaker 1: having it here at home? So look, I'm not going
17:04
Speaker 1: to sit here and be one of these folks that
17:05
Speaker 1: the democracy is about to crumble. I don't think it is.
17:09
Speaker 1: I think our democracy is pretty well embedded in society,
17:12
Speaker 1: and I just think it's going to be a lot
17:14
Speaker 1: harder to destroy our democracy than some fear. But this
17:18
Speaker 1: weekens the democracy. This erodes our credibility around the world
17:22
Speaker 1: in ways that isn't going to get repaired with the
17:25
Speaker 1: next president. This is generational damage and this retreat and
17:30
Speaker 1: that's what make no mistake. This National Security Strategy Memo
17:34
Speaker 1: is just a full retreat. Guess who loves this memo?
17:40
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin, He's ecstatic. And in fact, Donald Trump Junior
17:48
Speaker 1: was in Cutter along with his buddy Tucker Carlson earlier
17:50
Speaker 1: this week and he was asked during an event in
17:53
Speaker 1: Cutter Donald Trump Junior if the US president could walk
17:56
Speaker 1: away from Ukraine, and Junior said, I think he may,
18:00
Speaker 1: and then he adds this, what's good about my father,
18:02
Speaker 1: and what's unique about my father is you don't know
18:05
Speaker 1: what he's going to do. The fact that he's not
18:07
Speaker 1: predictable forces everyone to actually deal in an intellectually honest capacity.
18:14
Speaker 1: There's a few things where Trump's unpredictability is helpful. In
18:18
Speaker 1: the Middle East it has been, and I think in
18:20
Speaker 1: dealing with some of those countries that's kind of the
18:24
Speaker 1: way it goes. But guess who was happy about the
18:27
Speaker 1: new National security memom. The Kremlin lauded this, saying that
18:33
Speaker 1: the new directive stopped calling Russia a direct threat and
18:36
Speaker 1: calling that a positive step, according to Reuters, So.
18:41
Speaker 2: There you go.
18:43
Speaker 1: We now have a new national security strategy philosophy that's
18:47
Speaker 1: governing this executive branch and the decisions that are going
18:50
Speaker 1: to be made at the State Department, at embassies around
18:53
Speaker 1: the world, the CIA, the Pentagon. That do that make
19:00
Speaker 1: two countries happier above all others, Russia and China?
19:06
Speaker 2: Is that good for America? Is that good for democracy?
19:09
Speaker 2: I think we know the answer.
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Speaker 1: pardon from President Trump? And I told you on that
21:14
Speaker 1: last episode, boy, nothing is done for free. So the
21:18
Speaker 1: question is where did this come from? And what is
21:21
Speaker 1: Quaar going to be giving in return? Well, apparently Donald
21:25
Speaker 1: Trump expected something in return. So let me give you
21:28
Speaker 1: a quick summary of sort of everything you need to
21:31
Speaker 1: know about this Trump Quaar pardon controversy, because I actually
21:36
Speaker 1: think this shows that basically Donald Trump is confessing a
21:41
Speaker 1: crime right here, and it's and the crime is that
21:44
Speaker 1: he is selling these pardons. Sometimes he's selling them for
21:47
Speaker 1: actual money, and sometimes he's selling them for some sort
21:50
Speaker 1: of political support. Well, let me go through this. So
21:53
Speaker 1: here's the actual charges that Quai Are and his wife
21:58
Speaker 1: are facing. They were indicted into four on a dozen
22:01
Speaker 1: federal charges that included bribery, money laundering, and conspiracy. The
22:05
Speaker 1: charges basically alleged that the couple accepted six hundred thousand
22:09
Speaker 1: dollars in bribes from a Mexican bank and an Azerbaijani
22:13
Speaker 1: oil and gas company in exchange for advancing interests. So
22:17
Speaker 1: I told you that these are the types of crimes
22:19
Speaker 1: Trump has been pardoning left and right right. Anybody that's
22:23
Speaker 1: been accused of essentially using their having being bought off
22:28
Speaker 1: for their influence is something Trump doesn't think is a crime.
22:33
Speaker 1: Tells you something right there, right. So, on December third,
22:36
Speaker 1: he granted a full and unconditional pardon to both Henry
22:38
Speaker 1: and Emmelda Quar, both both the congressman and his wife,
22:43
Speaker 1: and it effectively ended the federal prosecution before the schedule
22:46
Speaker 1: April twenty twenty six trial, which could have been a
22:49
Speaker 1: huge problem for his reel lift. And at the time,
22:53
Speaker 1: Trump justified his pardon by saying he was reversing a
22:57
Speaker 1: quote politically motivated prosecution, he claimed, and he claimed that
23:01
Speaker 1: the Justice Department and President Biden had weaponized the system
23:03
Speaker 1: against Quaar simply because the congressman had been a vocal
23:06
Speaker 1: critic of Biden's border policies. He called Quair beloved and
23:11
Speaker 1: said he was speaking the truth against open borders. Well
23:16
Speaker 1: after receiving the pardon, Quaar publicly thanked Trump but firmly
23:20
Speaker 1: stated he would not be switching parties and he would
23:22
Speaker 1: run for reelection as a Democrat in the twenty eighth
23:24
Speaker 1: congressional district in Texas. Well, that's exactly what he did
23:29
Speaker 1: earlier or just before the weekend. He filed the paperwork
23:33
Speaker 1: for his reelection bid as a Democrat on the same
23:35
Speaker 1: day the pardon was announced, and then Trump went off right.
23:41
Speaker 1: He was really angry. He reacted to the strong public
23:43
Speaker 1: criticism just a few days after the pardon, specifically lashing
23:47
Speaker 1: out at Quaar for running as a Democrat. The core
23:49
Speaker 1: of his complaint was perceived as a quote.
23:51
Speaker 2: Lack of loyalty.
23:54
Speaker 1: Let me read you the full truth social post. Only
23:58
Speaker 1: a short time after signing the pardon, this is true truth,
24:00
Speaker 1: social Posts, Congressman Henry Quair announced that he will be
24:03
Speaker 1: running for Congress again. He put running in quotes in
24:06
Speaker 1: the great state of Texas parenthesesis state where I receive
24:08
Speaker 1: the highest number of votes ever recorded. He loves to
24:11
Speaker 1: throw these sort of sort of statistics that are kind
24:15
Speaker 1: of meaningless pretty much because our population always grows, particularly
24:19
Speaker 1: in the Sun Belt. Whoever wins these states each time
24:21
Speaker 1: is getting the most number of votes that anybody's ever gotten.
24:23
Speaker 2: But anyway, but I digress.
24:27
Speaker 1: He's complaining that Quaer file for office as a Democrat,
24:29
Speaker 1: continuing to work with the same radical left scum that
24:32
Speaker 1: just weeks before wanted him and his wife to spend
24:34
Speaker 1: the rest of their lives in prison. Such a lack
24:36
Speaker 1: of loyalty. Loyalty is in all caps, something that Texas
24:39
Speaker 1: voters and Henry's daughters will not like. Oh well, next time,
24:44
Speaker 1: no more, mister nice guy. I never spoke to the
24:46
Speaker 1: congressman and his wife or his daughters, but felt very
24:48
Speaker 1: good about fighting for a family that was tormented by
24:50
Speaker 1: very sick and to arrange people they were treated so badly.
24:55
Speaker 2: So I don't.
24:59
Speaker 1: This is clear to me that there's a lot more
25:01
Speaker 1: reporting that we all need to do on this one.
25:05
Speaker 1: Do we really think there was very little conversation between
25:11
Speaker 1: members of Koar's family and the White House. There was
25:14
Speaker 1: obviously some conversation. The President cited a letter from his daughters.
25:19
Speaker 1: He said he was moved by the letter from his daughters.
25:23
Speaker 1: But Trump, certainly it sounds like thought he was doing
25:26
Speaker 1: this in exchange for something, and he's angry when the
25:30
Speaker 1: something that he expected sounds like he expected either quair
25:33
Speaker 1: or to switch parties. Filed a run as a Republican
25:36
Speaker 1: or whatever. Right, he did it just before the filing deadline,
25:40
Speaker 1: So you know, if you're looking for fishy smells here
25:44
Speaker 1: that like, okay, is you know, is there something here
25:48
Speaker 1: We're not being told right.
25:49
Speaker 2: The timing of the.
25:50
Speaker 1: Pardon is a tell, right just before the Texas filing deadline,
25:54
Speaker 1: and then he lashes out after Quaar files as a Democrat. Methinks,
26:03
Speaker 1: we don't have all the details of this story, but
26:06
Speaker 1: the most important part of this is Trump's public reaction,
26:09
Speaker 1: because again we sort of are shrugging our shoulders right
26:14
Speaker 1: now collectively about what is happening nearly once a week,
26:18
Speaker 1: which is Trump does a major pardon of somebody that
26:22
Speaker 1: has no business getting a pardon, but who magically has
26:26
Speaker 1: a connection to somebody close to the president former president
26:29
Speaker 1: of Honduras, magically is close to Roger Stone right, the
26:33
Speaker 1: guy with the crypto binance. He's magically in business with
26:36
Speaker 1: the President's sons. And we quay are with somebody. You know,
26:41
Speaker 1: this is part of Remember, he is already ordered Texas
26:45
Speaker 1: Republicans to do the redistricting business. One of the places
26:49
Speaker 1: they think they're going to make up ground is in
26:51
Speaker 1: South Texas. He pardons Henry Quayar just days before the
26:55
Speaker 1: filing deadline. Quaar decides to stick and run as a Democrat,
27:00
Speaker 1: Perhaps looking at the polls and realizing that being a
27:02
Speaker 1: Republican at twenty twenty six might not be the best decision,
27:06
Speaker 1: even in South Texas.
27:07
Speaker 2: Next cycle and Trump goes crazy.
27:13
Speaker 1: Let's just say, I think we know that he uses
27:18
Speaker 1: the pardon power to try to get what he wants.
27:21
Speaker 1: Maybe it's business deals for his kids, maybe it's political support,
27:26
Speaker 1: maybe it's something else. Maybe it's just simply to help
27:29
Speaker 1: a friend get a payday, whether it's a Paulmanniford or
27:33
Speaker 1: Roger Stone or whatever. By the way, it's very funny
27:36
Speaker 1: today Roger Stone has other people out there trying to
27:39
Speaker 1: claim he didn't.
