Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - What If 9/11 Never Happened? + Predictions For Trump & American Politics In 2026

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Full Episode - What If 9/11 Never Happened? + Predictions For Trump & American Politics In 2026 · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: slash chuck. Hello there, Welcome to my I guess you
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Speaker 1: could call it the third what If episode, although it
1:52
Speaker 1: was I gave you a two parter in the first
1:55
Speaker 1: what if of this holiday season, which was the twenty
1:57
Speaker 1: twenty what ifs.
1:58
Speaker 2: I knew, we knew there'd be a lot of them.
2:00
Speaker 1: Everybody wanted to go through them, and it was necessary,
2:03
Speaker 1: but it was a really healthy exercise. I hope you
2:06
Speaker 1: got I got a lot out of it, and you know,
2:10
Speaker 1: the big conclusion, as I said, before for me and
2:12
Speaker 1: I still am carrying this is just how much Biden's
2:16
Speaker 1: presidency essentially got completely changed in the post election environment,
2:21
Speaker 1: right and more so, you know, I think the initial
2:27
Speaker 1: motivation for doing the what if on twenty twenty was,
2:30
Speaker 1: you know, how different was would Trump two point zero
2:32
Speaker 1: b as a continuation of his first term versus with
2:35
Speaker 1: the And.
2:36
Speaker 2: There's no doubt it is.
2:38
Speaker 1: There are a lot of large differences, and there certainly
2:41
Speaker 1: I think would be there would be less upheaval. I
2:46
Speaker 1: think that was the But I really think, I really
2:50
Speaker 1: think what turned out to be an underrated part of
2:52
Speaker 1: the what if it was doing the other what if,
2:54
Speaker 1: which is what if Trump had conceded gracefully? How much
2:59
Speaker 1: that would have ended the era of Trump right then?
3:03
Speaker 1: Because we know how those worlds plays in some ways.
3:06
Speaker 1: Trump's own personal instinct of his fear of being sort
3:11
Speaker 1: of eradicated from history or filed into the dustbin of history,
3:16
Speaker 1: you know, his need to not be erased is so
3:19
Speaker 1: great that he sort of almost singularly created a new
3:23
Speaker 1: timeline for himself. And it was very impactful both on
3:27
Speaker 1: the Biden presidency itself and of course Trump two point zero.
3:30
Speaker 1: So there's no doubt, you know, when you it's an
3:33
Speaker 1: interesting I think you.
3:38
Speaker 2: Look.
3:39
Speaker 1: There's no overrating Trump's initial victory in twenty sixteen. But
3:42
Speaker 1: in some ways the changes Trump is making to the
3:48
Speaker 1: presidency to our politics are more impactful, not because of
3:53
Speaker 1: his twenty sixteen election but because of his twenty twenty
3:55
Speaker 1: loss and his behavior around it. Anyway, it is apascitating.
3:59
Speaker 1: So in that spirit, the other big what if that
4:03
Speaker 1: got a ton of requests sort of like even you
4:06
Speaker 1: know people would submit it, which was a what if
4:09
Speaker 1: nine to eleven hadn't happened? Meaning and really the more
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Speaker 1: realistic version of this is what if we had stopped it?
4:14
Speaker 1: Which we were very close, right, we could have easily seen.
4:18
Speaker 1: You know, we learned a lot lesson about stove piping
4:21
Speaker 1: of intelligence, but you know, the bread crumbs were there
4:24
Speaker 1: if we were looking, if we knew to look for
4:25
Speaker 1: those bread crumbs, about the Saudi citizens going to fight
4:31
Speaker 1: schools and all of that. So and sure it looks
4:35
Speaker 1: easy to see. Oh that needle in that haystack was
4:38
Speaker 1: so easy to see. How did they miss it? Or
4:42
Speaker 1: it's possible maybe Bill Clinton gets bin laden when he
4:45
Speaker 1: takes the shot at him back in ninety eight during
4:48
Speaker 1: the middle of the Lewinski thing. So we're going to
4:51
Speaker 1: dive into that, because I do think what's interesting about
4:55
Speaker 1: nine to eleven was it's is that it you know,
5:01
Speaker 1: there was a phrase that got said all the time.
5:03
Speaker 1: Nine to eleven changed everything, and it did change a
5:06
Speaker 1: lot of things, And so I think it is hard
5:09
Speaker 1: to try to figure out the counterfactual of what would
5:13
Speaker 1: have happened.
5:13
Speaker 2: Without nine to eleven.
5:14
Speaker 1: What does Bush presidency look like with No.
5:17
Speaker 2: Nine to eleven? What does the Democratic Party look like
5:19
Speaker 2: with No. Nine to eleven? You know, and what does
5:24
Speaker 2: the media world look like with No. Nine to eleven?
5:26
Speaker 2: And I'm going to get to that in a few minutes.
5:30
Speaker 1: So look, to start out, I think it's a way
5:40
Speaker 1: to say this, nine to eleven didn't just change what
5:42
Speaker 1: we covered. It also changed how we consumed information, and
5:47
Speaker 1: in some ways, I think we're going to discover it
5:50
Speaker 1: accelerated sort of the attention, the the the importance of
5:56
Speaker 1: the intention economy, because you know what nine to eleven
6:04
Speaker 1: did to our psyche as a country, right, we always felt,
6:08
Speaker 1: you know, look, the only time we were attacked before
6:10
Speaker 1: then really was Pearl Harbor Hawhy wouldn't even a state
6:14
Speaker 1: when that happened. We've never been truly hit on the homeland,
6:19
Speaker 1: right on the continental United States. Yes, there had been
6:23
Speaker 1: a bomb, a bombing of the World Trade Center in
6:26
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety three, and we've certainly had our sheriff terrorist
6:28
Speaker 1: attacks and hijackings. We had the Oklahoma City bombing, which
6:32
Speaker 1: was domestic terrorism. So it's not as if we didn't
6:35
Speaker 1: have these things. But this was a what a form
6:40
Speaker 1: sort of a non state foreign power right in Al Qaeda,
6:45
Speaker 1: and it really rattled our psyche because it we were
6:50
Speaker 1: suddenly our vulnerabilities just showed up everywhere, and we realized
6:55
Speaker 1: how vulnerable we were to essentially asymmetric warfare, how vulnerable
6:59
Speaker 1: we could be to terrorism. I mean, I know my
7:02
Speaker 1: feeling on October one, two thousand and one, was that Washington,
7:07
Speaker 1: DC was going to feel like Tel Aviv in the
7:08
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties, where you just or even Berlin back then,
7:12
Speaker 1: you just sort of had to accept the premise that
7:15
Speaker 1: there were going to be more attacks. The most remarkable
7:18
Speaker 1: thing that happened post nine to eleven is what didn't
7:22
Speaker 1: happen post nine eleven, right, And the point was is
7:26
Speaker 1: that I think it was our own Why did we
7:28
Speaker 1: feel why did I feel that way? Why did we
7:30
Speaker 1: all feel like we were so vulnerable? Because that initial
7:33
Speaker 1: sense of oh my god, they turned our own systems
7:36
Speaker 1: against us, right the airline are you know, domestic airplanes
7:40
Speaker 1: something any of us could have been on. And so
7:44
Speaker 1: it really had a psychological impact on us as a society.
7:48
Speaker 1: So what happened we sort of we sort of clung
7:51
Speaker 1: to information. Right, It's what really turned the three news
7:54
Speaker 1: channels into twenty four hour Like, if I'm not mistaken,
7:59
Speaker 1: not all the channels programmed twenty four hours a day.
8:02
Speaker 1: After nine to eleven, there was an intensity to program
8:05
Speaker 1: twenty four hours a day. I was at the hotline
8:07
Speaker 1: at the time. We added publications. We called something we
8:11
Speaker 1: added something called Hotline World Extra because we were just
8:14
Speaker 1: all so consumed with this network of terrorists that we're
8:18
Speaker 1: just going to hobble societies all over the world. And
8:23
Speaker 1: we certainly, you know, all of us got a lesson
8:26
Speaker 1: in in extremism, in general religious extremism. So it was
8:33
Speaker 1: the point being is that we we really it changed,
8:37
Speaker 1: it changed our own psyche and I and that's so
8:42
Speaker 1: in doing this, what I've exercised, I'm going to do
8:43
Speaker 1: my best here. It is really hard. This turned out
8:48
Speaker 1: to be a much harder attempt at what I'm going
8:51
Speaker 1: to What I was trying to do is is it's
8:53
Speaker 1: my way of saying, like I said before, I'm there's
8:55
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot more questions asked than definitive takes.
8:59
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have some theories of directionally where we could
9:02
Speaker 1: have come. But I want that initial underscoring of just
9:09
Speaker 1: the real impact of nine to eleven was psychological on us,
9:13
Speaker 1: and in some ways a question that I want that
9:18
Speaker 1: I'm pursued throughout this what if exercise that I put
9:21
Speaker 1: together was how much of our information ecosystem problems of
9:28
Speaker 1: today began with both our desire for more information constantly
9:36
Speaker 1: frankly to make us feel better because we felt so
9:39
Speaker 1: unsafe and insecure. And when you do, you're just constantly
9:42
Speaker 1: seeking more information. Right if you've ever been prepared for
9:45
Speaker 1: a snowstorm or a hurricane, and you know a big
9:48
Speaker 1: storm is coming but you hadn't hit yet, and you're waiting,
9:51
Speaker 1: what do you do? You keep looking for more information.
9:54
Speaker 1: You want a more detailed forecast, more detailed what if
9:57
Speaker 1: scenario is basically because it's really your own survival instinct.
10:01
Speaker 1: It's human nature where the more information we have, the
10:04
Speaker 1: more we think in our own heads, we can plan
10:06
Speaker 1: for our survival in these things. So I cannot underscore
10:11
Speaker 1: how that is the through line for me that I
10:14
Speaker 1: think that this is, this is what what sort of
10:19
Speaker 1: really changes changes things because and there are some things
10:24
Speaker 1: that I don't think change at all, the dot com bubble,
10:27
Speaker 1: things like that. So let's start with the America of
10:30
Speaker 1: two thousand. That keeps breathing is probably the best way
10:33
Speaker 1: to put it. We're still so we're living in this
10:36
Speaker 1: post Cold War home. There is concern at this point
10:42
Speaker 1: it's early odts. There is there's been a transition in
10:45
Speaker 1: Russian leadership.
10:46
Speaker 2: Is this guy.
10:47
Speaker 1: Putin going to be you know, a small D democrat
10:51
Speaker 1: or not? And the keeping Russia in the West was
11:01
Speaker 1: a priority before nine to eleven I think would have
11:04
Speaker 1: stayed a priority with Bush two under that scenario, I
11:10
Speaker 1: don't know whether it succeeds or not. Right, if Putin
11:13
Speaker 1: is who he is, which we now, if you know,
11:16
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if anything in the relationship
11:19
Speaker 1: changes Putin.
11:20
Speaker 2: Right.
11:21
Speaker 1: The question I have is when does you know, by
11:26
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight Putin's invading Georgia, which in some
11:31
Speaker 1: ways was the precursor to Ukraine First Crime in twenty fourteen.
11:34
Speaker 1: In that, does that accelerate, does that get delayed? Does
11:41
Speaker 1: the you know, our focus on all things nine to
11:44
Speaker 1: eleven and Islamic terrorism and domestic security, which then took
11:49
Speaker 1: our eye off the ball a little bit of European security,
11:52
Speaker 1: of keeping Russia in the west, of sort of these
11:56
Speaker 1: fledgling Eastern European democracies. I think it's fair to say
12:01
Speaker 1: that that probably is the biggest you know that and
12:07
Speaker 1: bringing China along, right, because at this point everybody's very
12:11
Speaker 1: bullish on China. In early two thousand, late nineties, there
12:14
Speaker 1: wasn't a huge difference between Gore and Bush and that
12:18
Speaker 1: two thousand campaign on China. It was a little bit
12:21
Speaker 1: of rhetoric, but not too much. Essentially, both were were institutionalists.
12:26
Speaker 1: Both were believers that, hey, bringing economic opening, the opening
12:33
Speaker 1: the China economy will ultimately be good for democracy, good
12:37
Speaker 1: for freedom, et cetera. So there was a bipartisan consensus
12:43
Speaker 1: in China, which we now know we all got wrong. Right,
12:46
Speaker 1: There was this bipartisan consensus that China, that essentially we
12:49
Speaker 1: were going to be able to bring China along and
12:52
Speaker 1: eventually the communism Communist Party would break there because of
13:00
Speaker 1: middle class demands for the state, et cetera, et cetera.
13:03
Speaker 1: None of that has turned out to be true. China
13:06
Speaker 1: was able to somehow bring the country into a controlled
13:12
Speaker 1: market economy. It's not a free market, but it's a
13:15
Speaker 1: it is sort of they got into it right, and
13:20
Speaker 1: we let them in because of the desire to get
13:24
Speaker 1: American businesses into China. So I do think that we're
13:30
Speaker 1: sort of pursuing and it's much more front and center
13:33
Speaker 1: this bringing China along, you know, and maybe there's maybe
13:37
Speaker 1: there's more of that. I do think, by the way,
13:40
Speaker 1: George W. Bush's presidency was going to be much more
13:43
Speaker 1: focused on the Western hemisphere pre nine to eleven. Here
13:46
Speaker 1: was a guy, and we probably try to attempt some
13:49
Speaker 1: massive immigration reform sooner in the Bush presidency, easily that happens,
13:55
Speaker 1: I think in Bush one. In the first term. I
13:59
Speaker 1: don't know if there's a second, right, we don't know
14:01
Speaker 1: what the second term is over. It's probably over the
14:03
Speaker 1: economy in some form or another, because most elections are
14:10
Speaker 1: unless there is something essentially overwhelming the economic issue in America,
14:16
Speaker 1: which sometimes it's war in the war in Iraq nine eleven.
14:19
Speaker 1: Those are types of stories that do that. But I
14:25
Speaker 1: do think I go back to the information ecosystem. You know,
14:30
Speaker 1: nine to eleven happened nine months after the delayed two
14:34
Speaker 1: thousand election, and I do think that without nine to eleven,
14:42
Speaker 1: we're probably in a much more polarized political environment in Washington.
14:46
Speaker 1: We cannot forget that there's still a lot of Democrats
14:50
Speaker 1: who don't accept that Bush one Farnce Square. After nine
14:54
Speaker 1: to eleven, those you know that none of that became mainstream, right.
15:00
Speaker 1: Al Gore is a bigger figure inside the Democratic Party
15:04
Speaker 1: pre nine eleven than he is post nine to eleven.
15:08
Speaker 1: Probably means al Gore is more likely to be the nominee,
15:12
Speaker 1: you know, four, it's more likely without a nine to
15:15
Speaker 1: eleven he is a bit more front and center Democrats
15:17
Speaker 1: are a bit more, a bit less willing to work
15:22
Speaker 1: with Bush. There is and Bush has to make more
15:25
Speaker 1: effort to sort of get legitimacy. You know that that
15:32
Speaker 1: was you know his you know after look we we
15:35
Speaker 1: you know. The Bush presidency basically began on September eleventh,
15:40
Speaker 1: as far as history is concerned, but we forget this
15:44
Speaker 1: was this was a this was a presidency that was
15:47
Speaker 1: having to immediately make the case that it was legitimate.
15:52
Speaker 1: It was the first presidency we'd had in the modern
15:54
Speaker 1: era that won via the electoral college, not the popular vote.
15:58
Speaker 1: The recounts of Florida that the media was doing would
16:02
Speaker 1: have been extraordinarily more covered and consequential without nine to eleven.
16:06
Speaker 1: It took all about anywhere from nine to months to
16:08
Speaker 1: twelve months. Those things still happened, but there was almost
16:12
Speaker 1: like they looked more like political science experiments than they
16:15
Speaker 1: did mainstream news stories. Because I think again, so much,
16:19
Speaker 1: so much of the resources of the national news media
16:22
Speaker 1: was devoted more to covering nine to eleven. And then
16:25
Speaker 1: of course with the two wars with Iraq and Afghanistan
16:28
Speaker 1: and the focus on all that, So I think you
16:31
Speaker 1: have to you know, when you think about the political environment,
16:34
Speaker 1: we shouldn't lose side of that. But I keep coming
16:37
Speaker 1: back to the acceleration of the information ecosystem almost becoming
16:43
Speaker 1: wired into our brains. Right, we'd never had anything like
16:46
Speaker 1: the two thousand election, And you know, my old friend
16:50
Speaker 1: Lester Holt became sort of he got a nickname Old
16:52
Speaker 1: iron Pants, right because he was constantly able to go
16:59
Speaker 1: hours and hours without leaving the leaving the anchor table,
17:05
Speaker 1: no matter whatever. Nature was calling for him, and it was,
17:12
Speaker 1: you know, I believe we started the ticker, and then
17:14
Speaker 1: the tickers on cable news weren't ubiquitous. Then nine to
17:17
Speaker 1: eleven happens and they become ubiquitous, and it really, I
17:20
Speaker 1: think also accelerated. Not everybody had moved fully to the
17:26
Speaker 1: Internet to get their information and get news and information.
17:30
Speaker 1: Nine to eleven was a bit more of a trigger
17:31
Speaker 1: because you suddenly needed real time information. You didn't want
17:34
Speaker 1: to wait for the newspaper, you didn't want to wait
17:36
Speaker 1: for the evening news, so you did anything that was
17:39
Speaker 1: in the immediate. Cable news was immediate, and the Internet
17:42
Speaker 1: was immediate. So it I do think that one of
17:46
Speaker 1: the cultural impacts in nine to eleven that probably is
17:50
Speaker 1: delayed without nine to eleven happening is sort of is
17:57
Speaker 1: our full embrace the digitized information ecosystem. Was this eventually
18:02
Speaker 1: going to happen? Of course it was, but all of
18:05
Speaker 1: this suddenly there was more demand for immediate information.
18:10
Speaker 2: So what happened?
18:11
Speaker 1: Companies responded by creating more products to feed this demand
18:16
Speaker 1: for more information, and so we end up, you know,
18:20
Speaker 1: with social media beginning in twenty oh seven, in twenty
18:23
Speaker 1: oh eight, Does all that happen on the same timeline?
18:28
Speaker 1: Is it adopted as mainstream.
18:30
Speaker 2: On the same timeline?
18:32
Speaker 1: My theory is that it is not. And I think
18:37
Speaker 1: this is one of the underrated parts of the impact
18:41
Speaker 1: of nine to eleven on us is that. So I
18:46
Speaker 1: think when you throw that in there, I think that's
18:49
Speaker 1: a pretty important differentiator and how our timeline changes. So
18:56
Speaker 1: then there are the things that you know, sort of
19:00
Speaker 1: we've all lived with, still live with, that wouldn't have happened, right,
19:03
Speaker 1: the emergency that never ends. So there's no Patriot Act,
19:06
Speaker 1: there's no Iraq war, there's no permanent sort of non state, right,
19:14
Speaker 1: we don't have this sort of congressionally authorized war against
19:21
Speaker 1: terrorists that are still being the sort of ambibiguously worded
19:30
Speaker 1: pieces of legislation are being used now to justify attacks
19:34
Speaker 1: in Iran, attacks in Venezuela. And so we don't have anything.
19:40
Speaker 1: We don't have the USA Patriot Act, we don't have
19:45
Speaker 1: the Department of Homeland Security. So let's immediately realize this, right,
19:51
Speaker 1: Homeland Security. The idea of the Homeland Security Department had
19:54
Speaker 1: been partolating for a while among the sort of the
19:58
Speaker 1: there's a group of sort of good government infrastructure folks.
20:02
Speaker 1: And because you know, this was sort of a plan
20:05
Speaker 1: that had been sitting on the shelf, right, there was
20:07
Speaker 1: always some question why are there? You know, why is
20:09
Speaker 1: the Secret Service with Treasury? You know, yes, it started
20:13
Speaker 1: as sort of looking at counterfeit money, but it's bigger
20:15
Speaker 1: than that. Now, where's the Coast Guard? Should that be
20:18
Speaker 1: with the Pentagon? Should that be here? And so there
20:21
Speaker 1: was this idea of like, okay, should there be a
20:25
Speaker 1: some domestic security agencies, arguably including the FBI. But for
20:31
Speaker 1: whatever reason, we didn't put the FBI in here that
20:34
Speaker 1: you know, should be in this cabinet department. I will
20:41
Speaker 1: at some point do a time machine about you know, I.
20:43
Speaker 2: I the entire creation of.
20:46
Speaker 1: The Homeland Security Department was just a reminder of why,
20:48
Speaker 1: as much as I would love to see more government efficiency,
20:53
Speaker 1: it is sometimes impossible to make happen because of members
20:57
Speaker 1: of Congress refusing to give up a subcommittee a subcommittee
21:04
Speaker 1: influence on some dying agency that should go away, But
21:10
Speaker 1: because this person wants to gavel. They think it's an
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23:08
Speaker 2: You know, the whole point.
