Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - There’s No Evidence That Disproves The Blue Wave + Candidate Trump Would Destroy President Trump

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Chuck’s Commentary - There’s No Evidence That Disproves The Blue Wave + Candidate Trump Would Destroy President Trump · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: over exactly this. Companies that branded themselves as unbiased while
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: allegedly pointing people toward whatever would pay them the most
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: as some sort of broker. So if your default is
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to distrust everyone in this space, honestly, I get it.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
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  Speaker 1: Medicare advisors whose entire model is that their advisors are
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  Speaker 1: not paid to push any one plan. They're just trying
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  Speaker 1: to help. Yes, there's compensation that goes with it. but
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  Speaker 1: it's across the board is what they're trying to do.
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  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, they're advocating for you.
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  Speaker 1: They're not the insurance companies themselves. They're an actual person
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  Speaker 1: who actually goes through your doctors, your prescriptions, your needs,
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  Speaker 1: been in They will keep advocating for you. They're kind
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  Speaker 1: fight it. They want to stay an advocate for you
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  Speaker 1: even after you've done this. So look, I get it.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time
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  Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is
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  Speaker 1: Medicare and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing.
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  Speaker 1: The whole point of this is to make this easier
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  Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
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  Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4200. Hello there. Happy
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Monday and welcome to another episode of the Chuck Todd cast.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Eight days out. I have been on the road. Some
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  Speaker 1: of you know that I was part of a helped
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  Speaker 1: host a brand new industry conference on prediction markets as
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: a new and fledgling industry. Incredibly well attended. It was
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: in New York City. It's a reminder of how young
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: this industry is, both in terms of how new some
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: of the companies are, but also the youth of the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: folks most interested in it. But it was very substantive
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: and you sort of get a better idea of where
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  Speaker 1: this is going. And the fact is, look, there's going
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  Speaker 1: to be growing pains. There's things about this. I hear
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  Speaker 1: from plenty of you. I'm very nervous, very skeptical of
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  Speaker 1: what this is going to do to our politics and
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: this or that. Sometimes there are plenty of things that
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  Speaker 1: get developed that you're like, this is going to cause
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: heartburn and headaches. That is true. The question is, What
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  Speaker 1: do you do to create new safeguards, right? You know,
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  Speaker 1: the mistake we made with social media was not doing safeguards.
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  Speaker 1: The mistake we're making with AI is not getting in
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  Speaker 1: and around the regulatory challenges sooner rather than later. I
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  Speaker 1: actually think, and part of this is thanks to all
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the regulatory structure that exists for Wall Street and for casinos,
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  Speaker 1: that in general, there's at least more of an openness
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: and an acknowledgement that you have to figure out some safeguards.
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  Speaker 1: What are they? And look, I'm bullish on it. I'm
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: bullish on it because I think it's a anytime you
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: get more people involved in things. I'm a believer in
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: crowds and things like that. So I learned a lot.
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  Speaker 1: There's certainly some things that I'm concerned about, but I'm
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: going to be very transparent about it. And yes, I
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: know I've got some sponsors that dabble in the world
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: of prediction markets. And so you may think, oh, my
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: defense of them has to do with that. Well, I
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: don't I don't know what it is. It have to
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: do with that. I defend them if it didn't exist.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I think that's why they advertise is that I'm not
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: there bashing. But that's you know, I'm one of these
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: very annoying people is that I refuse to be in
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: an extreme position on many things. You know, you look
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: at something. I'm pretty neutral on new technologies. There are
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: good people and bad people. I worry about bad people
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: abusing new technologies. That's the thing you constantly have to
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: be on the lookout for. I also spent the weekend
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: in Texas, and boy, I was drinking from a fire
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: hose on Texas politics and also a little college football,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: as you know. I think I told you I had
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: the pleasure of both watching SMU pound Cal, and they
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  Speaker 1: looked terrific, particularly in the second half. First time SMU
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  Speaker 1: to me looked like they were playoff worthy, particularly the
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  Speaker 1: second half of them. So Kudos to them. And I
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  Speaker 1: can't wait for the big SMU Wake Forest showdown, which
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: if it were in the SEC, ESPN would already be
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: hyping up. But because ESPN only believes that conference games
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: in the SEC are tough and conference losses prove that
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: a conference is difficult with the ACC, it's proof that
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  Speaker 1: somehow the ACC is bad because a team that doesn't
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  Speaker 1: have the same brand name background wins. Uh, that, uh,
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  Speaker 1: that LSU or Alabama has your SMUs and your wake forest.
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  Speaker 1: Don't get that kind of credit. I I'm certainly happy
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  Speaker 1: that Miami gets a little bit of that benefit of doubt,
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  Speaker 1: but they had to, they did earn it. Uh, and
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  Speaker 1: they earned it over, over decades, but, um, it is
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  Speaker 1: frustrating to watch the dismissiveness of the other conferences, competitive.
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  Speaker 1: Just look at it now. Competitiveness in the big 12
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  Speaker 1: is being written off as proof. The big 12 should
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  Speaker 1: only have one, one, maybe two teams, uh, uh, that
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  Speaker 1: get invited to the college football playoff competitiveness. And the
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  Speaker 1: sec is proof that they should have 7,000 teams in the, um,
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  Speaker 1: in the college football playoff. It's just very, all I
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  Speaker 1: would ask my sec friends is, um, Imagine if your
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  Speaker 1: competitiveness were treated the same way as the competitiveness of
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  Speaker 1: the Big 12 is treated. It would make you awfully
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  Speaker 1: frustrated now, wouldn't it? So welcome. So I welcome intellectual
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  Speaker 1: honesty if we can find it somewhere over there. But yes,
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  Speaker 1: I enjoyed listening to the Miami game in an AirPod. Yes,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: it drove my son crazy that I was doing that.
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  Speaker 1: And he was really bugging him that even when Miami
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  Speaker 1: hit 50 points, I was still keeping my AirPod in.
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  Speaker 1: Cause you know, I had to, I had to hear
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  Speaker 1: what the backups were doing. Um, but needless to say, look,
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  Speaker 1: I've got a, don't worry for those of you going,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: when are you going to get to the politics? When
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  Speaker 1: are you going to do the election? We're eight days away.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to get there. Um, but you know, I,
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  Speaker 1: I just literally, I'm taping this just after I landed.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: I've been doing a lot of traveling over the last
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  Speaker 1: five days and I wanted to get all this, get
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  Speaker 1: all this off, uh, off of my chest. But, uh,
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  Speaker 1: I will just say it's a pleasure to watch Malachi
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  Speaker 1: Toney play football. And my new favorite Heisman vote is
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  Speaker 1: for Darian Toney or Malachi Mensah, meaning it's very difficult
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  Speaker 1: to sit here and ignore what Darian Mensah is doing
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  Speaker 1: as well. But Toney is something else. Toney feels once
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  Speaker 1: in a generation, except for that guy in Ohio State,
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  Speaker 1: Jeremiah Smith, right? But I think it's fascinating that the two...
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: two guys at the top of the odds boards right
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  Speaker 1: now for the Heisman are both wide receivers. It's also
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  Speaker 1: a testament in how we've taken a lot of the
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  Speaker 1: middle of the field violence out of the game and
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  Speaker 1: allowed for more athletic ability to show itself off, particularly
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  Speaker 1: at the wide receiver position. I mean, let's be honest,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: maybe 30 years ago with the just take their head
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  Speaker 1: off type of tackling that was encouraged and sometimes celebrated.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know whether a Malachi Toney would have the
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  Speaker 1: same opportunities that he's having today. Or maybe he'd just
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  Speaker 1: be seen as a kick returner or he'd have to
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  Speaker 1: play running back and things like that. And so this
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  Speaker 1: has been one of the things that the world of
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  Speaker 1: football has lucked into as they've taken some of the
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  Speaker 1: worst types of tackling out of the game. They've actually
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  Speaker 1: allowed athletic ability to show itself off even more and
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  Speaker 1: more It also means unless you're Indiana and Michigan, you
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: score a lot more points. I thought it was amazing.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: You know, sometimes teams wear throwback uniforms. I thought it
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: was amazing that in Ann Arbor last Saturday, they actually
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: had throwback teams. That was pretty neat. You know, I
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: think people need to see just how methodical and bludgeoning
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: football was in the 1920s. To say that a 13-6
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: game that was– That included overtime might have set football
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  Speaker 1: back a thousand years is an understatement. But I will
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  Speaker 1: say this. We know Indiana has a championship caliber defense.
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  Speaker 1: And by the way, what Indiana reminds me a little
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  Speaker 1: bit of Florida State the year after they won the
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  Speaker 1: national title with Jameis. They went undefeated that season until
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: they lost to Oregon in the first year of the
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: 14 playoff. But every game was a nail-biter. I think
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: they trailed in multiple second halves. Jameis was pulling you-know-what's
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  Speaker 1: out of his you-know-wheres and constantly figuring out how to
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  Speaker 1: win games that pull rabbits out of his hat. And
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: we're watching Indiana do the same thing. Eventually, the gig
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  Speaker 1: will be up for Indiana on this. They've already lost
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  Speaker 1: once to Ohio State. So we'll see how far they contend. this.
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  Speaker 1: But it was quite the lack of an offensive performance
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  Speaker 1: up there. So I'm minimizing my football. That's the most
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give you today. I'll have a lot
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: more to say later in the week on football. But
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: let's get to why you are here. Let me lament
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: one more thing before I get into my larger points today.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: We've got a lot to get to today. Ohio fallout,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Alaska fallout, Donald Trump losing his mind fallout, plenty of
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: stuff we're going to get to here in a minute.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: The threat of Elon Musk to society, you know, just
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: small little things that I want to address here. But here,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: there's been a remarkable development, and all my news junkies
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and political junkies will know what I'm talking about here. Traditionally,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: The second to last Sunday before Election Day, particularly in
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: a midterm year, but usually presidential years and midterm years,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: would be a year that pretty much every local news organization,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: if they didn't conduct a poll earlier in the year,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: they certainly paid for one to be released, that sort
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: of thing. second Sunday, because nobody wanted to do it
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: at the last Sunday before the election. So that was
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: always the second to last weekend was the weekend that
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: you just saw an explosion of data all over the place.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Some of it good, some of it bad, but just
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: a ton of data. Almost nothing this weekend on the
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: polling front. There's been some polls. But if you wanted
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: to see, you know, what happens when you gut news organizations,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: what happens when you get rid of local news? Well,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: you get rid of all of these outlets who were
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: constantly hopeful and wanted to find out what did their
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: regions think? What did their local voters think? But these
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: news organizations have been gutted. The cost of good polling
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: has skyrocketed. You can do a cheap poll and you're
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: going to get what you pay for. And so the
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: good news is we're seeing fewer people fall for the
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: cheap poll nonsense that had been going around and which
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: had sort of given polling a bad name. But we
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: have a dearth and we don't have much out there
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: this weekend, which may be another reason why you should
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: be careful of all those polling averages that you will see.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: That said, I know we will see some good polling.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I got to think we'll see some more AARPs coming up.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: We'll hopefully see one or two more Cook Report polls
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: come out. Those are good ones. Fox News does some
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: good ones. And I imagine we'll see a couple more
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: of those. And then The Hart-McInturff final NBC News poll
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: will be one that I care about a lot. I
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: know how that poll works, and it will give me
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: a hint of where things are headed. And I'm sure
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Time Sienna's got a few more. They brought out some
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: House polls in Pennsylvania that seem to just confirm where
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: things are. But I wanted to start with the lack
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: of polling because it gets to another issue that I've noticed,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: which is eight days out, there are a lot of
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: people who don't quite believe the polls that we have seen.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: maybe more accurately, is there are a lot of people
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: who see the possibility of a significant democratic wave, maybe
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: even something approaching a political tsunami. And they've decided that
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the polls must be wrong. If you've seen the SNL skit,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: please do. I choose to believe the polls this time.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: It's very funny. But what's interesting is how much, and
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: this is particularly pervasive on the Elon Musk algorithmically broken
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: X machine that he is perverted to his to his
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: messaging narratives. But there's a big argument. A lot of
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: my Republican friends and some nonbelievers of what this of
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: what this moment seems to look like are are hanging
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: their hat on two words, polling error. So I'm going
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: to get that. I've been covering elections for a long time. Right.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: I know plenty of polling errors have existed. But what
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: fascinates me about this particular attempted argument here is the
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: assumption that polling error is somehow now a permanent feature
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: of the political landscape, that it always works in the
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: same direction, and that because Donald Trump was underestimated in
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: certain elections, Republicans are automatically going to be underestimated again.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: What's the proof of this? Why would we assume that?
