Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - A Growing Number Of Republicans Are Breaking From Trump + The Chicago Cubs Owner Trying To Fix How America Gets Its News

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Full Episode - A Growing Number Of Republicans Are Breaking From Trump + The Chicago Cubs Owner Trying To Fix How America Gets Its News · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todcast is brought to you
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  Speaker 1: podcast at checkout. This is a sponsor I absolutely embrace,
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  Speaker 1: so use that code. Hello there, Happy Thursday, and welcome
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: to another episode of the check podcast. It has been
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: quite a week. There's been a lot of political news,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of campaign news. We're in the middle of
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: the never ending vote count in California, which, yes, this
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: is a problem the state needs to deal with. I'm
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: tired of people trying to defend the system and so
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: just be patient. No, this is creating problems. But I'm
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: going to get to that in a minute. Don't want
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: to start my start some of these election counting rants
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: too soon here. But I've just had a week because
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I also have some sad news. But in some ways
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: that that is that has hit my family. We lost
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: my grandmother this week. She lived an incredible life ninety
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: nine years on this on this earth, and I am
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: going to use the privilege of this podcast at the
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: end of it to share a few a few thoughts
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: on her and just share a few nuggets about her
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: that I want anybody that wants to know me needs
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: to know about her. So it's just all happening. I've
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: been traveling a lot anyway. My point is is, it's
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: it's been a week. It's been a week both it
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: was a busy week in and of itself in my
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: professional world, in our professional world of campaign politics, a
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: busy week, and what's happening in the real world of
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Warren peace and and and things like that, with Ukraine,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: with Iran, et cetera. We just kind of we just
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: got a lot going on so and got my own
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: situation there. So, but I think we had to begin.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Let me be a rundown of today's episode. My guest
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: is a gentleman by the name of Todd Ricketts. And
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: if you say Ricketts, isn't he a US Senator? I
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: would say no, But there is a Rickets name in
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the US Senate. It is happens to be Todd Ricketts's brother,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: but this is not a political interview. Todd Ricketts, who
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: is one of the own is an owner of the
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Chicago Cups. He and his family I is launched an
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: app called free Spoke, and I've been using it for
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks and it's this is primarily
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: why he's on the podcast. This is it's an app
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: that's attempting to do a few things, trying to I
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: think the best way to it's essentially trying to curate
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the internet and front loads, so you know, you know, hey,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: this has got a left bias, this has got a
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: right bias. This is this is sort of somewhere in
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: between left and right. Whether you want to call it middle,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: that's up to you. But trying to do what a
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: lot of people have wanted to do over the years.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: It's very similar to all sides if you're familiar with
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: that in media. But there's an added aspect to it
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: is that they are trying to essentially create a search
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: engine that no longer uses you as the product. Basically,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: it's a private search engine which no cookies, no sort
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: of trailing, you know, trying to use what you search
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: to then turn into advertising. It's very similar to something
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: that Frank McCourt's been trying to work on with Project Liberty,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: if any of you are familiar with that. So anyway,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: he's my guest, but given that he's also an owner
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: of the Chicago Cubs, we actually do talk a little
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: baseball and labor and it's obviously been a huge start
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: to the negotiations between the players and the owners that
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: will begin pretty intensely after the season ends, when the
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: owners are likely to lock out the players when the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: current collective bargaining agreement expires at the end of November,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: and so we'll likely see that and you get a
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: little preview of where the owners stand. And so, like
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I said, come for the interesting pitch about a private
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: search engine that also tries to essentially cut through some
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: of the noise of the information ecosystem, and then stay
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: for the little bit of owner insider handicapping of their
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: perspective when it comes to the future of baseball's economics.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: But on the political front, I want to tackle a
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: few things. We've got some new news out of the
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: White House regarding potential permanent pick for the post of
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Attorney General. I've got some updates on Maine Senate and
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: a focus on how what I would say is how
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: we should assess how Janet Mills does against Graham Platner.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: And the Democratic primary planner is going to be the
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Democratic nominee that we know, but Janet Mills's name is
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: on the ballot, and it is going to be a
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: barometer to see, how, you know, how much of a
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: problem has all of this, all of these disclosures about
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: his personal life and personal habits, How much of a
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: toll has this taken with rank and file Democratic voters.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Let's just say I did did a little bit of
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: research and have ad a driven metric for you to
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: watch that main center race. And I want to go
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: through a poll memo that he put out to try
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: to reassure donors and supporters that things aren't as bleak
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: as the media coverage has said. But I want to
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: begin and then we'll a little update about California, because
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: I think the best you can hope for is maybe
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: maybe my friends over at Decision to SAQ will have
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: enough information to at least call the second slots of
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: the runoff in La Mayor and in California Gov. Maybe,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: And we're hopeful by Friday or Saturday. But if it
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: obviously if some of these drops make things even closer
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: between second and third and could go another few days.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: But not only will I sort of help you in
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: how to watch this a little bit, but I do
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  Speaker 1: think we've got a this really needs to I think
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  Speaker 1: the way a California is conducting itself here is introducing
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: more just allows for conspiracy theories to fill the vacuum.