27:41
Speaker 2: He didn't.
27:42
Speaker 1: They're not saying he didn't make money off the pardon,
27:44
Speaker 1: but he wasn't paid to represent the president. I have
27:47
Speaker 1: a feeling we know that there's some specificity in these
27:51
Speaker 1: denials in order for them to not look totally crooked
27:58
Speaker 1: in all of this. But anyway, I am I am
28:04
Speaker 1: just I do not get why there's not more outrage
28:08
Speaker 1: about the weekly sales. Weekly go look at this list
28:13
Speaker 1: of pardons, and it's it's it's uh. It ain't making
28:21
Speaker 1: America great again, that's for sure, but it is making crime.
28:26
Speaker 2: Easy again.
28:27
Speaker 1: And that especially white collar crime that alarm a lot
28:31
Speaker 1: of people. And if you're going to wonder why the
28:33
Speaker 1: pitchforks may come out for left and right, you know,
28:37
Speaker 1: this is Donald Trump being on the side of the elites,
28:39
Speaker 1: being on the side that rip off everyday people. Just
28:42
Speaker 1: remember that, Just remember that of those that thought Trump
28:46
Speaker 1: was going to be on your side, that he was
28:48
Speaker 1: going to go get those elites. Instead he pardons those elites.
28:54
Speaker 1: A few things, a few other things before we get
28:56
Speaker 1: to the interview with Jared Bernstein. I I am fascinated
29:02
Speaker 1: by the sixty minutes interview that Marjorie Taylor Green gave
29:06
Speaker 1: on Sunday. I think the quote that is making the
29:09
Speaker 1: rounds is fascinating, which let me just read it. I
29:13
Speaker 1: watched many of my colleagues go from making fun of him,
29:16
Speaker 1: making fun of how he talks, making fun of me
29:18
Speaker 1: constantly for supporting him, to when he won the primary
29:21
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, they all started excuse my language,
29:24
Speaker 1: Leslie referring to Leslie Stall kissing his ass, and decided
29:27
Speaker 1: to put on a Maga hat for the first time.
29:30
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, I am convinced that Marjorie Taylor Green
29:36
Speaker 1: is coming about all of this, not as some sort
29:38
Speaker 1: of act or as some sort of pivot. I think
29:41
Speaker 1: this is somebody who was naive to how politics were.
29:45
Speaker 1: She owned a jim, she lived in her own world,
29:49
Speaker 1: didn't like what she saw, got caught up in the
29:52
Speaker 1: Trump movement, maybe believed that he wasn't a bullshitter, believed
29:57
Speaker 1: this bullshit is like realizing sort of it, and it's taken.
30:03
Speaker 1: You know, it's sort of a little bit at a time,
30:05
Speaker 1: because you know, she doesn't she does. You know, it's
30:08
Speaker 1: almost as at first she thought, you know, this is
30:11
Speaker 1: where I'm wondering, did she think political theater was the
30:15
Speaker 1: way you were supposed to do this? And then she realized,
30:18
Speaker 1: you know, she just got the wrong introduction to what
30:21
Speaker 1: politics was. She only got the introduction through the prism
30:24
Speaker 1: of Trump. But she actually thought these folks believed in something,
30:31
Speaker 1: and she's found out the hard way that they don't
30:33
Speaker 1: really believe.
30:33
Speaker 2: What they say.
30:35
Speaker 1: Let's just say I think she's I think she is
30:39
Speaker 1: somebody that if she chooses to run for something, like
30:43
Speaker 1: I said this before, John as suffer better, should be relieved.
30:47
Speaker 1: She's not running for the Senate. But I you know,
30:51
Speaker 1: I don't know whether she has this ambition. She may not,
30:55
Speaker 1: she may just view this, but maybe you don't do
30:57
Speaker 1: a sixty minutes interview if you don't have trying to
31:01
Speaker 1: preserve yourself a place in the future somewhere. But what
31:04
Speaker 1: if she's the pure, the real MAGA candidate in twenty
31:08
Speaker 1: eight primary vance and that becomes the split. Does it
31:14
Speaker 1: open the door for a third item too? Anyway, just
31:18
Speaker 1: something to think about a few other things that I
31:20
Speaker 1: wanted to that I wanted, one other aspect that I
31:25
Speaker 1: wanted to get to, and then we'll get to the
31:26
Speaker 1: interview with Jed Burnstein. The other story that's sort of
31:31
Speaker 1: roiling Washington is the shocking unpopularity of all four congressional
31:35
Speaker 1: leaders right now. And we've been in periods like this before.
31:41
Speaker 1: After sort of the fall of Jim Wright in the
31:43
Speaker 1: late eighties, there was a period between sort of the
31:48
Speaker 1: Right speakership and the Gingrit speakership where just felt like
31:51
Speaker 1: there was just not a lot of a lot of
31:55
Speaker 1: great leadership on Capitol Hill and both parties were going
31:59
Speaker 1: through a transition. And then you sort of got, you know,
32:01
Speaker 1: you got that's that's when sort of get parting. Gingrid
32:04
Speaker 1: stepped in and then they created some stability, and you
32:06
Speaker 1: had Mitchell and Dole for a little bit. We went
32:10
Speaker 1: through a period I think where when Dashel lost and
32:13
Speaker 1: you had like a lot and frist and there was
32:16
Speaker 1: a lot of unsteadiness congressional leadership there and sort of
32:19
Speaker 1: the mid Ats, and then you got Uh sort of
32:23
Speaker 1: some stability again, the rise of Pelosi on the left,
32:26
Speaker 1: the rise of Bayner and the right, Mitch McConnell getting
32:29
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid, and they sort of created
32:32
Speaker 1: and now I think we're in another one those right,
32:34
Speaker 1: we're sort of the Senate leaders have really not you know,
32:38
Speaker 1: McConnell and Read have been replaced, but they but they're
32:42
Speaker 1: but neither Schumer nor Thune has the same level of
32:45
Speaker 1: credibility that either one of those two leaders had. UH
32:48
Speaker 1: and Jeffreys and Johnson clearly don't have the same level
32:50
Speaker 1: of credibility that their predecessors had Pelosi or McCarthy. And
32:55
Speaker 1: I'm not sure any of these four are going to
32:57
Speaker 1: gain it. Right, I think we're going to have to
32:58
Speaker 1: go through this cycle, and you're going to see, right,
33:01
Speaker 1: if Republicans lose the House, there's going to be a
33:03
Speaker 1: new House leader, and I'll be honest, I think it's
33:04
Speaker 1: going to be a free for all and that might
33:06
Speaker 1: be healthy. They kind of need, you know, they're sort
33:10
Speaker 1: of in some ways. Johnson was an outsider, but he
33:13
Speaker 1: was an outsider sort of helped by insiders. I think
33:16
Speaker 1: if you have a loss of control of the House,
33:19
Speaker 1: that maybe you'll have a true ground swell and it'll
33:22
Speaker 1: be interesting to see, you know, maybe there's maybe it's
33:25
Speaker 1: an institutionalist like Tom Cole who's sort of of a
33:29
Speaker 1: transitional figure, kind of the way John Thunne is I
33:31
Speaker 1: think right now in center Republicans, but you have House
33:35
Speaker 1: Democrats not crazy about you know, Jeffreys really feels very
33:40
Speaker 1: uncomfortable in this position right now. I mean, I think
33:43
Speaker 1: what's happening with New York City politics has him looking
33:47
Speaker 1: over his left shoulder constantly. Chuck Schumer seems to be
33:50
Speaker 1: worried about his left shoulder all the time as well.
33:52
Speaker 1: He feels like he's kind of lost his touch as
33:55
Speaker 1: sort of that electability guy. The point is, it's fascinating
33:59
Speaker 1: to see the reason I think you have such anger
34:03
Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill right now. And also I think some unpredictability.
34:07
Speaker 1: I think this sort of weak leadership that you have
34:10
Speaker 1: right now collectively means that there are more potential free
34:14
Speaker 1: agents on issues out there than I think folks realize.
34:18
Speaker 2: We'll see what happened.
34:19
Speaker 1: I mean, we've already had a We've already had more
34:21
Speaker 1: discharge petitions this House that I've seen in I think
34:25
Speaker 1: the previous twenty years, and that you know, the more
34:29
Speaker 1: discharge petitions you have, the more you have a leader
34:32
Speaker 1: that doesn't have control of their own party. So you know,
34:36
Speaker 1: if you told me you get some strange bedfellows getting
34:38
Speaker 1: together on healthcare subsidies, strange bedfellows getting together on tariff policy,
34:43
Speaker 1: I think all of that is possible because you have
34:47
Speaker 1: right now Thune, Schumer, Jeffreys, and Johnson do not have.
34:51
Speaker 1: You know, they can't rule by fear, right, none of
34:55
Speaker 1: them can. I guess Trump can put some fear into
34:57
Speaker 1: some of these folks, but I think the fear of
34:59
Speaker 1: Trump is starting to fade, as we've seen with Marjorie
35:02
Speaker 1: Taylor Green and others. And there isn't a lot of
35:06
Speaker 1: respect for the political acumen of the quartet that I've.
35:10
Speaker 2: Just talked about.
35:11
Speaker 1: So it is I'll just say I feel like I
35:14
Speaker 1: haven't seen this kind of collective congressional leader weakness really
35:21
Speaker 1: since that sort of period in between Right and Gangridge,
35:26
Speaker 1: and then I think the period in between sort of
35:28
Speaker 1: the fall of Hastert and delay before sort of Pelosi
35:34
Speaker 1: took over, and that whole sort of period of Lot
35:37
Speaker 1: and Frist really before McConnell took over. So we're definitely
35:40
Speaker 1: in a transition. I will be if you told me
35:45
Speaker 1: we have four brand new leaders in January twenty twenty seven,
35:48
Speaker 1: I wouldn't fully be surprised, but I definitely expect that
35:53
Speaker 1: the four we have today that I think there's a
35:56
Speaker 1: good chance none of the four are there by January
35:59
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty nine. Part of it is, I think
36:01
Speaker 1: the shelf life of congressional leader this day is getting
36:04
Speaker 1: shorter and shorter, the impatience of political leaders, especially if
36:09
Speaker 1: we're electing a different type of member of Congress and
36:11
Speaker 1: a different type of senator who are more worried about
36:14
Speaker 1: communicating with the base, communicating with the public than they
36:17
Speaker 1: are with legislating. And if if we sort of are,
36:22
Speaker 1: our Congress gets reoriented to more sort of media savvy
36:27
Speaker 1: elected members rather than legislative savy members. It means I
36:31
Speaker 1: think we're going to go through us. You know, we
36:33
Speaker 1: may cycle through quite a few congressional leaders, because everybody's
36:38
Speaker 1: kind of their own political leader and political party at
36:40
Speaker 1: this point, right with with with how we're transitioning, particularly
36:44
Speaker 1: this new generation of elected officials. And I think that's translated,
36:49
Speaker 1: and it probably explains why the leaders themselves know that
36:53
Speaker 1: they you know, they don't control the bully pulpit, They
36:55
Speaker 1: don't really control the They don't they don't have that
36:59
Speaker 1: much ability to prevent donors from giving money to some
37:03
Speaker 1: of these folks, you know. The weakness of the political parties,
37:06
Speaker 1: the weakness of the congressional leaders, it's all led to it.