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump isn't even on the ballot this year. Polling
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: firms all over have been desperate to not make sure
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: they don't make that polling error again. It's a significant
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: point here a minute. And oh, by the way, the
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: political environment is completely different. Republicans are the party in
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: power completely. They're defending an unpopular administration, an unpopular economy,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: and an unpopular president. The issues dominating this election are
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: not necessarily the same issues that have dominated previous elections.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Yet somehow we're supposed to assume The polls are going
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: to miss in precisely the same direction in the same way.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: First of all, I've seen polling errors. There were massive
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: polling errors in 2000 in the direction of the Republicans.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Democrats were underestimated left and right. Nobody saw them picking
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: up four Senate seats. They picked up four Senate seats.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Nobody saw Al Gore was going to win the popular vote,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: let alone doing what he did. So polling error happens
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: in both directions. And there are significant recent campaigns in
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: our history where we've seen this. I mean, the way,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: if you follow some people on social media, it's almost
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: as if they've decided that polling error is now a
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Republican birthright. But here's the part that I think is
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: getting overlooked. What if there is polling error and it
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: goes the other way? What if the polls are underestimating
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the Democratic vote or overestimating Republican turnout? That's the polling
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: error I'm most concerned about, actually. I think the likelihood
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: of polling error is underestimating Democrats and overestimating Republican performance
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: is more likely because I know how hard so many
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: of the good pollsters are working to make sure they
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: don't underestimate Republican vote anymore. And the waiting that goes
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: into that and making sure and, you know, one of
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: the things when you especially because of the difficulty of
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: putting together a good poll is You come up, you
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: get so committed to certain weightings that you have to
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: do that sometimes you end up missing something that the
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: raw vote shows you. This is why I think a
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: lot of pollsters should say, hey, show me what you
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: got before you weighted. Show me how you weighted to 2022,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: then show me how you weighted to 2018 and show me.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: I think more pollsters should put out more results based
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: on the various scenarios that that they're contemplating. But that's,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: you know, that would do something like having truth in
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: polling and admitting that polling is directional. It is not
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: something that is supposed to be accurate to a nose.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: It's why that we say there's margin of error, usually
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: no smaller than about three percentage points. But if we
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: do have polling error, that underestimates the Democrats, then that's
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: what turns this likely Democratic wave that we're seeing. And
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: that's where I believe we are right now. I think
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: I've said this before. I think I think those thinking
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: mirage is coming. No, no, it's going to be a wave.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: The question is, how big is the wave? And is
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: it going to be enough to to do to get
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: to the to where we border on realignment, where the
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: conversation is about realignment and the conversation is about, oh,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: my God, the Republican Party needs a new direction. You
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: could have the type of Democratic wave where they win
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: the House and Senate, but there's not a debate or
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: a conversation about taking the party in a new direction. Instead,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: it's about simply Donald Trump was the problem. But you
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: get the type of election result that elects Democratic governors, say,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: in Texas and Iowa, and you pull upsets in Mississippi
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: and South Carolina. Well, then you got to ask yourself,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: is there something bigger here going on than just unpopularity?
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: about Donald Trump. Because the other thing is we're actually
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: seeing more clues that indicate the likelihood that we might
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: already be underestimating Democratic support. I want to tell you
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: about some fascinating numbers out of the analysis of the
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: early vote coming out of Texas. Tom Bonior of Target Smart,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: it's a Democratic voter data company. He's been tracking the
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: early vote there. And As Texas approaches 3 million votes
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: cast already, the number of Hispanic voters participating has already
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: surpassed the number who had voted at this same point
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: in time in the 2024 presidential election. Think about that.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: That's remarkable, okay? To have, this is not a presidential year.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Midterm years, turnout is always lower than presidential years. But
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: we're already seeing an uptick in Latino participation that is
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: over and above this same point in time that we
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: were in in 2024. It's amazing. But there's one more
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: reason why it's remarkable. The biggest increase in participation is
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: coming from younger Hispanic voters. According to Bonnier's analysis, Hispanic
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: voters under 30 have nearly doubled their participation compared with
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: this same point in time in 2024. And among Hispanic
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: voters modeled as Democrats, participation is even more than twice
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: what it was at this point two years ago. And
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: that gets at something that I've been preaching about for
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a while. And I think now this has now become,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I used to describe the things that I would preach
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: a lot about before it became mainstream. I call it
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: wisdom before it's conventional. I think it's starting to become
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: conventional wisdom, but it's this statement. We have to stop
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: treating Hispanic voters as though they're permanently an attached constituency
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: of either political party. This is a large enough demographic group.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: It's like saying whites are part of one political party. party.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: It is just not the case. And Hispanic voters are
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: are like white voters. There are conservative Hispanics, the liberal Hispanics,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: wealthy Hispanics. I mean, it's just you get my point here.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: And so I often think we just overgeneralize this vote
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: way too often. And I think it's frankly, the Democrats
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: made this huge mistake for the last couple of cycles. Right.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: And assuming it was this permanent part of this coalition,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: because it was a little sturdier during the Obama years
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: with the Democrats. But it's a mistake that the Republicans made.
• 20:28
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  Speaker 1: was the Chuck Todd cast. It's the best way to
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  Speaker 1: support the show and the best way to make sure
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: you're getting every discount. Now, as you know, I believe
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: there are two types of swing voters. And this is true,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: whether I'm talking about white voters or Latino voters. There
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: are voters who swing between the two parties. They vote
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: for one party in one election, then vote for the
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  Speaker 1: other party in the next election. Usually, They're pocketbook voters.
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  Speaker 1: These are voters that are very sensitive to economic changes
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  Speaker 1: and do hold political parties accountable for that. And then
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: there are voters who swing between voting and not voting.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: They participate when they feel motivated. They stay home when
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: they don't. And one thing we do know, what motivates voters?
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Positive affirmation or being pissed off? I think we know
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: the answer to that. It's always the pissed off voters.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: And the Hispanic electorate, I think, is very upset at
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: a variety of things. But in particular... A few, right?
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: The Hispanic electorate captures both kinds of swing voters this year,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: better than almost any other demographic group. There are Hispanic
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: voters who voted against Democrats in 24 because they were
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: unhappy with the economy, unhappy with immigration policy, and unhappy
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: with the direction of the country. Now, two years later,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: some of those same voters appear to be ready to
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: vote against Republicans for many of the same reason. These
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: were never ideological voters. That was the mistake folks made.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: These are accountability voters. And there's one other issue that
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: we shouldn't underestimate, and that is ICE. The aggressive immigration
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: enforcement we've seen under this administration has gone well beyond
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: what many voters thought they were endorsing when they voted
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: for tougher border security. Look, this goes to a larger
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: pattern we've seen from both political parties. They overreact. By
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: the way, quick aside, somebody asked me on Sunday, hey,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: you don't seem to be as focused on the Minnesota
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Senate race. Why? Um, cause Flanagan's pretty liberal, uh, Tafoya
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: is pretty moderate. This should be, you know, I, polls
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: have shown it close and I'm like, uh, and I'm
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: like in any other campaign year, I think it would
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: be a, it would be in our, you know, 10,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: eight to 10 most competitive elections. And I certainly think
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: it's going to be a closer vote, um, than any
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: other Democrat would have done. Look, she is probably too
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: liberal for Minnesota, Peggy Flanagan, but, um, I think to FOIA, the, the,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: the entire direction of the state changed on two things, right?
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: One was Amy Klobuchar, but two was ice killing two
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Americans in Minnesota. It just completely erased the, the fraud
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: scandal that was engrossing the governor, uh, who decided not
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: to run because it was so bad. Um, that was
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: one thing. And then that obviously helped Peggy Flanagan, the
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant governor sort of sever ties a little bit with
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: the walls administration. Um, But it sort of changed the conversation.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Do I think that under almost any other political environment,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Michelle Tafoya has a good chance of getting elected? I do.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: It's just, look, if she wins, it just shows you
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: how bad of a candidate Flanagan might be or how
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: out of the mainstream she may be considered. But it
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: is interesting to me that the three states that Democrats
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: are the most nervous about right now, it's really two,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Michigan and Maine, but I could throw Minnesota in there.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: In all three cases, had they had less progressive nominees,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: they'd be in much better shape. Just something to think about,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: but I digress. Let me go back to my larger
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: point here. Look, this goes back to the immigration issue.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Voters have told us they don't want open borders, and
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Republicans decided that that meant voters want immigration agents terrorizing communities. No,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: that isn't what they wanted. They didn't want people harassed
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: on roofs while they were doing work. just because they
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: looked Hispanic or just because their last name ended in Z. No,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: that's not what folks wanted either. Voters don't want open
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: borders and they don't want ICE killing people. And they
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: don't want somebody whose last name ends in Z treated
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: as a suspect. By the way, these are not contradictory positions.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: But our political parties keep behaving as though every election
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: victory is a mandate to take the most extreme version
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: of whatever position they think helped them win. And then
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: they're shocked when voters turn against them two years later. Right. Anyway,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: that's why these Hispanic early vote in Texas is so
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: interesting to me. Could be telling us something about how
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: voters are responding to the last two years of Republican governance.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: But I do think the bigger story here is age,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: young voters, because one of the most consistent findings in
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: the polling has been just how negative younger voters are,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: have become towards Donald Trump and the Republican Party, and
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: in particular, this economy. Polls have picked it up. The
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: question is whether the likely voter models have fully captured
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: how many of those younger voters are actually going to participate.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: A likely voter model is usually based on previous election returns.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Younger voters are the hardest ones to figure out their
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: voting habits because they're still developing their voting habits. And
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: if younger voters become a larger share of the electorate
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: than pollsters expect, right now they expect it to be
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: about 13%. If it's 15 or 16, holy shit, it's
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: a much different election. And that would be one place
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: where polling error could come from in the direction that
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: helps the Democrats. I still I'm still skeptical that there's
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: some mysterious hidden Republican vote because the political environment would
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: tell us it was there in 16. There were plenty
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: of tea leaves to read in the polls to show
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: us the hidden Republican vote was there. Right. The biggest
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: one was, oh. among voters who didn't like both Clinton
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: and Trump, Trump was leading. That was the single most
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: important thing that was in our final NBC News poll.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: And none of us, myself included, our pollsters, all of
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: us failed to make that a bigger headline in that poll.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: It was there. We reported it. But it turned out
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: to be the single most important tea leaf to read
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: in there. There is nothing like that about hidden Republican
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: vote that I'm finding. Maybe we'll see it in the
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: last eight days, but I'm not seeing And by the way,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: if younger voters come out in bigger numbers than expected,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: I think there are three states where this has a
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: bigger impact than in others. Michigan, Texas, and Florida. Michigan
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: being the most interesting of the three because Abdul El-Sayed
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: sent a campaign. I've said for a while, El-Sayed probably
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: needs an unusually strong youth turnout to win that race.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: It's what he got. It's how he hung on for
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: dear life in the primary. He killed it in the
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: college towns. And that was in early August when not
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: everybody was there. So his appeal is particularly strong among
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: younger voters. And if those voters participate at higher rates
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: than expected, that's how he is able to win in
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: an environment that perhaps he couldn't win if this were
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: any different. And then if Texas, were seeing these extraordinary
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Hispanic early vote numbers, and both Florida and Texas being
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: large states and just very transient, a larger, younger vote
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: showing up can have massive impact, I think, on those places.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Florida is also fascinating for a different reason. One of
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: my favorite substacks right now is Michael McDonald No, we're
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: not talking about the Doobie Brothers, Michael McDonald. We are
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: talking about University of Florida political scientist, Michael McDonald. Sorry,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: I didn't mean to scare you. If you like the
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Doobie Brothers, I have one of them. Sorry, it's one
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: of my favorite old Simpsons jokes, but I digress. Michael
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: McDonald has been terrific on all of the early vote
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: analysis throughout the country, but he had some interesting– he
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: had an interesting– take on Florida and a reminder. He's
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: been examining the early vote in Florida and the patterns.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: And he noted there's a big complication this year that
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: makes the numbers very hard to compare with previous years,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: but they actually are now more interesting because of that fact.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Florida changed its mail ballot request rules from what it
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: was four years ago. Previously, a voter could request a
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: mail ballot and have that request carry over through multiple
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: general elections. Now voters have to renew that request pretty
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: much every election cycle. The consequence is that mail ballot
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: requests are way down. And because Democrats have traditionally relied
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: more heavily on mail voting, the assumption was that this
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: change would hurt Democrats. In fact, that appeared to be
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: part of the motivation of the legislature to do these
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: rules changes. They thought, ah, we got them now, right?