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  Speaker 1: And it's just unnecessary to feel to allow a vacuum
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: like this to exist. But we're going to get to
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: that as well. But I want to begin what I
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: think has been the most significant development of the week,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: and that is Congressional Republicans and starting the increasing number
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: of Congressional Republicans that are pretty much done capitulating to
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Now, maybe for some of you it may
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: not be enough, and for some of you you may
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: think that they're only doing the minimum and there are
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: more ways that they should push back on Donald Trump.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: But the reality is this has been a pretty significant development.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: When the Senate Republican leaders I was telling you in
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the last episode immediately reacts to the Bill Poultine nomination,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: as we don't for the Director of National Intelligence. We
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: don't need weaponization and a weapon using the word weaponization, right.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: It was not a democratic talking point. First, it came
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: from the leading Republican in the Senate. It's you know,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: and Thune wouldn't have done this if he wasn't speaking
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: for a majority of his own conference. The Senate Republicans
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: have had enough, and now you've even got any you know,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: some of this is due to absentees, but you continue
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: to see a trickle of House Republicans, at least on
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: the War Powers Act when it comes to Iran, and
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: we'll see if more happens over the next day or
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: two when it comes to aid Ukraine, but an increasing
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: number of Republicans slower in the House. I mean, remember,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: House Republicans are more closely aligned with Donald Trump's wing
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: of the party than Senate Republicans. It's just been the
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: case pretty much his entire presidency. But the fact that
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: you know, it's a symbolic vote in the House, but
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Republicans lost it, or more importantly, the Trump administration lost it.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: So even though that Donald Trump has had mostly success
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: in punishing Republicans that have crossed him, it appears there
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: are fewer that fear him, and there certainly is this
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: growing Yolo caucus of course that we've been talking about
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: in the Senate. But even on Tuesday night, his ability
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: to tell primary voters what to do was has been
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: called into a little bit of question, at least in
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: the state of Iowa, given that his endorsement, which was
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: seen as necessary essentially to rescue the Republican ticket for
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: fear that Zach Lane, who did win the Republican nomination,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: is just not going to is going to be a
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: bit of a drag on Ashley Hintson, the Republican Senate
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: candidate nominee, rather than an asset. And so there's no
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: doubt how the President was talked into that. But the
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: point is is that tons of data points this week
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: that the Republican Party that is not Trump centric is
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: ready to move on and they are comfortable now treating
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: this president as a lame president. And then of course
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: there's his behavior himself, and when things are going badly
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: for him, he gets cranky, he lashes out, he's doing
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: his misogynistic attacks on journalists. I mean, what he does
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: to Caitlin Collins is just outrageous, and it's so you know,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I don't react every time he unfairly maligns reporters unfairly
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: maligns news organizations, because it would be all I would
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: do if that's what I do. And I do think
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: that the compact I've made with you at this podcast
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: is to basically try to do two things, politics as
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: it is, but also present politics perhaps as it could
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: be or should be. That's essentially my north star here.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: And I don't want to be labor. I mean, I
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: could sit here and wine and wine and wine about
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: just how ridiculous, how un American that the Pentagon behaves
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: when it comes to the First Amendment in journalists, how
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the White House behaves when it comes to the First
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Amendment in journalists, and then just the absolute nasty way
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: that he speaks about women journalists in particular. It's and
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: this is sadly not anything new. What's disappointing is not
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: that plenty of us fellow journalists will speak up from
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: time to time, because you just get to a point where,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: like Jesus, you know, does anybody you know have you
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: no decency? Sir? I mean, this is the moment, but
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I really would like to hear it from somebody inside
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: you know the Republican Party that you know this is,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: this is becoming embarrassing and it's damaging and it's fairly
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: destructive to the political discourse in the country. But he's not.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: You know, he's clearly when when, like I said, when
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: things don't go well, you can you know, he wears
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: he wears it all. You know, he is terrible. You know,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: We've said this, He's a terrible poker player. He wears