37:10
Speaker 1: It feels like a bit of instability in Congress right now.
37:15
Speaker 1: And like I said, the possibility, I think we have
37:19
Speaker 1: some we could see some strange runaway legislative compromises show
37:26
Speaker 1: up in the next six months, simply due to this
37:28
Speaker 1: week leadership that we're all experiencing. There's a reason results
37:35
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38:37
Speaker 2: Well. Of course, in promoting my Monday.
38:39
Speaker 1: Podcast, I forgot about my favorite segment, which no, it's
38:42
Speaker 1: not ranting about the college football playoff. My favorite segment
38:45
Speaker 1: every Mondays, of course, it's the podcast time Machine.
38:55
Speaker 2: My time Machine actually takes me. It's fascinating.
38:59
Speaker 1: This week in dec is the anniversary of two key
39:03
Speaker 1: events that triggered two things, the growth of China and
39:10
Speaker 1: massive political realignment in the United States.
39:13
Speaker 2: So let's go through it.
39:15
Speaker 1: We're gonna step in the times that we're traveling through
39:17
Speaker 1: three different Decembers nineteen seventy eight, two thousand and one,
39:22
Speaker 1: and the December we're living in right now, December twenty
39:24
Speaker 1: twenty five. And it's three moments that, when you take
39:27
Speaker 1: them all together, tell the story of how the United
39:29
Speaker 1: States made a monumental bet on China and how we
39:32
Speaker 1: are now quietly admitting that the bet didn't pay off
39:34
Speaker 1: the way we expected. And believe it or not, it's
39:37
Speaker 1: a story that begins with optimism, it passes through triumpolism,
39:42
Speaker 1: and ends with realism and maybe even resignation. Let's start
39:46
Speaker 1: in December nineteen seventy eight, this week where Jimmy Carter
39:49
Speaker 1: and Dan Chauping announced the normalization of diplomatic relations between
39:53
Speaker 1: the United States and the People's Republic of China. The
39:56
Speaker 1: formal switch from Taipei to Beijing official on January first
40:01
Speaker 1: of that year, but we announced it in this week
40:05
Speaker 1: in December nineteen seventy eight. On paper, this was a
40:09
Speaker 1: Cold War realignment decision. In practice, it was the moment
40:12
Speaker 1: the United States decided it could shape China's future by
40:16
Speaker 1: opening the door. But it was not some Kumbaya moment.
40:20
Speaker 1: The reactions at the time were all over the political map.
40:24
Speaker 1: The Republican realists the kit at that time, it was
40:26
Speaker 1: the Kissinger Scowcroft branch of the Republican Party applauded the
40:30
Speaker 1: move Kissinger called the normalization quote an historic step toward
40:34
Speaker 1: a stable war. This wing of the Republican Party sow
40:38
Speaker 1: it as a three dimensional chess play, bring China closer
40:40
Speaker 1: to Washington as a way to check Moscow. Meanwhile, the
40:45
Speaker 1: Conservative Hawks were furious. Barry Goldwater said Carter had quote
40:50
Speaker 1: abandoned a trusted ally in Taiwan with hardly a second thought.
40:53
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan, who was not yet the nominee for the
40:56
Speaker 1: Republican Party but already the ideological leader of this part
40:59
Speaker 1: of the conservative movement, accused Carter of quote selling out
41:02
Speaker 1: our friends for a theory of diplomacy. Then you had
41:06
Speaker 1: the democratic left, especially the human rights advocates Pat Darien,
41:11
Speaker 1: Carter's own human rights chief privately warned that the move
41:14
Speaker 1: sent a message that quote human rights is negotiable when
41:17
Speaker 1: great powers are involved. The Congressional Black Caucus publicly asked
41:21
Speaker 1: why human rights were the centerpiece of US policy towards
41:23
Speaker 1: Latin America and South Africa, but not Beijing. And then
41:27
Speaker 1: there was the business community. How do you think they reacted?
41:30
Speaker 1: They were ecstatic, GM, Boeing, and ge all launched internal
41:35
Speaker 1: studies immediately. Executive memos from the time read like prospectuses
41:39
Speaker 1: for the next gold rush. One Fortune five hundred CEO
41:42
Speaker 1: told The Washington Post at that time, China is the
41:45
Speaker 1: last great untapped market on Earth. We need to be
41:47
Speaker 1: there before the Europeans get there again. This was America
41:51
Speaker 1: December nineteen seventy eight, So in nineteen seventy eight you
41:54
Speaker 1: can already see the outlines of the emerging coalition foreign
41:57
Speaker 1: policy realists plus Wall Street plus x Borders on one side, ideologues,
42:02
Speaker 1: human rights AFTRICUS activists and manufacturing workers on the other.
42:07
Speaker 1: The beginning of a realignment right normalization wasn't the beginning
42:10
Speaker 1: of a debate about China, though, it was the beginning
42:12
Speaker 1: of an American consensus about China. And this was the
42:16
Speaker 1: consensus that was wrong. We now admit that we were wrong,
42:20
Speaker 1: but everybody seemed to believe it at the time, and
42:23
Speaker 1: the consensus was that engagement would moderate Beijing, reform its economy,
42:27
Speaker 1: and eventually soften its politics. Essentially, democracy would come with
42:32
Speaker 1: economic freedom. It's a great theory, and for a while
42:37
Speaker 1: it seemed like it could work. Then let's fast forward
42:41
Speaker 1: to another December anniversary, twenty three years later. This is
42:44
Speaker 1: December eleventh, two thousand and one. China officially joins the
42:48
Speaker 1: World Trade Organization. This is probably the biggest hinge moment
42:53
Speaker 1: of modern globalization, and it's backed by another wave of
42:56
Speaker 1: bipartisan optimism. Bill Clinton, who negotiated the terms in his
43:00
Speaker 1: final year in office, had said earlier about China joining
43:03
Speaker 1: the WTO. Quote, By joining the WTO, China's agreed to
43:07
Speaker 1: play by the same global rules. This is a win
43:10
Speaker 1: for America.
43:12
Speaker 2: George W.
43:12
Speaker 1: Bush, who inherited the process, echoed the thought. He said, quote,
43:17
Speaker 1: A China that plays by the rules is a China
43:19
Speaker 1: that contributes to stability. So when you hear people talk
43:22
Speaker 1: about the UNI Party, it was on topics like this
43:26
Speaker 1: that there was kind of a unified theory from the
43:29
Speaker 1: center left in the center right on all things China.
43:32
Speaker 1: Even Al Gore made the argument on the two thousand
43:35
Speaker 1: campaign trail, he said trade with China encourages openess, transparency,
43:38
Speaker 1: and reform. Well, in retrospect, what's striking isn't that Democrats
43:43
Speaker 1: and Republicans agreed on China in two thousand and one.
43:45
Speaker 1: It's how completely they agreed. There was really no there
43:50
Speaker 1: wasn't there was no debate about this. This were a
43:53
Speaker 1: lot of things Bush and Gore agreed upon. Right, it
43:55
Speaker 1: was always the funniest election, Like there was a reason
43:58
Speaker 1: I always thought that election was he said, actually a
44:01
Speaker 1: tie because neither one of them made the case for
44:04
Speaker 1: why the other was wrong, because they kind of said, hey,
44:06
Speaker 1: I agree with him, so vote for May anyway. But
44:10
Speaker 1: there were still some politics over this. The two thousand
44:12
Speaker 1: debate over permanent normal Trade relations P and TR was
44:16
Speaker 1: a pretty fierce domestic fight during the Clinton years. A
44:19
Speaker 1: Flcio accused the administration of giving away the future of
44:22
Speaker 1: American manufacturing. Pap Ucanan called the WATO vote the greatest
44:26
Speaker 1: surrender of American economic sovereignty in our history. So again,
44:29
Speaker 1: it's almost like the Sanders wing and the Trump wing right.
44:33
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi, she wasn't speaker at the time. She voted
44:36
Speaker 1: against China p and tr Bertie Sanders warned he was
44:39
Speaker 1: then just a House member, a socialist, but a House
44:43
Speaker 1: member from Vermont. He said, corporate America may profit, but
44:46
Speaker 1: American workers will suffer. He wasn't alone, Dick Epart then
44:50
Speaker 1: the Congressional Democratic leader Jesse Jackson. Much of the Democratic
44:54
Speaker 1: base did oppose it, so did a chunk of the
44:56
Speaker 1: Republican populous wing, very much more of the Pap Buchanan crowd.
45:00
Speaker 1: But the corporate coalition was overwhelming. Silicon Valley, Wall Street,
45:04
Speaker 1: Big agg big retail manufacturers were looking for low cost labor.
45:08
Speaker 1: Everybody saw China as an economic accelerate. And here's where
45:12
Speaker 1: hindsight is pretty clarifying. We often talked about China Shock,
45:16
Speaker 1: the wave of job losses that hit industrial communities into
45:18
Speaker 1: two thousands. But what we don't talk about enough is
45:21
Speaker 1: how bipartisan this decision was that allowed that shock to happen.
45:25
Speaker 2: It was left and right.
45:26
Speaker 1: When China joined the WTO the United States entered the
45:29
Speaker 1: era of the China Price, the idea that everything steel, electronics, furniture, toys,
45:34
Speaker 1: clothing would be cheaper if it came from China. Consumers
45:37
Speaker 1: loved it, investors loved it, retailers loved it. But the
45:43
Speaker 1: political bill that would come due about a decade later.