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: But here's what's happening. Democrats are making up ground through
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: in-person early voting. Independents are doing the same thing. And Republicans,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: despite their substantial gains in voter registration in the state
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: of Florida over the last several years, they are not
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: matching the relative enthusiasm that we're seeing among Democrats and
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: unaffiliated voters. In fact, according to McDonald's analysis, he has
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Democratic in-person early voting up 91% over the comparable point
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: in 2022. Republican in-person voting is up just 23%. Unaffiliated
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: voters are up 80%. Now, I have a theory on this.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Republicans may have inadvertently created a bigger problem for themselves
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: than they anticipated. In fact, it's why Donald Trump has
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: been bragging he's going to vote early in person, because
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: I think he's trying desperately to see if voters just
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: aren't aware of the rules change. We know this. Democratic
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: voters are anxious about this election. They're paying attention. They're
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: highly motivated. And if you make it harder for them
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: to vote by mail, fine, they'll find another way to vote.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: You change where they have to vote, they'll figure out
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: where to go vote. That's how pissed off a big
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: chunk of the electorate is. Meanwhile, Republican voters are not
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: feeling that same urgency. That's what you're seeing here, I think.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: And that could mean that a change intended to disadvantage
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: the Democrats ends up having a much smaller impact on
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Democrats and a much bigger impact on Republicans. where suddenly
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: their turnout is down because the habitual nature of voting
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: got disrupted. And if you're already not thinking about it,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: ignoring it or feeling depressed about it, perhaps you're not
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: figuring that out. Just saying yet another. I look at
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: all these early vote analysis as different tea leaves to read.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: So I've given you some tea leaves in Texas. I've
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: given you some tea leaves in Florida. They change the
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: rules and Democrats are already overperforming. Now let's go to
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: another state, Virginia. Chas Netticombe, many of you follow him
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: on social media. I do. He's terrific. He's been working
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: on this project called State Navigate, trying to essentially get
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: better surveys out there. And they've been doing a good job.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: He's got a new survey out that shows Democrats leading
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: the generic congressional ballot in Virginia by 20 points. It's massive.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: He did the same. This is a similar poll he
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: did a year ago. And the early vote numbers as
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: well are also particularly striking. 36% of likely voters in
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: the survey say they've already voted. We still got eight
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: more days. By the way, I haven't voted yet, and
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: I'm a Virginian. Those voters are backing Democrats 72-28. About
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: that enthusiasm advantage? Yeah. Now Virginia has become a more
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: democratic state that we know over the years. But a
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: 20-point generic ballot advantage? That's something else entirely. Survey find
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: one more thing. about the broader political environment. Among voters
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: who supported Trump in 2024, but now disapprove of his performance,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: these are my somewhat disapprovers that I've been telling you about,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: a quarter say they're voting Democrat for Congress. That's not
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: a huge share of the entire electorate, but it's exactly
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: the kind of movement that can turn close Republican districts
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: into Democratic districts. And when you combine all of this together,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: about the younger electorate, stronger Democratic enthusiasm and independence breaking
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: against the president, you begin to see how a wave
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: could become something considerably larger. Just in Virginia, look, we're
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: going to have small, medium, and large to test this out.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Virginia's second congressional district's the big swing district. That's Virginia Beach.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: I think almost in any, whatever party's having the slight
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: advantage usually wins that district. Virginia won. It's slightly more
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Republican than that. A good Democratic year. Democrats should be
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: able to pull that off. I'd probably make them the
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: favorite there. Then there's Virginia 5. It's got Charlottesville in it,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: but it's got a lot of some Republican areas and
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: some red areas. It's a Republican district. Democrats pull that
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: one off. That's the one where former Congressman Tom Perriello
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: is winning. That's bottom falling out territory. That's what this
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: poll is potentially painting for. as more probable than just possible.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: I get it. Just being careful here. These are all teeth.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: You know, we talk about reading the tea leaves. This,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: whenever you hear that phrase, what does that mean? It's
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: people like me doing this, looking at these early vote analysis,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: looking at this turnout, burying our heads in demographic, looking
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: at these trend lines, comparing it with previous elections, right?
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: It isn't just like, you know, taking out the tarot
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: cards and going, ooh, look, the card of death. We
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: now know where this is headed. That's why it's hard.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: And again, I'm I am searching for tea leaves to
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: be counter. Right. I'm trying. I don't want to miss
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: that number I told you about from 2016, where it
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: was staring us in the face. Voters who didn't like
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: either presidential candidate preferred Trump by I think it was
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: 10 points. It was staring us in the face. And
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: we didn't make a big enough deal about it. I
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: am just trying to tell you, I am trying to
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: find counterfactual information to what I'm reading. And I'm not
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: just going to just smoke the hopium pipe of the
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: right and say, polling error, when I can't find a
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: lot of evidence for it just yet. So the early
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: voting patterns are pointing one way. And the behavior of
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: the two political parties in the final days of the
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: campaign is pointing one way as well. It brings me
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: to something else I find impossible to understand. Republicans can
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: see the same numbers I'm seeing. They can see the
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: president's approval ratings and they can see what voters are
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: saying about the economy and they can see the dissatisfaction
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: with the war in Iran and with the administration's immigration policies.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: And yet, instead of addressing reasons voters are unhappy with
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: the people running the country, they're spending the final days
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: of this campaign trying to convince voters to be afraid
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: of the people who aren't running the country on policy
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: ideas that were that were being debated two years ago
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: or four years ago. And nobody seems more disconnected from
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: the political moment than Donald Trump himself. And I've been
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: thinking a lot about a little thought experiment. What would
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: candidate Trump say about President Trump at the moment? Let's
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: just say I think candidate Trump would destroy President Trump.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Imagine Donald Trump, the candidate from 2016 and 2024. running
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: against Donald Trump, the president of 2026. What would candidate
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Trump say about this failed presidency? He'd have a field day.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Call him a loser. Look at those approval ratings. Nobody
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: likes him. He'd say he's the worst negotiator in American history.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Every deal he's negotiated has been for shit for the
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: American economy. He'd say Putin is eating his lunch. He'd
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: say Canada's eating his lunch. Everybody's eating Trump's lunch. The
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: only good out of that is that maybe he would
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: let him lose some weight. He'd probably make a fat
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: joke about him. Again, candidate Trump, President Trump. He'd say
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: this president doesn't know how to make a deal. He'd
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: say he'd been played by the Russians, played by the Chinese,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: played by the Canadians. The entire world is laughing at us.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: He'd say this president promised us peace and gave us war.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: And remember what Trump said in 2024 about Kamala Harris.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: He warned if you elected her, we would end up
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: in World War III or war with Iran. Well, guess what?
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: We ended up with a war with Iran and fears
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: of World War III. Oh, and a guy named Donald
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Trump is the president. Can you imagine what candidate Trump
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: would say about a president who made that promise and
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: then did exactly what he warned his opponent would do?