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: all of his and he wears it all out there
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: in a sleeve. Both how he's feeling his strengths, his weaknesses,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: his vulnerabilities, his projections. Right, he does not hide any
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: of them, right, he is He is oddly incredibly easy
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: to read. Which is why he can't get a deal
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: with the Iranians, right, which is why he's been such
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: a terrible negotiator and trying to supposedly put together a
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Right, because he's just and
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: why she is eating his lunch in every single negotiation
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: the United States has had under Donald Trump with China.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: He's a terrible negotiator, you know, That's why he loves
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: to say he's a great negotiator. This is a classic
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: attempt at gaslighting, right, But he is just awful, right,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: one of the worst that we've had in this in
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: this position. So he's in as he wears it all
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: on his sleep, he's not in a good place. And
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: this is all happening right when he's about to have
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: this inward celebration of himself while trying to wrap himself
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: in America to fifty. And I will tell you, I
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: think there's a lot of political riskiness here, you know,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: creating this UFC event on the South Lawn. You know,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I know how Republicans would have reacted if Barack Obama
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: had decided to host the All Star Game on the
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: South Lawn and manufactured a basketball court. Might be a
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: lot of fun, might be a great idea, but nah,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would at the time
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: would have seen that, Huh, that's you know, is that
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the way we should use the White House? And oh,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: you're just doing it because you love basketball, right and
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: all these things, but that's not the way Barack Obama
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: was going to conduct his presidency or use the White
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: House this way. And you do this and there's a
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: part of this, it's like, you know, put it on
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: the National mall, and you know, in some way, it's like,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: you know, there's it's always with Trump, like, especially with
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: this beautification aspect of DC. There are things that I'm
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: glad he's doing. Cleaning up some of these monuments. Absolutely please.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: The federal government should spend money to present a capital
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: that people can be proud to visit and see. But
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: it is your federal government, mister President, that consistently underfunds
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: things like this and makes it very difficult for the
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Park Service and the Smithsonian to keep everything in tip
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: top shape. Good to see that there's some part of
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: this is but with like with everything Trump, by ten
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: percent of what he says is legitimate, but he goes
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: ninety percent too far, almost all of it. Right. How
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: he's behaving with this reflecting pool, I mean, he almost
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: is convincing himself that he built the reflecting pool now
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: that he's comparing it to skyscrapers. And as someone said
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: in social media, hey man, if he can build a
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: vertical reflecting pool that would be taller than you know,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: I'm here for it, love to see it. That'd be
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: an engineering marvel. We'd love to see this. But I
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: think this sort of exhaustion this sort of inward celebration
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: at a time when the economy is not popular, when
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: people feel as if this White House is focused on
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: anything but people's day to day lives, spending two months
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: celebrating himself in June, sort of hijacking the two hundred
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: and fiftieth birthday to make it all about himself, the
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Indy car race, which we'll try to make all about himself.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's gonna wear well. And this
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: is a campaign year, and this is a time when
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party's brand is not in it in some
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: ways has been in slightly better shape than the Democratic brand.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to be after Donald Trump's
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: finished for the next sixty days, especially as his actual
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: political grip on governing the country and controlling the Republican
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Party is slipping away. And so he's gonna, you know,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: almost be more desperate for these events to be about himself,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: more desperate to you know, and he's going to you know,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: continue to get angry when you know, major celebrities feel
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable with how much he's politicizing America's birthday. As I
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: said before, you know, Donald Trump could have gotten all
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: of the ego bump. He wanted out of this if
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: he knew how a tiny bit of humility and he
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: knew how to actually engage the former presidents into co
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: a great celebration of America two fifty. But that's not
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: who Donald Trump is, right. He burns bridges with everybody,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: burn bridges with the former presidents, Republican and Democratic alike.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: He burns bridges with our allies in Europe right when