45:49
Speaker 1: And this is where the two thousand election becomes such
45:51
Speaker 1: an important pivot point. I think in this story because
45:54
Speaker 1: it's the last time both presidential nominees fully embraced the
45:57
Speaker 1: same form policy worldview, George W.
46:01
Speaker 2: Bush and Al Gore. They disagreed on taxes.
46:03
Speaker 1: On the Social Security lock box, that's the best Al
46:07
Speaker 1: Gore I can do in a lock box, and they
46:11
Speaker 1: disagreed on a few other things, but on China they
46:14
Speaker 1: spoke with the same vocabulary. Bush said during the campaign,
46:17
Speaker 1: the best way to encourage freedom in China has engaged China.
46:20
Speaker 1: Gore said, we benefit when China follows global rules and trade.
46:23
Speaker 1: Both supported normalization, both supported p and tr both supported
46:27
Speaker 1: China and the wto.
46:29
Speaker 2: Now.
46:29
Speaker 1: Bush took a tougher rhetorical line on China, called China
46:32
Speaker 1: quote a strategic competitor, not a strategic partner. But that
46:36
Speaker 1: was tone now policy. Bush backed the same trade approach
46:39
Speaker 1: that Clinton did, and Gore paid a political price for
46:42
Speaker 1: embracing that consensus. Union leaders told them directly, China P
46:46
Speaker 1: and TR was the final betrayal of Clintonism. Midwestern workers
46:50
Speaker 1: didn't hear rules based trade system. They simply heard factory
46:53
Speaker 1: moving to Guangzhou. The irony is at the political base
46:58
Speaker 1: that would later revolt again globalization. The Trump burning populist
47:02
Speaker 1: alignment was warning about it in real time, but in
47:05
Speaker 1: two thousand neither movement was big enough in either party
47:09
Speaker 1: to make either one of them. We had a little
47:11
Speaker 1: bit of Nator talking about it as a third party candidate,
47:13
Speaker 1: a little bit of Buchanan talking about it as a
47:15
Speaker 1: third party candidate, but they got about one or two
47:17
Speaker 1: percent total. So when China joined the WTO in December
47:21
Speaker 1: twenty one, it wasn't a partisan victory. It was the
47:24
Speaker 1: last gas, but the uniparty consensus unfeigned policy, the belief
47:28
Speaker 1: that engaging China will liberalize China, not transform America. History,
47:33
Speaker 1: of course, had other plans.
47:35
Speaker 2: So I.
47:38
Speaker 1: This is the point of our story where we ought
47:39
Speaker 1: to talk about the thought experiment here. What if the
47:42
Speaker 1: United States had blocked China's WTO entry? Okay, Well, economists
47:48
Speaker 1: who studied the counterfactual say two things. China still probably
47:50
Speaker 1: becomes a manufacturing superpower, just more gradually and probably more
47:54
Speaker 1: dependent on Europe and Japan. The United States still loses
47:57
Speaker 1: industrial jobs because that trend began in the night nineties,
48:00
Speaker 1: five years before.
48:02
Speaker 2: The WTO extension for China.
48:07
Speaker 1: So what probably changes simply paced, not trajectory China twenty ten.
48:11
Speaker 1: Factory to the world probably still exists. The political shockwaves
48:15
Speaker 1: in places like Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania. Maybe they're softened a little,
48:19
Speaker 1: or they're delayed, but they land, and maybe the populist
48:24
Speaker 1: backlash arrives in say the midterms of twenty eighteen, rather
48:29
Speaker 1: than in twenty ten, or maybe the backlash happens anyway,
48:32
Speaker 1: because globalization was going to be bigger than any single vote.
48:35
Speaker 2: The point is is that.
48:37
Speaker 1: It's probably not clear that anything was going to stop
48:42
Speaker 1: the rise of China, which is always the argument the
48:46
Speaker 1: realists make. So the question was can we shape China?
48:50
Speaker 1: So here we are in the present moment. I open
48:53
Speaker 1: this podcast talking about the National Security Strategy Memo that
48:58
Speaker 1: was just released by this emit stration, and this is
49:03
Speaker 1: the first US government document that clearly admits the fifty
49:07
Speaker 1: year bet on China didn't work out as expected. It
49:10
Speaker 1: does not call for a new Cold War. It does
49:13
Speaker 1: not frame China as an ideological enemy. It does not
49:15
Speaker 1: talk about containing China or transforming China. Instead, the through
49:19
Speaker 1: line of this Trump Security Strategy memo is simple, China's
49:24
Speaker 1: a permanent strategic rival. We are not trying to hold
49:27
Speaker 1: China back anymore. We are going to try to strengthen
49:30
Speaker 1: ourselves and compete with China. The seventy eight bet was
49:35
Speaker 1: that opening China will shape China. The two thousand and
49:38
Speaker 1: one bet was that integrating China will moderate China. The
49:42
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five memo now basically says China is now
49:45
Speaker 1: fully integrated, fully powerful, fully assertive, and the task is
49:49
Speaker 1: now to compete with it, not to change it. Essentially,
49:53
Speaker 1: we're surrendering. So you see these themes throughout the document itself.
49:57
Speaker 1: Rebuilding the US industrial base, securing supply Chaine in American technology,
50:01
Speaker 1: the decoupling, if you will, stabilizing relations without illusions, preparing
50:05
Speaker 1: for long term competition. It's not full disengagement. It seems
50:10
Speaker 1: to be just simply acceptance, strategic acceptance. The United States
50:17
Speaker 1: finally acknowledging the reality shaped by decisions made in those
50:20
Speaker 1: two earlier Decembers Carter in nineteen seventy eight, which of
50:25
Speaker 1: course was preceded by Nixon going to China right again,
50:28
Speaker 1: a bipartisan move, and then China and the wto begun
50:34
Speaker 1: by Clinton, executed and finished by Bush. So in seventy eighth,
50:40
Speaker 1: the US made a geopolitical bet that engaging China will
50:42
Speaker 1: help win the Cold War and encourage reform in Beijing.
50:46
Speaker 1: Arguably it might have done that right. We might have
50:49
Speaker 1: helping separate China might have made Russia's the Soviets life
50:55
Speaker 1: a little more challenging, so that we can't say that
50:58
Speaker 1: bet didn't work, since we did win the Cold War
51:02
Speaker 1: against the Soviets. But by two thousand and one, the
51:05
Speaker 1: United States made an economic bet that integrating China into
51:08
Speaker 1: the global trading system would expand global prosperity and lock
51:11
Speaker 1: China in to a rules based world where they might
51:17
Speaker 1: start to become small d democratic. Well, both bets did
51:21
Speaker 1: reshape China, but boy did they reshape the United States.
51:25
Speaker 1: They reshaped us economically, politically, and socially. And here we
51:29
Speaker 1: are in December of twenty twenty five. The question now
51:32
Speaker 1: is not how we are going to change China confront China.
51:36
Speaker 1: It is simply, now, how do we compete with China?
51:39
Speaker 1: So we helped create China, we helped bring upon this competitor,
51:45
Speaker 1: and now we're surrendering and hoping we can just stay
51:49
Speaker 1: competitive with the new manufacturing King of a.
51:55
Speaker 2: Hill, China. There's your time machine time Capsule of the week.
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53:27
Speaker 1: All right, let me sneak at a few questions before
53:30
Speaker 1: I get to college football, ask Chuck, all right. First
53:35
Speaker 1: question comes from Shamee H from des Moin. I always says, hey, check,
53:40
Speaker 1: congrats and Miami making the CFP head to head should
53:42
Speaker 1: always count. I'm curious about the Iowa democrats hesitancy to
53:45
Speaker 1: push for first in the nation status again, give them
53:48
Speaker 1: the state's accessibility and engaged voters. Wouldn't it make more
53:50
Speaker 1: sense for both parties to go along, go all in
53:52
Speaker 1: together rather than play it safe. Also, could you someday
53:55
Speaker 1: explain how Obama's influence reshaped or damage the dncbond just
53:58
Speaker 1: backing Hillary, Shane he des moines, Iowa, look it is
54:03
Speaker 1: there is this. I don't have a good answer on why. Well,
54:11
Speaker 1: I could tell you why the National Democrats don't want
54:14
Speaker 1: to be in Iowa. Right, there's first of all, one
54:17
Speaker 1: is they don't they they believe the base of the
54:19
Speaker 1: party is not there's no parts of the base of
54:23
Speaker 1: the party in Iowa.
54:26
Speaker 2: You know, Well that's a choice, right, you could choose
54:29
Speaker 2: to believe that.
54:30
Speaker 1: But there is a sense that Iowa doesn't look like
54:33
Speaker 1: what Democratic leaders think the Democratic Party looks like. But
54:37
Speaker 1: I would argue that's been part of the problem is
54:39
Speaker 1: that the Democrats have been looking at organizing their party
54:43
Speaker 1: through the through the prism of identity, rather than the
54:48
Speaker 1: prism of ideology or policy.
54:52
Speaker 2: Or frankly realism.
54:56
Speaker 1: Given you know, if I were looking at the problem
54:59
Speaker 1: the Demo Credit Party as it's communicating with rural America,
55:03
Speaker 1: I'd look around and say, what's the best way to
55:05
Speaker 1: do that? When's the last time Democrats did well in
55:08
Speaker 1: the industrial Midwest and the agriculture Midwest. Oh, when I
55:11
Speaker 1: was first in the nation and a guy that named
55:12
Speaker 1: Barack Obama who was from the Midwest. Mind you always
55:17
Speaker 1: thought that people underestimated the fact that being from the
55:20
Speaker 1: Midwest was such an asset to him. You know, it's
55:24
Speaker 1: not lost on me that the coastal nominees have been
55:26
Speaker 1: have been the losers right right Delaware on the Atlantic coast.
55:31
Speaker 1: You know, he won, but then it couldn't survive. Kamala
55:35
Speaker 1: Harris coastal, John Kerry coastal, Hillary Clinton identifying as a
55:40
Speaker 1: New Yorker coastal, she'd have been better off going to
55:44
Speaker 1: Illinois to run for office, which is her original home state.
55:49
Speaker 1: So I think the whole coastal elite issue, I think
55:53
Speaker 1: is a real issue. You know, you look at Bill
55:56
Speaker 1: Clinton deep South Arkansas. You look at Barack Obama right
56:00
Speaker 1: in the middle of the country in the Midwest in Illinois.