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Candidate Trump would be absolutely merciless on this person. He'd
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: be saying, I told you this would happen. I told
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: you these people don't know what they're doing. I told
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: you they were going to get us into another stupid
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: war in the Middle East. And he'd be saying it
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: every single day. Now let's talk about the economy. because
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: this is where the contrast becomes almost comical. Remember Donald
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Trump in 2024, he was working the drive-through at McDonald's.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: He climbed into a garbage truck. He was doing these
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: elaborate campaign stunts designed to reinforce the idea that he
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: actually understood what ordinary Americans were going through and the
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: types of jobs that they do to keep this country going.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: And you know what? Politically in 2024, those things worked.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: He fooled. Look, I laughed at him. We knew it
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: was bullshit. But as a political tactician, he knew what
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: he was doing. They were memorable, got attention, reinforced his message.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: He understood that voters were angry about the cost of living,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: and he knew how to turn that anger into a
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: political weapon. Now look at him. Gas prices are up.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Diesel prices are up. People are angry about grocery bills
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: and energy costs. And what's the president's response at one
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: of his rallies over the weekend? He's bragging about how
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: much money the country is making, which is really just
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: the wealthiest 10%. He actually said, let me quote him,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: we're making money like we've never made before. And then
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: he anticipated the obvious criticism that people are suffering at
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: the pump while he's bragging about all his money. And
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: his response, I don't give a damn. We're making a
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: freaking fortune. Wow. Imagine candidate Trump hearing President Trump say that.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: He'd run the clip in every commercial. Democrats will. He'd
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: play it at every rally. Democrats will. He'd have the
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: entire crowd chanting, I don't give a damn. He'd say
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: this guy doesn't care about you. He doesn't care about
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: what you're paying for gasoline. He doesn't care about what
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: you're paying for groceries. He only cares about how much
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: money he's making. And what's amazing here is that President
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Trump practically wrote the attack ad himself. He said the
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: quiet part out loud. He even anticipated the criticism and
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: then dismissed it. And here's what's so strange about this.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: You know, it's funny to watch if there is sort
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: of been two Trumps in this last 10 years. Trump
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: was actually a pretty disciplined presidential candidate when it mattered.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: In 2016, he understood the electorate was angry with the
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: political establishment. He understood that voters thought Washington was making
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: terrible deals and that both parties had failed them. And
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: he leaned into that. In 2024, he understood voters were
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: frustrated with inflation, immigration. They thought Biden just was feeble
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: and weak. And he used all of that. He didn't
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: need a sophisticated economic argument. He just needed to convince
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: voters that the people in charge were incompetent. And he
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: was very good at that. Well, now he's the guy
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: in charge. Now he's the incompetent one. And boy, is
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: he incompetent, right? He seems to be completely incapable of
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: accepting that the electorate might be unhappy with him. He
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: just told– I think it was Byron York in an
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: interview with the Washington Examiner. He didn't believe his– it
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: was fake news, all the polls that have his job
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: rating in the low, mid, high 30s. You can pick
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: your poll, but they're all in the 30s, his job
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: rating these days, right? And he said– and they'd ask him,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: what do you think it is? He said, oh, I
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: think it's in the 60s. Man. It's almost as if
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: he can't process the idea that he's unpopular and that
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: he's now the incumbent defending the status quo. And this
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: is to me where the Republican Party's closing message is
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: so revealing, right? Again, I was in Texas over the
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: last few days and after the game I was in
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: in person at, we went and watched, I mean, UCF, BYU,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: we watched Iowa, Minnesota, we watched, then of course it
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: flowed into Ole Miss and Texas, but what it meant
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: was I saw a bunch of Texas attack ads. I
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: saw a bunch of Iowa attack ads. So was able,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: you know, because as we've all learned, college football has
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: become a magnet now, even on the national level for
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: these super PACs. So it gives you an idea of
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: what these closing arguments have become. And what struck me
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: is how little of it seems designed to address the
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: issues that voters say are bothering them the most. Republicans
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: are completely ignoring what's bothering voters. Instead, It's some familiar
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Republican attack ads from like 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022. Democrats
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: are weak on crime or Democrats are going to raise
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: your taxes. Those were the hits that Tallarico and Gina
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Hinojosa were on the receiving end in a lot. Democrats
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: are too liberal. That was, you know, there's the trans stuff,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: obsessed with transgender issues. There's a Josh Turek notably had
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: his own ad pushing back on that and making it
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: clear where he stands that he doesn't believe that trans
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: women should participate in youth sports, women's sports, excuse me.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: But it's interesting. I think I've seen more Republican ads
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: attacking Democrats over transgender issues than I've seen ads offering
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: a convincing, frankly, any explanation, not even convincing, for why
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: voters should be happy with this economy. But here's the problem.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Republicans are running against the Democratic Party of Joe Biden.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: That's two years ago, which might as well, for the
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: way time moves these days, might as well be two
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: decades ago. Voters are living in the America of 2026,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: not the one in 2024. They're not asking Republicans to
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: remind them why they were unhappy with Joe Biden and
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris. They already know. They kicked them out. They're
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: asking why the people who promised to fix everything not
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: only haven't fixed it, but made it all worse. Inflation
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: is worse than it was under Biden. This economy is
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: worse than it was under Biden. The world is more
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: unstable today than it was under Biden. These wars are
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: worse under Trump than it was under Biden. I get it.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: They're trying to remind voters what they don't like about Democrats.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: But it's like tax is crime. It's stuff so baked in,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: it doesn't break through. Voters already know what they don't
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: like about the Democrats. That's why Republicans won the last election.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: Question now is what voters don't like about Republicans. And
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Republicans seem determined not even to try to answer the criticism,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: not even try to assuage the issues. Take this comment.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: This was an interesting comment. Republican Congressman Brandon Gill was
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: talking about diesel prices, and he wrote this on X.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: The solution to bringing down the price of diesel is
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: not to vote for the party that supports transitioning America
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: off fossil fuels entirely. Hmm, okay. I understand what he's
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: trying to say with that tweet, but who's in charge
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: of the country right now? You know what he didn't
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: talk about? Why diesel prices are up in the first place.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Who controls the White House? Who controls Congress? Who promised
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: energy dominance? Who promised to bring prices down? Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: And instead of explaining why diesel prices are high under
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: Republican leadership, Gill is warning voters, about what Democrats might
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: do if they get power. They might diversify. Watch out.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: They may diversify our energy sources. Oh, wait a minute.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: That could actually bring prices down. Oops. Point is, this
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: is not a closing argument. Republicans don't have one. It's
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: just an attempt to change the subject. And it's a
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: misunderstanding of their own voters. They think they're owning the
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: libs is somehow going to surge base turnout. And I
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: think we're learning that ain't working. Just spend 10 minutes
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: on Marjorie Taylor Greene's XFeed and you'll see what I'm
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: talking about. And it actually brings me to one of
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: the more fascinating developments of the last few days. The
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: administration is now trying to ease some of its tariffs
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: on Canadian products, particularly agricultural and forestry products, in an
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: effort to help Susan Collins and other northern Republicans facing
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: difficult reelection campaigns thanks to Donald Trump's ridiculous trade war
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: with Canada. Now, think about what that decision tells us.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: For months, Trump has insisted his tariff policies are so brilliant.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: They're helping just this golden age of the economy. They're
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: making America rich and they're strengthening the economy. And now, listen,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: two weeks before Election Day, his administration is acknowledging that
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: those same tariffs are hurting businesses and consumers in Maine.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: So what's the solution? Ease the tariffs? But apparently only
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: where there's a competitive Senate race that they have a
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: tiny shot at winning. I mean, what are we doing here?
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: If the tariffs are hurting Maine businesses, aren't they also
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: hurting businesses everywhere? Narrator jumps in here and says, yes.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: It's reducing tariffs is good economic policy in Maine. Why
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: isn't it good economic policy nationally? It's almost as if
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: somebody walked into the Oval Office and said, Mr. President,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins actually could win if you stop doing this
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: one thing that's hurting her and her state. And Trump said, OK, fine,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: we'll stop doing it there. It's not an economic strategy.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: It's political triage. It's just weird that he seems unwilling
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: to apply the same logic nationally, because doing so, though,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: would do what? It would mean acknowledging that his trade
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: policy has been an economic disaster for the country. And
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: he can't do that. Can't admit that he caused the problem.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: He can't admit that his policies made things more expensive.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Can't admit that the economy he's presiding over isn't the
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: economic miracle he keeps describing. And this is where candidate
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Trump would be absolutely brutal on this President Trump. He'd say,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: look at this guy. He puts tariffs on everybody, makes
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: everything more expensive, and then takes the tariffs off when
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: he realizes he's going to lose an election. What a
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: terrible dealmaker he is. What an incompetent negotiator. He doesn't
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: even know what he's doing. And that's before we get
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: to Putin. Because candidate Trump would look at what's happening
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: with Russia and Ukraine and say, this president is getting played.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: He'd say Putin knows exactly how to manipulate him. He'd
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: say we're giving the Russians everything they want and we're
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: getting nothing in return. Well, maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he's
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: got a different issue with Putin. Sorry, tinfoil hat came
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: on my head for a second. Let me take it off.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: But let's imagine candidate Trump would say the president is
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: so desperate to announce a deal that he's willing to
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: give away the store, which is what he did with
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: the Russians. Sound familiar? This is actually the kind of attack.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: I didn't make up these attacks. I went and got
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: some from 2012 and 2016 from actual candidate Donald Trump.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: And he used to use this attack on Barack Obama
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: all the time. He didn't know how to make a deal.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: He's terrible at it. Look, Donald Trump was an effective
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: candidate when he could make himself the voice of voter dissatisfaction.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: He was good at identifying what people were angry about
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: and attaching that anger to whoever happened to be in charge.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: Now he's in charge. And instead of acknowledging any dissatisfaction,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: he's arguing with it. He's telling voters they're wrong about
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: the economy. He's telling voters they should be happy. Go
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: look at your 401ks, he screams. He's telling voters that
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: the country's making a fortune. And when somebody points out
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: that they're suffering at the pump, his response is he
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: doesn't give a damn. I don't know how you construct
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: a worse closing argument than that. And I think it's
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons Republicans are in such serious trouble
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: with eight days to go. Because a president isn't merely
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: failing to help his party. He's reminding voters almost every
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: day why they're unhappy with it. And as we'll see
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: in Ohio, That political tone is filtering down into some
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: of the most important races in the country. So let's
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: go to Ohio. Because I think what's happening in the
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Ohio governor's race could become one of the defining stories
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: of this election. It's certainly adding to the disastrous closing
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: argument that Republicans are making about themselves. It actually reminds
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: me of something that happened 20 years ago in another
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: year that became a surprisingly large blue wave, larger than
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: anybody expected, 2006. Remember George Allen in Virginia and Makaka?
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Back then, Virginia was considered a red state. They hadn't
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: voted for Democratic presidential candidates in 76. They had certainly
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: had some Democratic governors and had a Democratic senator in
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Chuck Robb, but who had gotten defeated in 2000. And
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: Allen was actually being seen as once he won his reelection,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: he'd start running for president in 08. He was somebody
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: who was supposed to have a relatively comfortable reelection. In fact,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: Democrats didn't really target him. Jim Webb ran because he
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: was upset about the Iraq war and decided to come.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: No Democrat recruited him. Trust me, if you know Jim Webb,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: if Democrats had recruited him, he might have given him
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: the finger. Now, what Vivek Ramaswamy has done in Ohio
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: is a very different matter. It's actually much worse and
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: it's much more disturbing. The comparison isn't about the acts themselves,
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: and I want to make that clear. It's about what
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: happens when an incident late in a campaign becomes symbolic
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: of something much larger. The Allen incident didn't create the
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: democratic wave of 2006. Iraq war was already unpopular. Bush
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: was unpopular. The economy was becoming unpopular. But it became
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: a symbol of a little bit of Republican arrogance and
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: insensitivity at precisely the moment voters were increasingly unhappy with
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: the party itself. And that's what I'm wondering here, is
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: whether the controversy surrounding Ramaswamy's attack on Amy Acton could
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: be something similar in Ohio. Because what Ramaswamy's campaign has
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: done is extraordinarily repugnant. I've said my piece about him,
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: but I actually have not. I have more to say,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: and I'm saying it here. His campaign put out an
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: ad featuring Acton's estranged birth mother attacking her own daughter,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: calling her a liar, and questioning her character. Now, that
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: might sound like an unusual but potentially effective piece of
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: opposition research until you learn the rest of the story.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: Acton says she hasn't seen her birth mother since she
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: was 12 years old, 1978. She says she and her
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: brother experienced years of extreme abuse and neglect at the
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: hands of her mother and stepfather. And she says her
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: mother currently is not well. In fact, apparently her mother
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: doesn't really live anywhere. She lives in her car. And
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: the Ramaswami campaign found her in a car. But I digress.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: So think about it. You're running for governor. You're Amy Acton.
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: You've built a life and career after an extraordinarily difficult childhood.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: You've moved on from experiences no child should have to endure.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: And then your political opponent decides to turn that childhood
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: trauma into a campaign ad. Not because it has anything
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: to do with your record of public service. Not because
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: it tells voters anything about your economic policies or even
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: your character. But because somebody decided that putting your estranged
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: mother on television to attack you might be an effective
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: way to win an election. It's morally repugnant. And the
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: more I think about it, the worse it gets. Let me,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: stick with me here a minute. What message does this
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: send to people who have survived abuse like this or
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: have endured abuse like this? That no matter how much
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: you've overcome, no matter how successful you've become, no matter
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: how much distance you've put between yourself and what happened
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: to you, somebody can always drag it back into the
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: public square and use it against you. And then they
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: tell you it's all just politics. Man, I mean, that's
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: what J.D. Vance seems to think, man. F you, man.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: That's terrible to think that. Not everything is just politics.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: Is it any wonder victims of abuse are reluctant to
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: come forward at all? If this is how they're going
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: to be treated, not believed, or even if they're believed,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: it gets weaponized against them someday? Is it any wonder
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: people spend years trying to keep these things private? We
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: say we want victims to speak out so we can
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: get the bad actors. But there's another layer of hypocrisy
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: here that I can't get past. It's the political movement
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: that has spent an enormous amount of time talking about
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein, demanding accountability and insisting that victims of sexual
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: abuse deserve to be heard. They're right. And then one
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: of its most prominent candidates decides to exploit another person's
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: history of childhood abuse because they're desperate to see if
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: they can win an election. I mean, To call Ramaswami
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: unprincipled is an understatement. Where's the basic human decency? You know,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: what's interesting is that Ramaswami had a chance here to
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: basically walk this back. And the fact that he didn't
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: take the chance is even more telling. And it's more disgusting.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: Ohio's Republican Governor Mike DeWine suggested, you know, Ramaswami should
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: take that attitude. And he was doing it in the
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: very Mike DeWine way. This guy's not a bomb thrower.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: He doesn't like to, he just, that isn't who he is.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: You know, he's got a lot of respect for Amy Acton,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: who was his right-hand person on COVID. I've probably said
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: this joke one too many times. DeWine may have endorsed Ramaswamy,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean he's going to vote for him. But that
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: moment was an opportunity for Ramaswamy to quickly course correct.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: He could have acknowledged the criticism and withdrawn it, been
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: respectful to the extraordinarily popular two-term governor. Instead, Donald Trump
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: jumped into the controversy and defended the ad. And then
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: he attacked DeWine for criticizing it. He went after Acton personally,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: calling her defective, dishonest, and incapable. He actually described the
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: ad as hitting paydirt. Donald Trump hitting paydirt. How gross. Again,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: all part of Donald Trump's incredible closing messaging that he's
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: created for the Republican Party. The president of the United
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: States described a campaign ad featuring a woman attacking the
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: daughter who suffered sexual abuse to this woman's dead husband,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: put her kid in a tent, was so neglectful of
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: her kids, they were taken away from her. And the
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: president didn't merely defend it. He seemed to delight in it.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: Ask yourself a political question. Who's that supposed to persuade?