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: we have no help. We're having to go it alone
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: with the straight ofform muvesm with what's happening there right.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: All he does is burn bridges on this front. But
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I you know, I don't know if this is going
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: to go so well and it's going to be this
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: is you know, the Marie Antoinette comparisons to let them
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: eat cake. Optics on this I think are a lot
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: more dangerous for Republicans that are on the ballot. Wouldn't
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: be surprised if you start to see some Republicans find
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: more ways to distance himself even from these celebrations. I think,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: and maybe Donald Trump doesn't want some of these people around,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: but they're not going to be with them. And one
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: other thing to watch supposedly they're going to do this
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: midterm convention and quite announced to yet. I think it
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: could be Dallas is one idea that they had it.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure Republicans running in some of these Senate
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: races want to have a nationalized political rally with the president, right.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the Republican coalition is a tricky
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: thing in a midterm year because there there is some
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: data that says, well, actually getting the president's base fired
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: up about the midterms could help, right with turnout. But
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the very voters they need as sort of the ones
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: that are not big Trump fans, but maybe you are,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: are kind of turned off by the leftward turn of
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. Do they become less gettable if he
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: magnifies things too much? Of that midterm convention, for instance,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: you think Dan Sullivan's going to show up to that.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: I know if I were one of his advisers and
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, you might want to go to that, right.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Do you think Ashley Hinson goes? Maybe she goes because
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: maybe she needs she needs a Trump voter turnout in Iowa,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: you know, so it you know, I'm not sure John
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Houston goes, right, I'm not sure John Sonunhu goes. I'm
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: not sure Mike Rogers goes. We'll see. It'll be an
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: interesting test over there, and you'll know by those that
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: go to that convention who needs Trump based voters more
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: and who needs swing voters more. So it may depend
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: a little bit on the nature of your electorate. This
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  Speaker 1: the news of the of the morning, because by the
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: time I'm recording this, there's one report that indicates the
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: President is likely to announce that Todd Blanche is longtime
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: his personal attorney who has been the acting Attorney General,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: that he's going to nominate him to uh formally nominate
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: him for the post of Attorney General and have him
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: put up for confirmation. This is this could be the
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: jump the shark moment for Donald Trump. And I'm sorry
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: for using that old cliche and metaphor, but this is this.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: There is zero chance Todd Blanche can get confirmed. And
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I think Trump in his own head thinks, well, you
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: know what if I flood the zone with crazy at
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: the Senate not going to reject all of that. Right,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: That's how it worked in the beginning of this second term,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: right when he fled the zone with crazy Matt Gates, RFK,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: hag Seth, Tulci, Gabbert, he got three of the four through, right,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: So maybe he thinks Bill Poulti and Todd Blanche that
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like Darren to reject both. And my
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: answer to the President and to folks in the West wing,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you're paying attention here, Todd Blanche
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: has not made any friends. This weaponization fund was the
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: clearly Todd Blanche creation. And if he didn't create it,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: he blessed it. It doesn't matter. It's his. He owns it.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: And by the way, they haven't scrapped they just scrapped
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the financial reward. Part of this settlement in place is
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: still this ridiculous idea that the president's personal former personal attorney,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: but I don't know if it's former, if he's acting
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: in his personal capacity or for the government, has somehow
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: agreed to give h I guess amnesty to Donald Trump
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: on every tax form and anything any of the Trump's
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: have filed with the IRS through calendar year twenty twenty five.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, guys. You love to have
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: permanent amnesty from any sort of IRS scrutiny of your
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: taxes in you know, for every single tax form you've
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: ever filed, especially if you run in some weird, sketchy
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: development deals all over the country. I mean, it is,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: you know, the idea that Blanche has a snowballs chance
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: in hell, There's no way Susan Collins votes to confirm him.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: She's got a very winnable race for reelection Uphill, and
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: she can't. The further away she is from Trump, the
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: better chances she's going to have. There's no way Dan
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Sullivan is going to vote for this. We kind of
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: know where the Yolo caucus is. We really think Tom