56:04
Speaker 1: Look at a Jimmy Carter deep South Georgia. I don't
56:08
Speaker 1: think those things are accidents. You look at a guy
56:11
Speaker 1: like Pete Bootaget's getting traction again a Midwesterner.
56:14
Speaker 2: So I don't.
56:20
Speaker 1: If you don't want to do Iowa because you don't
56:21
Speaker 1: like the caucus process. And I do think this is
56:24
Speaker 1: a tactical and mechanical critique, if you will, because two
56:28
Speaker 1: cycles in a row, the Iowa Democrats couldn't tell us
56:30
Speaker 1: who won the Iowa caucases. So I do think that
56:33
Speaker 1: was a fair demerit. But just abandoning the Midwest as
56:37
Speaker 1: first in the nation, I think it's been a mistake.
56:39
Speaker 1: So if you're not going to do Iowa, fine, do Nebraska,
56:41
Speaker 1: do Kansas, but pick a small rural state in the Midwest.
56:45
Speaker 1: Just if you can't figure that out, you're not going
56:48
Speaker 1: to be competitive long term for the presidency. I don't
56:53
Speaker 1: think rural southern voters are the way in. I think
56:55
Speaker 1: you begin in the rural Midwest. That's where you're I
57:00
Speaker 1: could fully get rejected and asked for your question about
57:03
Speaker 1: the DNC. They didn't prop up the DNC at all
57:07
Speaker 1: when they first came in. This is yes, you are
57:10
Speaker 1: referring to what I think the original sin of Obama
57:14
Speaker 1: endorsing Hillary in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen, which was
57:17
Speaker 1: sort of not realizing that that isn't where half the
57:20
Speaker 1: party wanted to go. But when it comes to the
57:22
Speaker 1: DNC and the sort of party in general. You know,
57:25
Speaker 1: they refused to sort of build the DNC at first.
57:28
Speaker 1: They sort of built an alternative to the DNC called
57:30
Speaker 1: Organizing for America, you know, and I think it was unfortunately.
57:36
Speaker 1: I think he was surrounded by advisers who weren't big
57:39
Speaker 1: fans of the DNC, and the DNC in eight was
57:42
Speaker 1: quietly helping Hillary, right, she was sort of more of
57:46
Speaker 1: the party stalwart. Obama and his team were the outsiders.
57:50
Speaker 1: And I think the and I think the belief and
57:54
Speaker 1: the brand of outsider that team Obama wanted to keep
58:01
Speaker 1: even while they got to the White House, seemed to
58:05
Speaker 1: convince them that they ought to build their own national
58:09
Speaker 1: political organization. And they basically what was ofa right, what
58:14
Speaker 1: was Obama for America became Organizing for America and it
58:17
Speaker 1: was housed within the DNC. But all of the resources,
58:21
Speaker 1: all of the efforts went to that it didn't really work.
58:23
Speaker 1: It didn't become the powerful political organization to help support
58:27
Speaker 1: his agenda, which is what it was pitched as that
58:30
Speaker 1: this was going to be the continuation of the Obama
58:33
Speaker 1: movement and these people would get engaged when he was
58:35
Speaker 1: trying to you know, do big things past, big pieces
58:38
Speaker 1: of legislation, whether it's healthcare, whether it has to do
58:41
Speaker 1: the environment, et cetera. That didn't really work out so well.
58:44
Speaker 1: And then by the time, you know, the problem was
58:47
Speaker 1: the DNC is just a vehicle. They kind of starved
58:52
Speaker 1: that vehicle, and of course starving that vehicle meant very
58:56
Speaker 1: few resources to the states. Well, what happened by twenty
59:00
Speaker 1: They get wiped out of the state legislatures by twenty
59:03
Speaker 1: What does that mean? Republicans basically control redistricting for a
59:07
Speaker 1: decade and a half. Only recently have Democrats started to
59:12
Speaker 1: make up ground back in these state legislatures. So I
59:15
Speaker 1: do think that the Obama folks that came into the
59:18
Speaker 1: first term of that Obama White House were determined to
59:22
Speaker 1: build their own political structure, their own organization, sort of
59:24
Speaker 1: push aside the DNC, and it just turned out to
59:28
Speaker 1: be a logistical mistake. Look, the DNC, you make it
59:31
Speaker 1: whatever you are. But this idea they thought they were
59:33
Speaker 1: going to be elected president and be an outsider in
59:35
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. Once you've become president, you've become leader
59:40
Speaker 1: of the party. You need to accept that role. And
59:42
Speaker 1: I would argue, for a couple of years. They didn't
59:45
Speaker 1: accept that role. They accept that they were leader of
59:47
Speaker 1: the free world. They accept that they were president of
59:49
Speaker 1: the United States, and they accepted that they were the
59:51
Speaker 1: biggest brand inside the Democratic coalition. But there were a
59:55
Speaker 1: lot of people whispering in Obama's ear that, hey, your
59:57
Speaker 1: brand and coalition's bigger than one party, So don't get
1:00:01
Speaker 1: too caught up in the DNC politics. And there's certainly
1:00:05
Speaker 1: some bureaucracy that comes with that. But that's what I
1:00:09
Speaker 1: mean when I you know, and sort of that attitude
1:00:12
Speaker 1: just sort of gutted the sort of infrastructure of the
1:00:15
Speaker 1: Democratic Party, both on the state level and on the
1:00:18
Speaker 1: national level, and it allowed it to atrophy for a
1:00:22
Speaker 1: good cycle or two. And it really you know, Hillary
1:00:24
Speaker 1: Clinton threw more money at it in sixteen, Joe Biden
1:00:28
Speaker 1: tried to throw more money at it in twenty. But
1:00:31
Speaker 1: I would argue that the reason it feels like a
1:00:33
Speaker 1: week link even today goes back to that initial decision
1:00:37
Speaker 1: in twenty oh nine when the team Obama came in.
1:00:40
Speaker 1: This big frankly now looks like a landslide compared to
1:00:44
Speaker 1: presidential elections. The couple we had before, and quite a
1:00:46
Speaker 1: few that we've had.
1:00:47
Speaker 2: After and they didn't.
1:00:50
Speaker 1: They didn't decide to build rebuild the Democratic Party in
1:00:54
Speaker 1: their image. They instead wanted to build their own sort
1:00:57
Speaker 1: of alternative independent committee in their own image. But by
1:01:02
Speaker 1: doing that, they starved the party itself of resources. All right,
1:01:08
Speaker 1: let me sneak in. I give you it was not
1:01:11
Speaker 1: a long question, but I gave you a couple of
1:01:13
Speaker 1: long answers there. Next question comes from Patrick from the
1:01:15
Speaker 1: Hague by way of Hertford, Connecticut. He says, and he says, Chuck,
1:01:19
Speaker 1: really appreciate the clarity and sharp analysis you bring to
1:01:21
Speaker 1: every episode.
1:01:22
Speaker 2: It's become my go to listen. Excellent. Hopefully I've got
1:01:25
Speaker 2: you worried about college football, not too.
1:01:27
Speaker 1: I've heard people say that Kamala Harris might actually make
1:01:29
Speaker 1: a stronger Supreme Court justice than president.
1:01:31
Speaker 2: I've been one of those people, and.
1:01:33
Speaker 1: It got me thinking, if one branch of government could
1:01:35
Speaker 1: draft a member from another, who would be the best fit,
1:01:37
Speaker 1: Which current justice would make a great member of Congress?
1:01:40
Speaker 1: And while plenty of members of Congress move into the
1:01:42
Speaker 1: executive branch, what about the reverse? And one are Elizabeth
1:01:44
Speaker 1: Warren's path to elected office. Curious to hear your thoughts.
1:01:48
Speaker 1: I think that's a fun exercise of who would be
1:01:53
Speaker 1: a good you know, I think John Roberts might be
1:01:57
Speaker 1: a pretty good Senate leader. He seems to be pretty
1:02:02
Speaker 1: good at sort of dealing with you know, probably a
1:02:04
Speaker 1: Senate Republican leader, pretty good at dealing with the ideological
1:02:08
Speaker 1: diversity of the rights, tries to create.
1:02:11
Speaker 2: A consensus, right if you know.
1:02:14
Speaker 1: I think I think in some ways you might be
1:02:16
Speaker 1: better as Senate Republican leader than he is as Chief
1:02:18
Speaker 1: Justice on that front. But I think he's definitely got
1:02:22
Speaker 1: a little bit of that skill set. I think Sonya
1:02:26
Speaker 1: Sotomayor would be a pretty good party leader. I don't
1:02:30
Speaker 1: know if she would be a good legislative leader. I
1:02:32
Speaker 1: think there's a difference, right, but I think she speaks
1:02:35
Speaker 1: with a lot of clarity, she speaks with a lot
1:02:38
Speaker 1: of passion, So I think sort of almost as a
1:02:44
Speaker 1: in that sense, I think you would see that the
1:02:48
Speaker 1: reason I'll tell you my theory of why I've always
1:02:50
Speaker 1: thought Kamala Harris won't. Frankly, probably, I think the first
1:02:54
Speaker 1: dream job, you know, if you talk about you get
1:02:56
Speaker 1: into politics, what are your dream jobs? I'm gonna vinced
1:03:00
Speaker 1: her first dream job was not president that it was
1:03:02
Speaker 1: either attorney general or Supreme Court. Why do I say
1:03:04
Speaker 1: that because the first office she chose to run for
1:03:07
Speaker 1: was prosecutor. You know, usually our want to be presidents.
1:03:11
Speaker 1: They're running, they're trying to fast track their way to Congress.
1:03:14
Speaker 1: Running for DA in San Francisco is not a fast
1:03:17
Speaker 1: track to Congress. That wasn't somebody that was her where
1:03:21
Speaker 1: whose first goal was to get to Washington. Usually my
1:03:25
Speaker 1: presidential wannabes, their first goal is to kt to Washington. However,
1:03:29
Speaker 1: Loung it dates right, and that wasn't her first goal,
1:03:32
Speaker 1: even as she went to school here in DC at
1:03:34
Speaker 1: Howard Right. So I've always looked at that and wondered,
1:03:37
Speaker 1: huh I think, and I buy it. I mean, I
1:03:39
Speaker 1: don't think it's BS. I do think she's animated by
1:03:42
Speaker 1: the law. I think she's animated by these things. And
1:03:46
Speaker 1: I think somebody whispered in her ear sometime, you know,
1:03:49
Speaker 1: when she got talked into it, because look at the
1:03:51
Speaker 1: next office she runs for it from DA, she runs
1:03:53
Speaker 1: for attorney general. Right, she doesn't immediately go to US
1:03:55
Speaker 1: Senate or something like that, and then she gets you know,
1:04:00
Speaker 1: runs for the Senate seat when it opens up and
1:04:02
Speaker 1: somebody whispers in her air, you know, you could be
1:04:04
Speaker 1: the first woman president. And I don't think, look, anybody,
1:04:07
Speaker 1: any human being, we all have a little bit of ego.