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: I go back to something I said before. Think about
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: how little respect Trump had and Ramaswamy had for their
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: own base of support. They think this is good politics.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, they won Donald Trump's political movement won office
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: by correctly noting that the left-wing elitists talk down to
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: working people. But you're doing something worse. You're assuming your
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: base is as morally repugnant, apparently, as you are, Vivek Ramaswamy.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: Who's the undecided Ohio voter who's worried about the economy,
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: worried about health care, worried about the cost of living?
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: He sees the commercial and says, oh, now I know
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: which candidate understands my problems. By the way, the controversy
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: certainly attracted attention. Shane Goldmacher on his X-Feed podcast. reported
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: that Acton became the top Democratic gubernatorial fundraiser on ActBlue
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: over the preceding week. And it's a top Democratic candidate overall.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: First time a candidate for governor occupied that position since April.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: I actually think it's possible this controversy becomes bigger than
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: the governor's race. Ohio Republicans have dominated state politics for years.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: They have a veto-proof supermajority in the statehouse. And Democrats
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: have been trying to break that supermajority. And Ramaswamy may
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: have just handed the Democrats an opportunity to do that.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: Republicans currently hold 65 of the 99 House seats. Democrats
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: hold 34. Democrats need a net gain of six to
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: deprive Republicans of that supermajority. Six seats. State Senate's a
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: bit tougher for them because of which seats happen to
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: be up this cycle. But the House is generally worth watching.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: This is what it will tell you whether this was
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: that catastrophic of a mistake by Ramaswamy. Individuals can become
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: evidence of a larger problem. Mark Foley didn't create the
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: Democratic wave either, and neither did Makaka. But the wave
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: was already building. It reinforced the impression Republicans have become arrogant,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: out of touch, and unaccountable. And sometimes the closing argument
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: in a campaign isn't the one the party intended to make.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's the one the party makes accidentally. There's one
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: more reason I think this Ohio story can become symbolic
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: of this election. It has to do with who Vivek
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: Ramaswamy is. Remember, Ramaswamy isn't some traditional Republican politician who
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: spent 20 years working his way through the state legislature
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: in Ohio to become the nominee for governor. He's a
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: wealthy biotech entrepreneur. He made an enormous amount of money
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: in a business that most Americans probably couldn't begin to explain.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: And there have been questions about how much actual value,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: some of the businesses he's created, beyond generating wealth for
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: the people who own them, he's created. He built businesses
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: that were intended to help with cures, but it's not
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: clear they ever did. Now, that's not to say he
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: didn't build legitimate businesses, but I do think there's a
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: growing skepticism in this country about a certain type of
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: wealthy tech entrepreneur that sort of makes money without making
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: a thing. the guy who gets extraordinarily rich through a
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: series of complicated financial transactions, who then decides that his
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: success in business means he's smart enough to run the government.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: And I think voters have become increasingly suspicious of that
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: entire group of people, particularly as they watch what artificial
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: intelligence is doing to the workplace, what technology companies are
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: doing with their personal information, what data centers are doing
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: to local communities, and what some of the wealthiest people
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: in this country are doing with their political influence. And
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: here comes Ramaswamy, already representing a kind of wealth and
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: privilege that is becoming less popular and the country's more
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: skeptical of, deciding that the best way to win over
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: voters is to exploit childhood trauma of his opponent. What
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: an extraordinary political choice. And I wonder whether this becomes
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: one of those moments that actually symbolizes this entire election. Ramaswamy,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: the bullshit tech entrepreneur who bullshitted his way to wealth,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: then showed up into politics and thought he was a know-it-all,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: thought he knew everything, saw two Trump rallies and thought,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: this is how you conduct politics, and then comes in here,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: just comes across like a complete asshole. I don't know
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: what else. I'm sorry. But what else? Just everything we
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: don't like about the tech industry, politicians, And this, all
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: wrapped up in one. So acting could become a symbol
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: of a Republican Party that seems increasingly comfortable, allowing wealthy,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: powerful people to behave as though ordinary standards of decency
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: don't apply to them. Of course, what makes this so
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: interesting is that Ramaswamy may have already been vulnerable to
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: a growing backlash against the tech billionaire class. And that
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: brings me to Elon Musk. Because as I said, if
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: Vivek Ramaswamy represents one version of the growing public frustration
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: with wealthy tech entrepreneurs, Musk represents something much bigger and
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: potentially much more dangerous and consequential. So let's get to
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: the politics part first. According to Politico, Musk has poured
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: another $ 76 million into... into the sort of Senate efforts now,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: both in Texas and Ohio. He's now given at least
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: $ 442 million for the cycle, but he may end up
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: being a billion dollar donor when we find out at
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, because we always find this
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: stuff out on a delayed basis. All of it is
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: an extraordinary amount of money. I know we say half
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: a billion and hundreds of billions and a billion here
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: and a billion there, and eventually it all sounds like
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: real money, but In all seriousness, this is an extraordinary
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: amount of money, even by the standards of modern politics.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: Musk has made himself a very public participant in this election,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: which means Republicans are getting both the benefit of his
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: money and an increasingly hefty size and political baggage that
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: now comes with him. Because I think the larger story
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: here is about power. Not simply political influence, but the
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: power that comes from controlling things that governments and the
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: rest of society have become dependent upon. And the latest
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: controversy involving Starlink in Ukraine is a perfect illustration. Musk
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: acknowledged that his company had restricted Ukraine's ability to use
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: Starlink for offensive drone operations against Russia. His explanation was
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: that Starlink is a civilian commercial service and that Ukraine
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: had violated its terms of service. Terms of service. What
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: a bullshitter, right? Imagine Imagine if Apple started doing that.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: But anyway, we're talking about a war involving a country
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: fighting for its survival and the person controlling a critical
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: part of its communications infrastructure is explaining a decision with
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: enormous consequences by invoking the terms of service. They click yes. Now,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: Musk distinguishes Starlink from Starship, the system operated for the
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: American government. Fine. There are contractual and operational differences. But
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: those differences don't answer the fundamental question of why one
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: private businessman should have this much influence over the military
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: capabilities of an American ally. And then Musk said something
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: even more revealing. He claimed that if Starlink were turned off,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately. He, of course,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: insisted that wasn't a threat, merely a statement of fact. Well,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: whatever he intended, he was advertising to the entire world,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: including Vladimir Putin, just how much leverage he alone possesses.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: That's what concerns me, and it should concern, honestly, every
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: voter left and right. every single American, that this one
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: man can do all of this. Starlink was enormously important
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: in helping Ukraine resist the Russian invasion, particularly in the
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: early days of the war. But its success has created
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: a dependency. And the owner of the company providing that
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: service has decided to exploit that dependency, right? What an
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: immoral thing to do, but he has. And the owner
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: of the company providing that service is making decisions that
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: can impact the battlefield while simultaneously becoming one of the
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: most important donors to one political party in the history
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: of this country. Again, imagine if the chief executive of
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: Apple or Google were behaving this way. Tim Cook were
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: publicly announcing restrictions on technology being used by a political
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: party or by an American ally, you know, messing around
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: with when you can update an app and when you couldn't.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: And then also spending hundreds of millions of dollars to
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: keep only one political party in power. Conservatives would be furious.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: They never, you know, especially if it were one side,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: or liberals would be furious if it were on the
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: other side. And I know some conservatives somehow believe Apple
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: and Google have already abused their influence over political speech
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: and access to their platforms. It's an argument worth having.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: I don't think the evidence is actually there, but it's
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: an argument you can have. But if you care about that,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: you should really care about what Musk is doing. Musk
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: gives us a very concrete example of the larger problem
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: because he's openly acknowledging that the decisions his company is
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: making and the leverage those decisions give him. He does
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: not care about anybody but himself and his self-enrichment and power.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: And the power he's accumulating doesn't stop with Starlink. SpaceX
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: has become central to the American space program and an
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: important provider of national security services. X is both a
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: social media platform and a significant means of distributing news
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: and information. His businesses span artificial intelligence, communications, and transportation.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: Now comes reporting from Semaphore and the Hollywood Reporter that
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: Musk is considering a billion-dollar investment in David Ellison's Skydance operations.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: with John Malone suggesting that a much larger investment involving
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: SpaceX could eventually follow. The figures being discussed ranged as
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: high as $ 8 to $ 10 billion. And it's speculation for now,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: but think about what that would mean. Musk could have
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: significant financial interest in a company controlling major television networks,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: film studios, streaming services, sports rights, news organizations, while already
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: controlling one of the most important platforms on which content
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: is distributed. the pipes in the content, potentially under the
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: influence of the same person. And we also have space
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: and the ability to even communicate. So this isn't a
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: question of what shows might end up streaming on X.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: It's about the influence a major investor can exercise over
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: the companies producing journalism and entertainment. In fact, consider CNN
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: or HBO, consider the journalists and documentary filmmakers who have
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: made Musk himself the subject of their work. There's an
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: irony here because HBO is scheduled to air Alex Gibney's
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: documentary about Musk. I've interviewed him. You can catch that interview.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: I did it on Newsphere. I've interviewed Gibney here before.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: I've watched this Musk documentary. It peels back the curtain. Basically,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: this guy's just an effective investor and bully. He is
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: no genius, though. He's not Thomas Edison. But Think about
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: the fact that Musk is exploring an investment that could
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: give him financial influence over the company, distributing a very
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: critical documentary about him. You don't need an owner to
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: call a newsroom and order a story killed by ownership
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: to matter. Executives understand the interests of their investors. Editors
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: understand the pressures facing their companies. I've worked at one
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: of these publicly traded companies. I hear it. You feel it.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: You don't have to say anything. Sometimes people anticipate what
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: the person with the money might want without ever having
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: to say it. So when the investor also controls a
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: major distribution platform with potential leverage becomes even greater. We've
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: had laws governing media concentration for decades, but those laws
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: were designed around newspapers, radio stations, television networks, and telecommunications companies.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: They weren't designed for a world where one individual could
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: simultaneously have major interests in satellite communications, space launches, social media,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: artificial intelligence, and entertainment content. I know news as well.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: If this investment moves forward, it ought to trigger a
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: serious examination of whether our ownership and antitrust rules are
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: adequate for the modern communications economy. And I'd like that
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: examination to be bipartisan. It needs to be. This can't
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: be a partisan witch hunt. Elon Musk is worthy of
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: a witch hunt. I get it, okay? He's a terrible
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: human being. The guy, or maybe he's a good human
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: being who's got a mental health breakdown and is on
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: too much ketamine. I'm open to that explanation. But this
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: isn't about his politics. It's about whether any private individual
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: should accumulate so much control over infrastructure that the government
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: itself has trouble functioning without his cooperation. That's Bond villain-esque, okay?