23:08
Speaker 1: Of Homeland the Department of Homeland Security was sold as
23:12
Speaker 1: a way, Hey, we're going to create more efficiencies. This
23:14
Speaker 1: is going to put agencies, you know, border security should
23:18
Speaker 1: be in there, so igrant Now. I tell you what
23:20
Speaker 1: people didn't realize at the time is that that somehow
23:23
Speaker 1: that Homeland Security would simply become an immigration agency over time.
23:27
Speaker 1: But that is what it's been turned into. Essentially, it
23:31
Speaker 1: feels like that that is, and it could if you
23:35
Speaker 1: listened to my conversation with Jonathan Martin. In some ways
23:39
Speaker 1: the obsession of turning the Department Homeland Security almost into
23:43
Speaker 1: singularly a border enforcement department. When it drops the ball
23:49
Speaker 1: on a natural disaster with FEMA or drops the ball
23:52
Speaker 1: on some other issues with the Coastguard, is that going
23:56
Speaker 1: to cause? Is that going to cause Christy Nomes some
23:59
Speaker 1: problems perception problems if something bad happens on her watch,
24:04
Speaker 1: regardless of whether she was following orders or not. So
24:08
Speaker 1: I do think that was, you know, one of the
24:12
Speaker 1: and this and this is another sort of what if
24:16
Speaker 1: scenario here did Trump Trump's did Bush's endorsement? And the
24:22
Speaker 1: Republican member who was in charge of the House and
24:25
Speaker 1: the Senate. The Senate was divided. Democrats had a narrow
24:30
Speaker 1: majority thanks to a party switch for about until the
24:35
Speaker 1: twenty oh two mid terms, but Republicans had controlled the House,
24:39
Speaker 1: and obviously the White House.
24:43
Speaker 2: Is there.
24:50
Speaker 1: They became George W. Bush became synonymous with expanding government right.
24:55
Speaker 1: So it really was this beginning of redefining what is conservatives.
25:00
Speaker 1: And one could argue that the splintering of the Republican
25:04
Speaker 1: Party into this magafaction versus this business wing right.
25:08
Speaker 2: George W.
25:09
Speaker 1: Bush was very much right the avatar of the business
25:12
Speaker 1: wing of the Republican Party, and so the embrace of China,
25:18
Speaker 1: the embrace of expansion of government power, I do think
25:24
Speaker 1: planted the seeds for what is now known as the
25:27
Speaker 1: Maga wing of the party. Right, these are the true
25:30
Speaker 1: you know. I think Marjorie Taylor Green really in some
25:33
Speaker 1: ways articulates this version of conservative better than anybody out there.
25:40
Speaker 1: She talks about being America first. Hey, no get out
25:42
Speaker 1: of other people's foreign wars, no foreign excursions. Right, that
25:47
Speaker 1: mindset the real sort of more Pat Buchanan isolationists view
25:51
Speaker 1: and sertain where Trump's instincts go. Right, I say, is
25:56
Speaker 1: instincts right. He's instinctively an isolationist but can't help himself
26:01
Speaker 1: and always wants to be in the middle of a
26:03
Speaker 1: deal here, a middle of a deal there. But we
26:06
Speaker 1: shouldn't underestimate that the birth of the Trump wing of
26:10
Speaker 1: the Republican Party, or the rebirth of it, right, it
26:14
Speaker 1: was a sort of a dormant wing of the party
26:17
Speaker 1: that the Republican support for these expansive government powers that
26:22
Speaker 1: came in in two thousand and two, two thousand and three,
26:25
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, the expansion of Department Onland Security TSA.
26:29
Speaker 1: I thought, imagine a Democrat advocating all of this, right,
26:33
Speaker 1: there'd be these protests allah from the right that we're
26:36
Speaker 1: seeing already with Zoon Mormondani.
26:38
Speaker 2: Right.
26:39
Speaker 1: And it was a Republican presidency that increased the surveillance state,
26:44
Speaker 1: a republican presidency that sort of concentrated more power in
26:48
Speaker 1: the executive branch.
26:49
Speaker 2: Right, So it is.
26:51
Speaker 1: I do think some of the seeds of the rise
26:56
Speaker 1: of MAGA are due to some of the responses to
27:02
Speaker 1: nine to eleven. And then of course there's the Iraq
27:04
Speaker 1: War itself, you know, and you know, this is not
27:09
Speaker 1: my first sort of version of doing various what ifs
27:12
Speaker 1: on that are nine to eleven related. I did a
27:15
Speaker 1: what if on if Gored become president in two thousand,
27:20
Speaker 1: how how do we politically respond to nine to eleven
27:23
Speaker 1: if if it were the ninth year of a democratic
27:26
Speaker 1: presidency when nine to eleven happens, rather than the first
27:30
Speaker 1: year of a republican presidency after eight years of a
27:32
Speaker 1: democratic presidency. I do think things would have been a
27:36
Speaker 1: bit more polarized and the response to nine to eleven
27:38
Speaker 1: had goreb been president than with Bush's president. But you know,
27:45
Speaker 1: all of it sort of we became. You know, when
27:47
Speaker 1: you think about the impact of nine to eleven on
27:50
Speaker 1: on our politics, I do think, like I said, Bush's
27:54
Speaker 1: support of a stronger, more robust, larger government, I do
27:59
Speaker 1: think inadvertently planted the seeds for the rise of Trump
28:03
Speaker 1: a little bit. And then I think when it comes
28:06
Speaker 1: to our obsession and consuming of news, it then inevitably
28:11
Speaker 1: led the cable news channels to one to have to
28:15
Speaker 1: Instead of being informational, they suddenly became affirmational, right, And
28:19
Speaker 1: that was the beginning of the flag pin fights who
28:22
Speaker 1: was the most patriotic news channel and that was being
28:26
Speaker 1: used as a wedge right folks at Fox in particular,
28:29
Speaker 1: we're trying to use patriotism as a way to disqualify journalism.
28:33
Speaker 1: And it was the beginning of this sort of part
28:36
Speaker 1: one of what became a very polarized news information consumption market.
28:42
Speaker 1: But in some ways, because we were constantly clinging to
28:47
Speaker 1: these cable news channels for information, then it quickly morphed
28:51
Speaker 1: us into and morphed the cable news channels into being
28:56
Speaker 1: captured by their audience, so to you know, think of
29:01
Speaker 1: it this way. Right before nine to eleven, we thought
29:04
Speaker 1: of the news as sort of more informational things we
29:07
Speaker 1: needed to know, but it wasn't a priority. After nine
29:10
Speaker 1: to eleven, news became something you had to follow for
29:14
Speaker 1: your own survival, for vigilance, and in many ways, nine
29:21
Speaker 1: to eleven created an entire generation of news junkies, reinforced
29:25
Speaker 1: news junkiedom and where you constantly felt like you needed
29:30
Speaker 1: to have more and more information, so right, the breaking
29:35
Speaker 1: news alerts, the constant notifications on our phones, the tickers,
29:42
Speaker 1: and in some ways it also created impatience, right since
29:45
Speaker 1: information we were expecting information on our fingertips all the time,
29:48
Speaker 1: it sort of accelerated that aspect. Now, I again, I
29:54
Speaker 1: think all of these technologies don't It's not like the
29:58
Speaker 1: technologies don't happen. Our adoption of these new technologies or
30:02
Speaker 1: is what accelerates. And I think that that's where I
30:06
Speaker 1: would go, right, And.
30:10
Speaker 2: Now, you know, I.
30:14
Speaker 1: Think the question is where we always was this an
30:16
Speaker 1: inevitable result of once we sort of put all we
30:20
Speaker 1: put algorithms in deciding what news we saw on all
30:23
Speaker 1: this stuff that once these filters and this was going
30:26
Speaker 1: to happen anyway, or would gatekeeping still be strong, would
30:33
Speaker 1: be at least stronger today than it is. If we
30:37
Speaker 1: never have this desire or concern or need to constantly
30:43
Speaker 1: feel as informed as we absolutely felt like we had
30:46
Speaker 1: to have.
30:49
Speaker 2: In post nine to eleven.
30:52
Speaker 1: Without nine to eleven, would there been a Would constant
30:56
Speaker 1: breaking news alerts have turned us off?
30:59
Speaker 2: Right?
30:59
Speaker 1: Would unverified speculation have sort of been like, oh, that
31:02
Speaker 1: belongs in the high end of AM radio? Would we
31:06
Speaker 1: be less tolerant of emotional framing of news?
31:11
Speaker 2: Right? Maybe?
31:17
Speaker 1: But I think there's a strong case to be made
31:19
Speaker 1: that while we, I think now look at social media
31:23
Speaker 1: as a result of smartphones, did nine to eleven actually
31:27
Speaker 1: train us to never look away and therefore accelerate the
31:33
Speaker 1: the creation of these social media platforms because we knew
31:37
Speaker 1: there was a demand.
31:38
Speaker 2: Right?
31:38
Speaker 1: In many ways, you don't create something unless you think
31:41
Speaker 1: there's a demand for it. So, if this means we
31:48
Speaker 1: don't have politics without a hyperintendent attentive culture, what does
31:53
Speaker 1: that look like?
31:54
Speaker 2: Right?
31:55
Speaker 1: Does this mean we'd never have a Donald Trump or
31:58
Speaker 1: a Barack Obama?
31:59
Speaker 2: That we saw to stick to the.
32:01
Speaker 1: Very I don't want to say convent. Yeah, I guess
32:08
Speaker 1: it's conventional. You know at the time, right, is a
32:13
Speaker 1: Barack Obama sort of convinced that he should be running
32:16
Speaker 1: for governor before he runs for president type of thing.
32:21
Speaker 1: Don't forget what powered Obama to the White House arguably
32:25
Speaker 1: was the fact that he came out early against the
32:27
Speaker 1: Iraq War before other mainstream Democrats did it, and there
32:31
Speaker 1: was a recording to prove it. Right, without it, does
32:33
Speaker 1: he ever win that nomination against Hillary Clinton?
32:35
Speaker 2: Anyway?
32:37
Speaker 1: And think about how much that how much that issue
32:43
Speaker 1: absolutely divided the Democratic Party and what happens without it.
32:49
Speaker 1: By the way, I don't think John Kerry's the nominee
32:51
Speaker 1: in two thousand and four without nine to eleven. Right,
32:53
Speaker 1: Democrats needed to have thought they needed to have a
32:55
Speaker 1: military veteran after what happened in O two. There was
32:59
Speaker 1: this whole after the who Max Cleland thing in two
33:02
Speaker 1: thousand and two, with the weaponization of the Department of
33:05
Speaker 1: Homeland Security as a wedge issue in those two thousand
33:08
Speaker 1: and two midterms, right, it really sort of made the
33:11
Speaker 1: idea of what Democrats need to find somebody with military service.
33:14
Speaker 1: That's what got Carrie, you know, sort of jump started
33:17
Speaker 1: his candidacy. You know, I think it's more likely we
33:21
Speaker 1: have Al Gore as nominee in two thousand and four
33:24
Speaker 1: because you're more likely to run again. Perhaps, you know,
33:28
Speaker 1: perhaps Hillary Clinton is not seen as this hawkish because
33:31
Speaker 1: there's nothing to be hawkish about, and then she's a
33:35
Speaker 1: more conventional potential candidate in twenty oh eight. Now do
33:40
Speaker 1: I think eventually in the same mindset, we the public
33:45
Speaker 1: would have been like, wait a minute, what's with the dynasties?
33:47
Speaker 1: We're not just trading Clinton for Bush for Clinton.
33:50
Speaker 2: You know, I still.
33:51
Speaker 1: Think that demand would have been there, but maybe it's
33:54
Speaker 1: not as powerful yet. Maybe it takes a one more
33:58
Speaker 1: term of Hillary of Clinton actually serving as president before
34:01
Speaker 1: it becomes a powerful political force on that front. So
34:08
Speaker 1: what things still happened that probably impact our politics back then?
34:12
Speaker 1: So essentially what replaces nine and eleven if it never happens,
34:17
Speaker 1: I think we still have a financial crisis because that
34:19
Speaker 1: was you know, the seeds of those were planted in
34:22
Speaker 1: the nineties, and you know, maybe it accelerates nine to
34:28
Speaker 1: eleven with all the extra spending that came may have
34:30
Speaker 1: propped up the economy for an extra couple of years.
34:34
Speaker 1: And therefore, remember there was sort of it was your
34:36
Speaker 1: patriotic duty to go shop it.
34:40
Speaker 2: Do you does that?
34:41
Speaker 1: Does all of this accelerate and maybe the financial collapse
34:44
Speaker 1: happens in four oh five rather than oh, seven oh eight, Right,
34:48
Speaker 1: that's possible. We still have tech discoveries, tech disruptions. The
34:53
Speaker 1: question is is the if there's not demand for information
34:57
Speaker 1: every second of the day, do some of these social
34:59
Speaker 1: media platforms take off as fast as they did and
35:04
Speaker 1: we're still going to have inequality? We were still going
35:06
Speaker 1: to have this. And I think the question is whether
35:13
Speaker 1: is just when it happens on how intense I look
35:17
Speaker 1: at nine to eleven, and I assume it delayed our
35:21
Speaker 1: inevitable sort of reckoning that was about. That was taking
35:25
Speaker 1: the unit party reckoning right, the whether it's the center
35:29
Speaker 1: left of the Democratic Party center right. But if you
35:31
Speaker 1: think about it, Bush, Clinton, the Bushes and the Clintons
35:35
Speaker 1: were really seen as between the forty yard line presidents.
35:39
Speaker 1: And they were also on foreign policy very much in
35:43
Speaker 1: uniparty and that and and in trade it was uniparty.
35:49
Speaker 1: You know, both Bush and Clinton were pro NAFTA Both
35:52
Speaker 1: Bush and Gore were pro NAFTA both, you know, so
35:55
Speaker 1: they were both bullish on China in some ways, both
35:58
Speaker 1: bullish un keep trying to bring Russia into the West.
36:01
Speaker 1: So the point is is that I do think that
36:05
Speaker 1: reckoning still.
36:06
Speaker 2: Takes place inside both parties. You still have a.
36:11
Speaker 1: There's still likely I have to be a financial crisis
36:14
Speaker 1: that ends, that has a bailout. It all just depends.
36:17
Speaker 1: I've always and I've done this. What if, right, what
36:19
Speaker 1: if McCain had won the two thousand and eight presidency
36:21
Speaker 1: instead of Obama. Well, instead of the Tea Party being
36:24
Speaker 1: the driving force of the twenty ten midterms, I think
36:26
Speaker 1: it's Occupy Wall Street that's the driving force of the
36:28
Speaker 1: twenty ten midterms. Sort of that there's still that it's
36:32
Speaker 1: more of a because it would have been all Republicans
36:35
Speaker 1: making the decision. It would have been a Republican president
36:38
Speaker 1: spending tax dollars to bail out banks and all that.
36:41
Speaker 1: So it would have I think, just galvanized that. And
36:44
Speaker 1: you may have had Bernie's dream of his sort of
36:47
Speaker 1: urban rural coalition coming coming together much quicker and much faster.
36:55
Speaker 2: Than even now when we haven't seen it.
36:58
Speaker 1: So it's not as if any of these things don't happen.
37:03
Speaker 1: If the question is on what timeline, and the more
37:08
Speaker 1: I've gone through the what ifs on the things that
37:10
Speaker 1: happen that we're nine to eleven derivatives, and then the
37:13
Speaker 1: things that probably happen regardless of whether nine to eleven happens,
37:16
Speaker 1: like the financial crisis and the continuation of tech disruptions,
37:22
Speaker 1: I think it really is just about timing. And I
37:24
Speaker 1: think the biggest conclusion I come to is that our
37:29
Speaker 1: brief unity post nine to eleven essentially delayed everything that
37:33
Speaker 1: we've been dealing with now, So probably bring everything four
37:39
Speaker 1: years earlier. Right, But there's some open questions, right, is
37:44
Speaker 1: there ever? You know, does a Barack Obama still rise up?
37:49
Speaker 2: Is? You know?
37:49
Speaker 1: But if you don't have an Iraq war as a
37:52
Speaker 1: defining distinction between sort of the Obama wing and the
37:56
Speaker 1: Clinton wing, which in some ways now is kind of
38:00
Speaker 1: the Clinton wing and the Sanders wing, with Obama folks
38:05
Speaker 1: two thirds on the Clinton side of that argument, one
38:07
Speaker 1: third on the Sander side of that argument. You know,
38:12
Speaker 1: where where is that in its sort of formation? And
38:15
Speaker 1: all of that. I think those are small details, but
38:18
Speaker 1: the larger trend lines I'm assuming do continue. They just
38:24
Speaker 1: go in different Look, that doesn't mean that Saddam Mussein
38:31
Speaker 1: wasn't going to fall, and I think you still would
38:33
Speaker 1: have had his fall. There's probably still you know, my
38:36
Speaker 1: guess is Cheney's still kind of interested in finishing the
38:40
Speaker 1: job with with a rock, so that there we deal
38:43
Speaker 1: with the rock sort of the way we've been dealing
38:45
Speaker 1: with Iran. So you know, it's not as if there
38:48
Speaker 1: aren't the potential for some for some foreign policy uh
38:54
Speaker 1: involvement and maybe even involvement that becomes politically less popular
38:59
Speaker 1: in the Middle East. But it's it all obviously looks
39:02
Speaker 1: different and it's all consumed different. So ultimately the conclusion
39:09
Speaker 1: I've come to is at nine to eleven in some
39:11
Speaker 1: ways intensified and accelerated our information consuming culture, and at
39:21
Speaker 1: the same time.
39:22
Speaker 2: It delayed.
39:24
Speaker 1: Our political reckonings that we're going to I think now
39:29
Speaker 1: it's there is that they were gonna come do, and
39:33
Speaker 1: in some ways nine to eleven may have delayed them
39:35
Speaker 1: all about a cycle, right, due to either you know,
39:40
Speaker 1: trying to pump money into the economy or into building
39:43
Speaker 1: up our defenses, which sort of artificially sort of you know,
39:46
Speaker 1: expanded when you're when you're expanding government as fast as
39:48
Speaker 1: they were, you're creating more jobs, you're throwing money into
39:51
Speaker 1: the system. It is sort of it is sort of
39:54
Speaker 1: propping up the you know, having some impact on the economy,
39:57
Speaker 1: so likely delay the financial crisis a bit. So, you know,
40:04
Speaker 1: sort of it's sort of two things can be true
40:07
Speaker 1: at the same time, right, nine to eleven sort of
40:10
Speaker 1: conditioned us to become these information junkies that now in
40:13
Speaker 1: some ways we've allowed it to both consume us and
40:16
Speaker 1: destroy our information ecosystem. But at the same time it
40:19
Speaker 1: delayed the political reckonings that were still in the middle
40:23
Speaker 1: of now this political realignment, which arguably, you know, as
40:26
Speaker 1: I said, you can actually see the very first beginnings
40:30
Speaker 1: of this realignment with the Pat Buchanan challenge.
40:32
Speaker 2: Of George H. W. Bush in ninety two. It is.
40:39
Speaker 1: It's still I still think you see what we're dealing
40:43
Speaker 1: with now, all of it. We may be on the
40:45
Speaker 1: other we have made me have already on the other
40:47
Speaker 1: side of it by then, and who knows, we may
40:51
Speaker 1: not have been as interested in celebrity candidates either, which
40:56
Speaker 1: sort of we came so ultimately without nine eleven. You know,
41:02
Speaker 1: we'd still be the imperfect country that is America, but
41:05
Speaker 1: we might be a bit less frantic, right we might
41:08
Speaker 1: trust our institutions slightly more.
41:11
Speaker 2: Or.
41:15
Speaker 1: Or we may feel the same way, you know, or
41:18
Speaker 1: we may just you know, we may have gotten through
41:22
Speaker 1: this era quicker, and right now we're still not done.
41:27
Speaker 1: I think we're still not through this current realignment that
41:31
Speaker 1: it's clear we're going through. That to me is as
41:33
Speaker 1: much a transition, because we're transitioning from an industrial based
41:36
Speaker 1: economy to a service globally a global service economy, and
41:41
Speaker 1: its globalization, which was an inevitable force that began in
41:45
Speaker 1: the nineties and wasn't going to go away. And in
41:49
Speaker 1: some ways nine to eleven I think just had a
41:53
Speaker 1: huge impact on our psyche, had a huge impact on
41:57
Speaker 1: sort of the perception and role of government and the
42:00
Speaker 1: size of government. But some of these longer trends, it
42:06
Speaker 1: disrupted them for a few years, but it didn't erase them,
42:10
Speaker 1: and it didn't make them go away. So would love
42:15
Speaker 1: your reaction to this one. Like I said, just like
42:19
Speaker 1: I did promise with the other what if I would
42:22
Speaker 1: like to I'm happy to discuss other scenarios that are
42:27
Speaker 1: missing here that I didn't fully get through. I could
42:31
Speaker 1: have gone down a Donald RUMs rabbit rumsfeld rabbit hole.
42:34
Speaker 1: Rumsfeld was going to do some massive Pentagon restructuring before
42:38
Speaker 1: nine to eleven. I think we were going to shrink forces.