1:04:10
Speaker 1: Somebody whispers that in your ear and it's plausible. Maybe
1:04:14
Speaker 1: you don't stop hearing it, right, So that's where I've
1:04:17
Speaker 1: always come down on that. But look, I think I
1:04:22
Speaker 1: think James Langford would make a really good you know,
1:04:25
Speaker 1: if you're looking at like, and I'll be honest, I
1:04:27
Speaker 1: think we need an elected somebody who's run for office
1:04:31
Speaker 1: before ought to be in the Supreme Court. I think
1:04:33
Speaker 1: it's terrible that we haven't had anybody. I think you
1:04:35
Speaker 1: need that diversity of understanding that your rulings are going
1:04:39
Speaker 1: to play in the campaign trail. Sandra Dee O'Connor, I
1:04:42
Speaker 1: believe the last Supreme Court justice that ever ran that
1:04:46
Speaker 1: ever ran for office for anything, she ran for a
1:04:48
Speaker 1: state Senate seat in Arizona.
1:04:51
Speaker 2: I think that you know, what used to be.
1:04:54
Speaker 1: Fairly common for elected officials to get appointed to the
1:04:58
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, Bill Clinton, I think with semi serious and
1:05:02
Speaker 1: putting Mario Cuomo on the Supreme Court, I think I
1:05:06
Speaker 1: don't I think my guess is Mario Cuomo wish to
1:05:09
Speaker 1: see had said yes, considering he said no, read for
1:05:12
Speaker 1: re election and loss, but that would have been interesting.
1:05:16
Speaker 1: Bruce Babbitt was another one that he wanted to put there.
1:05:19
Speaker 1: The point is is that there's only so much you
1:05:21
Speaker 1: understand about how illegal ruling impacts their everyday lives of Americans.
1:05:27
Speaker 1: I think too many of these justices go from law
1:05:29
Speaker 1: school to a corporate you know, maybe law firm, maybe
1:05:34
Speaker 1: a clerkship, a judge's chambers, but they don't sort of
1:05:38
Speaker 1: interact with people as much. And I think having somebody
1:05:43
Speaker 1: on that court that has done that, I think would
1:05:48
Speaker 1: be I'd like more than just one person. But we
1:05:50
Speaker 1: don't even have one person on that and that's something
1:05:54
Speaker 1: that I think is missing. But I look at some
1:05:56
Speaker 1: of these elected officials, like I said, on the conservative
1:05:59
Speaker 1: side of the I think James Langford would make a
1:06:01
Speaker 1: fascinating Supreme Court. But I look for I'm looking for
1:06:04
Speaker 1: people who are intellects with a little bit of personal humility.
1:06:07
Speaker 2: So I want people like Jack.
1:06:09
Speaker 1: Red, Jim Langford, right, people like that, not the loud mouse.
1:06:14
Speaker 1: If you will, like you wouldn't, I don't think I
1:06:17
Speaker 1: think Ted Cruz intellectually would be interesting on the Supreme Court,
1:06:20
Speaker 1: but I think he would feel I think he would
1:06:23
Speaker 1: hate the job because of his inability to speak out right.
1:06:26
Speaker 2: I think that used to bother Scilly a little bit.
1:06:28
Speaker 2: I think he wanted to speak out more.
1:06:29
Speaker 1: I think it bothers so to my oar, she strikes
1:06:31
Speaker 1: me as somebody that would love to be speaking out more,
1:06:34
Speaker 1: but feels that the pageantry of the office itself doesn't
1:06:39
Speaker 1: call for it. I'd love to do a little bit
1:06:42
Speaker 1: more on your question down the road. Maybe you can
1:06:44
Speaker 1: come back with me with a few more of the
1:06:46
Speaker 1: fantasy sort of fantasy football politics.
1:06:49
Speaker 2: Questions like that. All right, one last question and then
1:06:52
Speaker 2: we'll get to my college football round up.
1:06:54
Speaker 1: Long time listening here in your podcast always reminds me
1:06:56
Speaker 1: of how much I enjoyed political science classes well great.
1:06:59
Speaker 1: In New Jersey, the party controlled county line was eliminated
1:07:01
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four after a lawsuit by now Senator
1:07:03
Speaker 1: Andy Kim, aiming to reduce the influence of party bosses
1:07:07
Speaker 1: given the lack of an open Democratic primary in twenty
1:07:09
Speaker 1: twenty four, do you think this could mark the beginning
1:07:11
Speaker 1: of a broader shift towards fair less party driven primary
1:07:14
Speaker 1: voting ghost Scarlet Knights. John Feldman, Well, John, I have
1:07:18
Speaker 1: a conversation coming up here with the a gentleman named
1:07:22
Speaker 1: Nick Troiano. It's not this episode's coming up in the
1:07:24
Speaker 1: next couple of episodes, and he's working on essentially get
1:07:27
Speaker 1: he believes. He wrote a book called The Primary Problem,
1:07:31
Speaker 1: and he believes that partisan primaries are at the root
1:07:33
Speaker 1: or the root cause of our polarization. They're the root
1:07:36
Speaker 1: cause of our inability for Congress to get anything done.
1:07:39
Speaker 1: And then if we can eliminate the partisan primary in general,
1:07:43
Speaker 1: forget this county line business and all this stuff, we
1:07:46
Speaker 1: would be in better shape.
1:07:47
Speaker 2: I could.
1:07:49
Speaker 1: I am very empathetic to this. I would love to
1:07:51
Speaker 1: get rid of partisan primaries. I would like all party primaries.
1:07:54
Speaker 1: I'd like to see that now I want to see.
1:07:56
Speaker 1: I think parties should still identify themselves. But I think
1:08:00
Speaker 1: I think it's weird that the taxpayers pay for an
1:08:03
Speaker 1: election that the only way I can participate in that
1:08:05
Speaker 1: election in a certain in some states is to join
1:08:08
Speaker 1: some private organization that to me strikes me as a
1:08:11
Speaker 1: poll tax and a violation of equal protection. I'd like
1:08:15
Speaker 1: to see some better lawyering. If you will on some
1:08:18
Speaker 1: of these issues when it comes to ballot access and
1:08:22
Speaker 1: these partisan primaries. But you know, given I do think
1:08:26
Speaker 1: we're headed in that direction, and I think part of
1:08:28
Speaker 1: it is because millennials and gen z do not like
1:08:33
Speaker 1: these old institutions that are called the Republican Party and
1:08:36
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. And so the more those two sort
1:08:40
Speaker 1: of carcasses, if you will, semi dead carcasses on the
1:08:44
Speaker 1: side of the road, the donkey and the elephant there,
1:08:46
Speaker 1: the more they fight these changes to the process, I think,
1:08:51
Speaker 1: the more you'll see growing support to sort of blow
1:08:55
Speaker 1: up the party, the power of the political parties wherever,
1:09:00
Speaker 1: wherever it still exists, like Allah, New Jersey. All right,
1:09:11
Speaker 1: so that's let's talk some college football. Look, Miaey got it.
1:09:18
Speaker 1: I think Miami deserved to be in. But this entire
1:09:22
Speaker 1: process was a mess. There's no doubt that there is
1:09:28
Speaker 1: there is there.
1:09:29
Speaker 2: It is not clear what this.
1:09:31
Speaker 1: This whole committee is so subjective. The ridiculous TV show
1:09:35
Speaker 1: they put on every week, which is which creates content.
1:09:39
Speaker 1: You know, I'm in the content creation business myself. It's
1:09:41
Speaker 1: created plenty of content for me to be and moan about, right,
1:09:46
Speaker 1: but it misled a lot of schools that misled a
1:09:49
Speaker 1: lot of coaches, and there's some anger there. I saw
1:09:51
Speaker 1: that the athletic director of Notre Dame is really angry.
1:09:54
Speaker 1: They've decided not to be in a bowl game over this.
1:09:57
Speaker 1: I wonder if cooler heads will prevail after they get
1:09:59
Speaker 1: an night's sleep.
1:10:00
Speaker 2: But we'll see.
1:10:02
Speaker 1: I'm tapping on Sunday evening, so that's why I say
1:10:04
Speaker 1: a night's sleep. If you tell me Notre Dame changes,
1:10:06
Speaker 1: it's mine in the next twenty four hours. It wouldn't
1:10:09
Speaker 1: surprise me, because remember, Notre name gets to keep all
1:10:11
Speaker 1: that bowl money themselves. Are they really going to leave
1:10:13
Speaker 1: a couple million dollars on the table, even though you
1:10:16
Speaker 1: know a couple million pop tarts, right is what they'd
1:10:18
Speaker 1: be leaving on the table, because I guess it would
1:10:20
Speaker 1: have been Notre Dame in BYU and.
1:10:21
Speaker 2: The pop tarts bawl.
1:10:23
Speaker 1: So I'll be you know, every dollar counts, right, every
1:10:26
Speaker 1: dollar matters. I know that's a wealthy school, but when
1:10:29
Speaker 1: this day's of nil. Everybody's cash poor these days, so
1:10:33
Speaker 1: cooler heads could prevail there. But I understand their frustration.
1:10:37
Speaker 1: They were led to believe that that their metrics. You know,
1:10:40
Speaker 1: they were going to be kept ahead of Miami, but
1:10:43
Speaker 1: this consistently. The real outrage is how it's the bias
1:10:47
Speaker 1: that ESPN and this committee has with the SEC. Now,
1:10:52
Speaker 1: my brother in law, who's a big SEC fan, will say,
1:10:55
Speaker 1: it's not a bias. The SEC is the best. They
1:10:58
Speaker 1: should have an advantage, should be able to call the shots.
1:11:03
Speaker 1: I have no doubt that the SEC is going to
1:11:05
Speaker 1: have more teams in the College Football Playoff this year
1:11:08
Speaker 1: than the Big Ten or the AEC of the Big twelve.