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Tillis will vote for Tom Blanche. You think John Cornyn
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: or Bill Cassidy, So there's three. How about Mitch McConnell.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: How comfortable do you think he is? Then you have
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: to start looking at at cann John Houston afford this vote.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I don't think they fully appreciate how tough these votes
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: are going to be. And maybe this could be an
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: indication that Trump's done listening to any sort of advice
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: like this. Maybe he's done with Senate Republicans. He's so
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: angry that they took the fund away from him. He's
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: so angry that that they can't pass that they won't
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: pass this funding for his East Wing project, and he's
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: just you know, this is he's just gonna go Tony
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Montana on the Republican Party and just you know, push
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: the envelope, wait for the courts to say no, wait
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: for the Congress to say no. Still try to get
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: away with that as much as he can until he's
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: sort of forced not to. And maybe that's what the
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: next two years are like. But my word, it's one
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: of those I'm like I said, there's one report indicating
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: that this may happen, and by the time you hear this,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: it may have already happened. But as I indicated before
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: and Bill Poulti yesterday, there's no way where this Republican
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Senate is currently. There is no way Bill Poulty has
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: a snowballs chance in hell of getting confirmed, and neither
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: does Todd Blanche And it's almost as if Donald Trump
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: wants to put a neon sign on the White House
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: that says I no longer am I am a lame
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: duck that and just put it in flashing lights when
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: you offer up people that's your party is just going
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: to summarily reject. That is I think the very definition
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: of what a lane duck president starts to look like.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: And we haven't even gotten to the midterms yet. Usually
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: this formally doesn't begin until after you get the sill
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: acking in your second midterm, at least the way it's
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: happened in the last couple of decades. Speaking of the midterms,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: of two things. One quick California update. So we've gotten
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: you as I as we left off with each other, uh,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: after the results. Going into Wednesday's podcast, I indicated that
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: there's a that there's an open question can Spenser Pratt's
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: hold on to that second runoff spot or is the
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Momdaniac like remain going to catch him? And in the
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: governor's race, does sti er have a chance of catching well,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: right now, it's uh, as I'm taping this, Uh, it
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: is still Hilton that's ahead in the governor's race. But
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: all indications and all sort of our understanding of when
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: these vote drops are coming, and you can see it
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: by the by Friday or Saturday, Besarah is going to
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: be the first place candidate. Kilton's likely to hang on
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: to the second slot. The question is how much will
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: the stire vote grow now we've seen we saw a
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: lot more drops on Wednesday in La County then we
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: really did statewide. Not every county updated their vote counting,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: which is just absurd. But we'll get to that in
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: a second. But it was some interesting trends in La
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: which means these are ballots that came in closer to
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: election day and we're getting closer election day vote and
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: in those votes and the governor's race, at least in
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: La County it was Besarah, Stier, Hilton, and Hilton being
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: in third. So Styre certainly did pick up some you know,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: made up a little bit of ground on the top two.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: As he is he tries to see if he can
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: pick up six percentage points men of them to try
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: to sneak into this runoff. I think it's unlikely, but
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: again I think that you're going to see some unusual
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: late like we saw even in La Mayor with the
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: last drop, Well, you know, Pratt seems a bit stronger
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I think in holding onto the second slot. Than what
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: we might see in the governor's race. And but you know,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: I'm always hesitant here because of how we still don't
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: know how many ballots are our total ballots we're dealing with.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: We may not actually feel comfortable saying what that number
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: likely estimate is going to be until Friday or Saturday,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: because at that point they'll know as they deal with
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: the trickle of member. Ballots can keep being processed up
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: to one week after Tuesday, so up to June ninth,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: as long as the ballot was postmarked on June second,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: and it's quite common. There's one of the California race
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I want to point out, and it's one and I
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: was talking about a lot in the live stream, and
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: it's one that at the time we didn't make that
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: our friends and Decision a SQ weren't making it one