42:40
Speaker 1: I think the modernization to become a more nimble military
42:44
Speaker 1: was actually going to take place under a Rumsfeld. I
42:48
Speaker 1: remember a lot of military legacy military folks didn't like
42:52
Speaker 1: what Rumsfeld was planning. But there were a lot of reformers,
42:56
Speaker 1: including people like Bill Clinton, who were very got in
42:58
Speaker 1: the hole about Rumsfeld wanted to do at the Pentagon
43:02
Speaker 1: before nine to eleven. But then nine to eleven happens
43:04
Speaker 1: and all of those plans go away.
43:05
Speaker 2: So there's there's there.
43:07
Speaker 1: That's just one extra thing that that but between you know, immigration,
43:14
Speaker 1: My guess is Bush in his first term, tries to
43:16
Speaker 1: do immigration. You know, that's the big lift. He attempts
43:22
Speaker 1: without a nine to eleven that both his tax cut
43:26
Speaker 1: and his immigration reform. I don't know if he's any
43:29
Speaker 1: more successful, by the way. I don't though without the
43:34
Speaker 1: specter of nine to eleven, maybe there's a little less
43:38
Speaker 1: anger on the right that allows it to pass. But
43:42
Speaker 1: I don't but it probably does nothing to stop the
43:47
Speaker 1: current sort of current structure of where we are in
43:50
Speaker 1: the two parties when it comes to immigration right now
43:53
Speaker 1: in current skepticism. It just means we might have had
43:57
Speaker 1: at least a better set of asylum of laws than
44:01
Speaker 1: we do at the moment. All right, look, this is
44:07
Speaker 1: the last What if I'm going to read you a
44:08
Speaker 1: few that I didn't do, and if you've got stronger
44:12
Speaker 1: feelings about them, make the case of why you think
44:14
Speaker 1: I should spend thirty to forty five minutes. Maybe I
44:17
Speaker 1: can turn a couple of them into podcast time machines.
44:21
Speaker 1: My favorite one. But I was so I didn't have enough.
44:25
Speaker 1: I wasn't as well educated about the issue that I.
44:31
Speaker 1: It was going to be a heavier lift for me.
44:34
Speaker 1: But this one was what if the Greco Turkish War
44:36
Speaker 1: had ended favorably for the Greeks, assuming it survived World
44:39
Speaker 1: War Two? What would the long term ramifications of a
44:41
Speaker 1: modern Greek state spanning southeastern Europe and much of western
44:44
Speaker 1: Anatolia be for regional and world affairs? Would religious tensions
44:48
Speaker 1: be better or worse than they are today? You know,
44:51
Speaker 1: this gets at to you know, what if we had
44:52
Speaker 1: you know what if they're essentially the French and the
44:54
Speaker 1: Brits hadn't tried to create countries out of thin air
44:58
Speaker 1: after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. So I think
45:01
Speaker 1: it's an interesting one. But like I said, I felt
45:05
Speaker 1: like I wasn't ready for this another idea that we
45:10
Speaker 1: looked at, but I couldn't.
45:13
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't really have forty five minutes. What
45:15
Speaker 2: happened to pro boxing? As a kid?
45:16
Speaker 1: I remember watching boxing on Sundays with Dad. That tradition
45:19
Speaker 1: has gone. I feel the same as slowly happening in
45:20
Speaker 1: the NFL. I don't know what what if? To shape
45:23
Speaker 1: around that?
45:24
Speaker 2: Right? Maybe it's what if? What if?
45:32
Speaker 1: What if mister t never does the WWE and we
45:34
Speaker 1: start mixing boxing with entertainment and then mixed martial arts happens.
45:38
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's a it's interesting things. Here's another one.
45:44
Speaker 1: What if Princess Diana had lived, which you have continued
45:47
Speaker 1: reshaping the monarchy?
45:48
Speaker 2: Interesting?
45:49
Speaker 1: What if Nelson Mandela had never been imprisoned? Would the
45:52
Speaker 1: would apartheid have ended sooner? Oruld the anti aparteype movement
45:56
Speaker 1: have actually lost a unifying symbol. That was an interesting one.
46:00
Speaker 1: And again I want to find a good historian to
46:04
Speaker 1: help me out on this one. Here was another fun
46:06
Speaker 1: one that we decided not to do. What if Steve
46:09
Speaker 1: Jobs hadn't been ousted from Apple in nineteen eighty five?
46:12
Speaker 1: Would the personal computing revolution have come sooner? Or would
46:15
Speaker 1: Apple have burned out before the iPhone era? But that's
46:18
Speaker 1: a fun what if that. I think the folks over
46:20
Speaker 1: at the Acquired podcast who have done this might be
46:23
Speaker 1: better suited for if that one. And here's another one
46:26
Speaker 1: that I actually do want to figure out how to
46:29
Speaker 1: do next year. What Malcolm X had lived? Would his
46:35
Speaker 1: partnership or rivalry with Martin Luther King Junior have redefined
46:39
Speaker 1: the Civil rights movement second phase and the rise of
46:42
Speaker 1: black political power in the seventies. Essentially, if both MLK
46:46
Speaker 1: and Malcolm X had lived, would there have been a
46:52
Speaker 1: sort of faster rise in the seventies of black political power.
46:56
Speaker 1: It's an interesting thesis and one that I think is
46:58
Speaker 1: worth worth diving into.
47:03
Speaker 2: And then here's another one.
47:04
Speaker 1: What if Netflix had never pivoted to streaming? Do we
47:06
Speaker 1: still live in the era of binge culture? Or just
47:08
Speaker 1: cable survive longer?
47:09
Speaker 2: Boy?
47:09
Speaker 1: Those things that one I'm not one hundred percent sure of,
47:12
Speaker 1: and I don't think it would have carried a whole thing.
47:15
Speaker 1: But here's another one that I do want to dig
47:17
Speaker 1: into at some point, what if China had democratized in
47:19
Speaker 1: the nineties, how would the global balance of power look today?
47:23
Speaker 1: The only reason I didn't do this one, and it
47:25
Speaker 1: might be worth doing down the road, is I think
47:29
Speaker 1: the conclusion I would have come to if China had
47:31
Speaker 1: democratized in the nineties would have been like, yeah, China
47:35
Speaker 1: would have been Russia, and there'd have been an elected
47:37
Speaker 1: strong man that just sort of stayed strong man of
47:40
Speaker 1: that country that we probably see some combination of Modi
47:46
Speaker 1: in India meets Putin in Russia. That that's what the
47:50
Speaker 1: leadership of China would be. I think what we're I
47:53
Speaker 1: think the thing that I've come to the conclusion under
47:55
Speaker 1: the fall of the Soviet Union and why democracy has
47:58
Speaker 1: been sort of in fits and starts with former and
48:00
Speaker 1: former Soviet republics, is just look at the history of
48:03
Speaker 1: democracies in any country. There are always a fits and starts,
48:06
Speaker 1: and they don't It's not a straight line. It does
48:08
Speaker 1: eventually get there, right, you know, but it you know,
48:11
Speaker 1: it took France a while. It took Germany a while.
48:13
Speaker 1: You know, they had a false start. The women are
48:14
Speaker 1: republican to fall once before they got it, and it
48:18
Speaker 1: took us. But from our you know, it took us
48:22
Speaker 1: from eighteen seventeen seventy six to nineteen sixty five until
48:25
Speaker 1: we gave everybody the right to vote, right, So you
48:27
Speaker 1: know it took us a while as well. So I
48:29
Speaker 1: do think some of these it's hard to do some
48:31
Speaker 1: of these what if I'm democracies around the world because
48:36
Speaker 1: the history of democracy in all of these countries is
48:38
Speaker 1: never a straight line, right, There's sort of this circles,
48:41
Speaker 1: Like if China is a democracy by twenty fifty, tanam
48:45
Speaker 1: and Square is going to be seen as one of
48:46
Speaker 1: the early indicators that China wanted democracy. But if China
48:50
Speaker 1: doesn't get democracy by twenty fifty Tenament Square becomes less
48:53
Speaker 1: and less of irrelevant moment right in the history of China.
48:58
Speaker 1: Just something to be thinking about as you pitch your
49:00
Speaker 1: ideas to me. So I wasn't going to have a guest,
49:10
Speaker 1: but for the for this week, I promised you some
49:15
Speaker 1: one if episodes, some mailbag episodes. We've already delivered one
49:19
Speaker 1: what if actually two, what IF's in one? But my
49:23
Speaker 1: next guest, who, of course is I believe we've we
49:27
Speaker 1: will crown him. He's part of the five time tododcast
49:30
Speaker 1: club here, just like SNL hosts. It's none other than
49:35
Speaker 1: Jonathan Martin. J mart somebody I have known, worked with
49:40
Speaker 1: friends with for thirty plus years. He wrote one of
49:44
Speaker 1: my favorite He wrote an homage to one of my
49:46
Speaker 1: favorite columns from the eighties and nineties, the old Bill
49:50
Speaker 1: Sapphire predictions column. He called it the office pool. All
49:54
Speaker 1: things Bill Sapphire in the New Year used to used
49:58
Speaker 1: to consume us. If I remember back in the day
50:02
Speaker 1: we had you had this column. Then he would go
50:05
Speaker 1: on Nightline and do that prediction panel with Copple. It
50:09
Speaker 1: would always be Sapphire, sometimes modout right, sometimes Peggy Noonan,
50:16
Speaker 1: you know I, but always Sapphire.
50:18
Speaker 2: And he always had a lot of fun with this.
50:20
Speaker 1: So you wrote this column and I thought, I know,
50:23
Speaker 1: Jay Mart's got thirty minutes for me.
50:25
Speaker 2: We've got to We've got to have absolutely, especially the
50:28
Speaker 2: day after New Year's Day, which is a big day
50:30
Speaker 2: in New Orleans. Uh yeah, for a lot of reasons.
50:33
Speaker 1: So well, we are taping on the second that's going
50:35
Speaker 1: to drop on the first sort of working Monday of
50:39
Speaker 1: the year. But let's go through it. Look, I've said this,
50:43
Speaker 1: we all have crutches. Around the end of the year.
50:45
Speaker 1: You have your best of lists two years winners and losers, Right, I.
50:51
Speaker 2: Do what ifs like we all have a thing you you,
50:55
Speaker 2: But it really is the topics you sort of hit
50:57
Speaker 2: on sixteen topics that you I was going to get
51:00
Speaker 2: covered this year.
51:01
Speaker 1: You have a little fun obviously, but I'm guessing there
51:09
Speaker 1: were a few topics you hit on first and foremost
51:13
Speaker 1: that you really wanted to make a point about, and
51:15
Speaker 1: then there were others that you had to like, well
51:17
Speaker 1: I need more items in here.
51:19
Speaker 2: So.
51:20
Speaker 1: Right, we all get it, right, So give me your
51:24
Speaker 1: of these sixteen What was the one you were like
51:26
Speaker 1: the first couple that were like, this is my obsession
51:29
Speaker 1: and why I wanted to crank out this column.
51:31
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting. It's going to like, you know, the
51:34
Speaker 2: hardest writing sometimes is the shortest writing. And I could
51:38
Speaker 2: have done twenty five pretty easily, right, it would have
51:42
Speaker 2: been it would have been hard to done like just five.
51:45
Speaker 2: I did sixteen because I felt like I had fifteen,
51:48
Speaker 2: and then like, well, it's twenty twenty six, and if
51:50
Speaker 2: I do sixteen, I could have fun with a sports question.
51:53
Speaker 2: So I lossed in Elaine kiffn question there in the end. Well,
51:58
Speaker 2: the ones that I think Chucker's screen obvious are what
52:01
Speaker 2: is Trump got a name after himself? Next? Right? I
52:04
Speaker 2: mean this is less of presidency than it is a
52:08
Speaker 2: victory lap of somebody who is presence in public life
52:12
Speaker 2: is entirely about validation and affirmation more than a day's
52:17
Speaker 2: really any substantive accomplishment. It's about recognition, right, which has
52:21
Speaker 2: been Trump's identity for fifty years as he wants to be.
52:25
Speaker 1: You've got to say he's been consumed with this arguably
52:27
Speaker 1: his entirety.
52:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's never on the merriat, it's never on subs.
52:31
Speaker 2: It's just am I one of life's winners? And so like,
52:34
Speaker 2: of course he's spending his days like building homage to
52:39
Speaker 2: himself and like quite literally monuments to himself and renaming
52:43
Speaker 2: everything he can after himself, because that's the whole ballgame. Right.
52:48
Speaker 1: What I find it weirdly impressive is that he picks
52:52
Speaker 1: things to put his name on that if you're a
52:56
Speaker 1: Trump opponent and you obsess over too much. In some ways,
53:01
Speaker 1: you look like you're obsessed with the superficial right, the
53:05
Speaker 1: Institute of Peace, the Kennedy Center, the ball right. It's
53:09
Speaker 1: absurd that he's obsessed with this. And if you're a
53:13
Speaker 1: Democratic member of Congress, you're an idiot if you want
53:16
Speaker 1: to line up oversight hearings about it too.
53:19
Speaker 2: Right, right, because then you're dragged down to his well right.
53:24
Speaker 2: I'm reminded of last fall when he got up there
53:28
Speaker 2: on the campaign tron of Pennsylvania and was talking about,
53:30
Speaker 2: you know, Arnold Palmer's endowment, and it was like, you know, Democrats, like,
53:35
Speaker 2: how do you ignore it?
53:36
Speaker 1: But at the same time, no, it's it is, and
53:39
Speaker 1: and that that's weirdly his genius in how he does this,
53:44
Speaker 1: which is why it ends up happening like exactly, you're thinking,
53:47
Speaker 1: like the Institute of Peace like one of the cooler
53:51
Speaker 1: buildings that you come into DC. Now it's it's sort
53:53
Speaker 1: of I've always I've been I've always been impressed with
53:56
Speaker 1: the architecture of it, and i've been you know, you know,
53:59
Speaker 1: it's like cleaned up that whole part of Constitution Avenue.
54:03
Speaker 1: And I don't even think he knows why Congress endowed
54:05
Speaker 1: the building in the first place.
54:08
Speaker 2: Of course, not besides the point, totally beside the point.
54:12
Speaker 2: So he just needed I did the Trump. I just
54:17
Speaker 2: think I'm of the view that Trump should be covered
54:20
Speaker 2: with the level of seriousness, that he takes the job right,
54:23
Speaker 2: and he doesn't make the job very seriously. Like why
54:26
Speaker 2: he can't be bothered to do the basis about any
54:29
Speaker 2: policy issue, any foreign leader, he barely knows their names.
54:32
Speaker 2: He says the same thing with every foreign leader. A
54:34
Speaker 2: great guy, doing a great job. We get along really
54:37
Speaker 2: really well, it's all interchangeable. He just wants to like
54:42
Speaker 2: do the public facing aspects of the job that get
54:44
Speaker 2: him attention, notoriety and affirmation. So like that's what he's about. Now.
54:49
Speaker 2: That's not to say that there's other elements of his
54:52
Speaker 2: presidency that are deadly serious, those carried about by carried
54:57
Speaker 2: out by his lieutenants. That dude demand intent scrutiny.
55:01
Speaker 1: All right, So let's pick what's he gonna name after himself?
55:07
Speaker 2: What do you think I mean?
55:09
Speaker 1: I'm impressed with the you know, cherry picking Dallas Airport.
55:13
Speaker 1: There isn't a big constituency to protect Alan Dallas, right,
55:17
Speaker 1: So I think I think if he really wants to
55:20
Speaker 1: vince this named after him. You know, it's the most
55:23
Speaker 1: hated airport in the region, unless we say who hates
55:26
Speaker 1: b w I uh, it's equally as much because of
55:30
Speaker 1: the false advertising of the w in it. It is
55:32
Speaker 1: not nowhere near Washington. But that's my pet peeve. But
55:36
Speaker 1: everybody hates Dollas. Everybody hates Dollas. Okay, name tru you
55:40
Speaker 1: want that on your.
55:41
Speaker 2: Go ahead, buddy, it's coming on the back door troll, right,
55:44
Speaker 2: It's a back door troll. He is, like, you know,
55:47
Speaker 2: those in the know would get that Trump being named
55:49
Speaker 2: after Dollas actually is not omas right, right, right? Yeah?
55:54
Speaker 1: Is that your assumption or what you do? What do
55:56
Speaker 1: you think he tries?
55:56
Speaker 2: No, I think he'll be tempted to do doll It
55:58
Speaker 2: would drive me if you try to grab Ellis. But
56:02
Speaker 2: I think that the two hundred and fifty eighth anniversary
56:05
Speaker 2: of the country and the construction of the arc, the
56:07
Speaker 2: Trump that he's going to build across Memorial Bridge between
56:13
Speaker 2: the Lincoln Memorial and the Custosly Mansion, I think that
56:17
Speaker 2: temptation will lead him to just make that bridge, which
56:20
Speaker 2: nobody really knows the name of that bridge, but it's
56:22
Speaker 2: a memorial bridge. Just call it the Trump Bridge.
56:25
Speaker 1: Interesting, you know, I want to you know, one of
56:28
Speaker 1: the things about him that I think it's an un
56:31
Speaker 1: This is an uncomfortable fact when I bring it up
56:33
Speaker 1: to people, because they don't want to believe. They don't
56:36
Speaker 1: want to believe. But do you know who Trump is
56:38
Speaker 1: most like? I think of previous presidents, it really is
56:42
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt in in how he Teddy was obsessed with
56:47
Speaker 1: his legacy. Teddy was constantly very comfortable with stuff being
56:52
Speaker 1: named after him.
56:53
Speaker 2: I mean, my.
56:53
Speaker 1: Gott he had his picture etched. That was the only
56:57
Speaker 1: way Mount Rushmore happened. You're like, wait a minute, Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington,
57:00
Speaker 1: and you right, it's always been, you know, and like
57:04
Speaker 1: the longer we've gone, we've decided that Teddy legacy now
57:08
Speaker 1: sort of lives it. But you're like, we probably have
57:10
Speaker 1: the wrong Roosevelt on the Mount Rushmore, not even close, right, right?
57:15
Speaker 1: And yet you know, I I when I bring up
57:19
Speaker 1: how actually narcissistic Teddy was and how Trump is really
57:23
Speaker 1: most emblematic to him, it makes people uncomfortable because we
57:28
Speaker 1: want to like Teddy.
57:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, and because Roosevelt is somehow part of the American spirit.
57:35
Speaker 2: Bully Great Eastern went West, And isn't Trump very much
57:40
Speaker 2: a part of the American spirit that not everybody loves? Yeah, present,
57:47
Speaker 2: you know, I've always felt that Trump is less of
57:49
Speaker 2: a political archetype and more of a a pop culture archetype. P. T. Barnum,
57:56
Speaker 2: that he's a modern He's PT. Barnum, He's Buffalo Bill. Yeah,
58:00
Speaker 2: he's He's the traveling salesman coming through town on the
58:03
Speaker 2: medicine wagon. It's always been a part of American culture.
58:07
Speaker 1: It was just we've always had when Charles Lindberg, we
58:10
Speaker 1: can keep going, and just none of them ever became president.
58:13
Speaker 2: He's the first one that ever became. We always had
58:15
Speaker 2: a huckster element that people kind of like in our
58:19
Speaker 2: pop culture, right, you know what people was saying about
58:22
Speaker 2: Sucker is born every minute. I mean, I just this
58:25
Speaker 2: is an old story in American life that Trump has
58:28
Speaker 2: updated for the TV age and now the digital age,
58:32
Speaker 2: but it's not new to Trump. Yeah.
58:34
Speaker 1: I think the thing that people like you and I
58:36
Speaker 1: got wrong about him is I think we thought the
58:39
Speaker 1: country wasn't susceptible to a huckster like That's right, and
58:42
Speaker 1: it turns out, yeah, we are, you know, right, It
58:46
Speaker 1: turns out we weren't.
58:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, we thought that there was a salt water freshwater
58:49
Speaker 2: division between our politics and our pop culture, and it
58:52
Speaker 2: turns out it was bracketish. Right.
58:54
Speaker 1: One of your other questions you put out their predictions,
58:57
Speaker 1: et cetera, is a Supreme Court seat opening. I fully
59:01
Speaker 1: believe this too. You know, if you if you're looking
59:04
Speaker 1: for political pressure points to try to goose Republican turnout,
59:09
Speaker 1: and you look at what happened in ninety eight I
59:11
Speaker 1: mean in eighteen, Excuse me, I mean, you know, without
59:14
Speaker 1: the Kavanaugh nomination, maybe Democrats hang on to two Senate seats.
59:20
Speaker 1: You know, maybe mccaskell finds.
59:21
Speaker 2: A way to win.
59:22
Speaker 1: Like she will say, the Kavanaugh fight that happened essentially
59:27
Speaker 1: four weeks before election day galvanized the right and really
59:31
Speaker 1: fired them up. If I were sitting in the white
59:35
Speaker 1: West wing looking to goose Republican turnout for the midterms,
59:38
Speaker 1: a Supreme Court fight this summer, you know, would be
59:42
Speaker 1: would would be what something I would order up after
59:46
Speaker 1: trying the redistricting gambit, which looks like it's going to
59:49
Speaker 1: end up if Virginia goes through with what they do,
59:52
Speaker 1: we can end up actually a net negative for Republicans.