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: Which brings me to Russia. One of the things Vladimir
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: Putin has understood better than most political leaders is how
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: to use the relationship between private wealth and government power.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: His system has made enormous fortunes dependent on access to
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: the state while using those fortunes to reinforce political authority.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: It is one of the most successful kleptocracies in world history.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: It's a model in which business and government become so
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: intertwined that it's difficult to separate national interests from the
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: financial interests of the people making the decisions. In fact,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: some of the reporting about the Trump administration's negotiations with
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: Trump raises questions about whether we're allowing business opportunities to
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: become entangled with American foreign policy in ways that deserve
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: a lot more scrutiny. New York Times has a fascinating
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: investigation into a proposed natural gas project in Alaska involving
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: a company called Polar LNG. The company wants to develop
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: natural gas resources on Alaska's North Slope using technology supplied
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: by Novatek, a major Russian energy company subject to American sanctions.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: But according to The Times, the project has also received
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: financing secretly connected to Novatek. The company's former chief executive
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: says he was misled about the source of the money,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: and Novatek has acknowledged that it is seeking an ownership stake. Now,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: the project is far from becoming reality, faces significant technological, financial,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: and regulatory obstacles. But that's not the most interesting part
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: of the story. The project has been discussed in the
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: context of the administration's negotiations with Moscow over Ukraine. And
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: it isn't the only business arrangement being discussed. The Times
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: also reported conversations involving Russian oil assets, potential American investors,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: including some with business connections to guess who? Steve Witkoff
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: and Jared Kushner. The reporting doesn't establish that Witkoff and
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: Kushner knew about the hidden financing behind Polar LNG, but
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: it does show how business opportunities have become part of
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: the diplomatic conversation. This is what Putin keeps dangling in
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: front of Trump. Oh, we got all these business deals,
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: so we can just, you know, get rid of this
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: Ukraine guy. This is what Congress ought to be do.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: We've had literally a neutered Congress, okay? It's been castrated.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: We're negotiating with a country that invaded its neighbor, a
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: country we've sanctioned precisely because of that aggression. And now
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: we're discussing arrangement that could give sanctioned Russian companies access
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: to American energy projects? And new sources of revenue? So
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: how much of this is about ending the war and
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: how much of it is about creating more business opportunities
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: for Trump and his cronies? I don't know the answer,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: but I know Putin understands how to use financial incentives
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: to essentially coerce and co-op people. And whether he's got
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: Trump knowingly under his thumb or unknowingly under his thumb,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: he's done it. The possibility that business interests could influence
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: American diplomacy is something we should be investigating, not dismissing.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: especially when you look at all the contradictions inside the
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: administration's own Russian policy. The Atlantic is a terrific piece
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: about CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and it's pretty revealing. On
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: the one hand, you have Donald Trump publicly attacking Zelensky,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: describing him as more difficult to deal with than Vladimir
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: Putin and accusing him of prolonging the war. On the
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: other hand, you have American intelligence professionals continuing to help
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: Ukraine defend itself and conduct operations against Russian targets. According
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: to The Atlantic, some of those CIA-supported operations have become
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: more aggressive under Ratcliffe, actually, than they did under the
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: Biden administration. Good for you, John Ratcliffe. It's fascinating, isn't it?
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: It suggests that the professionals responsible for assessing the Russian
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: threat are operating with a very different understanding of the
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: war from the one the president sometimes conveys publicly. And
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: Ratcliffe is a Trump loyalist. He's close to the president.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: He's retained his confidence, one of the few people to
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: retain his confidence over two terms. But the reporting describes
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: him as someone who understands the actual threat Russia imposes
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: and who has maintained a productive relationship with Ukrainian intelligence officials.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: Marco Rubio understood that threat long before he joined the administration.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: Remember when Rubio called Putin a gangster and a thug
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: when he was running for president? There are people inside
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: this administration that get what Russia is up to. They
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: understand that Putin believes he can win this war by
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: simply exhausting Ukraine and its Western supporters, even if his
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: military can't actually win this war. Yet they serve a
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: president who keeps directing much of his public frustration at Zelensky.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: We know. Look, I'll put the tinfoil back on. If
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: he's not a Russian asset, he certainly behaves like one.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: Ratcliffe reportedly traveled to Moscow. I'm taking the hat back
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: off now. in August to meet with Russian intelligence officials
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: through an established intelligence channel. His message was essentially that
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: neither side was winning decisively and the continuing war wasn't
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: producing the breakthrough Putin wanted. It was a way to
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: try to communicate our actual intelligence assessment directly to Moscow,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: away from the rhetoric. But there's a limit to what
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: Ratcliffe can do without Trump cooperating. He can advise him,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: but if the president decides to suspend intelligence support for Ukraine,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: Ratcliffe will have to carry out that decision. And we've
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: seen this happen once. following Trump's first confrontation with Zelensky
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: in the Oval Office last year. The Atlantic also reports
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: that Ukraine recently experienced disruptions involving Starlink, we know that,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: with the early warning systems during Russian missile attacks. We're
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: still in a fight over, you know, was it Musk?
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: Did Trump order it? Did Musk order it? But the
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: episode illustrates just how dependent Ukraine is on the United States,
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: which brings me back to Mr. Musk. We have an
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: American intelligence community helping Ukraine resist Russia, a president publicly
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: pressuring Ukraine to change its military approach, and a private
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: businessman controlling communications technology that Ukraine regards as indispensable. Meanwhile,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: we have American negotiators discussing potential energy deal with Russian interests.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of competing interests, folks. So what ought
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: to transcend the part? This is why this should transcend
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: this partisan argument. Who is ultimately responsible for making sure
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: American national security policy serves American national security interests? Because
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: when private companies become indispensable to military operations and private
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: financial opportunities become the part of diplomatic negotiations, man, we
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: are cooked. This becomes a full-on American kleptocracy. And of course,
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: while we're examining those lines, we shouldn't overlook the president's
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: own financial interests. Forbes, has an investigation into Trump's use
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: of conservation easement tax deductions that deserves a lot more
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: attention than it's going to get, particularly because of the
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: amounts of money involved. Basically, Trump just creates these environmental
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: easement tax breaks for his golf courses, okay? This is
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: according to Forbes. So for instance, Trump earned $ 1. 4 billion
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: from cryptocurrency in 2025, another $ 200 million in real estate,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: And it was a projected tax liability of $ 500 million.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: But Donald Trump, he don't pay taxes, right? He's gangster, right?
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: He doesn't pay taxes. So his business pursued another conservation
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: easement deduction involving his golf course in Jupiter, Florida. Essentially,
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: the Trump organization donated certain development rights to a conservation
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: nonprofit while retaining ownership and continuing to operate the golf club.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: Guess how much the potential tax deduction, according to Forbes, was?
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: it could approach $ 825 million, more than enough to cover
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: his tax liability from the cryptocurrency money that he made
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: off of being president. Conservation easements are a legitimate part
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: of the tax code, but the valuation of those development
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: rights can be enormously consequential. And Trump's just making shit
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: up here just to cover his tax bill. Of course,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: let's remember what's A little bit unusual here is the
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: relationship between the president and the agencies responsible for enforcing
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: the tax laws. Remember, Trump sued the IRS, and then
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: he got a settlement signed by his own Justice Department
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: that had his own personal lawyer as AG, and it
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: contained broad language concerning potential claims against him. So he's basically...
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: made up a tax deduction to avoid paying taxes on, frankly,
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: ill-begotten funds that he made as president. And he's not
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: going to pay taxes on his questionable wealth. And nobody
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: can do anything about it because he's been given this
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: blanket immunity with this tax deal that Todd Blanche put together.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: President has a private financial interest potentially worth hundreds of
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: millions of dollars, while his administration oversees the agencies responsible
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: for determining whether any laws having to do with that
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: decision get enforced. So this is in the same category
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: as what I was talking about with the Russian business deals,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: energy deals, and Musk's expanding business empire. Putin's political system
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: isn't simply authoritarian because he suppresses opposition or controls elections.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: It's also a system in which private wealth depends on
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: political access and political power, and it's reinforced by the
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: fortunes who benefit from it. The United States, as an
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: actual democracy, has historically tried to maintain a distinction between
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: private enterprise and public authority. It's not always been perfect,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: and when it hasn't, we've done something about it. Government
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: officials are supposed to act in the public interest. Private
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: companies can compete for government business, but they don't get
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: determined foreign policy. Elected leaders are supposed to be accountable
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: for decisions that impact the country, not merely their pocketbook.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: You get the combination of Musk corporate power, the financial
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: arrangements being discussed with Russia, and the president's own business interests,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: raising questions about whether those distinctions are being adequately protected.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: And you wonder why corruption has creeped up into one
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: of the top issues of this election. Look, we have
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: to examine our antitrust laws, media ownership restrictions, government contracting rules,
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: conflict of interest protections, all of these things, because the
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: next person to accumulate this kind of power might have
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: an entirely different political view from Elon Musk. This is
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: why the right should care about this as much as
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: the left. The next president might have an entirely different
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: set of priorities from Donald Trump. The point of having
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: rules is that they don't depend on whether we like
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: the people exercising power. But there's another aspect of this
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: story that brings us directly back to the election. For
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: all the attention being paid to private business deals, the
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: tech influence of Musk, financial interests of the people around
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: the president, voters are still telling pollsters that they're worried
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: about the cost of living. They're worried about energy prices.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: But instead of addressing the dissatisfaction, Trump is spending his
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: final days of his campaign increasingly focused on the possibility
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: that an election might produce results he doesn't like. In Alaska,
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: his Justice Department has gone to court over a Senate
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: ballot that includes two candidates with similar names. In California,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: the administration is pursuing allegations about non-citizens on voter rolls.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: And those stories raise an entirely different question about the
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: use of presidential power. And that's probably the most consequential
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: story of the week right now, with eight days to go.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: Let's start with Alaska. Dan Sullivan's in a competitive re-election
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: against former Democratic Congresswoman Mary Patel. There's another candidate on
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: the ballot, top four advance. Two of the four guys
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: are named Dan Sullivan. By the way, there's a third
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: Dan Sullivan who is mayor of Anchorage, who's endorsed the
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: Senator Dan Sullivan, but he's not on the ballot. We
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: could have had three Dan Sullivans. But the Republicans are
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: arguing that the similarity in names could confuse voters and
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: potentially cost the incumbent votes. It's been litigated in state court. Now,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: the Trump Justice Department has gone to federal court asking
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: that the election not be certified under certain circumstances, but
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: only if Sullivan loses. Think about that. Eleven days before
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: the election, Donald Trump's government is asking a court to
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: contemplate blocking certification of the Senate race only if the
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: Republican incumbent loses. And that because votes for the other
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: Sullivan might have changed the outcome. But I'm trying to
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: understand how this works. I'd argue actually isn't ranked choice
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: voting actually a way to make sure that doesn't happen?
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: How would you determine which voters intended to vote for
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: which Sullivan? That's why we have secret ballots. You can't
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: go back afterward and ask voters which candidate they really
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: meant to support. Again, I actually think you could argue
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: this would be a problem in other states, but again,
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: ranked choice voting. So if you're not sure which Sullivan,
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: you rank them both one and two, just say it.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: So the whole point of ranked choice voting is to
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: reduce this issue, which it will. Obviously it doesn't eliminate
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: some source of confusion, but actually provides a mechanism that
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: protects the voters from doing something incorrectly. And again, The
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: Constitution gives states the authority of elections, not Trump's Justice
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: Department or anybody else. What's amazing here, of course, he
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: did that. And Lisa Murkowski said it was a mistake
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: and criticized the Justice Department's involvement. And what does Trump do?