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: of our key races to watch. And that's California six.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: And this is the race that features Kevin Kylie apublic
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: who was first elected to Congress as a Republican, who
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: decided to drop his Republican party affiliation and run for
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: reelection in the sixth congressional district after the remap in
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: California as an independent. And as and look it is
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: only half the vote is in and as of this taping,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: a Republican is in second place, and the Democrat. Even
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: though this district was drawn to elect a Democrat, it's
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: about a fifty six fifty seven percent performing Democratic district.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: The Democratic candidate is currently in third place, not that
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: far behind, about a thousand votes behind second place the
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Republican candidate. But there's every chance they're you know, on
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: paper right now. If these somehow this these percentages hold,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Democrats will get locked out of a congressional district that
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: they designed to win. But it would be kind of
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: and and and the Republican. And I think the question
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: is is if you're Kylie, you're going to You're going
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: to be in the top two. You're going to be
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: an I do you you know? Is it is probably
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: an easier path to re election for him if the
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Republicans and second, and he's got a better shot at
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: winning over some skeptical Democrats if he says, no, I'm
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: going in there to be an independent, and I'll make
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: my decision who who if either party I caucus with
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: depending on on what happens, or he may say, you know,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: which is what I might do if I were an independent. Look,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: if elected, I'm going to caucus with the majority. I'm
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: not going to be the the candidate that gives any
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: party the majority, but I'm I'm going to caucus with
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: them because that'll be in the best interest of my
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: constituents in my district. It'll give me the loudest voice
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: that I can have. But if the other party went,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: I'm going to switch and organize with them. That's how
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: I would handle trying to be an independent and just
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: the way our system is set up in the House
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: of Representatives. But it's it's to me, it's one of
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: my it's one of my under the radar favorite races
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: because an independent has as I think, a real shot
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: winning here and it you know, we've had a growing
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: no party affiliation set of registrants. You know, can Kighie
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: actually appeal to that growing set of the electorate. So
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: I just think it's an interesting political science experiment at
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: a minimum on that. But before I moved to this
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: deep dive that I did on Maine and how to
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: watch the primary on June ninth and how you should
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: interpret that pole memo that has been circulating on social media.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: From the Platner campaign. I just want to put a
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: plea out there to the California Legislature, California governor. You know,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: it's my understanding. Governor Knews called up these counting clerks
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: and said, you gotta you really got to, you know,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: work faster. And essentially the response to the governor was
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: give us more money. You know, if you want the
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: count faster, we you know, we need to hire more people.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: We need to be able to pay more overtime, put
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: the resources in place to count these ballots faster, to
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: process these ballots faster. The integrity of the democracy is
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: on the line, guys. You know, I you know, do
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: I trust this process? I do, all right, I've toured
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: to vote Voting Center. I understand your signature match, but
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of Americans don't. And the ability to fill
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: a vacuum here with conspiracy theories, nobody has enough credibility
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: to convince people that they don't to see it with
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: their own eyes. Okay, So, and when forty nine other
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: states seem to be able to get somewhere to ninety
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: five two one hundred percent, I guess forty eight because
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Washington State can take a little bit of time too,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: but at forty eight or forty nine, other states can
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: pull this off. Come on, California, you spend a lot
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: of money on governance, put some here. If you care
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: about the democracy, if you care about the perception of
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: the democracy, if you care about trust in the democracy,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: then the California Legislature and the California governor should be
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: focused like a laser beam and making sure the vote
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: count happens accurately and quickly so that you are protecting
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: the integrity of the democracy. So you're minimizing the ability
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: of people who want to fill that vacuum with misinformation
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: and who want to play games like Donald Trump does
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: because he's he's impatient, or he's ignorant, or he just
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: wants to be exploitive on it, right, you pick, pick