59:55
Speaker 1: But so which one of them goes? Does he bully
59:58
Speaker 1: Alito out or is it Thomas?
1:00:00
Speaker 2: It feels like Alito is the more likely one, you know,
1:00:06
Speaker 2: that's what. But I've kind of heard through the grape
1:00:08
Speaker 2: y And also he's got a clerk. He's creak here.
1:00:12
Speaker 1: I mean, you could tell the whole flag thing. He
1:00:14
Speaker 1: doesn't love being a like. It's clear that he and
1:00:17
Speaker 1: his wife aren't on the same page on this, like
1:00:19
Speaker 1: one wants to be a public figure whatever it is.
1:00:22
Speaker 1: They're just sort of and he is of the age
1:00:25
Speaker 1: of like, you know, but I keep hearing Thomas is
1:00:27
Speaker 1: done and ready to get in the RV and you know,
1:00:31
Speaker 1: maybe go go to Georgia bulldog games.
1:00:34
Speaker 2: It's clearly one of those two. I think it's just
1:00:38
Speaker 2: a matter of which one it is. And especially if
1:00:42
Speaker 2: Trump's numbers by let's say the first of March, if
1:00:46
Speaker 2: Trump's approval is down thirty one thirty two percent nationally, boy,
1:00:51
Speaker 2: I think the pressure is going to be really intense
1:00:53
Speaker 2: on one or both of them.
1:00:55
Speaker 1: Because if you don't get then you're looking a bit
1:00:58
Speaker 1: ter RBG right right wing Rbach six. Yeah, yeah, no,
1:01:04
Speaker 1: I'm I am. I'm one of those who believes that
1:01:08
Speaker 1: Democratic chances of winning the Senate are going to seem
1:01:12
Speaker 1: a lot more realistic come October of the calendar year.
1:01:16
Speaker 2: It's so much like two thousand and six. And that's
1:01:18
Speaker 2: I completely agree.
1:01:20
Speaker 1: I think, you know, late developing races, but we're going
1:01:24
Speaker 1: to see I don't know if it's Mississippi, Kansas, or
1:01:27
Speaker 1: Iowa maybe you know, maybe all of them, right, but
1:01:29
Speaker 1: we're going to see We're going to see more competitive
1:01:34
Speaker 1: races pop up in some places we haven't been thinking about,
1:01:38
Speaker 1: or maybe you and I have been thinking about them
1:01:40
Speaker 1: but haven't percolated just yet.
1:01:43
Speaker 2: This is notable, hasn't gotten a ton of attention. But
1:01:46
Speaker 2: in Nebraska, the same Indie Dan Osborne who ran AM
1:01:50
Speaker 2: against dem Fisher and lost, you know, ran a solid campaign,
1:01:56
Speaker 2: is running this time with the benefit of having the
1:02:00
Speaker 2: Democratic Party of Nebraska's TACIT support. And they ain't it
1:02:03
Speaker 2: the last I'd argue at it the last time too,
1:02:05
Speaker 2: But they're not going to run somebody on the ball.
1:02:08
Speaker 2: They didn't run somebody in the filet last time, and
1:02:09
Speaker 2: that's what they did. I thought they felt the same.
1:02:12
Speaker 2: But like even even a sort of like Joe six
1:02:15
Speaker 2: pack running with the dat label is not going to happen,
1:02:17
Speaker 2: which could drain eight percent of the vote, is what
1:02:20
Speaker 2: I'm saying. You know, true, But I don't know.
1:02:21
Speaker 1: If you you're like me, you will watch any Bowl
1:02:24
Speaker 1: game that's on TV. And I watched the Nebraska Utah game,
1:02:28
Speaker 1: and you know what, I saw a lot of I
1:02:29
Speaker 1: saw a lot of Pete Rickett's advertising, just very positive ads,
1:02:34
Speaker 1: just sort of like, hey, I'm doing what deb Fisher
1:02:38
Speaker 1: never did, which remind people that I'm your United States senator.
1:02:41
Speaker 2: He's got money to do. Deb Fisher didn't spend.
1:02:45
Speaker 1: I am a I am a skeptic of this race
1:02:49
Speaker 1: because it's hard to do this. It's hard to be
1:02:51
Speaker 1: an insurgent.
1:02:52
Speaker 2: Twice, it is. It's also a little harder, I think
1:02:57
Speaker 2: for a Democrat to win a Trump cycle. What Trump's
1:03:00
Speaker 2: on top of the ticket, you know, true, and this
1:03:03
Speaker 2: time he won't be I hear I say. You know,
1:03:06
Speaker 2: it's funny. Deb Fisher was the more vulnerable.
1:03:08
Speaker 1: You know, if you think about it, like antelopes, Like right,
1:03:11
Speaker 1: you know when the dinosaurs or the or the cheetahs
1:03:14
Speaker 1: are going to take the weakest, you know, the slowest
1:03:17
Speaker 1: antelope in the herd. Right, Fisher's slower than Rickets because.
1:03:21
Speaker 2: Of the right. But Osborne could could lose by four
1:03:26
Speaker 2: and Jasmin Crockett could lose by seven. So there you go, truck.
1:03:32
Speaker 2: I got to get into the jasmine craft. By the way,
1:03:34
Speaker 2: speaking of Trump not being on top of the ticket,
1:03:37
Speaker 2: and I think that that can't be over emphasized enough
1:03:40
Speaker 2: in these Senate races right where Kenadas have relied on
1:03:44
Speaker 2: that looks Susan Collins wins in twenty twenty and a
1:03:48
Speaker 2: Trump in a Trump cycle. Even though Trump loses nationally
1:03:51
Speaker 2: and loses Maine, Trump still wins the second congressional district
1:03:56
Speaker 2: and drives out a lot of voters in Maine that
1:03:58
Speaker 2: voted for Collins. Are those folks coming out this time?
1:04:00
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know, tru North Carolina? You know
1:04:05
Speaker 2: Trump drives world turnout, right, Are those folks that come
1:04:09
Speaker 2: out from Michael Wantley in a midterm cycle in North Carolina?
1:04:13
Speaker 1: Look, I'm skeptical of Ashley Moody in Florida. The Democrats
1:04:16
Speaker 1: just haven't found in challenge, right, you know, I'm skeptical
1:04:19
Speaker 1: of of Sydney Hyde. Smith and Mississippi. You know, there
1:04:24
Speaker 1: are a lot of these weaker and look, I think,
1:04:27
Speaker 1: by the way, I'm surprised.
1:04:29
Speaker 2: You didn't do this one.
1:04:31
Speaker 1: So I think the Cynthia Lummus retirement is intriguing in
1:04:37
Speaker 1: which Trump adjacent carpetbagger is going to float running in
1:04:45
Speaker 1: that race. And you know one of my favorite rumors
1:04:49
Speaker 1: that I had, that that I had like it was like,
1:04:53
Speaker 1: you know the chatter, yet you trust you know the
1:04:55
Speaker 1: chatter that you trust that Junior was very interested in
1:04:59
Speaker 1: a Wyoming Yeah.
1:05:00
Speaker 2: I heard that last year.
1:05:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, And suddenly when that Lumbus retirement happened, I went up,
1:05:07
Speaker 1: this is how it would happen. And given how easily
1:05:11
Speaker 1: the Trump Trump folks took over the Wyoming Republican Party,
1:05:14
Speaker 1: I mean just asked Liz Cheney, I wouldn't roll it out.
1:05:17
Speaker 1: And then suddenly you have vance junior.
1:05:22
Speaker 2: Ticket ready to go. I don't think that's done yet.
1:05:25
Speaker 2: I heard that chatter the early part of twenty twenty five,
1:05:28
Speaker 2: like January February twenty five, I guess a year ago.
1:05:32
Speaker 2: Now got them flies And I checked it out and
1:05:35
Speaker 2: nobody out there had had heard of it, but Hageman
1:05:41
Speaker 2: jumped in immediately got Trump's endorsement. That feels like a
1:05:43
Speaker 2: done deal. I did hear for the junkies will love this.
1:05:47
Speaker 2: Foster Freeze, the lakes owner late he just passed away
1:05:51
Speaker 2: right this year, a year or two ago. His son
1:05:53
Speaker 2: apparently still lives around Jackson Hole. I think his son's
1:05:56
Speaker 2: sniffing it either well, it would be now the gun
1:05:58
Speaker 2: Jackson whole Carpetbager have always, you know, always there's got
1:06:02
Speaker 2: to be one of that. There's gotta be Sometimes you
1:06:04
Speaker 2: get fully rejected, right and sometimes Look, Liz Chaney wanted
1:06:08
Speaker 2: to come in early, remember she wanted to be a
1:06:10
Speaker 2: senator first, and was sort of ready to put bully
1:06:14
Speaker 2: out Mike Enzi, and it didn't work. It was one
1:06:18
Speaker 2: of the most fun stories I wrote for The Times
1:06:20
Speaker 2: in my ten years. There was in the summer of
1:06:22
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen. I spent a day with the late Mike Enzi.
1:06:26
Speaker 2: God loved me. He was a sweet mam. He was
1:06:29
Speaker 2: doing the town hall tour. Imagine that town hall tour
1:06:33
Speaker 2: by himself down the eastern spine of Wyoming. I followed
1:06:37
Speaker 2: them all the day to these small little towns, and
1:06:39
Speaker 2: I ended the day in a town called Lusk, Wyoming
1:06:41
Speaker 2: great date line, and after the town hall ended, he
1:06:45
Speaker 2: finally said, I got some time for you, and I'll
1:06:47
Speaker 2: come over and pull up a chair. It could have
1:06:49
Speaker 2: been nicer. And I said, Senator, I hear some chatter
1:06:53
Speaker 2: that Liz Cheney's thinking about coming home to primary you.
1:06:57
Speaker 2: And he said, oh, that's so interesting. You know, she
1:06:59
Speaker 2: actually called me last week about that, and my face
1:07:03
Speaker 2: just you know what white. It's like one of those
1:07:06
Speaker 2: moments were like you look down at your caper cord,
1:07:09
Speaker 2: like make sure it's on. Oh she did, Senator tell
1:07:12
Speaker 2: me about that. He totally dropped the dime on her
1:07:15
Speaker 2: and and basically flushed her out before she wanted to
1:07:18
Speaker 2: announce her challenge to Enzie. But you're right that there's
1:07:22
Speaker 2: a lot of the you know, the money types. Now,
1:07:24
Speaker 2: the changes are different because obviously Dick and Lynn grew
1:07:27
Speaker 2: up in Casper, but there's always that element in especially
1:07:30
Speaker 2: around Jackson Hole, of folks that have money who want
1:07:33
Speaker 2: to run. I was joking with a friend of mine.
1:07:36
Speaker 2: I said, I said, I think Titan Village needs a
1:07:39
Speaker 2: voice in Washington. Uh, And my friend said, Titan Village
1:07:42
Speaker 2: is doing just fine in Washington. Trust me.
1:07:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just gonna say, I think they having
1:07:47
Speaker 1: a nice red these days, going back to Supreme Court.
1:07:56
Speaker 1: I love your I love your four nominees. Uh, hero Oldman,
1:08:01
Speaker 1: Aleen Cannon, Ted Cruz. So this the machiavellian in me
1:08:08
Speaker 1: says it'll be Ted Cruz to eliminate him as a
1:08:11
Speaker 1: vance primary opponent.
1:08:13
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, you know, that'd be the vance
1:08:15
Speaker 2: preference exactly to get Cruse Cruise out of the Senate
1:08:18
Speaker 2: onto the Court. I think Trump is so taken with
1:08:23
Speaker 2: these traditional credentials of Harvard clerkships, you know, federalist society,
1:08:30
Speaker 2: this and that, and this young fellow not young, but
1:08:34
Speaker 2: he's forty seven.
1:08:35
Speaker 3: Uh.
1:08:36
Speaker 2: Andrew Oldham is on a circuit now uh down in Austin, Texas,
1:08:42
Speaker 2: playing the game right, and he's he was He was
1:08:44
Speaker 2: an Alito clerk, Chuck Sam with a Cavanaugh was a
1:08:48
Speaker 2: clerk for oh God, Stanford, Tony Kennedy. You know, I
1:08:56
Speaker 2: just think that this makes the most sense. But you're right,
1:08:58
Speaker 2: Cruse would be the play if it was Banta's call
1:09:04
Speaker 2: back to the actually Moody race. By the way, but
1:09:06
Speaker 2: you mentioned actually movie there are a couple of people here.
1:09:09
Speaker 2: She's not crazy about the job. By the way, she
1:09:11
Speaker 2: doesn't love it, sort of got pushed it, talked into it.
1:09:15
Speaker 2: I've heard, like I said.
1:09:16
Speaker 1: I, I've just heard some interesting chatter that she may
1:09:20
Speaker 1: not be long for that seat even if she wins
1:09:23
Speaker 1: the like she may finish the term but not seek
1:09:26
Speaker 1: the full six.
1:09:27
Speaker 2: I think one of the most under reported storylines of
1:09:30
Speaker 2: the mid term cycle are the two appointees who are
1:09:34
Speaker 2: basically anonymous in d C and don't get any attention
1:09:38
Speaker 2: in the national press. John Hewa and Houstead in Ohio, right,
1:09:41
Speaker 2: and actually Moody in Florida. Here are these two states
1:09:44
Speaker 2: that you know, in this century were like the pre
1:09:47
Speaker 2: eminent battleground states. They're red tilted. Now, I get that,
1:09:50
Speaker 2: But you have two appointees with not much of a
1:09:53
Speaker 2: profile in d C. Now Houston has more a profile
1:09:56
Speaker 2: back home in Ohio because he was in politics so long.
1:09:59
Speaker 2: But I just think that there's so much ink spilled
1:10:02
Speaker 2: shock on the Texas Senate race. And then I can
1:10:05
Speaker 2: just rank thembout this for an hour. I know the
1:10:08
Speaker 2: pol you know what Texas sat.
1:10:10
Speaker 1: Remember remember my rants of two thousand about the damn
1:10:14
Speaker 1: New York Senate race, and we kept covering Clinton Lazio
1:10:18
Speaker 1: as if it was competitive, and it's like, this race
1:10:20
Speaker 1: is not competitive, And the only thing national reporters wanted
1:10:26
Speaker 1: to cover in the Senate was the Hillary Clinton Center ration.
1:10:29
Speaker 2: You like, guys, that's not competitive.
1:10:30
Speaker 1: See the rams and let's go to two. Let's that
1:10:35
Speaker 1: was a real race, Mark Dayton and Rod grahams, Yeah,
1:10:40
Speaker 1: I w stabanow Man. Now I would argue this Ken
1:10:45
Speaker 1: Paxton and Jasmine Crocketts the Senate race our politics deserves, yes,
1:10:50
Speaker 1: and in some ways I'd like it, you know, let's
1:10:54
Speaker 1: have it out. And I don't know.
1:10:57
Speaker 2: Who would win that. I really don't, you know.
1:11:01
Speaker 1: I think you would assume that it's Texas, and then
1:11:04
Speaker 1: an African American woman's kind of a harder time winning
1:11:08
Speaker 1: than a nail. But Paxton is so corrupt, is so
1:11:12
Speaker 1: corrupted an anti woman that I don't rule anything up.
1:11:17
Speaker 2: What percent of like Democratic donors activists could even tell
1:11:21
Speaker 2: you the name of the incumbent senator in Ohio where
1:11:25
Speaker 2: they've got a much fitter shot, I would argue to
1:11:28
Speaker 2: win a race than in Texas. It's incredible, like you
1:11:30
Speaker 2: have Sharon Brown running a state, think he's won elections
1:11:33
Speaker 2: in for half century against an appointee, it gets next
1:11:36
Speaker 2: to no buzz. Anyways, that's just my ram hell. I
1:11:39
Speaker 2: would say even Roy Cooper, the former tutor and governor
1:11:42
Speaker 2: of North Carolina, that race gets oddly little attention. I
1:11:47
Speaker 2: think it's the political hobbyist culture that's taken over the internet. Right,
1:11:51
Speaker 2: So everything is about Platiner in Maine, or now it's
1:11:54
Speaker 2: Tall Rico and Crockett in Texas, like the less sexy races,
1:11:59
Speaker 2: whether it's you said in Ohio against Brown or uper Care.
1:12:05
Speaker 1: Don't you think it's the obsession of trying to find
1:12:09
Speaker 1: like these. You know, you're like, well, we missed keep Boodhages,
1:12:12
Speaker 1: we missed Ted Cruz, right, and they both were the
1:12:15
Speaker 1: next avatar? Yeah, who's the next you know, one of those?
1:12:18
Speaker 1: And everybody's constantly looking for that, right, is it? Graham
1:12:21
Speaker 1: Platner right, is exactly?
1:12:23
Speaker 3: Is it?
1:12:24
Speaker 2: Also there's there's the forever Hillary Bernie proxy war too, right,
1:12:29
Speaker 2: which will never never end, right, And so that's part.
1:12:32
Speaker 1: Of well, now it really is just Bernie's proxy war
1:12:34
Speaker 1: with everybody.
1:12:37
Speaker 2: Right, He's still rocking that same jacket and glove I saw,
1:12:41
Speaker 2: you know, you know.
1:12:41
Speaker 1: I tell you that you know the campaign we never had,
1:12:44
Speaker 1: and I thought about, Look, I went through my my
1:12:47
Speaker 1: the what if that I dropped earlier this week was
1:12:51
Speaker 1: what if I did it? I did it at two parter.
1:12:55
Speaker 1: It was essentially what if trumpet either conceded normally in
1:12:58
Speaker 1: twenty twenty or what if Trump had won in twenty twenty.
1:13:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, And.
1:13:06
Speaker 1: I really was, you know, when I when I went
1:13:08
Speaker 1: through the exercise, what the most fascinating thing was actually
1:13:11
Speaker 1: realizing how much January sixth really changed Biden and Ron
1:13:17
Speaker 1: Klaine and how they conducted that presidency, you know, and
1:13:20
Speaker 1: how much it changed everything because there's not a Democratic Senate.
1:13:23
Speaker 1: If there's no if if Trump doesn't do what he does,
1:13:26
Speaker 1: like I'm convinced that Georgia goes at least one in
1:13:29
Speaker 1: one doesn't go both in directions Democrats? And what is
1:13:33
Speaker 1: the Joe Biden agenda with a Republican Senate? Right, it
1:13:36
Speaker 1: is a completely different presidency.
1:13:39
Speaker 2: And who knows deals? Right McConnell and Biden are doing deals.
1:13:45
Speaker 2: There are Democrats will privately tell you they regret the
1:13:48
Speaker 2: day January fifth, twenty.
1:13:50
Speaker 1: January fifth was a huge it that ruined Biden didn't
1:13:55
Speaker 1: run to be that president. He ran to be the
1:13:58
Speaker 1: transformational let's settle down, and in some ways the only
1:14:03
Speaker 1: way that could be successful is if you had divided government,
1:14:06
Speaker 1: and not having divided government almost forced them to well,
1:14:10
Speaker 1: we better try to go big now, because how often
1:14:13
Speaker 1: do you get this?
1:14:14
Speaker 2: You know? And by the way, nobody will will be.
1:14:17
Speaker 3: More about this than one term due to Biden's collapsing
1:14:24
Speaker 3: numbers in the fall of twenty twenty one, because of
1:14:28
Speaker 3: in part.
1:14:28
Speaker 2: Well because Afghanis stand in part, but also because of
1:14:30
Speaker 2: Biden's vaulting ambitions. And by the way, the day after
1:14:34
Speaker 2: that twenty twenty one election, I had an up and
1:14:36
Speaker 2: coming Democrat tell me, mister President Nobody, I'd like you
1:14:41
Speaker 2: to be Franklin Roosevelt. We wanted to make where's that
1:14:44
Speaker 2: up becoming democrats. A Democrat's name was Aving abig elst
1:14:47
Speaker 2: Bamberger Governor. I'll lack to have Agails Bamberger.
1:14:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's she's almost the governor. We're only a few
1:14:53
Speaker 1: days away on that one. A few other things from
1:14:57
Speaker 1: your prediction column, Uh, the next place, what's the next place?
1:15:03
Speaker 1: He's ordering airstrikes and your choices are Venezuela ran again Russia.
1:15:07
Speaker 1: And then you have some fun with Canada, but I
1:15:11
Speaker 1: want to single out Aroan and I'm going to have
1:15:13
Speaker 1: a guest on this in a in about ten days.
1:15:15
Speaker 1: But I think when when I think about the stories
1:15:18
Speaker 1: that I'm trying to prepare for that not a lot
1:15:20
Speaker 1: of people are focused on. I think the I think
1:15:23
Speaker 1: the regime is going to collapse in Iran. It's I
1:15:26
Speaker 1: was in Abu Dhabi a couple of weeks ago at
1:15:29
Speaker 1: a journalism conference there. People that are going in and
1:15:33
Speaker 1: out of Tehran are just it's co and you know
1:15:36
Speaker 1: Abu Dhabi has a huge Iranian diaspora. It is all
1:15:40
Speaker 1: the buzz that the regimes days are number now.