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: He responds by calling her the worst Republican senator ever,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: attacking ranked choice voting and accusing her of wanting Democrats
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: to stay in the election less than two weeks before
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: the election. You know what Dan Sullivan is thinking? Jesus
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: effing criminy. Don't attack the most popular politician in the state.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: But Donald Trump did just that. What an idiot. Your
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: party's trying to hold a Senate seat in a state
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: where independent minor voters have repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: reject national Republican demands and your closing strategies attack one
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: of the state's most prominent independent leaning Republicans. Imagine if
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer started attacking John Fetterman right now the way
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: some on the left do. Be a strategic mistake. You're
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: trying to get control of the Senate. This is stupid politics.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: You know, I've said this before. I don't think it's
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: a given Lisa Murkowski chooses to caucus with the Republicans.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: I think this is a giant mistake. This intervention probably
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: has already cost Sullivan the election. I think he was
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: an uphill battle anyway, but this probably cemented it. And
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: there's an irony here to this Alaska controversy. If the
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: president wants to talk about political parties using confusing candidates
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: to influence election outcomes, he ought to take a look
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: at Florida. Because Florida Republicans have a history here. They
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: had a 2020 state Senate race involving a Democrat named
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: Jose Javier Rodriguez. So the Republicans recruited somebody to run
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: as a third party candidate named Alex Rodriguez. The independent
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: candidate receives thousands of votes and the Democrat lost a
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: very close election to a Republican named Ileana Garcia. The
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: episode became the subject of criminal investigations. And a former
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: Republican state senator, Frank Artilles, was convicted in connection with
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: the scheme to recruit and pay the third party candidates.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: That's not speculation of what might happen. That actually, that
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: was an actual case of a confusing candidate, closely contested election.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: And it happened in the president's adopted home state by
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: his party. So if we're suddenly going to have a
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: national conversation about deceptive candidates and election integrity, perhaps we
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: ought to start with the places where there is documented
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: evidence of wrongdoing. Instead, this administration is making an assumption.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: They don't have the goods. And they're doing it before
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: the election's even over. And then he attacks Murkowski anyway.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: And California presents another version of the same problem. Justice
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: Department has alleged that roughly 20,000 people in California's voter
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: rolls may be non-citizens. And it has sought to have
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: their ballots set aside. Now, the administration has every right
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: to investigate credible evidence of illegal voting. That's job of
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: law enforcement. But the burden is on the government to
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: demonstrate that the allegations are accurate. And the record of
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: these voter roll investigations ought to make everybody skeptical of
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: these sweeping claims. As Bart Gellman, my friend, a longtime colleague,
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: his wife and I worked together for a long time
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: at NBC. He has a remarkable piece in The New
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: Yorker that's out right now about the Trump administration's effort
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: to pressure state election officials all over the country. And
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: one of the most revealing examples involves Nevada. The administration
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: alleged that nearly 16,000 non-citizens were on Nevada's voter rolls.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: It provided a list of 185 people that it said
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: it had manually verified were non-citizens. And when state officials
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: checked those names, all 185 were American citizens. All of them.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: That's not a minor error. It's a reminder of why
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: we have legal safeguards governing voter eligibility and the removal
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: of names from registration rolls. The right to vote is
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: not something the government should be able to take away
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: based on a flawed database match or a political assumption
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: because somebody's last name ends in Z. And we know, look,
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: why is Trump obsessed with California on this? It all
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: goes back to this craziness. In 2016, where he couldn't
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: accept the premise that he lost the popular vote, so
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: he manufactured this evidence that if illegal– if folks who
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: were here illegal hadn't voted, he would have won the
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: popular vote too and carried California. So it's like– it's this–
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: I know I've said I'm not as concerned that he's
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: going to try to delegitimize the results of this election.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately, what he's doing in Alaska and California, you
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: do feel like a guy testing the electric fence to
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: see what he can get away with. So it's disturbing.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: These things have no, I mean, these things are going
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: to just die in the courts like that. constitution's clear
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: states run elections presidents don't so i think he's going
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: to get beaten up on this don't get me wrong
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: um but i don't think this is uh I don't
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: think it's going to go anywhere. And in fact, I
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: think what he's done is done nothing but motivate people
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: who don't like them to show up and vote. And
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: this brings me to sort of where I began. So
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: let's land this plane where I began. We're eight days out.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's president of the United States. His party controls
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: the federal government. Voters are telling pollsters they're worried about
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: the economy. They're worried about the cost of living, the war,
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: the direction of the country. And the president is arguing
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: about whether the election he hasn't even lost yet might
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: be rigged. It's quite a disconnect. We see this. I
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: think there's been a fundamental misunderstanding at the heart of
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: the Republican campaign right now. Republicans keep acting as though
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: voters are making a choice between the Republican Party and
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: some hypothetical Democratic administration that does not exist at the moment.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: That's not the choice voters are looking at. They're judging
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: the government they have. They're judging the people who are
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: actually in charge. And what makes this moment so intriguing
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: is that the Republican Party seems unable to accept that
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: basic reality. What is this closing argument? I'm sure it's
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: not the one many normal Republican strategist friends of mine
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: wish it were making. This is the one they're actually making.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: Think about the final days of the campaign. Donald Trump
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: is consumed by his own grievances. He's attacking Barack Obama.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: He's attacking Lisa Murkowski. He's defending a crazy, terrible, morally
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: repugnant ad in Ohio. His Justice Department is inserting itself
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: in Alaska and California. Republican Party is running ads, warning
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: about what voters, what Democrats might do with power, ignoring
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: the concerns of voters about how Republicans have handled power.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: I just don't see how it's going to work. And
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: all of the tea leaves that we've been reading and
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: I've been presenting, I think, make this that much harder.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: So the scandals, the controversy, extraordinary behavior, the final two weeks,
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: to me, reinforce the impression to a lot of voters
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: that Republicans look like they've become arrogant and disconnected from
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: ordinary voters. And if that is the picture that many
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: voters see, it's what it looks like. It's being painted
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: to me. They only have Donald Trump and to a
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: lesser extent, Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk, those three guys,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: this three headed monster. There's your face of Donald Trump's
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: Republican Party. Throw in a little Vladimir Putin to boot.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: And that's one pretty stupid and bad closing argument for
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party. So this is not a question about
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: whether Democrats are going to have a good election night.
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: To me, it's a question about whether the electorate is
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: about to deliver a message considerably louder. And I wonder
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: if it'll be loud enough for... for some members of
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party to actually allow itself to hear what
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: voters are trying to say. It's a primal scream. It's
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: a time. All right, it's now time to go into
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: the time machine and a little confession this week. This
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: is the closing segment of this episode. I'm going to
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: save up some questions and do a lot more in
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: the Wednesday episode, particularly going to be focused on election-related questions.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get everything out there. I've got a
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: massive election notebook I'm already putting together. I know I
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: had a lot to say today. You wouldn't believe the
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: stuff that I'm saving for later in the week. But
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: let me jump into the time machine. It's campaign related.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: That's why I think it fits. This week, we're going
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: back exactly 62 years to Tuesday, October 27th, 1964. And
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: it's even more fitting this year since October 27th, 2026
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: is also a Tuesday. Lyndon Johnson was president. Barry Goldwater
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: was the Republican nominee. And Republicans were headed toward what
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: would become one of the biggest presidential defeats in American history.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: But one week before that election that was taking place
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: on November 3rd, A former Hollywood actor appeared on national
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: television and delivered a speech that would help change the
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: future of the Republican Party. His name, of course, was
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan. He'd never held elective office. He'd spent years
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: working in Hollywood, hosting a television program for General Electric,
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: and traveling around the country giving speeches to GE employees
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: and other civic groups. And on this particular Tuesday night,
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: he delivered a half-hour address that would eventually become known
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: as a speech entitled A Time for Choosing. Now, I
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: think this is a particularly interesting moment to revisit as
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: we head into our own election day, 2026, because there's
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: a difference between losing an election and losing the argument
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: over where the country ought to go. In 1964, Republicans
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: were about to lose an election by an enormous margin,
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: but the conservative movement that had nominated Barry Goldwater had
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: developed an identity that would survive the defeat, and Reagan
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: was about to demonstrate that it had found somebody who
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: could explain that identity to Americans who weren't necessarily part
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: of the movement. That's what makes this story worth retelling.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: Because one of the things I've been thinking about in
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: our current politics is how much energy both parties spend
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: trying to find the next great political messenger and how
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: difficult it's become to explain what larger governing philosophy that
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: messenger is supposed to represent. We have plenty of people
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: who know how to perform really good on a Fox
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: interview or something like that. Really good on an MS interview.
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: I'm not convinced, though, we're spending nearly as much time
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: figuring out what they're supposed to be performing. And the
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: Reagan story offers an interesting contrast. But first, let's go
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: back to that day in 1964. Barry Goldwater was not
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: the kind of Republican presidential nominee the party establishment had
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: grown accustomed to. The Republican Party of the 1950s had
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: been led by Dwight Eisenhower, who accepted much of the
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: basic architecture of the New Deal. Eisenhower wasn't interested in
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: dismantling Social Security, and he wasn't trying to return the
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: federal government to its pre-Depression size or responsibilities. There were
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: plenty of Republicans who thought the party had become too
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: comfortable with that arrangement. There's a whole wing of this party.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: They believed Washington had accumulated too much power, that federal
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: spending and regulation were undermining individual freedom, and that the
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: United States needed a much more confrontational approach towards the
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: Soviet Union. So Goldwater was the vehicle for that movement.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: He was a senator from Arizona, a conservative who had
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: become increasingly influential among grassroots Republicans. He was the author
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: of a book called The Conscious of a Conservative, a
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: book that helped give this emerging movement an ideological spine. Now,
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: Goldwater didn't create all of these ideas. Conservative intellectuals, business organizations,
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: anti-communist activists, and Republican organizers have been developing some of
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: them for years. But he became their national champion. And
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: his nomination in 64 represented a real victory over the
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: then Republican establishment. Nelson Rockefeller was the face of that establishment.
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: The governor of New York, he represented the more moderate
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: wing of the party. And the fight between Rockefeller and
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: Goldwater was bitter. By the time the Republicans met in
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: San Francisco, that summer, Goldwater's supporters had taken control of
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: the convention. And Goldwater gave them a line that would
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: define his campaign negatively. Extremism in the defense of liberty
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: is no vice. Now, if you're trying to reassure skeptical
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: voters that you're not an extremist, that's probably not the
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: sentence your campaign ought to be uttering. And it became
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: a huge political problem. Johnson's campaign was already portraying Goldwater
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: as dangerously outside the American mainstream. particularly on nuclear weapons
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: and the possibility of war with the Soviets. The daisy
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: ad is what came out of all this. Yeah, you know. One, ten. No,
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: you get where I'm going. Message was clear. Let Goldwater.
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: You could risk nuclear war. I know the ad never
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: even mentions Goldwater by name. It didn't have to. Goldwater
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: also faced a serious problem over civil rights. He had
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: supported earlier civil rights legislation, but he voted against the
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: Civil Rights Act of 64 because at the time he
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: argued that important provisions exceeded the federal government's constitutional authority.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: Can I just tell you, I always wondered if Goldwater
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: had never done this, if the conservative movement would be
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: in a better place on race today. But he did,
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: and it's taken decades because his conservatism came synonymous with
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: somehow being anti-civil rights. But whatever his constitutional reasoning was,
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: the political effect, as I said, was enormous. So Goldwater
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: wasn't simply losing because he wasn't a particularly polished television performer.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: There were some substantive reasons voters disagreed with him. And
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: there were deep divisions inside the GOP at the time.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: But the conservative movement that nominated him had accomplished something important.