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: your pick your answer on that one. The guys, this
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: is I think this is this is not a nice
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: to have. This is something that is uh that Again,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: if you if the rhetoric that many of you California
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: leaders use about the democracy, if you mean it, start
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: by making this a pristine process. State of Florida does
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of early vote, a lot of mail in vote,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: and they seem to be able to pull this off.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: But look, we our friends in Maricopa County need, uh
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: need need a lot more resources to I am all
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: for giving people as many options as possible to vote.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: I think there's nothing wrong with mail in voting, and
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: you have signature verification and it's the California system is
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: very impressive when it comes to security and verification. The
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: one thing it lacks is speed, and that can be
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: fixed with resources. So come on, guys, get your act together.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Don't make it easy for trolls on the internet to
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: create conspiracy theories about these vocals. This episode of the
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  Speaker 1: am a customer. So I'm going to close here before
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: we get to the interview. With Todd Records with an
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: update on the Platner campaign. The most fascinating thing about
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: what's coming next with Platner. It's clear that his visit
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: to d C was okay when it came to his
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: meetings with Democratic senators. Those that wanted it, that were
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: desperate to look for reassurance, believe they somehow found it.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: But you can kind of tell if you read that
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal story about what he said, where he
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: he didn't seem to say no more was going to
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: come out. He just seemed to say that the worst
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: stuff you've the worst stuff you've heard is not true.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: That was to me far did not quite get to
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: the point of there's nothing more there and there's no
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: there there. So you get that report and then you
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: get this memo that the Platner campaign put out as
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: an attempt to and they shared it all over social media,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: and it's clearly an attempt to try to calm calm
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: down the nervous the folks that are nervous about Platter
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: and they they go, hey, we just we just came
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: out of the field and they did a quickie pole,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: but they didn't use you know, one of their uh,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: they didn't use put it this way. Anytime I've ever
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: seen a poll where Democrats wanted to make it look
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: like they had a better chance somewhere than they probably have.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: It's amazing how often the poll comes from PPP. PPP
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: is definitely a Democratic leaning firm. Uh, it is a
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: robo pole it is, you know, but there's a lot
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: of VR, you know, where you press a button or
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: now it's talked to text and all that stuff. But
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: if you track PPP surveys, you know, it has definitely
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: a den bias to it. There's always a two to
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: four point you know. It's it's always sort of the
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: perfect electorate that Democrats would need. I'm not saying they
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: manipulate the numbers that I'm not saying. It's just you know,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: they they they they will, they will do a sample,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: they will do the they will find the rosiest sample
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: that is defensible in order to put it, get get
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: a result, get a poll result that reinforces a narrative
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: that they're trying to get out there. And so what's
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: the narrative the platner wants to get out there. Hey,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: we've had a terrible week, We've gotten all this incoming
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: and you know what, guess what, We're still ahead of Colins.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: So that's what this poll says. Except if you're going
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: to throw out a pepe people, and you know, this
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: is one of those for the political community, if you know,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: you know anybody that does this for a living. And again,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not here to tell to to to wish cast here,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: I'm just telling you the reality. Anybody that's serious about
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: political announcers handicapping discounts PPP polls by a couple of
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: points for Team Blue, and the best they could, the
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: best results that the PPP folks could produce for the
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Platiner campaign was a forty nine to forty five lead
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: over Collins. Now you say, hey, he leads an incumbent,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: this is an incumbent senator under fifty the challenger is ahead.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: That's a big deal. Except all the public polling for
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: weeks has shown Platiner with the massive lead over Collins,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: you know, anywhere from high single digits to even some
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: low double digits, and he would So this is definitely
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: left a mark. And then they did a when you
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: hear the worst about Platiner, and you hear the worst
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: thing that they believe they can stick on Collins that
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: it doesn't it that the damage is minimal to his standing,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: and essentially it produces the same result. Well, you've got