1:15:44
Speaker 2: You know.
1:15:44
Speaker 1: Look, it's like with a sod in Syria. You knew
1:15:48
Speaker 1: it was going to happen. You just is it today?
1:15:51
Speaker 1: Is it next year? Is it five years?
1:15:53
Speaker 2: But it was gonna there was no way this was sustainable.
1:15:56
Speaker 1: And you know the lack of running water in Tehran
1:15:59
Speaker 1: is going to blow this regime up? Is it in
1:16:02
Speaker 1: twenty six? And what does Trump do? Who will probably
1:16:07
Speaker 1: want a little bit of credit when it happens on
1:16:08
Speaker 1: his watch, right, I.
1:16:11
Speaker 2: He'll probably name the airport in Toronto for himself. Exactly. No. Yeah, Look,
1:16:16
Speaker 2: presidencies are always about the unexpected events, right, and that's
1:16:20
Speaker 2: the maximum our times. And I mean nobody would have
1:16:23
Speaker 2: guessed that the second Trump residency could be defined by,
1:16:26
Speaker 2: right though, the fall of the Ayatola but and the
1:16:31
Speaker 2: regime that has governed her on for the last forty
1:16:33
Speaker 2: five years, but totally plausible.
1:16:35
Speaker 1: Oh, Chris, you want to talk about reshaping the Middle East,
1:16:39
Speaker 1: You have a we have a demo semi democratic regime
1:16:42
Speaker 1: in Iran. I mean, it's going to be fascinating, it's
1:16:50
Speaker 1: you know it, we really could finally resolve World War One.
1:16:54
Speaker 2: Yeah. And also I mean it takes a massive sponsor
1:17:02
Speaker 2: of terrorism, you know, off the map really does, uh,
1:17:06
Speaker 2: and also undermines the broader access between a lot of
1:17:11
Speaker 2: these countries who are obviously set against the West, Russia.
1:17:15
Speaker 1: And the irony is that the only person staying in
1:17:17
Speaker 1: the way for a stable bit of last might be
1:17:19
Speaker 1: bebing Net in Yahoo. Right after that point, that he
1:17:22
Speaker 1: could be seen as the most unstable force, not not
1:17:25
Speaker 1: his his government, not the country, but his government. And
1:17:29
Speaker 1: also it also seems unsettled. He does seem a little
1:17:33
Speaker 1: unsettled about all this. Suddenly, Oh, Trump's gonna cut deals
1:17:39
Speaker 1: with Syria now, and Trump's gonna cut deals all over
1:17:41
Speaker 1: the like, and you know he'll do it with Iran
1:17:43
Speaker 1: if there's a new regime in Iran. Look how openly
1:17:46
Speaker 1: been and of course he would a lot of It also.
1:17:49
Speaker 2: Makes you wonder how the Saladies react. But you know,
1:17:52
Speaker 2: if there's a you know, if if the major Shei
1:17:55
Speaker 2: country in the region suddenly has a vacuum, what does
1:17:59
Speaker 2: nb S do? Uh? How does he operate?
1:18:02
Speaker 1: And I think UAE out maneuvers them in Iran. Part
1:18:06
Speaker 1: of it is just because they, like I said, there's
1:18:08
Speaker 1: a big Iranian diaspora and yeah, yeah, with money.
1:18:13
Speaker 2: It's fascinating. No, it is, and it's going to be
1:18:16
Speaker 2: Look do I think Venezuela.
1:18:17
Speaker 1: Look, I think Venezuela could become a real political problem
1:18:21
Speaker 1: for Trump because this is the pottery barn rule.
1:18:24
Speaker 2: Right.
1:18:24
Speaker 1: If we're going to keep bombing on land, yes, and
1:18:28
Speaker 1: we succeed, are we walking away from rebuilding Caracas?
1:18:31
Speaker 2: I don't think so. Also, h Steven Miller, pick up
1:18:36
Speaker 2: your phone, because if you if you create some kind
1:18:41
Speaker 2: of regime change in Venezuela and you've got a flight
1:18:44
Speaker 2: of venezuelans. Uh. You know into the US well of
1:18:47
Speaker 2: the history of countries that we meddle in is that
1:18:50
Speaker 2: a lot of folks from those countries come to our country. Right, So,
1:18:54
Speaker 2: speaking of great historical ironies, the uh, the Mark Ruby
1:18:58
Speaker 2: of venezuel policy could be the Steven Miller nightmare. Right.
1:19:01
Speaker 1: Well, I've often wondered, I feel like Rubio. Look, we know,
1:19:05
Speaker 1: Rubio's the architect of all this, right, And I've often
1:19:09
Speaker 1: thought that Rubio, I hope he realizes that the second
1:19:14
Speaker 1: things go wrong, he's the fall guy, right Like. I
1:19:19
Speaker 1: don't know when Rubio's time with Trump comes to an end,
1:19:23
Speaker 1: but I think I know what it's over. Yeah, And
1:19:27
Speaker 1: at some point when Trump has to blame somebody else
1:19:31
Speaker 1: for a foreign policy adventure, it ain't going to be him.
1:19:35
Speaker 1: It's going to be his secretary State.
1:19:37
Speaker 2: And this is why, by the way, Chuck, a different prediction,
1:19:42
Speaker 2: but for the same principle that you just outlined, I
1:19:45
Speaker 2: think Cash Betel is going to be a fall guy
1:19:47
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty six too, because whenever there's some kind
1:19:49
Speaker 2: of incident or a manhunt that goes awry, or some
1:19:53
Speaker 2: big flap and embarrassment in which you know. So there's
1:19:56
Speaker 2: a tragedy that happens, somebody's taken the fall for that,
1:19:59
Speaker 2: and it's not going to be I mean, the White House,
1:20:00
Speaker 2: you know, I don't.
1:20:02
Speaker 1: I get the sense that Cash Btel doesn't have as
1:20:04
Speaker 1: many supporters in the West Wing as perhaps he did
1:20:07
Speaker 1: around in Trump's inner circle in twenty two and twenty
1:20:10
Speaker 1: three that he does in the current West clearly.
1:20:13
Speaker 2: And by the way, one of the big storylines of
1:20:16
Speaker 2: the second Trump term is the leaks are still coming,
1:20:20
Speaker 2: but they're coming more about the cabinet than they are
1:20:23
Speaker 2: the principal himself. The first term, the leaks were about
1:20:26
Speaker 2: Trump himself and Trump's behavior in the West Wing sort of.
1:20:31
Speaker 1: Well, because you had a mix of establishmentarians in the
1:20:34
Speaker 1: West Wing who are at the guest.
1:20:36
Speaker 2: The leaks this time are about the cabinet because it's
1:20:39
Speaker 2: between cabinet folks. It's between West Wing staff and cabinet folks.
1:20:44
Speaker 2: So I'll there's this idea of like, oh, there's no
1:20:47
Speaker 2: more leaks this time. There's plenty of leaks. It's about
1:20:50
Speaker 2: the cabinet and the staff, not Trump. All right, let
1:20:52
Speaker 2: me give you.
1:20:53
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you Christinome Cash Battel Pete Hegseth,
1:20:57
Speaker 1: who's least likely to finish the year calendar year? And
1:21:00
Speaker 1: there I think, yeah, yeah, gosh, and I think no,
1:21:03
Speaker 1: I would put no second.
1:21:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. And also, Chuck, I think for a similar reason.
1:21:08
Speaker 2: I hate to say this, but look it, we're just
1:21:10
Speaker 2: a vulnerable you know, you know, in this country, in
1:21:13
Speaker 2: the West broadly, and if there is God forbid some
1:21:15
Speaker 2: kind of a tragedy, you know they're going to.
1:21:17
Speaker 1: Get get homeland security. It took their eye off the
1:21:19
Speaker 1: ball or yeah, you could picture that storyline right totally, Chuck.
1:21:23
Speaker 1: I would ask you a question though about Florida. Yeah,
1:21:25
Speaker 1: all right, it's actually kind of a fun story.
1:21:28
Speaker 2: The two traditional Maybe I should write this the two
1:21:32
Speaker 2: traditional battleground states of the odds Florida and Ohio. Yeah,
1:21:38
Speaker 2: they used to have football programs too. I think more
1:21:41
Speaker 2: on that letter. But Florida and Ohio.
1:21:43
Speaker 1: Well, the rightful order has been is being restored with
1:21:46
Speaker 1: the other state of Miami on tea.
1:21:49
Speaker 2: It's so But Florida and Ohio right totally undercovered. I
1:21:53
Speaker 2: think in twenty twenty six, talk to me about Florida,
1:21:56
Speaker 2: your your home state, which is the more left a
1:22:00
Speaker 2: flip if the dams were to strike gold and win
1:22:02
Speaker 2: in twenty six and four.
1:22:03
Speaker 1: Is a governor sentate, Oh, it's one hundred percent gov
1:22:06
Speaker 1: because of the financial If the look I think the
1:22:13
Speaker 1: state is.
1:22:14
Speaker 2: I think senate races.
1:22:17
Speaker 1: Are harder to win in Florida now for Democrats than
1:22:21
Speaker 1: governors races. Right, you're going to get to that point
1:22:24
Speaker 1: we're going to move. We're going to shift towards the
1:22:26
Speaker 1: sort of in Kansas.
1:22:27
Speaker 2: Right.
1:22:28
Speaker 1: I don't know if Democrats we're still probably I think
1:22:31
Speaker 1: by the by twenty thirty six there'll be a Democratic
1:22:36
Speaker 1: senator in Kansas.
1:22:37
Speaker 2: I do.
1:22:38
Speaker 1: I think in the next ten years we're getting there.
1:22:40
Speaker 1: It's shifting. It has all the elements. You know, You've
1:22:43
Speaker 1: got three suburban areas. That's you know, when you look
1:22:46
Speaker 1: at how red states become purple states, Kansas looks very
1:22:50
Speaker 1: similar to what we've seen in Georgia, what we've seen
1:22:53
Speaker 1: in mont seen in Colorado. So I buy it, right,
1:22:57
Speaker 1: I sort of buy it that it's coming. But in Florida,
1:23:01
Speaker 1: I do think the jersey matters a lot more in
1:23:04
Speaker 1: senate races, right, You're like, Okay, who's going to be
1:23:06
Speaker 1: representing us in Washington? But you know, you've got a
1:23:10
Speaker 1: property tax problem in the state. You've got high electricity
1:23:13
Speaker 1: bills in the state. You've got all these sort of
1:23:16
Speaker 1: issues that really are state driven, less less so than
1:23:20
Speaker 1: the fed fed driven. DeSantis isn't popular. He's not like
1:23:24
Speaker 1: he's not you know, in his work. He's probably more
1:23:26
Speaker 1: popular than Trump, right because right now Trump's got the
1:23:29
Speaker 1: economy sort of really dragging him.
1:23:31
Speaker 2: Down a little bit.
1:23:32
Speaker 1: But DeSantis doesn't have many friends in Tallahassee these days,
1:23:37
Speaker 1: and this primary could get a messy. I I and
1:23:42
Speaker 1: you know, in theory, Democrats actually have two viable candidates
1:23:47
Speaker 1: in Jerry Demings and David Jolly.
1:23:52
Speaker 2: But it is silly that.
1:23:53
Speaker 1: They're primary in each other. One ought to be running
1:23:56
Speaker 1: in the Senate race. Right here we go again, right,
1:23:58
Speaker 1: one of them ought to be running in this race
1:24:00
Speaker 1: because they could use a better ticket. Yep, Okay, But
1:24:05
Speaker 1: I do think if you're saying if the bottom falls
1:24:07
Speaker 1: out for the right, what would fall first? Look, I
1:24:10
Speaker 1: think that I think Donalds is a terrible first name.
1:24:14
Speaker 1: It's congressman, and I think that's going to be a
1:24:17
Speaker 1: tough you know. Now, I think David Jolly is a
1:24:19
Speaker 1: terrible first name. It's former congressman and former lobbyists. Like,
1:24:23
Speaker 1: in a weird way, Deming's the Donalds is intriguing to
1:24:28
Speaker 1: me because he gets to be a mayor, a former
1:24:31
Speaker 1: mayor versus a former congressman. I just look, there's a
1:24:36
Speaker 1: huge financial disparity. So I'm not gonna I don't want
1:24:39
Speaker 1: people to think, Hey, Chuck Todd says, the Florida governor's.
1:24:41
Speaker 2: Race is competitive. It's not competitive yet. It may not
1:24:44
Speaker 2: get there. But if you're asking me, I would, I would.
1:24:48
Speaker 2: I would have an easier.
1:24:49
Speaker 1: Time concocting a campaign against thirty years of Republican rule
1:24:54
Speaker 1: against you know what I mean, Like, are you really
1:24:56
Speaker 1: frustrated by the rising cost of living in Florida? Well,
1:24:59
Speaker 1: you know who's not fixed property taxes, who's not fixed insurance?
1:25:03
Speaker 2: Who's not right?
1:25:03
Speaker 1: Like, it's an easier campaign to be very similar to
1:25:07
Speaker 1: what Nancy, excuse me, Kathleen Sibilius and then Laura Kelly
1:25:12
Speaker 1: essentially successfully pulled off in Kansas.
1:25:14
Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, I might be my guess the.
1:25:21
Speaker 1: Now, I'll give you a one wild card. Yeah, okay,
1:25:25
Speaker 1: I do think Desantas is going to try to do
1:25:27
Speaker 1: redistricting in Florida. The seat they may target is Jared Moskowitz,
1:25:34
Speaker 1: one of the seats they may target. And he said,
1:25:37
Speaker 1: he said to me, I mean he's he's on the
1:25:39
Speaker 1: record of this. He goes, if they come after me,
1:25:41
Speaker 1: then I may run for Senate. And he could be
1:25:43
Speaker 1: a pretty good Senate he could. He could raise a
1:25:45
Speaker 1: decent chunk of money. He would be the pro Israel
1:25:48
Speaker 1: Democratic Senate candidate in Florida.
1:25:50
Speaker 2: Right, you couldn't ledge.
1:25:51
Speaker 1: Him out on that one issue, which is very meaningful
1:25:54
Speaker 1: in South Florida.
1:25:57
Speaker 2: And uh, you.
1:25:59
Speaker 1: Know, I I I'm skeptical that I'm skeptical he could
1:26:03
Speaker 1: win votes north of Okalla, but you know, he certainly
1:26:07
Speaker 1: could make it.
1:26:08
Speaker 2: An interesting That's fascinating, that's fascinating. But coming back to
1:26:12
Speaker 2: our two thousand and six scenario, Yeah, we have to
1:26:15
Speaker 2: we have to think about a world in which after
1:26:16
Speaker 2: Labor Day Trump's at thirty percent approval and the world
1:26:20
Speaker 2: looks different. Let's go ahead.
1:26:22
Speaker 1: No, I look, I agree, It's why I'm keeping an
1:26:24
Speaker 1: eye on. You know, I don't even completely righte off
1:26:28
Speaker 1: the independent candidacies, the sort of the the the Osbourne
1:26:33
Speaker 1: like guys of South Dakota, Yeah, Mississippi. Yeah, And in
1:26:37
Speaker 1: Mississippian in in Idaho, although Idaho feels like a real stretch,
1:26:49
Speaker 1: this was my favorite one that you did because I
1:26:51
Speaker 1: feel like you had a hidden agenda in this one,
1:26:53
Speaker 1: mister Martin. Yes, so I'm going to read this one
1:26:56
Speaker 1: which twenty twenty eight Democratic presidential hopeful will unwittingly hurt
1:27:00
Speaker 1: their candidacy by writing a book. And what I found
1:27:03
Speaker 1: interesting is you didn't just list names. You had a
1:27:05
Speaker 1: very specific assumption that you made that My guess is
1:27:10
Speaker 1: you already know this is making the round. So with
1:27:14
Speaker 1: Newsom it is by revealing he's still doing self discovery
1:27:17
Speaker 1: in his late fifties, Shapiro by making his origin story
1:27:21
Speaker 1: a tragedy and that it may come across a little
1:27:24
Speaker 1: too glib over time, it won't won't wear well. Harris
1:27:28
Speaker 1: confusing her book to it. I completely agree with you
1:27:30
Speaker 1: on the Harris thing. I think I think she's confusing
1:27:33
Speaker 1: interest in her book and the book to her into
1:27:35
Speaker 1: interest in her candidacy. And then Bootaji, you know, Botaji,
1:27:41
Speaker 1: it's to me is the Bruce Willis sixth sense candidate.
1:27:45
Speaker 1: Everybody knows he has no chance accept him, and it's
1:27:49
Speaker 1: because you know he became and the irony is he
1:27:52
Speaker 1: if Biden, if if there's no COVID, he was the
1:27:55
Speaker 1: nominee in twenty I'm like eighty percent convinced to that.
1:28:00
Speaker 2: But I do think Boota just never got a path,
1:28:04
Speaker 2: No Chuck. Forget COVID for a minute. Let's start with Iowa.
1:28:09
Speaker 2: If the Iowa Democrats get their account locked up, right,
1:28:13
Speaker 2: he probably won't, but I still think, but let's let's
1:28:15
Speaker 2: play it out the way it will wins Iowa, he
1:28:18
Speaker 2: gets a clean balance in New.
1:28:19
Speaker 1: Hamster, he wins in Hampshire, you know, right, But even
1:28:21
Speaker 1: still it's a split decision, and it's Bernie versus p
1:28:26
Speaker 1: and and there's no Biden in this scenario. Right with
1:28:31
Speaker 1: with COVID, COVID made it easier for everybody to say, off.
1:28:35
Speaker 2: Screw it, we'll just rally around the old guy.
1:28:38
Speaker 1: But without that, without COVID, I think it's Bernie and Bootage,
1:28:42
Speaker 1: and I do think Bootage wins simply out of absolute
1:28:46
Speaker 1: fear that.
1:28:46
Speaker 2: Bernie would lose. Yeah, yeah, so let's take all of it.
1:28:51
Speaker 2: So yeah, So I look anyway, going back Newsome Shapiro Harris,
1:28:55
Speaker 2: it feels like it feels like you know something on
1:28:57
Speaker 2: Newsome and Shapiro, or you're already you already think that
1:29:01
Speaker 2: they've maybe already peaked. I think it's more just like
1:29:07
Speaker 2: I've heard about these books and what's in them, and
1:29:10
Speaker 2: I know they're the personalities of all these folks. And look,
1:29:14
Speaker 2: Newsome's challenge is that, you know, it's not a fair line.
1:29:19
Speaker 2: Jerry Brown's gonna hear this and get mad at me.
1:29:21
Speaker 2: But California folks, they're a little flaky. It's the land
1:29:23
Speaker 2: of fruit and nuts. And Gavin's a good looking guy
1:29:28
Speaker 2: and comes off as articulate, but he's still doing this
1:29:31
Speaker 2: with self discovery stuff and how old is See, it's
1:29:34
Speaker 2: just easier to kind of caricature I think him in
1:29:37
Speaker 2: this book. I've been told that he's coming out with
1:29:39
Speaker 2: here pretty soon. He's pretty raw about him knew his
1:29:42
Speaker 2: self discovery. On the Shapiro thing, this is more sensitive.
1:29:46
Speaker 2: But you know, he had this terrible family tragedy that's
1:29:49
Speaker 2: you know, Arsenal at the mansion in Harrisburg. The risk
1:29:53
Speaker 2: for Shapiro is he just uses that as a political
1:29:56
Speaker 2: origin story to run a presidential campaign and it back
1:30:00
Speaker 2: because it's just too unsubtle about what happened in the
1:30:03
Speaker 2: case of Harris, it's a straightforward She thinks folks buying
1:30:07
Speaker 2: her book means they wanted to run again, which ain't
1:30:09
Speaker 2: the case. And on Buddha Jedge, he's a smart guy
1:30:13
Speaker 2: and his book will show that he's a smart guy.
1:30:15
Speaker 2: But he's the smartest guy in the room, which is
1:30:17
Speaker 2: why his future in politics is in a point, if
1:30:20
Speaker 2: not electoral politics. I think you could pick any had
1:30:24
Speaker 2: those four tell you the truth. I chose the Kamala Harris.
1:30:29
Speaker 2: There's no appetite among Democrats talk to relive anything to
1:30:34
Speaker 2: do with twenty twenty four. All right, I completely agree.
1:30:37
Speaker 1: Joe Biden came here. If you have Biden on your resume,
1:30:40
Speaker 1: you're done. And this is my issue. I think Pete
1:30:43
Speaker 1: and Kamala have the same issue. It's a similar challenge.