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: They had organized and built a constituency. And they developed
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: an argument about what they thought the federal government ought
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: to be and what it ought to stop doing. And
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: they were hoping that that argument wouldn't disappear simply because
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: Barry Goldwater lost, which brings us to Ronald Reagan. And
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: here's something that people seem to forget about Reagan. We
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: tend to think of him as an actor who discovered
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: that he had a talent for politics. But by 1964,
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: Reagan had actually spent years developing a political philosophy, and
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: he was learning how to communicate it. He'd grown up
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: as a Democrat, admired F. and served as president of
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: the Screen Actors Guild during some of Hollywood's most contentious
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: labor and anti-communist battles. He even endorsed the candidate who
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: Richard Nixon defeated in a 1950 Senate race, Helen Gahagan Douglas,
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: an actor. He endorsed her over Nixon. But over time,
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: his politics moved to the right. One of the most
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: important experiences in that evolution was his relationship with General Electric.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: Beginning in the 50s, Reagan hosted something called General Electric Theater,
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: which was on television on NBC. But he also traveled
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: around the country speaking at GE plants and to employees
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: and civic organizations. And this is probably a bit underappreciated
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: part of the Reagan story. He was getting his own
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: education in American politics outside of Washington. He was talking
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: to workers and he was talking to executives, meeting people
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: in different parts of the country. honing his messages, right?
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: He'd give a speech, see which parts worked, revise it,
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: try another version. Over and over again. Did it for years.
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: By 62, though, the relationship with GE had ended. Television
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: program was canceled, partly due to Reagan's increasingly outspoken conservatism,
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: which was becoming a larger part of his public identity.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: So when Reagan eventually delivers a time for choosing in 64,
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: he's not simply reading a speech somebody in the Goldwater
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: campaign wrote for him. He was delivering an argument he
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: had spent years developing. So the performance certainly mattered. Don't
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: get me wrong. But his performance had substance behind it.
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: What's interesting is the circumstances around the speech, how it
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: got on television is quite interesting. There were some wealthy
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: California conservatives, including Holmes Tuttle and Henry Salvatore, who had
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: been really impressed with Reagan's speaking ability. And so they
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: actually helped finance this national broadcast. But not everybody inside
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: the Goldwater campaign thought this was a good idea. In fact,
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: some of Goldwater's own advisors were worried about parts of
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: Reagan's speech, particularly what he was saying about Social Security. And,
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: you know, they were nervous about what impact this could
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: have in the last week. Goldwater is already being portrayed
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: by Johnson as somebody who wants to dismantle other popular
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: federal programs. His campaign was desperately trying to reassure voters
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: that he was not as extreme as Johnson was claiming.
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: Now along comes an actor with a half-hour speech that
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: some of Goldwater's Advisors think it's going to make the
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: problem worse. So there was a serious effort to stop
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: the broadcast. But Goldwater himself listened to the speech on
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: tape before it aired and didn't object to it, and
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: it went on the air. And that tells you a
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: little something about him. Donald Trump wouldn't let somebody else
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: speak for him. Woody. The conservative movement had produced a
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: messenger who was capable of explaining its philosophy to a
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: national audience, and the political professionals running the campaign nearly
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: prevented him from doing it. They were just thinking about
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: how to survive the week. Reagan was making an argument
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: that would help define a movement for the next generation.
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: So October 27th, he gets his national audience. Reagan opens
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: by explaining he's been allowed to choose his own words
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: and ideas. He quickly, basically, that was important to the
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: Goldwater folks. They wanted that line in there to make sure,
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: this is Reagan words. We're not endorsing every single word.
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: But he makes another point. that I think is essential
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: to understanding why his political appeal eventually reached beyond traditional conservatives.
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: He starts by saying he started, he tells the audience
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: that he'd spent most of his life as a Democrat.
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: He wasn't claiming he was born a Republican conservative. He
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: was explaining that he changed his mind. And then he
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: makes the case that the questions facing the country cross
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: party lines. It's a pretty good Tactic. He's inviting people
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: who don't already agree with him to consider the possibility
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: that they might have something in common. He's not simply
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: telling conservatives that they're right and everybody else is wrong.
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: Own the libs. Nothing like that. He actually tried to
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: persuade people who may have voted for Democrats that they
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: ought to reconsider what they believe the size of government
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: ought to be. Now, the speech was a full-throated conservative argument.
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: He attacked federal spending, taxation, bureaucracy. He criticized things. He
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: makes an aggressive Cold War argument. Okay. He defends Goldwater
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: personally against the suggestion that the Republican nominee is reckless
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: or indifferent to the consequences of war. And there's plenty
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: of stuff in that speech that liberals strongly disagreed with
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: then and would disagree with now. And some of Reagan's statistics,
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: like a lot of other Reagan's speeches and examples, were
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: disputed even at the time. So I'm not going to
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: hold this up as some flawless exercise in political reasoning
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: and rhetoric. But there was coherence to the argument. He
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: was telling Americans what he believes. what principles ought to
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: guide it, and why those principles should matter to ordinary people.
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: And he did it in language that sounded conversational. He
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: didn't sound like he was lecturing. He sounded like he
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: was coming across the table explaining why he came to
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: believe what he believes. Look, it's a political skill that
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: is much harder than it looks. But there's something else
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: we need to remember. Kennedy demonstrated in 60 that television
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: could change politics. Reagan took the lesson, though, somewhere else.
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: He demonstrated that somebody who understood television could become the
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: national voice of a political movement without ever having held
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: elective office. He hadn't yet. And he also understood you
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: don't have to shout to sound passionate. You don't have
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: to sound angry to communicate urgency. You don't have to
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: turn every disagreement into a personal attack to make a
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: strong argument. He could be sharply critical of opponents. But
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: he also understood how to make his audience feel that
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: he was inviting them into a conversation rather than simply
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: demanding their agreement. Look, the speech didn't change anything. Goldwater
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: wins just six states, southern states. He became way, his
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: conservatism became basically the excuse for segregationists to still fight
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: for segregation. It's one of the great mistakes I think
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: Goldwater made. I've heard the argument, but for a guy,
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: who believed in freedom and libertarianism, he could have easily
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: found himself on the side of the civil rights activists,
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: and he didn't. But something else happened after the Reagan speech.
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: The Goldwater campaign received a surge in contributions. Conservative activists
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: began talking about Reagan as a future candidate. Two years later,
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: he'd become governor of California. 16 years after the speech,
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: he becomes president of the United States. So Goldwater lost
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: the election, but the movement that had nominated him had
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: enough of an identity to survive the defeat. And it
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: found a new messenger. Now I want to bring this
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: back to our politics now, because I think there's something
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: about this story that helps explain a problem both parties
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: are confronting at the moment. We spend an enormous amount
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: of time looking for political personalities. Who's the next Reagan?
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: Who's the next Obama? Who's got the charisma? Who can
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: talk on TV, podcast, you name it. That matters. Performance matters.
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: But it shouldn't matter without substance. We've become so focused
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: on finding the right messenger that we've lost sight of
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: the importance of having a message that can survive the messenger.
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: And that's why I actually put Reagan and Obama in
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: a similar category. Because I would argue neither party has
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: ever found– neither party has found their heir apparent to
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: either one of them. Right? Ideologically, they're two different presidents.
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: One believed in government as part of the solution. One
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: always was looking to keep government out of the solution.
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: but they were very effective at connecting a broader governing
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: philosophy to the everyday concerns of people who weren't necessarily
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: committed to their party. Reagan could make conservatism sound like
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: an argument about opportunity, freedom, and national renewal. Obama could
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: make liberalism sound like an argument about opportunity, fairness, and
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: the country's capacity to improve itself. They both understood performance,
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: but the performance was connected to a set of beliefs
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: that were coherent. Both were trying to persuade people who
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: didn't necessarily begin by agreeing with them. Clinton had this
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: ability at times. He was particularly good at explaining policy
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: and language that connected to everyday experiences. He was also
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: ideologically flexible, and he turned that flexibility into what sounded
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: like pragmatism. Donald Trump demonstrated an ability at times to
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: command attention, and he was good at communicating directly with
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: voters who felt ignored. But there's a difference between building
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: a political movement around a governing philosophy and building one
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: around a personality. That's the question Republicans are going to
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: have to confront as the Trump era begins to end.
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: MAGA has an identifiable set of positions on immigration, trade,
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: executive power, cultural issues, and America's role in the world.
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: So the question isn't whether there's anything there beyond Trump.
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: There could be. It's whether the movement can develop an
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: identity and a governing philosophy that survives Trump. I don't know.
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: Democrats have a different version of this problem. They have
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: plenty of policies, plenty of constituencies, and plenty of people
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: who want to lead the party. But since Obama left,
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: Democrats have struggled to establish either a unifying national message
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: or a messenger capable of communicating one as effectively as
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: Obama did. Joe Biden won, but he won on the
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: fumes of Obama. And that's the challenge Democrats are still
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: debating as they look towards 2028. What does the party
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: want the federal government to become? How does it explain
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: its approach to economic security, opportunity, and the role of
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: government to voters who aren't already committed Democrats? And who
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: can make that argument credible? You can have a collection
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: of policies that isn't the same as having a philosophy.
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: And that's been a bigger problem of our politics. We
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: either have incredible performers or a bunch of think tanks
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: coming up with great ideas. But we are struggling to
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: merge the two. So... We're pretty good at turning elections
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: into referendums on the person or the party currently in power,
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: but we're having a harder time convincing Americans that the
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: two parties are offering different credible ways of achieving the
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: same goals. Voters have been pretty blunt about their dissatisfaction.
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: They can vote somebody out. They can put somebody else in.
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: What they can't easily do through a ballot is explain
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: which parts of a governing philosophy they support and which
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: parts they reject or what compromises they are willing to make.
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: So political leaders can mistake a vote against the other
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: side as an endorsement for everything they want to do.
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: And when the results disappoint, voters change direction again. We
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: keep flipping over the table in Washington, and I think
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: part of the reason is that neither party has consistently
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: persuaded enough ideological skeptics that it understands the same problems
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: they do, even if it proposes different solutions. And that,
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: to me, is where this Reagan story becomes useful. In 64,
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: the conservative movement had spent years developing an argument about
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: the role of government. Goldwater was the leader, but he
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: wasn't particularly effective at persuading a majority of Americans to
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: embrace it. And some of his positions were deeply unpopular.
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: But the movement wasn't dependent on Goldwater to remain its leader.
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: When Reagan emerged, he didn't have to invent a new identity.
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: He had something to explain, and he spent years learning
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: how to explain it. And it's a different challenge from
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: simply finding somebody who can command attention or excite people
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: who already agree with you. Substance without performance can lose.
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: performance without substance can work for a while, surprisingly for
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: a long time sometimes, but eventually if the performance isn't
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: connected to a governing philosophy that produces results, voters will
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: look elsewhere. The challenge is finding leaders who can do both,
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: who can make a compelling argument about what government ought
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: to do and persuade people who don't already agree with
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: them that their approach is worth trying. So as we
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: head into another election day, I wonder whether both parties
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: have gotten the process back We're spending an awful lot
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: of time searching for the next great messenger and not
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: nearly enough time figuring out what that person ought to
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: say that commands a governing majority. So there's your time
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: machine slash commentary for the week. So with that, as
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: I've done a lot, I've had a lot to say
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: about this election. I had a lot to say about Mr. Musk, Mr. Ramaswamy.
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: I think this is an incredibly pivotal moment that we're
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: experiencing today. in the piece of this campaign. For the
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: rest of my episodes going into election day, it's going
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: to be all the nuts and bolts. Every race at
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: some point, we will talk about every competitive Senate race
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: and GovRace there is, including by the end, how exactly
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: I'll be watching election night. So with that, I will
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: see you tomorrow on Super Tuesday until we upload again.