1:11:11
Speaker 1: The problem is sort of this idea that a conference
1:11:14
Speaker 1: game in the SEC is hard, but a conference game.
1:11:16
Speaker 2: Anywhere else isn't.
1:11:17
Speaker 1: It's the sort of those lines of arrogance that trigger
1:11:20
Speaker 1: me on this conversation. Right, Oh my god, Alabama toughening
1:11:25
Speaker 1: it out in the Iron Bowl to a five and
1:11:27
Speaker 1: seven Auburn team. Well, Miami had to go to a
1:11:30
Speaker 1: thirty five year old, thirty five thirty five degree weather
1:11:33
Speaker 1: in Pittsburgh, something that's always very difficult for Miami. They
1:11:36
Speaker 1: go up there and open the can of you know
1:11:38
Speaker 1: what on the pitt Panthers. The point is and wherever
1:11:43
Speaker 1: Miami goes on the road in the ACC when they
1:11:46
Speaker 1: beat Miami they storm the field. The point being is
1:11:49
Speaker 1: every conference road game for a big brand is difficult, Right,
1:11:53
Speaker 1: It was difficult when Notre Dame went to Louisville and
1:11:55
Speaker 1: Louisville beats them, and they storm the field for that, Right,
1:11:59
Speaker 1: That same thing happens Alabama, right when they lose to
1:12:01
Speaker 1: one of their you know, to a Missouri or anybody
1:12:05
Speaker 1: other than really Georgia or LSU, there's a storming of
1:12:08
Speaker 1: the field, right. You know, you're to me, there's too
1:12:12
Speaker 1: much storming of the field. You know, you should preserve
1:12:15
Speaker 1: storming of the field for two things, winning a title
1:12:18
Speaker 1: and knocking off number one. Period, Like, we should have
1:12:21
Speaker 1: a rule we will not find you if you storm
1:12:24
Speaker 1: the court or the field when you knock.
1:12:25
Speaker 2: Off number one in your home.
1:12:29
Speaker 1: Other than that, there's no more storming of the courts.
1:12:31
Speaker 1: I mean, I've seen, you know, when Miami was in
1:12:34
Speaker 1: its low period in the ACC, there would still be
1:12:37
Speaker 1: these like storming of the fields and like you know,
1:12:40
Speaker 1: Raleigh or Blacksburg or you know, like, oh.
1:12:45
Speaker 2: We beat Miami. It's like, come on, we were down
1:12:48
Speaker 2: at the time.
1:12:51
Speaker 1: It's notable that every single team that lost a conference
1:12:55
Speaker 1: championship game dropped in the rankings except one Alabama. What
1:13:01
Speaker 1: I don't get is Alabama played eight quarters of football
1:13:03
Speaker 1: against Georgia. They played well for the first quarter and
1:13:07
Speaker 1: a half of the first game, and then they survived
1:13:10
Speaker 1: that game and were able to eke out a win,
1:13:13
Speaker 1: and then they got pummeled and the next time they
1:13:16
Speaker 1: played them. To me, you got to look at all
1:13:18
Speaker 1: eight quarters. There was a pattern there, right. They figured
1:13:21
Speaker 1: it out, you know, they as soon as they figured
1:13:24
Speaker 1: out Alabama's game plan, they shut them down. And how
1:13:28
Speaker 1: did Alabama pivot the next time they played Georgia? They didn't,
1:13:33
Speaker 1: and they and then they lose two of their last four.
1:13:36
Speaker 1: They accumulated a third loss. And I'm sorry, I don't
1:13:41
Speaker 1: see it as punishment that getting into the conference championship
1:13:44
Speaker 1: game and then losing. First of all, Alabama had one
1:13:47
Speaker 1: had an easy way to get into the playoff winning
1:13:49
Speaker 1: get in.
1:13:50
Speaker 2: That was not an option for Notre Dame. That was
1:13:52
Speaker 2: not an option for Miami.
1:13:53
Speaker 1: We can talk to the ACC and their ridiculous tiebreaker situations.
1:13:57
Speaker 2: Now it's for Notre Dame.
1:13:58
Speaker 1: I see that there's some reports that indicates that Notre
1:14:03
Speaker 1: Dame partisans think that this was the committee sending a
1:14:06
Speaker 1: message to Notre Dame that hey, you're not a member
1:14:08
Speaker 1: of a conference. And look, I don't think Notre dames
1:14:12
Speaker 1: wins over Navy and Pitt should count as much as
1:14:16
Speaker 1: Miami's went over Pitt, simply because Pitt said it wasn't
1:14:20
Speaker 1: taking that game as seriously against Notre Dame because it
1:14:22
Speaker 1: didn't count. Navy said the same thing, because it didn't count.
1:14:25
Speaker 1: They were fighting for a potential spot in the AAC
1:14:28
Speaker 1: Conference Championship game, or don't call me the AAC, the
1:14:31
Speaker 1: American Conference Championship Game. So I do think the resentment
1:14:35
Speaker 1: of them not being a conference, them not having a
1:14:37
Speaker 1: face of very tough schedule, was part of this, and
1:14:41
Speaker 1: at some point they were going to send a message.
1:14:43
Speaker 1: As much as I think that committee hates the AEC,
1:14:45
Speaker 1: I think they hate Notre Dame in the special treatment
1:14:47
Speaker 1: that they get more and in fact we end up
1:14:49
Speaker 1: discovering Notre Dame's Now we got to guarantee going forward
1:14:55
Speaker 1: if they are in the top twelve, no matter what
1:14:57
Speaker 1: number they are, but if they're ranked in the top
1:14:59
Speaker 1: twelve in a twelve team playoff, they get into the
1:15:03
Speaker 1: playoff no matter what. They have to automatically get in.
1:15:06
Speaker 1: Apparently they signed some memo understanding with the CFP. Are
1:15:09
Speaker 1: you fing kidding me? They have their own legal side
1:15:14
Speaker 1: deal to guarantee participation in the College Football Playoff in
1:15:18
Speaker 1: a way that no other.
1:15:19
Speaker 2: Conference has.
1:15:21
Speaker 1: Come on, Notre Dame, come join a conference, Come join
1:15:24
Speaker 1: the ACC. You'll still dominate, and you literally will get
1:15:27
Speaker 1: into the College Football Playoff every year. The extra game
1:15:30
Speaker 1: will help you. You still get to play Stanford every year.
1:15:33
Speaker 1: It's a conference game. Okay, Yes, you're going to be
1:15:36
Speaker 1: stuck playing Miami once in a while. That's good, not
1:15:39
Speaker 1: bad for both schools. The fact of the matter is
1:15:43
Speaker 1: the last time Notre Dame was truly a power was
1:15:45
Speaker 1: when Miami was truly a power. Miami and Notre Dame
1:15:48
Speaker 1: are good for each other, and they ought to. If
1:15:51
Speaker 1: I were Notre Dame, I'd embrace that.
1:15:53
Speaker 2: Come on in.
1:15:54
Speaker 1: Look, I don't love the ACC myself. I think that
1:15:57
Speaker 1: the leadership here they dodged a bullet.
1:16:00
Speaker 2: Do I think I know that the.
1:16:05
Speaker 1: The chair of this committee, the temporary chair of this committee,
1:16:07
Speaker 1: the Arkansas d said that the fact that the ACC
1:16:11
Speaker 1: could have been shut out was not a factor in
1:16:14
Speaker 1: putting Miami over Notre dame. I think it was an
1:16:17
Speaker 1: intangible I'm not going to be that naive I think they.
1:16:20
Speaker 1: I think if I were the CFP, i'd be worried
1:16:23
Speaker 1: about lawsuits. And if you're wondering why the group of
1:16:25
Speaker 1: five gets this slot and why they've worded it the
1:16:28
Speaker 1: way they did, why it's top five conference champions that
1:16:31
Speaker 1: they don't specify which conferences because they don't want an
1:16:34
Speaker 1: antitrust lawsuit. They don't want a lawsuit coming from the
1:16:37
Speaker 1: non Power five four conferences, and so that's called lawsuit prevention.
1:16:41
Speaker 1: They're like, no, no, no, no, We'll provide you a
1:16:43
Speaker 1: path to the playoff, and this is the path that
1:16:47
Speaker 1: they created. Is there a better way to do this?
1:16:49
Speaker 2: My god, there's probably seventy five thousand better ways to
1:16:52
Speaker 2: do this. I could. You know, there's a part of
1:16:56
Speaker 2: me that.
1:16:56
Speaker 1: Says, go to an eighteen playoff, but let the power
1:16:59
Speaker 1: Let the Power four conferences run their own four team tournaments,
1:17:05
Speaker 1: Have the group of five have their own the top
1:17:08
Speaker 1: four champions play. You know, you get one representative there,
1:17:11
Speaker 1: but it's kind of you play your way in, and
1:17:13
Speaker 1: you know the Power four conferences you play your way in,
1:17:18
Speaker 1: and you just do this as playing your way in.
1:17:21
Speaker 1: You've got to take the human beings out of this.
1:17:23
Speaker 1: You've got to take ESPN executives out of this. You've
1:17:26
Speaker 1: got to take athletic directors out of this. You've got
1:17:29
Speaker 1: to take conference folks out of this.
1:17:32
Speaker 2: Is it is fraught.
1:17:35
Speaker 1: There's too much money at stake and lawsuits glory coming,
1:17:38
Speaker 1: and you know it'll come congressional. You're gonna have federal intervention,
1:17:42
Speaker 1: and maybe there should be. But this is this committee
1:17:46
Speaker 1: as it's structured. Now, you've got to get the human
1:17:50
Speaker 1: element out of this. There is no committee to decide
1:17:53
Speaker 1: who makes the NFL playoffs. There's no committee who decides
1:17:55
Speaker 1: who makes the MOB playoffs. There's no committee who decides
1:17:58
Speaker 1: who makes the NBA layoffs. There's no Yes, there's a
1:18:02
Speaker 1: committee who decides the seating and the last sort of
1:18:06
Speaker 1: couple of teams in a sixty eight soon to be
1:18:09
Speaker 1: seventy six team thing, if you want to. You know,
1:18:14
Speaker 1: I'm fine for a committee to decide seating, but I'm
1:18:18
Speaker 1: not fine for a committee to decide who gets in
1:18:20
Speaker 1: and who gets out.
1:18:23
Speaker 2: I will.