1:30:46
Speaker 1: Look who was not on the campaign trail in twenty
1:30:49
Speaker 1: twenty one. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Tim Walls, who are
1:30:52
Speaker 1: the three main actors from the twenty twenty four campaign
1:30:56
Speaker 1: could not be fell on anywhere on the campaign trail
1:30:58
Speaker 1: the following year. Party doesn't want to relive the battle
1:31:02
Speaker 1: days of twenty four. I think that is her challenge
1:31:05
Speaker 1: and I think she knows that, and we'll flirt with this,
1:31:08
Speaker 1: but ultimately she's not gonna want to come back to
1:31:10
Speaker 1: lose a primary. What do you make, By the way,
1:31:13
Speaker 1: let's do a quick little rabbit hole, which is what
1:31:15
Speaker 1: you and I do. What do you make of the
1:31:19
Speaker 1: California governor's race and the lack of.
1:31:22
Speaker 2: I feel like the field is not set. Oh.
1:31:26
Speaker 1: I know it's funny to be the prediction markets have
1:31:29
Speaker 1: Eric Swallwell as the front runner now, and you're just
1:31:32
Speaker 1: like wow, and I'm in you know, prediction markets. In
1:31:38
Speaker 1: some places, I don't pay attention to California races. I
1:31:42
Speaker 1: do just because I know it's more Californians throwing money
1:31:44
Speaker 1: in there than most other places.
1:31:46
Speaker 2: We'll see at least one additional candidate. It feels a
1:31:50
Speaker 2: little bit like the fall of twenty nineteen shock when
1:31:54
Speaker 2: Mike Bloomberg and Deval Patrick jumped in the late into
1:31:56
Speaker 2: the Democratic primary for president even jumped in. There's a
1:32:01
Speaker 2: vacuum there. Other than one hundred percent of vacuum. It's
1:32:04
Speaker 2: the biggest. Don't you think Kamally gets talked back.
1:32:06
Speaker 1: I've heard that they she was somewhere trying to tuck
1:32:10
Speaker 1: her back into it.
1:32:12
Speaker 2: I think that's I'm that certainly one scenario Rick Caruso, who,
1:32:17
Speaker 2: of course wrong.
1:32:18
Speaker 1: If Caruso is the one that everybody is saying is
1:32:21
Speaker 1: waiting in the war, waiting in the wings. Our friend
1:32:23
Speaker 1: Mike Murphy, is he really going to run his first
1:32:26
Speaker 1: Democratic campaign?
1:32:28
Speaker 2: I know, right? Is this really? Is he going to
1:32:30
Speaker 2: go full?
1:32:31
Speaker 1: Is it like I've always thought he wasn't going to
1:32:33
Speaker 1: do that, that he'd run it independent. I'll be very
1:32:36
Speaker 1: curious what our buddy Mike does.
1:32:38
Speaker 2: What it feels like Caruso is tempted to do mayor
1:32:42
Speaker 2: what she ran for one so already, rather than governor.
1:32:44
Speaker 2: But we'll see if folks can change his mind. And
1:32:47
Speaker 2: then you know, the think about the Democratic ranking Memberyk
1:32:51
Speaker 2: Scheck of the Oversight Committee, Robert Garcia from Long Beach,
1:32:54
Speaker 2: somebody who liked Jared Moscovitz is one of these young
1:32:57
Speaker 2: House Democrats that has a knack for attention in publicity.
1:33:01
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe he jumps in. It just feels
1:33:05
Speaker 2: like there's or maybe somebody from the outside, uh, sort
1:33:09
Speaker 2: of Tom Steyer type figure.
1:33:12
Speaker 1: Well Styr jumped in, I think thinking it was I mean, look,
1:33:16
Speaker 1: I just think sti Stier's problem is he doesn't wear well.
1:33:22
Speaker 1: Yeah right, he's so intense. And I say this sort
1:33:25
Speaker 1: of out of respect.
1:33:27
Speaker 2: Way you don't.
1:33:27
Speaker 1: You don't become as successful as he is if you
1:33:29
Speaker 1: don't have an intensity, a drive, all of those things.
1:33:32
Speaker 1: But it's not a pleasant it doesn't come across as
1:33:36
Speaker 1: very accessible, Chuck.
1:33:38
Speaker 2: I also wonder if Newsom and Newsom's lieutenants may try
1:33:42
Speaker 2: to get back at maybe Padilla, have Padilla take a
1:33:45
Speaker 2: look at it again, Tomal, the thing is possible.
1:33:51
Speaker 1: You know what this state I think, don't underestimate via
1:33:56
Speaker 1: Ragosa to suddenly charm his way. If they don't, if
1:34:00
Speaker 1: this field doesn't get better well.
1:34:04
Speaker 2: Also, also let's let's take Swallow seriously for a minutes.
1:34:07
Speaker 2: Speaking of young House democrats. I know he can raise
1:34:10
Speaker 2: a ton of money. He knows how to raise money.
1:34:13
Speaker 2: And that's the that's the that's table stakes out there, right.
1:34:15
Speaker 2: You gotta get to the deal with money, and I
1:34:18
Speaker 2: think he can do that. And also I'll tell you
1:34:21
Speaker 2: a little story here real fast. The day before the
1:34:24
Speaker 2: election in November now of last year, when California was
1:34:28
Speaker 2: voting on the ballot measure and reapportionment, I was in
1:34:31
Speaker 2: San Francisco for the final rally that Knewsomb had at
1:34:34
Speaker 2: a labor hall, but it was traded with drama, not
1:34:38
Speaker 2: things have knew some of his future, but because Pelosi
1:34:41
Speaker 2: was about to announce her retirement and this is her hometown.
1:34:44
Speaker 2: So at the press conference after the rally, Gavin's not there.
1:34:48
Speaker 2: It's just it's it's Pelosi and the House Democrats, including
1:34:51
Speaker 2: Zoe Lofgren and including Swallowell, and the body language of
1:34:57
Speaker 2: Pelosi trying to give attention to swall and nudge Swallwell
1:35:01
Speaker 2: forward to get to the camera as fashion like Swallwell
1:35:05
Speaker 2: and you Walwell, that's not a bad person to have
1:35:07
Speaker 2: in your corner.
1:35:08
Speaker 1: She's well, it's funny you brought up San Francisco. My
1:35:11
Speaker 1: dark horse candidate to get talked into running is the
1:35:15
Speaker 1: mayor of San Francisco's daniel lewy because he could self
1:35:17
Speaker 1: funder raise. He's already seen as like the center left
1:35:23
Speaker 1: mayor that's not woke and somehow is making San Francisco
1:35:26
Speaker 1: work right.
1:35:27
Speaker 2: Well the point of personal privilege here, I think I
1:35:30
Speaker 2: was the first national rightly work you usually are to
1:35:34
Speaker 2: do a big piece on luriy. I was there for
1:35:36
Speaker 2: his inauguration in January. In fact, it was such a
1:35:39
Speaker 2: smart move when you did that. I remember this time
1:35:41
Speaker 2: last year and I wrote a cable car with he
1:35:43
Speaker 2: and his family. He's the anti Gavin. He's not flashy,
1:35:47
Speaker 2: he's not he's not swall. There's no gel in that here.
1:35:52
Speaker 2: He's just a sort of grinder chuck. And he's a
1:35:54
Speaker 2: business type. But he's got I mean, speaking of a
1:35:58
Speaker 2: NAC for publicity. He has figured out the key to
1:36:01
Speaker 2: being mayor is you gotta sell cell sell, and boy,
1:36:04
Speaker 2: he has sold San Francisco and everybody in the press
1:36:07
Speaker 2: loves a comeback story. This city. There was all the
1:36:09
Speaker 2: drug user and the homeless nest. It's back. It's back
1:36:14
Speaker 2: here we are. You know, the super Bowl is going
1:36:16
Speaker 2: to be there next month at Santa Clara. But it's okay.
1:36:20
Speaker 2: He has gotten just count the Wall Street Journal news
1:36:25
Speaker 2: stories and opinion columns about Daniel Lwry in that city
1:36:28
Speaker 2: in the last calendar year. Yeah, no, I mean it is.
1:36:32
Speaker 2: We'll find out. At least I've been one of the
1:36:34
Speaker 2: first people.
1:36:34
Speaker 1: You say, one of the one of the worst things
1:36:36
Speaker 1: you could have on your resume to be a national
1:36:38
Speaker 1: figure is former mayor of San Francisco or former office
1:36:41
Speaker 1: holder in San Francisco. I just think, like you know,
1:36:44
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom are never going to become
1:36:46
Speaker 1: president because of that, right, the perception of San Francisco
1:36:49
Speaker 1: being sort of our like wild and crazy city, et cetera,
1:36:52
Speaker 1: et cetera. But Lurie is interesting to me, and in
1:36:57
Speaker 1: some ways you know that. I don't think a tech
1:37:02
Speaker 1: self funder is going to be trusted. I think the
1:37:05
Speaker 1: pitchforks are out everywhere around the country, so I don't
1:37:08
Speaker 1: think the old well maybe somebody in Silicon Valley will
1:37:11
Speaker 1: throw money around. I think Lurie has laundered that image
1:37:15
Speaker 1: of himself by actually being in office, so he can
1:37:18
Speaker 1: run as an office holder, not as.
1:37:20
Speaker 2: Just sort of somebody else who Lord knows craves and
1:37:24
Speaker 2: craves attention, and it has certainly huge ambitions. And that's
1:37:27
Speaker 2: Roe Connell, the House member right now. I think I
1:37:31
Speaker 2: heard he already rejected this. I've heard people went to him,
1:37:34
Speaker 2: you know, you can win this. He's just not going
1:37:36
Speaker 2: to be denied the national stage.
1:37:38
Speaker 1: He's not a Californian. I say this with respect. How
1:37:42
Speaker 1: often when you've had a conversation with Conna. Does he
1:37:46
Speaker 1: make sure to know he grew up in Bucks County.
1:37:48
Speaker 1: He does not want to be associated with a Californian,
1:37:52
Speaker 1: so he has so far talked himself out of that,
1:37:55
Speaker 1: you know, and in some ways trying to rebrand himself
1:37:59
Speaker 1: as the the guy who moved to California to learn
1:38:02
Speaker 1: about tech. But he's really a kid from Bucks you know.
1:38:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
1:38:08
Speaker 1: All right, all right, let me get this one more
1:38:12
Speaker 1: and then I'll get you out of here. I promise
1:38:14
Speaker 1: by the end of twenty twenty six, which Republican will
1:38:17
Speaker 1: emerge is the best position to challenge JD Vance for
1:38:19
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty eight nomination. Your fours are Ted Cruz,
1:38:23
Speaker 1: who I've put in the Supreme Court by now, Ivanka Trump.
1:38:27
Speaker 1: I might, I might have done anybody with the Trump
1:38:31
Speaker 1: last name, not just Ivanka, but we'll put a pin
1:38:33
Speaker 1: in that.
1:38:34
Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson or Marco Rubia. What was your answer? I
1:38:39
Speaker 2: had some fun here, Chuck, because I am a student
1:38:42
Speaker 2: of the Chris Christie school of Donald J. Trump Studies,
1:38:45
Speaker 2: and the Chris Christie axiom is everybody around Donald Trump
1:38:50
Speaker 2: starts with one hundred points on a debit line and
1:38:53
Speaker 2: the devil line only goes one direction. It only goes sick. Right.
1:38:57
Speaker 2: The only exception to this is Ivanka Trump. She does
1:39:00
Speaker 2: not have that same challenge and Christie's Christie's bit is
1:39:04
Speaker 2: that the debit line goes south faster for some than others,
1:39:08
Speaker 2: but it's only going one direction. And so if you
1:39:11
Speaker 2: if why did that maximum chuck, then Ivanka Trump is
1:39:15
Speaker 2: going to be the person who is best positioned to
1:39:17
Speaker 2: challenge Vans because Trump will get tired of everybody else, right,
1:39:23
Speaker 2: why her and not Laura? It's his daughter, I know.
1:39:29
Speaker 2: I mean blood. Blood is thicker than then than a
1:39:33
Speaker 2: marriage license. Yeah, I mean I think we underestimate Trump's
1:39:37
Speaker 2: desire for you know, just sort of keeping the Trump name.
1:39:43
Speaker 1: And see, I totally agree with this. I am convinced
1:39:47
Speaker 1: that a Trump is going to be a candidate. I'm
1:39:49
Speaker 1: so glad you wrote now. I just don't believe it's Avanta.
1:39:52
Speaker 1: I actually, if I could buy stock work, it's Eric.
1:39:56
Speaker 1: I think Trump. I think you know it's interesting. Have
1:39:59
Speaker 1: you did you notice during Eric's book tour he totally
1:40:03
Speaker 1: floated the idea of running for president himself. Someday he didn't,
1:40:07
Speaker 1: and he never plays deference to his brother. Ever, Okay,
1:40:12
Speaker 1: ever he is. I think there's a weird rivalry between
1:40:16
Speaker 1: the two. I think it's obvious who Daddy trusts to
1:40:19
Speaker 1: run the business and who he doesn't trust to run
1:40:21
Speaker 1: the business. And I think it's obvious who he thinks
1:40:25
Speaker 1: is the most competent of his kids. I think he
1:40:28
Speaker 1: thinks it's Eric. I think that's why Laura gets so
1:40:31
Speaker 1: much stuff. So I do think that you know, you're
1:40:39
Speaker 1: in the same arena. I'man belief system I men, which
1:40:43
Speaker 1: is Trump is not going to let Vance have this easy.
1:40:47
Speaker 1: He may eventually come around to Vance, but he's going
1:40:51
Speaker 1: to This is going to be something Vance is going
1:40:54
Speaker 1: to have to He may have to get more. I mean,
1:40:59
Speaker 1: he may have to get thicker.
1:41:01
Speaker 2: Vance was anti Trump. Now now he's pro Trump. What's
1:41:04
Speaker 2: to say he couldn't be anti Trump again, Ivanka, especially
1:41:07
Speaker 2: if he's sitting at thirty one percent. Vance is machiavelliant.
1:41:10
Speaker 2: That's right.
1:41:11
Speaker 1: Peter Teal is going to be telling him, Hey, maybe
1:41:13
Speaker 1: time to ditch Trump.
1:41:15
Speaker 2: Eric and Ivanka Trump are never going to be anti
1:41:18
Speaker 2: Trump because their last name was Trump. So it's like
1:41:20
Speaker 2: this is the family project.
1:41:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is more likely than folks realize.
1:41:24
Speaker 1: I know, and we're so dismissive. We're collectively dismissive of
1:41:28
Speaker 1: it because we're always dismissive of things we've never seen before. Yeah,
1:41:33
Speaker 1: and the thing with Donald Trump, with we all have
1:41:35
Speaker 1: had to learn is just because it hasn't happened doesn't
1:41:38
Speaker 1: mean it won't.
1:41:39
Speaker 2: There was a column I was going to write if
1:41:41
Speaker 2: Laura Trump had run for the Senate. I wanted to
1:41:44
Speaker 2: write this. Now. She obviously didn't do it, but I
1:41:46
Speaker 2: think her not running was significant. If she had run,
1:41:49
Speaker 2: it would have been very important chuckle, because if she
1:41:52
Speaker 2: was to have won, it would have perpetuated the Trump
1:41:57
Speaker 2: name and create la Trump Dynasty. I know liberals are
1:42:00
Speaker 2: going to hate to hear that, but that's one step
1:42:04
Speaker 2: closer to making this a longer term project. It makes
1:42:08
Speaker 2: it two generations of Trump's. I just think Laura took
1:42:11
Speaker 2: a pass in twenty six North Carolina. I don't think
1:42:15
Speaker 2: that we're going to have the next generation of Trump's
1:42:17
Speaker 2: take a pass forever, whether it's twenty eight or thirty.
1:42:21
Speaker 2: I remind you, will remind you of two cycles. Nineteen
1:42:25
Speaker 2: ninety two, George HW. Bush loses a reelection. The following
1:42:29
Speaker 2: cycle of nineteen ninety four, his two sons run for
1:42:33
Speaker 2: governor of to the biggest states in the country. One wins,
1:42:36
Speaker 2: one loses. But the point is that one cycle between
1:42:42
Speaker 2: the two sons of the president running for governor. The
1:42:45
Speaker 2: Trumps are nobless, the ambitious of the Bushes.
1:42:48
Speaker 1: There are four names that there are four names out
1:42:51
Speaker 1: there in American history that have produced multiple presidents or
1:42:56
Speaker 1: close to presidents, right, and it's it's the adams Is,
1:43:00
Speaker 1: the Roodosvelts, the Bushes, and the Kennedy's. And Trump wants
1:43:04
Speaker 1: to be all of them.
1:43:05
Speaker 2: Of course he does. I mean back to Mount Rushmore.
1:43:08
Speaker 2: He wants, you know, literally but also betaphorically, he wants
1:43:11
Speaker 2: to be on Rushmore. And one of the ways you
1:43:13
Speaker 2: do that is you name stuff after yourself. You get
1:43:15
Speaker 2: peace prizes, you do big trade deals with countries.
1:43:20
Speaker 1: That and you get a kid elected, and you get
1:43:22
Speaker 1: a scion elected.
1:43:23
Speaker 2: And you get a sign one who can carry the
1:43:25
Speaker 2: banner going forward. We haven't talked about this yet, but
1:43:28
Speaker 2: this is important. Twenty twenty six, The biggest China Dove
1:43:31
Speaker 2: in Washington is Donald Trump, right, always has true. Trump
1:43:34
Speaker 2: is a total China Dove. Look, it was so classic.
1:43:38
Speaker 2: When he was asked at mar Lago about the new
1:43:41
Speaker 2: Trump class of chefs, speaking of Trump names stuff after himself,
1:43:45
Speaker 2: he said, is this is this being done to send
1:43:48
Speaker 2: a message of containment or whatever against the Chinese? He said, no, no, no, no, no.
1:43:53
Speaker 2: We got along with China very very well. I mean,
1:43:56
Speaker 2: he doesn't want to be in conflict with China. He
1:43:58
Speaker 2: wants to deals with China. Chuck. I think twenty twenty
1:44:01
Speaker 2: six will see Trump and n G standing together in
1:44:06
Speaker 2: Beijing signing a major deal. Now, who knows what the
1:44:09
Speaker 2: actual details are going to be. Trump doesn't care about that,
1:44:12
Speaker 2: but the image is going to be indelible. Trump will
1:44:15
Speaker 2: say I brought the two superpowers of the world together.
1:44:19
Speaker 2: I preempted World War three, and I have done this
1:44:23
Speaker 2: great personal diplomacy and brought brought our great nations together.
1:44:26
Speaker 2: I'm telling you it's gonna happen in twenty twenty six.
1:44:30
Speaker 1: And that will be politically unpopular, both sides of the
1:44:33
Speaker 1: eye getting neck tozy with China. That could be what
1:44:36
Speaker 1: splinters his coalition. Yeah, you know, the dirty little secret
1:44:41
Speaker 1: about the twenty twelve presidential election is how much China
1:44:44
Speaker 1: bashing helped Obama defeat round mee yes in the industry
1:44:49
Speaker 1: and the agricultural industrial Midwest.
1:44:52
Speaker 2: And I just you know, I don't think every time
1:44:54
Speaker 2: Trump says he's for h one, BV says because we
1:44:57
Speaker 2: can't do those jobs in America says, yeah, you're gonna
1:45:00
Speaker 2: have Chinese kids here studying at universities. We need their money.
1:45:04
Speaker 2: It's what he actually believes. Because the third Tomorrow, MAGA
1:45:08
Speaker 2: hates it. Now the true believers in MAGA hate it.
1:45:16
Speaker 1: Get fun with lane Kiff, the Lane Kip and experience
1:45:19
Speaker 1: in als. We are speaking the night the morning after.
1:45:23
Speaker 2: Ole Missus, upset of Georgia. Yes, and the and the
1:45:31
Speaker 2: lesser and the and the changing of the guard.
1:45:34
Speaker 1: The humiliation. I'm a what Alabama is going through. I
1:45:39
Speaker 1: went through in two thousand and four, two thousand and
1:45:42
Speaker 1: five with Miami, where you're a you're you're still a dynasty,
1:45:45
Speaker 1: but you could feel the exhaust fumes are catching up.
1:45:49
Speaker 1: Other teams have caught up. For Miami, it was in
1:45:51
Speaker 1: a humiliation by LSU actually in a Peach Bowl. We
1:45:55
Speaker 1: lost forty two to three. It just sort of that
1:45:58
Speaker 1: was it. That's when you knew it was over. The
1:46:01
Speaker 1: dynasty was ending a pay the era was ending for
1:46:04
Speaker 1: Miami for that for that period, that Indiana loss felt
1:46:08
Speaker 1: that way. I'm going in a long about way of this.
1:46:12
Speaker 1: Calen de bor now has eight losses in two years.
1:46:14
Speaker 1: It took Nick Saban five years to get eight losses.
1:46:19
Speaker 1: Another three loss or worse season in Tuscalalosa means he's
1:46:22
Speaker 1: gone by the end of twenty six. Yes, I think
1:46:26
Speaker 1: Kleen de Boor is miserable. I think it's it sucks
1:46:30
Speaker 1: you're the ghost you're chasing lives in Tuscaloosa. He's on
1:46:34
Speaker 1: ESPN all the time. God bless him. I love man.
1:46:37
Speaker 2: I love Nick Saban. Okay, i'm a. I'm a. I
1:46:40
Speaker 2: love the guy I will I do. I want him.
1:46:43
Speaker 1: I want him to be commissioned. I think his idea
1:46:45
Speaker 1: uh to to to move spring practices in the and
1:46:49
Speaker 1: the portal to May and June makes like total sense,
1:46:52
Speaker 1: right So, But I think the choice you left out
1:46:56
Speaker 1: on on Lane Kiffin experience in LSU will be drama,
1:46:59
Speaker 1: toy of a year, et cetera, et cetera. The one
1:47:01
Speaker 1: thing you leave out is him leaving for Alabama. But
1:47:04
Speaker 1: I think there is one job he was The reason
1:47:07
Speaker 1: he didn't sign that deal with LSU as quickly as
1:47:11
Speaker 1: he did is he was waiting to see if Alabama
1:47:13
Speaker 1: would lose the Iron Bowl to Auburn. He was waiting
1:47:16
Speaker 1: to see if Alabama to get left out of the play.
1:47:18
Speaker 1: He if the Alabama job opens up, he wants it.
1:47:22
Speaker 1: I'm telling you he wants it. And Lane Kit and
1:47:26
Speaker 1: I and I think, especially if LSU does pretty well
1:47:29
Speaker 1: next year, which if they use old Missus roster, they.
1:47:32
Speaker 2: Will get it. In fairness to myself, I haven't written that.
1:47:36
Speaker 2: I wrote it before Bama got spanked by Indiana. I
1:47:38
Speaker 2: know you did. So there was no scenario on which
1:47:42
Speaker 2: Kilon the Boor was going to be on the hot
1:47:44
Speaker 2: seat in twenty twenty six. There is now had gone
1:47:48
Speaker 2: to or won a national title this year. Now that said,
1:47:53
Speaker 2: I agree, killing the Bore loses three to five games
1:47:56
Speaker 2: this fall in Alabama, it's going to be hard to
1:48:00
Speaker 2: hang on. And yeah, Kiffin the Mercenary, he would certainly
1:48:03
Speaker 2: love to hop to Bama. There's there's no question about it.
1:48:07
Speaker 2: I wonder if the Boor self deports Joe. I think
1:48:10
Speaker 2: he does. I think he would have.
1:48:12
Speaker 1: I think if the Michigan I think the Michigan job
1:48:14
Speaker 1: is such a potential nightmare scenario that anybody in there,
1:48:19
Speaker 1: like I, I you want to I'll be the guy
1:48:22
Speaker 1: after the next guy in Michigan.
1:48:24
Speaker 2: Right like that, Let's let's stop bearing the leader and
1:48:27
Speaker 2: talk about what's actually on your mind, which is the
1:48:29
Speaker 2: University of Miami Hurricanes return to greatness. I mean, first
1:48:33
Speaker 2: of all, I'm happy for you as your friend that
1:48:35
Speaker 2: that your your experience in this.
1:48:38
Speaker 1: We're doing it the right way, that we're doing it
1:48:40
Speaker 1: in a sustainable way, that's all.
1:48:43
Speaker 2: I think it's pretty sustainable. We'll see this so good
1:48:50
Speaker 2: for the game of college football. Look at this final four.
1:48:53
Speaker 2: Jonathan Bama and Clemson were winning every other year. We're
1:48:59
Speaker 2: deadening for the national game to have a West Coast
1:49:02
Speaker 2: team like Oregon really competitive every year on upstart Big
1:49:07
Speaker 2: ten that never had a football row.
1:49:09
Speaker 1: Again, we've culturally all four regions of this country are
1:49:11
Speaker 1: representing because Miami is not a southern school. Miami really
1:49:14
Speaker 1: is an East coast school, right. Oh Miss is the
1:49:17
Speaker 1: southern school, Indiana's the Midwestern school, Oregon is the West
1:49:20
Speaker 1: coast school. We really have the three major cultural regions
1:49:26
Speaker 1: all represented in this Final four. Which is always what's
1:49:28
Speaker 1: made college football better than the other sports because of
1:49:32
Speaker 1: this ability to have fan bases in diverse cultural.
1:49:38
Speaker 2: Only part of the country that didn't have a real
1:49:41
Speaker 2: foot was the Northeast because it's a pro sports reagion.
1:49:44
Speaker 2: It never wanted to be right. Well, you could argue
1:49:46
Speaker 2: that Miami Northeast, Miami's the team of the Northeast, right,
1:49:50
Speaker 2: because that's what I mean culturally Miami is it's the
1:49:54
Speaker 2: combination of the East Coast and the Northeast. You know,
1:49:57
Speaker 2: just happens to be in the in the in in
1:50:00
Speaker 2: the South. It's kind of like it goes down basketball
1:50:02
Speaker 2: back in the day, right, you know the joke of Florida,
1:50:05
Speaker 2: the farther south you go, the farther north, you go north.
1:50:07
Speaker 2: You got right, Although nowadays the further south you go
1:50:10
Speaker 2: in Florida, like the further south you go into the
1:50:12
Speaker 2: Caribbean itself. So all Latin America.
1:50:17
Speaker 1: But what is the what is the vibe in an
1:50:20
Speaker 1: LSU world? I know you're pretty you're pretty connected with
1:50:22
Speaker 1: these days about all this.
1:50:23
Speaker 2: Are really really hopeful that Lane can do this. Look,
1:50:30
Speaker 2: there's this mentality that we have to have the biggest,
1:50:33
Speaker 2: the best, the shiniest. The first instinct both loves get
1:50:36
Speaker 2: Saban to come back. Second instinct was who's the next
1:50:39
Speaker 2: best current coach? And it was Lane Kiffin.
1:50:41
Speaker 1: So why wasn't it Signetti? Why didn't they throw a
1:50:44
Speaker 1: barrel of money? Because actually that's who I think Alabama's
1:50:47
Speaker 1: going to go.
1:50:47
Speaker 2: Atleane kiffins a bigger name. Look, I think summer all
1:50:50
Speaker 2: at two, Lane is now going to Florida was more
1:50:53
Speaker 2: of an up and comer. I tell my Lsu brother
1:50:56
Speaker 2: in this, I said, guys, Nick Saban was not Nick
1:50:59
Speaker 2: Saban when he came to bad Rouge, right, it was
1:51:02
Speaker 2: the Michigan state coach. No, but he had won there.
1:51:04
Speaker 1: But let me add but that in the way it
1:51:06
Speaker 1: works now you realize in college because I look at
1:51:08
Speaker 1: how you know why Mario Cristobal got the job because
1:51:11
Speaker 1: he had a super pack waiting to go. Meaning just
1:51:14
Speaker 1: like in politics now, you're a better candidate for a
1:51:17
Speaker 1: job if you also.
1:51:18
Speaker 2: Can bring donors to the situation, and Mario had it.
1:51:24
Speaker 1: There was a donor community in South Florida that was
1:51:27
Speaker 1: ready to cut checks if Mario has made the coach.
1:51:31
Speaker 1: If Manny was Diaz was kept the coach, A very
1:51:34
Speaker 1: good coach, mind you. Okay, but if he was, he
1:51:37
Speaker 1: was the same amount of donors weren't going to write
1:51:39
Speaker 1: as big as checks. So the point is is that
1:51:41
Speaker 1: Mario came in with Joey Maguire came in with checks. Right,
1:51:46
Speaker 1: I think this is the new world. You've got to bring.
1:51:50
Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin brings money, got to bring he said, just
1:51:55
Speaker 1: like with you know, how are you a viable senate
1:51:58
Speaker 1: candidate to the John Thuns.
1:51:59
Speaker 2: And Chuck Shum of the world if you ask LSU fans.
1:52:04
Speaker 2: Probably though what's over under on Lane's tenure basically for years,
1:52:09
Speaker 2: you know. Anyway, More importantly, I'm happy for you. It's
1:52:12
Speaker 2: gonna be five means uh. It's cool to see there
1:52:16
Speaker 2: their return to greatness.
1:52:18
Speaker 1: It's we haven't returned yet. We're knocking on the door
1:52:22
Speaker 1: in Miami.
1:52:23
Speaker 2: There's only one thing that counts championships. We've never turned
1:52:26
Speaker 2: about old mister a minute too, because city has obviously,
1:52:30
Speaker 2: I mean speaking of a state film with insecurities, Oh gosh,
1:52:33
Speaker 2: in so many categories. Right, they always have the best
1:52:37
Speaker 2: party in the grove, but they do always have the
1:52:40
Speaker 2: best success on the field, and here they have this
1:52:43
Speaker 2: dream season. Their coach abandons them, breaks their heart and
1:52:47
Speaker 2: they still are are are winning and have a chance
1:52:50
Speaker 2: to win the national titles. I don't think this. I mean, obviously,
1:52:55
Speaker 2: Indiana's been a cool story nationally. This has really gripped
1:52:58
Speaker 2: Mississippi like I don't any other story this year, because
1:53:02
Speaker 2: it just means so much to them, right I.
1:53:04
Speaker 1: You know it's interesting is is that this is one
1:53:06
Speaker 1: of those where there are there are good narratives for
1:53:09
Speaker 1: whatever winner we get. The Indiana narrative is obvious, even
1:53:12
Speaker 1: like Signetti said it the other day. Yeah, it's kind
1:53:14
Speaker 1: of a sports movie, right, but one could argue, oh,
1:53:18
Speaker 1: miss is a sports movie. The coach leaves and it's
1:53:20
Speaker 1: a rally around. But even Oregon and Miami have their
1:53:23
Speaker 1: own narratives, right. Oregon has been this organ's been knocking
1:53:26
Speaker 1: on the door, but not really. They've been allowed into
1:53:29
Speaker 1: the into the club with a with a chaperone, but
1:53:33
Speaker 1: they've never been able to Actually they're not they don't
1:53:36
Speaker 1: have membership. They're always invited, but they've never actually earned
1:53:40
Speaker 1: a membership into the club. Even Miami has an old
1:53:43
Speaker 1: card into the club.
1:53:44
Speaker 2: Right.
1:53:44
Speaker 1: They're now they they're the lone blue blood left and
1:53:48
Speaker 1: I've never thought of Miami as a blue blood, but
1:53:51
Speaker 1: historically they have the resume of one.
1:53:54
Speaker 2: But the stories. You can see the movie for a
1:53:57
Speaker 2: little miss to Archie. Manning shot up this, you know,
1:54:01
Speaker 2: and gets the team fired up, and they play by
1:54:04
Speaker 2: the way they've played Archie clips last night in the
1:54:07
Speaker 2: Superdome during the Sugar Bowl. That's fun and it's incredible
1:54:11
Speaker 2: the hold he still has on that program. He's a
1:54:13
Speaker 2: great guy and he still means so much to that program.
1:54:16
Speaker 2: The crowd went crazy the science of the Mannings. By
1:54:19
Speaker 2: the way, does a Manning win office before a Trump
1:54:23
Speaker 2: child wins office? What do you think? I think the
1:54:27
Speaker 2: Meanings will stick to commercials and ESPN. I think and
1:54:31
Speaker 2: we'll stay we'll stay out.
1:54:32
Speaker 1: Of One of them will get talked into running for something.
1:54:35
Speaker 1: You know it Cooper. Who knows which one of them
1:54:38
Speaker 1: it is? Cooper Eli Peyton.
1:54:39
Speaker 2: I think I think the Manning crew remembers the Michael
1:54:43
Speaker 2: Jordan Maxim and Michael Jordan Maxim was Republicans by sneakers too. Well.
1:54:49
Speaker 2: They're very savvy, they are, they're very sad. They've got
1:54:53
Speaker 2: they've got a fairly a political identity and which is
1:54:57
Speaker 2: hard in this era. It's really hard in this era.
1:55:00
Speaker 2: And uh, I think they probably prefer to keep that
1:55:02
Speaker 2: for a while, you know, uh o, k Mark you Uh,
1:55:07
Speaker 2: how do you?
1:55:07
Speaker 1: How do you feel as a uv A guy about
1:55:09
Speaker 1: James Madison do you did you pull for him?
1:55:11
Speaker 2: Are we a little? I think JMU was a great
1:55:16
Speaker 2: one double a school that would have it's good for Virginia.
1:55:22
Speaker 2: I look, I I grew up to hearing for UVA
1:55:25
Speaker 2: basketball and football growing up in Virginia. And George Welsh
1:55:29
Speaker 2: was an incredible coach, and those teams were fantastic in
1:55:33
Speaker 2: the nineties, and and and the odds. It's just hard
1:55:36
Speaker 2: to sustain the modern football ear at a uv A
1:55:39
Speaker 2: a competitive football program, but if they had a hell
1:55:42
Speaker 2: of a year. Basketball is more interesting there because of
1:55:46
Speaker 2: the portal era. Uh and and because of what Bennett
1:55:49
Speaker 2: put together. And I think, you know, I know Ryan
1:55:52
Speaker 2: Otam out to college with them. Ryan Otam has got
1:55:54
Speaker 2: I think, great promise. It's gonna be fun to watch
1:55:56
Speaker 2: UVA basketball this year. Excited for him.
1:55:59
Speaker 1: And I know that there's a lot of a lot
1:56:01
Speaker 1: of our UVA friends, Danielle Jones and Jest Jones. I mean,
1:56:05
Speaker 1: everybody's pull up for Ryan right, like there is a
1:56:07
Speaker 1: there's a big community behind him.
1:56:09
Speaker 2: So that's fine. Yeah, And look, I think I think
1:56:12
Speaker 2: he's taking that program in the right direction. And I
1:56:14
Speaker 2: think they have great, great problems. It's just tough chucking.
1:56:18
Speaker 2: All these coaches every year are putting together at least
1:56:21
Speaker 2: four new kids on the court, if not five, and
1:56:25
Speaker 2: there's just not much continuity.
1:56:27
Speaker 1: Well, here's what it does put a premium on is
1:56:30
Speaker 1: I do think there's an extra premium and this is
1:56:32
Speaker 1: true now in college football, in it with the coordinators
1:56:35
Speaker 1: and in college basketball with the coaches. There's an extra
1:56:38
Speaker 1: premium on actually coaching.
1:56:40
Speaker 2: Right.
1:56:40
Speaker 1: It used to be you had to be a recruiter
1:56:43
Speaker 1: and all this stuff, but you've got to because the
1:56:46
Speaker 1: differentiators in football now are the quarterback and the coach.
1:56:49
Speaker 1: The different because talent is going to be evened out, right,
1:56:52
Speaker 1: the market is gonna is going to essentially even it out.
1:56:56
Speaker 1: Ditto in basketball, so the distinctions are going to be
1:57:00
Speaker 1: coaching schemes and chemistry and things like that. That should
1:57:03
Speaker 1: make it more exciting. I think college basketball ten years
1:57:06
Speaker 1: from now is going to be deeper and better, uh,
1:57:11
Speaker 1: and it's going to be as high quality as college
1:57:14
Speaker 1: basketball was when you and I were growing up in
1:57:15
Speaker 1: the eighties.
1:57:16
Speaker 2: I really gotta be because of Nil. Well, there's got
1:57:21
Speaker 2: to be some rules. There's got to will be. I know,
1:57:23
Speaker 2: you know there's a rebellion now because some of these
1:57:26
Speaker 2: kids who are drafted and blading the Dali are now
1:57:28
Speaker 2: coming back to play in college. There's got to be
1:57:30
Speaker 2: some regulation. But I agree it's got huge potential. Yeah.
1:57:33
Speaker 1: You know who's a terrible spokesperson for lamenting about the Nioli, Well,
1:57:38
Speaker 1: John Collar.
1:57:40
Speaker 2: He's got to look just.
1:57:42
Speaker 1: He may be right about his complaints, but you're like, dude,
1:57:47
Speaker 1: you know you benefited in a system that allowed Kentucky
1:57:52
Speaker 1: to benefit in ways that we still don't know the truth. Okay,
1:57:56
Speaker 1: I guess you know. The point is you John Kyler
1:57:59
Speaker 1: Parry upset that you don't get to create the velvet
1:58:02
Speaker 1: rope that you benefited from for a long time. So,
1:58:05
Speaker 1: while again his complaints are correct, he's a terrible spokesperson
1:58:08
Speaker 1: being playing.
1:58:09
Speaker 2: All right, Chuck godd don't go to Fayeville anytime soon.
1:58:13
Speaker 2: All Right. I love my friends in Fade, Phil.
1:58:15
Speaker 1: I don't think they're so you know, let's let's think
1:58:18
Speaker 1: if I had you know, I'm an old A ten guy.
1:58:23
Speaker 2: John Calipari is what if gw at those games? Those
1:58:27
Speaker 2: games were at that Marcus Fantastics. We own them.
1:58:33
Speaker 1: We are the only A ten team that owned you
1:58:35
Speaker 1: man in those parts, keeping a rabbit hole.
1:58:37
Speaker 2: Now we should end on Marcus Cambia. You could, Oh
1:58:41
Speaker 2: my god, are you happy your man the late y?
1:58:44
Speaker 2: Happy New Year, my friend. Yeah, it's good to see you,
1:58:47
Speaker 2: ARTU happy know you well?
1:58:54
Speaker 1: Given that I'm recording all of this on January tewod
1:58:58
Speaker 1: it means I've now had two days to marinates in
1:59:02
Speaker 1: Miami's victory over the Ohio State University.
1:59:09
Speaker 2: It is.
1:59:09
Speaker 1: I think I told you at the start of this
1:59:11
Speaker 1: college football playoff that my fan expectations were we better
1:59:17
Speaker 1: win one. That would be embarrassing not to win one.
1:59:21
Speaker 1: I think we you know, I won't. I won't feel
1:59:24
Speaker 1: like the season successful if we're not in the semifinals.
1:59:27
Speaker 1: So we're in the semifinals. So I think that Miami's
1:59:31
Speaker 1: where we always should be, where we belong. And of course,
1:59:35
Speaker 1: now in this day and age, can you win two more?
1:59:40
Speaker 1: And let's just say that once you get this far,
1:59:45
Speaker 1: you get greedy and you say to yourself, well, you're
1:59:48
Speaker 1: only two games away, and let's get this done.
1:59:55
Speaker 2: I go back to Miami.
1:59:58
Speaker 1: It's so funny in this Miami of Miami Ohio State
2:00:01
Speaker 1: game because Miami literally was Ohio State twenty oh two
2:00:05
Speaker 1: in this game, right, It was sort of a The
2:00:09
Speaker 1: announcers noted that the last time Miami was in a
2:00:11
Speaker 1: relevant game was that two thousand and three Fiesta Pole,
2:00:14
Speaker 1: which was for the two thousand and two season where
2:00:17
Speaker 1: the upstart was Ohio State. They were the former power
2:00:22
Speaker 1: trying desperately to get into the elite. Beating Miami was
2:00:27
Speaker 1: the way that they could get taken. Seriously, Miami was
2:00:30
Speaker 1: sort of part of the elite of the last you know,
2:00:33
Speaker 1: nearly twenty years. At that point, they had been on
2:00:36
Speaker 1: won five titles in eighteen years at the time, the
2:00:39
Speaker 1: best run really since the old Notre Dame Army Navy,
2:00:43
Speaker 1: you know era of the forties and fifties and the
2:00:47
Speaker 1: Bear Bryant eraw in Alabama, and it seemed like an
2:00:50
Speaker 1: era that nobody was ever going to top until a
2:00:53
Speaker 1: guy named Nick Saban showed up at Alabama a few
2:00:55
Speaker 1: years later. But that's how this game felt that Miami
2:01:00
Speaker 1: was the sort of the old an old power that
2:01:06
Speaker 1: was looking to prove it was back, and it had
2:01:08
Speaker 1: to beat one of the current blue bloods, which happened
2:01:11
Speaker 1: to be Ohio State. So that's why, symbolically I found
2:01:14
Speaker 1: that the Ohio State game was so much. This was
2:01:17
Speaker 1: extraordinarily important for Miami to win to prove that it
2:01:20
Speaker 1: is back. Important for recruiting. Ohio State success over the
2:01:26
Speaker 1: last twenty years has been largely due to its success
2:01:30
Speaker 1: at recruiting in South Florida wide receivers more than anything else,
2:01:34
Speaker 1: and it's been a huge blow to Miami, Florida and
2:01:38
Speaker 1: Florida State. Ohio State's success in recruiting South Florida specifically
2:01:44
Speaker 1: that one position group.
2:01:47
Speaker 3: And.
2:01:49
Speaker 1: It was important to win a game like that in
2:01:52
Speaker 1: order to win some recruiting wars that we'd been losing.