1:18:23
Speaker 1: I have plenty of complaints about how ESPN is a
1:18:27
Speaker 1: terrible business partner for the ACC. I still think all
1:18:30
Speaker 1: of the issues at the ACC, they dodged a bullet here.
1:18:33
Speaker 1: This would have cost millions of dollars for everybody across
1:18:36
Speaker 1: the board without getting any piece of the CFP pie.
1:18:40
Speaker 1: The leadership of the ACEC still needs to be held
1:18:42
Speaker 1: account and university presence in the ACC. Those that are
1:18:46
Speaker 1: serious about spending all this money in football need to
1:18:48
Speaker 1: have a come to you know what meeting about the
1:18:51
Speaker 1: leadership of the ACEC. Because this was a debacle. They
1:18:54
Speaker 1: dodged a catastrophe. Okay, thanks to their own the other
1:19:00
Speaker 1: politics that sort of were all over the map with
1:19:02
Speaker 1: this committee, but this was there's so many there's like
1:19:08
Speaker 1: seventeen thousand other ways to do this, and yet they
1:19:12
Speaker 1: chose this way to do this.
1:19:14
Speaker 2: Right. I'd like to see Notre Dame men.
1:19:18
Speaker 1: I honestly, I think it's Oklahoma that doesn't belong if
1:19:21
Speaker 1: you were to ask me which one of these teams
1:19:23
Speaker 1: doesn't belong Oklahoma. But this is because of the stupid
1:19:26
Speaker 1: Weekly rate rankings show. They came out and after Oklahoma
1:19:30
Speaker 1: beat Alabama, they did this, But if you looked at
1:19:33
Speaker 1: Oklahoma's body of work, I don't think you'd have Oklahoma
1:19:36
Speaker 1: in this.
1:19:37
Speaker 2: In this I think they'd have been.
1:19:38
Speaker 1: Left out certainly, would you know, Yes, they've got the
1:19:41
Speaker 1: Alabama win. But that Alabama win is I think way overvalued.
1:19:46
Speaker 1: And if you look at Alabama's body of work, it's
1:19:49
Speaker 1: not the most impressive team. And then what do they
1:19:52
Speaker 1: do for Alabama? They hand them the rematch with Oklahoma
1:19:55
Speaker 1: and Norman. I'm sorry, what a ridiculous gift. Now, quickly
1:20:00
Speaker 1: talk about the bracket. I'm gonna be parochial here and
1:20:04
Speaker 1: talk about Miami's path.
1:20:06
Speaker 2: Uh, it's.
1:20:09
Speaker 1: Let's just say Miami's got the Miami. This is the way,
1:20:14
Speaker 1: you know, you talk to old school Miami football players.
1:20:18
Speaker 1: I'm friends with a few of them, or you know,
1:20:20
Speaker 1: sort of acquaintances with a few of them. Let me
1:20:22
Speaker 1: let me not oversell it. And they would say, hey,
1:20:25
Speaker 1: if you're gonna, you know, be tested, be tested all
1:20:28
Speaker 1: the way, tested by the best.
1:20:29
Speaker 2: Right.
1:20:30
Speaker 1: So they started Texas A and M. And if they
1:20:33
Speaker 1: win that they get to play Ohio State and the
1:20:35
Speaker 1: Cotton Bowl. And if they win that, they likely play
1:20:39
Speaker 1: the winner the winner of Georgia and Ole Miss, with
1:20:43
Speaker 1: the assumption being that Old Miss is going to play
1:20:44
Speaker 1: tu Lane. So in theory, Miami's path to a national
1:20:49
Speaker 1: championship game, which is would be in their home stadium.
1:20:51
Speaker 1: By the way, it's at hard Rock, would be in
1:20:54
Speaker 1: their home stadium. It would begin in College Station with
1:20:57
Speaker 1: Texas A and M. Then it's Ohio State on December
1:21:00
Speaker 1: thirty first, then it would be Georgia in the Fiesta Bow.
1:21:05
Speaker 1: Miami is OH for the State of Arizona. So once
1:21:08
Speaker 1: we get there, I'm going to be really skeptical of
1:21:12
Speaker 1: our chances just because for whatever reason, we're OH. Like
1:21:15
Speaker 1: I said, we're OH for the State of Arizona. But
1:21:18
Speaker 1: the reward if we survive that would be a national
1:21:22
Speaker 1: title game against either Indian or a Texas Tech. I
1:21:25
Speaker 1: would say this, man, you look at the various paths.
1:21:29
Speaker 1: I think both Ohio State and Georgia are jealous of
1:21:33
Speaker 1: Indiana and Texas Tech. I think Texas Tech, Boy, did
1:21:37
Speaker 1: they get a break? I'm not I don't get a look.
1:21:41
Speaker 1: Oregon's got a good record and they're in a good conference.
1:21:45
Speaker 2: I don't buy it. And then they get the easy
1:21:47
Speaker 2: game against James Madison. I think this is one.
1:21:52
Speaker 1: It'll be interesting if but I love Texas Tech. Here
1:21:56
Speaker 1: I may or may not have taken a future in
1:21:58
Speaker 1: Texas Tech. I think they are are totally undervalued going
1:22:02
Speaker 1: through this. But you gotta love the Texas Tech path
1:22:06
Speaker 1: for as tough as the path is for Georgia and
1:22:08
Speaker 1: Ohio State, I think, I mean, even Indiana didn't get
1:22:12
Speaker 1: the greatest path they have that they are going to
1:22:14
Speaker 1: get Alabama. Although if I'm right about Alabama, then maybe
1:22:20
Speaker 1: Indiana's getting catching a break. But it is a the
1:22:25
Speaker 1: path for Georgia, Ohio State, yes, Miami, and Texas A
1:22:30
Speaker 1: and M that feels like the brutal side of this bracket. Indiana,
1:22:36
Speaker 1: Texas Tech a little a little less where you get
1:22:41
Speaker 1: sort of a one dimensional Oklahoma team if you end
1:22:44
Speaker 1: up having to play them, An Alabama team that just
1:22:47
Speaker 1: doesn't strike any fear into anybody, and an Oregon team
1:22:50
Speaker 1: that does seems a little bit softer.
1:22:53
Speaker 2: It just does.
1:22:55
Speaker 1: I can't, I can't put my finger on it, but
1:22:56
Speaker 1: there's doesn't quite Maybe I'm wrong.
1:22:59
Speaker 2: Never mind.
1:23:00
Speaker 1: And by the way, one of the stats that blew
1:23:02
Speaker 1: me away, it's apparently half of the college football playoff
1:23:05
Speaker 1: teams have some have a coach either leaving, either a
1:23:08
Speaker 1: head coach leaving or coordinator leaving. That's astonishing. That's going
1:23:12
Speaker 1: to have an impact. So hopefully that's another thing that
1:23:15
Speaker 1: needs to happen.
1:23:16
Speaker 2: Here. Do they need to fix this calendar.
1:23:18
Speaker 1: If you will, sort of do what the NFL does,
1:23:21
Speaker 1: try to not allow coaching change, you know, try to
1:23:24
Speaker 1: create some gap between the playoff and coaching changes, because
1:23:29
Speaker 1: this is this this part of it is also kind
1:23:33
Speaker 1: of messy as well, and that's why you got to look.
1:23:35
Speaker 1: I think Miami's not gonna Miami has very few changes
1:23:38
Speaker 1: in their coaching staff, so I feel pretty good about that.
1:23:41
Speaker 1: I think Texas A and M has very few changes.
1:23:43
Speaker 1: Did it with Georgia, But Ohio State, I think they're
1:23:45
Speaker 1: losing an offensive coordinator to USF ole Miss, you know,
1:23:49
Speaker 1: the ole Miss situation.
1:23:52
Speaker 2: So it's going to be.
1:23:55
Speaker 1: After all this drama. I'm excited that that Miami, if
1:24:00
Speaker 1: they whatever, however far they go, they'll have had to
1:24:04
Speaker 1: earn it.
1:24:05
Speaker 2: Right. They do not have a soft path.
1:24:08
Speaker 1: To the National title game. But hey, just four more games, guys,
1:24:12
Speaker 1: four more games. Look, I think Miami will be competitive
1:24:16
Speaker 1: in every game they're in. They will have a chance
1:24:18
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter, will win the game. The real
1:24:21
Speaker 1: question is what kind of fourth quarter decision making is
1:24:25
Speaker 1: going to be made by the offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson,
1:24:28
Speaker 1: by the head coach Mario Christopaul, and by the quarterback
1:24:30
Speaker 1: Carson Beck. If there's a question mark about Miami, it
1:24:34
Speaker 1: is going to be their decision making when a game
1:24:37
Speaker 1: is on the line, all three of those gentlemen, so
1:24:40
Speaker 1: that they will Miami goes as far as their ability
1:24:44
Speaker 1: to make key decisions, timely decisions in the fourth quarter.
1:24:54
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to my first trip to College station. Yes,
1:24:57
Speaker 1: I'm figuring this out. I'm looking forward to it. I've
1:25:00
Speaker 1: been wanting an excuse to get the Bush forty ones
1:25:03
Speaker 1: library as well. So it's a two for a political
1:25:06
Speaker 1: and sports junkie, right, I get to go see the
1:25:10
Speaker 1: field that hosts the so called twelfth Man. Sorry Seattle,
1:25:14
Speaker 1: I think Texas, A and m did it first. The
1:25:17
Speaker 1: Bush forty one library down there is a nice little
1:25:20
Speaker 1: consolation prize too with our visit. All right, with that,
1:25:25
Speaker 1: I will continue my little sports updates. I promise you
1:25:27
Speaker 1: we got more college football that'll be fun. I'll start
1:25:31
Speaker 1: to turn my focus to my packers. That could start
1:25:35
Speaker 1: a knowing some of you, especially if you're Bears fans
1:25:38
Speaker 1: or Cowboys fans, but we'll see. And I'm weirdly really
1:25:43
Speaker 1: happy about a tiny little trade that the Nats did
1:25:46
Speaker 1: for a prospect catcher who I think is a really
1:25:50
Speaker 1: good prospect, a guy named Harry Ford. So I might
1:25:55
Speaker 1: even sneak a little bit of a hot stovely into
1:25:57
Speaker 1: some of these sports updates. So with that, uh, I'll
1:26:02
Speaker 1: see you in forty eight hours. Thanks for listening, and
1:26:04
Speaker 1: until I upload again, m h m hm