2:01:56
Speaker 1: Miami over the last twenty five years had lost recruiting
2:01:59
Speaker 1: wars to Northern sco. We had dominated the recruiting wars
2:02:02
Speaker 1: against those Northern powers back in the eighties and nineties,
2:02:05
Speaker 1: but in the odds we were not winning those. We
2:02:08
Speaker 1: won them at first and then started to lose them
2:02:12
Speaker 1: after Miami's run started to fade. So that's why I
2:02:15
Speaker 1: think symbolically it was an important victory, but now it's
2:02:20
Speaker 1: a very winnable right The road is there, and Miami
2:02:24
Speaker 1: has built essentially not to lose games badly, so it
2:02:31
Speaker 1: means they're going to be in every game. The defense
2:02:33
Speaker 1: is good enough to keep them in any game against
2:02:35
Speaker 1: any team. The question is whether the offense can score
2:02:39
Speaker 1: enough points to win said game. Now they just you
2:02:43
Speaker 1: know it is it is. They scored more points against
2:02:47
Speaker 1: hous State than any team has done all season, including
2:02:51
Speaker 1: the number one team in the country, Indiana. So look,
2:02:55
Speaker 1: I think that there's certainly Miami has the talent to
2:03:00
Speaker 1: win two more games if I think Miami's defense can
2:03:06
Speaker 1: slow down Old Missus offense. The question is is Miami's
2:03:10
Speaker 1: offense good enough to exploit some of the weaknesses on
2:03:13
Speaker 1: Old Missus defense.
2:03:15
Speaker 2: And that's a fair question to ask.
2:03:17
Speaker 1: I don't know the answer to it, but I'm feeling
2:03:20
Speaker 1: pretty bullish. I think I will fully admit I misread
2:03:26
Speaker 1: the psyche of the Ole miss players. I did think
2:03:29
Speaker 1: with the portal opening now and that that game against
2:03:33
Speaker 1: Georgia was going to be problematic. Now I think they're
2:03:37
Speaker 1: still going to have a distracted coaching staff, but the
2:03:40
Speaker 1: players seem to be in some ways using this as fuel, using.
2:03:44
Speaker 2: This as energy.
2:03:45
Speaker 1: So there's a part of me worried that Miami is
2:03:47
Speaker 1: getting is just simply another episode in this sports movie
2:03:51
Speaker 1: that is known as the team that loses its coach
2:03:54
Speaker 1: and wins the championship anyway, right, kind of like the
2:03:58
Speaker 1: Michigan basketball team Steve Fisher back in nineteen eighty nine.
2:04:04
Speaker 2: I think it was.
2:04:05
Speaker 1: When the head coach of Michigan's basketball team leaves before
2:04:10
Speaker 1: the start of the NCAA tournament. I think his name
2:04:13
Speaker 1: was Bill Freeder. He went to Arizona State and Michigan
2:04:16
Speaker 1: was like, nope, you get out of here. They appoint
2:04:19
Speaker 1: the interim coach, Deve Fisher, and all he does is
2:04:25
Speaker 1: when the whole thing on that one I think that
2:04:29
Speaker 1: was the Glen Rice team, if I'm not mistaken, but
2:04:33
Speaker 1: it was that.
2:04:35
Speaker 2: Was at the time a pretty impressive run.
2:04:38
Speaker 1: One of the all timers at that one, and this
2:04:41
Speaker 1: feels very similar to that. So there's a part of
2:04:43
Speaker 1: me worried, are we just a speed bump on the
2:04:46
Speaker 1: way to old miss documentary history here? Then again, if
2:04:49
Speaker 1: you're a documentarian, which story is better The Rise of
2:04:53
Speaker 1: Indiana football or the resilience of Old miss after Lane
2:04:56
Speaker 1: Kiffin leaves them at the altar, right like, this is a
2:04:59
Speaker 1: pretty good sports movie in either direction that you choose
2:05:02
Speaker 1: to go. Miami and Oregon in comparison, are just very
2:05:06
Speaker 1: conventional narratives, although Miami versus Oregon is a fun little
2:05:09
Speaker 1: Mario Crystobal Bowl, which would be fun. But that gets
2:05:13
Speaker 1: me to a few perception things that I want to
2:05:15
Speaker 1: get off the bat. First of all, I give Shannon Dawson,
2:05:19
Speaker 1: that Miami play caller, a lot of grief. This was
2:05:22
Speaker 1: the best game plan I have ever seen him put together.
2:05:25
Speaker 1: He answered everything that I was upset about in the
2:05:30
Speaker 1: last game. You don't seem like a game plan for
2:05:32
Speaker 1: the defense you're facing. Look like we game plan for
2:05:34
Speaker 1: the defense we were facing. It feels like you didn't
2:05:38
Speaker 1: trust Carson Beck to make decisions. He trusted Carson Beck
2:05:42
Speaker 1: to make decisions. By the way, Carson Beck, he wears
2:05:45
Speaker 1: number eleven for Miami fans. It's the last guy to
2:05:48
Speaker 1: wear number eleven and do some incredible things with that
2:05:54
Speaker 1: jersey number. Was Ken Dorsey, the quarterback for the greatest
2:05:58
Speaker 1: college football team of all time, the two thousand and
2:06:00
Speaker 1: one Miami Hurricanes and the quarterback who should not have
2:06:03
Speaker 1: been in the last in the last play of the
2:06:06
Speaker 1: game in that Ohio State game, he had been knocked out.
2:06:11
Speaker 1: Today's concussion protocol never would have let him back in,
2:06:15
Speaker 1: and Miami's backup quarterback probably should have been allowed to
2:06:19
Speaker 1: finish that game. And I still wonder to this day.
2:06:23
Speaker 1: I think Dorsey was still rattled. He shouldn't have been
2:06:25
Speaker 1: brought back in. But I'm still nitpicking, right, never mind
2:06:28
Speaker 1: the bad call.
2:06:29
Speaker 2: We tie that game.
2:06:30
Speaker 1: We should We were right there at the one yard line,
2:06:32
Speaker 1: we had two shots at it, but he was still
2:06:34
Speaker 1: He wasn't fully in that game on that front. But
2:06:39
Speaker 1: my point i'm back is beck reminds me of all
2:06:42
Speaker 1: the good traits of cars of Ken Dorsey. Look, you're
2:06:47
Speaker 1: not ever saying I never said nobody, no Miami fan
2:06:50
Speaker 1: thought Ken Dorsey was going to be an NFL starting quarterback.
2:06:53
Speaker 1: You knew that, and yet he was the best quarterback
2:06:58
Speaker 1: Miami could have had guiding that team.
2:07:00
Speaker 2: He was a point guard quarterback.
2:07:01
Speaker 1: He knew how to get the ball in the hands
2:07:03
Speaker 1: of the people that needed to have it and what
2:07:05
Speaker 1: to do in the moment. And that's what it feels
2:07:08
Speaker 1: like Carson Beck has done. You know, there's all this
2:07:11
Speaker 1: and this gets into sort of a larger New Year's
2:07:14
Speaker 1: resolution that I think we all need to have, which
2:07:16
Speaker 1: is be careful of Internet perception. Painting a picture of
2:07:22
Speaker 1: somebody that you don't know anything about. There's this internet perception, right.
2:07:28
Speaker 1: I'll tell you a classic case of where this came
2:07:30
Speaker 1: in over the weekend. It's a great story in the
2:07:32
Speaker 1: Athletic about the new managing one of the late Jim
2:07:35
Speaker 1: Mercy's three daughters are collectively running the team, but one
2:07:39
Speaker 1: daughter is the managing partner. She's sort of the one
2:07:43
Speaker 1: that sits at the owner's meetings, and the Athletic did
2:07:46
Speaker 1: a whole profile of her. And you know, I had
2:07:49
Speaker 1: first sort of noticed her when the Internet exploded with
2:07:54
Speaker 1: why is the owner on the sideline with a clipboard
2:07:56
Speaker 1: and a headset?
2:07:58
Speaker 2: And then I learned reading.
2:07:59
Speaker 1: That article that she's been doing this for years, just
2:08:02
Speaker 1: now people are noticing because now she's the general managing
2:08:04
Speaker 1: general partner of the team, not just her dad's just
2:08:08
Speaker 1: the daughter the owner. And after reading the piece, I thought, well,
2:08:12
Speaker 1: she's a terrific owner. She's exactly what an owner should
2:08:15
Speaker 1: be doing, which is to understand everything that goes in
2:08:19
Speaker 1: putting a team together so that you can help make
2:08:21
Speaker 1: good decisions. Anyway, the internet perception of her was, you know,
2:08:27
Speaker 1: somehow right, the painting the picture of what she think?
2:08:30
Speaker 2: Who does she think she is? Being on the sideline
2:08:32
Speaker 2: type of thing.
2:08:34
Speaker 1: After reading the article, you're like, this is totally opposite
2:08:37
Speaker 1: of the perception being painted. This is happening a lot.
2:08:41
Speaker 1: You know, I look at how quickly the perception of
2:08:44
Speaker 1: Mario Crystobaul is inbedted. You know, he's had a couple
2:08:48
Speaker 1: of high profile, questionable calls on when it comes to
2:08:54
Speaker 1: sort of clock management. Right, the Georgia Tech game for
2:08:57
Speaker 1: Miami fans is infamous. There's a couple of games Oregon
2:09:00
Speaker 1: fans will remind you of when he was coach of Oregon.
2:09:03
Speaker 1: But you know what we forget why is in he
2:09:07
Speaker 1: Why is there's a reason he's at these major programs.
2:09:11
Speaker 1: He does know what he's doing. Okay, he made a
2:09:14
Speaker 1: couple of mistakes in moments where everybody's watching and it
2:09:17
Speaker 1: can sort of create a perception. But guess what he
2:09:20
Speaker 1: also is doing is building a program. He does lean
2:09:23
Speaker 1: into his strength, which is identifying offensive line talent, and
2:09:28
Speaker 1: he's built the program and the image that he said
2:09:30
Speaker 1: he was going to do. Is he a little small
2:09:34
Speaker 1: c conservative when it comes to on the offensive side
2:09:37
Speaker 1: of the ball, for my tasted times, it is, But
2:09:42
Speaker 1: is it working well? Results, scoreboard record point out all
2:09:48
Speaker 1: of them. And if he ends up, you know, he's
2:09:51
Speaker 1: already this idea that he can't win a big game. Well,
2:09:54
Speaker 1: does winning in the college football playoff at Kyle Field
2:09:57
Speaker 1: qualifies a big game? Does winning in the Cotton Bowl
2:10:00
Speaker 1: against the number two ranked team in the country considered
2:10:04
Speaker 1: a big game? And now if he loses to Ole
2:10:07
Speaker 1: Miss as a favorite, are we going to say, Wow,
2:10:09
Speaker 1: Miami's terrible as a favorite. They're only good as an underdog. Well,
2:10:12
Speaker 1: that might be a you know, they're a small part
2:10:15
Speaker 1: of me nervous that Miami's the favorite. Now, when I
2:10:18
Speaker 1: liked being in this underdog role where we were the ace.
2:10:22
Speaker 1: The the sort of anti acc bias of every of
2:10:24
Speaker 1: betters and of the punditry on ESPN was we had
2:10:28
Speaker 1: all kicked in. You know now that we kicked the
2:10:31
Speaker 1: you know, because the win over Ohio State wasn't a fluke, right,
2:10:36
Speaker 1: We beat him up, We out physical them, and they
2:10:40
Speaker 1: thought they were going to out physical everybody else and
2:10:43
Speaker 1: they couldn't. Let's see what happens when we're matched up
2:10:47
Speaker 1: against you know, uh, another SEC team.
2:10:51
Speaker 2: We'll see and.
2:10:52
Speaker 1: We'll see if we can get past that, and we
2:10:54
Speaker 1: and we end up against either Oregon or Indiana. But
2:10:59
Speaker 1: by the way, I here's a question about the Indian
2:11:04
Speaker 1: Alabama game. Indiana looked like Alabama, and Alabama looked like
2:11:11
Speaker 1: you know, Alabama reminded me of Miami two thousand and five.
2:11:15
Speaker 1: So Miami was still considered, you know, it only been
2:11:17
Speaker 1: a couple of years removed from the national title game.
2:11:20
Speaker 1: They'd sort of only had one loss away from being
2:11:22
Speaker 1: in the three title game, and so there was this,
2:11:26
Speaker 1: you know, they were still one of the powers. And
2:11:29
Speaker 1: we ended up facing off and in one of these
2:11:31
Speaker 1: disappointment matchups with LSU and the Peach Bowl and LSU
2:11:35
Speaker 1: boat raced uts forty two to three. Players started infighting
2:11:39
Speaker 1: amongst themselves.
2:11:40
Speaker 2: It was just a disaster.
2:11:42
Speaker 1: I think at that point Coker fired all of his assistants.
2:11:45
Speaker 1: Because Coker wasn't gonna get fired right away. He was
2:11:48
Speaker 1: being given, you know, some grace since he led the
2:11:50
Speaker 1: team to back to back championship games. But it was
2:11:54
Speaker 1: the beginning of the end. I fear this for Calin
2:11:58
Speaker 1: de Boor with what happened. It wasn't that they lost
2:12:01
Speaker 1: to Indiana, It's how they lost. They just didn't look
2:12:04
Speaker 1: like they physically belonged on the field. And how did
2:12:07
Speaker 1: just like that's what happened when Miami. It wasn't that
2:12:09
Speaker 1: Miami lost ale Iss hit was how they lost. And
2:12:14
Speaker 1: let's just say that in two years of Kurt Signetti
2:12:17
Speaker 1: as the next head coach of the University of Alabama,
2:12:19
Speaker 1: I won't be surprised and I do not accept the
2:12:24
Speaker 1: premise that Signetti wouldn't take the job. But what I
2:12:29
Speaker 1: saw the Knicks. If you're looking for a Nick Saban
2:12:33
Speaker 1: like Frankly, I gotta give Crystal Ball credit.
2:12:38
Speaker 2: He looks.
2:12:38
Speaker 1: I mean, Miami didn't have a single accepted penalty. That's
2:12:43
Speaker 1: how that's Nick saban esque. That was never Miami's reputation
2:12:47
Speaker 1: over the years. Now I got handed to those SEC officials.
2:12:50
Speaker 1: They were SEC officials doing the Miami Ohio state game.
2:12:52
Speaker 1: Boy did they let everybody play. There were a couple
2:12:55
Speaker 1: of hits that I swear Miami would have been flagged
2:12:58
Speaker 1: on if they were a CEC officials, it just had
2:13:02
Speaker 1: been a given and Miami doesn't get flagged. They sort
2:13:05
Speaker 1: of the quote let him play and if there was
2:13:08
Speaker 1: a baton passing moment. There's this video if you haven't
2:13:11
Speaker 1: seen it, that's going around Carnel Tait. It basically short
2:13:15
Speaker 1: arms a throw from saying because he was about to
2:13:19
Speaker 1: get hit, and it looked like he was afraid to
2:13:20
Speaker 1: get hit. And that was I remember when they showed
2:13:23
Speaker 1: the replay. I saw it and I even remarked in
2:13:27
Speaker 1: the room, huh, boy, look at how afraid they are
2:13:31
Speaker 1: of getting hit Miami. Miami is certainly making them uncomfortable
2:13:35
Speaker 1: looking back, boy, that's the that feels like the symbolic
2:13:40
Speaker 1: moment that the baton was passed back to Miami and
2:13:43
Speaker 1: here they come. Because I promise you this, this physicality
2:13:48
Speaker 1: that Miami's bringing back isn't a one year phenomenon. It's
2:13:53
Speaker 1: it's I think going to be the DNA. It's certainly
2:13:56
Speaker 1: Mario Crystobal's DNA. So the question I have is will
2:14:01
Speaker 1: we will ask will the big time athletes still want
2:14:04
Speaker 1: to play in a small C conservative offense. That's the
2:14:08
Speaker 1: only concern I might have. But this day and age,
2:14:11
Speaker 1: winning Trump's everything, and if we're winning, people want to
2:14:14
Speaker 1: be a part of a winning culture. But anyway, just
2:14:20
Speaker 1: be careful of perceptions. Right, we sit here and we
2:14:23
Speaker 1: allow the Internet to fuel perceptions of certain individuals, certain people,
2:14:27
Speaker 1: certain resumes. When and then when the when it doesn't
2:14:33
Speaker 1: when when they don't play to the internet type, we think, oh, well,
2:14:36
Speaker 1: there must be something wrong with the other team. When
2:14:39
Speaker 1: you know it is we probably were over zealous in
2:14:43
Speaker 1: the characters in the caricature that was being created.
2:14:46
Speaker 2: Uh.
2:14:47
Speaker 1: I've participated in that over zealousness at times, and I've
2:14:50
Speaker 1: gotten because we as a fanatic fan short for fanatic,
2:14:55
Speaker 1: I've certainly had my strong opinions about how certain things
2:14:58
Speaker 1: went uh with Miami. But let's just say this is
2:15:01
Speaker 1: this is always what I expected, and this is what
2:15:04
Speaker 1: the Miami fan base is about, which is we expect
2:15:07
Speaker 1: to be contenders for national titles hard stop. Nothing else matters,
2:15:12
Speaker 1: and you can say, well, go win an ACC title.
2:15:13
Speaker 1: We've never cared about conference titles because we're still in
2:15:16
Speaker 1: I still view us as an independent who's been a
2:15:19
Speaker 1: mercenary for these conferences. We joined a conference because of
2:15:22
Speaker 1: the other sports. We never wanted to join conferences, but
2:15:24
Speaker 1: we did it out of scheduling purposes. It isn't a matter.
2:15:28
Speaker 1: It's what conference gives Miami the best shot at competing
2:15:31
Speaker 1: for a national title and or what system works, and
2:15:35
Speaker 1: so ultimately, if Miami is operating on the level that
2:15:42
Speaker 1: they're operating on this year, for the foreseeable future, you know,
2:15:48
Speaker 1: as long as we're contending, and when one out of
2:15:51
Speaker 1: every three or four, you're going to have a satisfied
2:15:56
Speaker 1: fan base. I'd like to think we won't lose it
2:15:59
Speaker 1: the way we're already seeing our friends at Ohio State
2:16:02
Speaker 1: lose it over Ryan Day. I mean, what more does
2:16:05
Speaker 1: he have to do to keep his seat from warming
2:16:08
Speaker 1: up too much in the next year if he somehow
2:16:11
Speaker 1: loses another game or two before getting back to a
2:16:14
Speaker 1: title game. But look, we'll see, I am.
2:16:21
Speaker 2: It is tough.
2:16:22
Speaker 1: It is interesting to me that I heard Reees Davis
2:16:25
Speaker 1: say this playoff rematches that take place in the playoffs
2:16:30
Speaker 1: from the regular season, the only time where the same
2:16:34
Speaker 1: team won twice was a miss over tu Lane this year,
2:16:39
Speaker 1: So every other rematch has gone the other way. Not
2:16:42
Speaker 1: the best omen And I do worry Indiana is getting
2:16:45
Speaker 1: so many flowers. Excuse me, roses thrown their way?
2:16:49
Speaker 2: Right now?
2:16:50
Speaker 1: Is this just like Miami's getting a bunch of stuff
2:16:53
Speaker 1: thrown their way. I'm nervous about Miami being a favorite.
2:16:57
Speaker 1: If I were an Indiana fan, I'd be nervous about
2:16:59
Speaker 1: suddenly Indiana being such a heavy favorite. So we'll see,
2:17:06
Speaker 1: it's going to be. It's a fun final four. And
2:17:08
Speaker 1: how about the fact that all four cultural centers of
2:17:11
Speaker 1: America are represented. Miami is very much an East coast,
2:17:15
Speaker 1: Northeast five school, oh Miss, as deep south as you get, Indiana,
2:17:20
Speaker 1: as midwest as you can get in Oregon, the West coast.
2:17:24
Speaker 1: This is what makes the college football so great, right
2:17:26
Speaker 1: And the fact that the final four worked out this
2:17:29
Speaker 1: way despite the attempts of the conference conference commissioners to
2:17:35
Speaker 1: screw this up. Don't screw this up, guys. If we
2:17:39
Speaker 1: can produce a system, ultimately the conferences should be secondary.
2:17:44
Speaker 1: If this is going to be what our system is,
2:17:48
Speaker 1: and we should go from there, and we can improve
2:17:50
Speaker 1: scheduling and all of these things, but this result should
2:17:53
Speaker 1: ultimately be what we get every time, which is some
2:17:56
Speaker 1: geographic diversity, hands and sort of spreading the wealth a
2:18:02
Speaker 1: little bit, and that's the dirty little secret about NIL. Right,
2:18:06
Speaker 1: pre Nil, we only had a lot of Alabama, a
2:18:09
Speaker 1: lot of Clemson, a little bit of Georgia, and not
2:18:12
Speaker 1: much else. Right, what has NIL done? Look, there's still
2:18:16
Speaker 1: the haves and the have nots, but there's now more
2:18:17
Speaker 1: halves than we've ever had before. And isn't that. People
2:18:25
Speaker 1: in Bloomington, Indiana are pretty excited about this. People in Eugene,
2:18:30
Speaker 1: Oregon are pretty excited about this. People in Oxford, Mississippi
2:18:33
Speaker 1: are pretty excited about this. And yes, those of us
2:18:39
Speaker 1: in Miami and Coral Gables are extraordinarily excited about this.
2:18:42
Speaker 1: So anyway, enjoyed the next two games.