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: to be careful when you do these. You know, you're
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: trying to do these hypothetical questions. So you know, if
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: you learn that, you know, and they read the text
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: messages or they read about sexting with Platner, and if
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: you knew that, you know, Susan Collins's husband benefited from
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: insider government contracts to a massive amount of money, you know,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't you know? You know, So they introduced both
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: pieces of information to their voting sample and it didn't
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: change their head to head. The point is is that
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: while the memo on its face was an attempt to
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: reassure supporters everything's going well, we still we've got some
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: good fundraising metrics to share and we're still leading in
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: the poll because we did this quickie poll, but we
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: didn't use the polster we normally use. We used PPP
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: to do this. So again, it feels like a trying
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: to just plug a hole here, right. So the bottom
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: line is I think Platiner is in much more trouble
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: than anybody's letting on and I don't know if there's
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: you know, if there is any more shoes that drop,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: if there's any more drip drip here. I'm not sure
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: how many more drip drips that he can handle. So
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: the question is how much of this matters to main Democrats. Well,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: we're gonna have an interesting experiment on June ninth looking
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: at this Pole memo and realizing, oh wow, this must
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: be a lot worse. You know, Look, I am not
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: convinced this is going to end Platiner's campaign. He could
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: recover from this and win. I think there is definitely
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Collins fatigue in the state, right he could still win
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: with all of this out there, So I don't rule
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: that out. But I thought, wow, that that pole tells
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: me this is the you know, basically the memo saying, hey, yeah,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: we took a hit, but this is recoverable. Don't panic yet.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: That was essentially the tone of the memo, even though
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: you know it didn't. They weren't acknowledging any of the
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: negatives in it. But if you sort of read between
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: the lines, they're telling you, yeah, Platner took a pretty
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: big hit. So if there is any buyer's remorse on Platner.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: This is one of these occasions where voters actually can
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: get a do over if they really want it. Right,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Janet Mills, while she's not actively campaigning, did not take
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: her name off the ballot, in a fact that Janet
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Mills herself chose to remind a reporter about during an
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: interview earlier this week. So I thought, Okay, Mills is
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: going to get some votes obviously in the Democratic primary
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: next Tuesday. Maine is one of a couple of states
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: next year. We're going to Nevada, South Carolina, Maine. Maine's
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: got a tremendous governor's race. It's crazy on both sides
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: of the aisle. That'll be a lot of fun to watch.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: We're going to do our live stream. But what I
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: wanted to do is try to try to come up
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: with a metric to decide what is the Mill's number
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: that she gets in a primary that should set off
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: alarm bells at the d SEC or set off alarm
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: nails among Democrats to say, hey, maybe out a swap
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Platiner out and Main, for what it's worth, is actually
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: one of the easier states to replace a candidate on
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: the ballot if the candidate willingly wants to get off
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: of the ballot by the deadline in July. Literally, there's
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: no other rigormarole. You have to go to the party
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: can decide who they want to put on there. It's
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: a New Jersey and Maine, two of the easier states
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: to pull this off. So she's going to get some number.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Is it ten percent, is it eighteen, is it twenty five?
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: And there's no doubt whatever her number is, there's going
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: to be a temptation for myself and everybody in the
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: chattering class to try to react to that number, what
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: does it mean and decide on the fly whether it's
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: a disaster for Platiner or whether hey, you know, because
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: I think there's some amount of Mills support that was
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: always going to be there because their name's on the ballot.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: So I don't I don't want to be knee jerk
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: about it, and I want to, frankly, give you some
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: tools to decide for yourself what the metrics should be.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: So I did a little I did a little research,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: So this is what I want to do. So tonight
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: I'm sort of channeling a little This is something you
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: normally would see in the Nate Silver substack. So stay
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: with me here a minute. I want to set the
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: bar of of what the Mills primary number. You know
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: what Mill's primary number is sort of a nothing to
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: worry about at all, that's kind of an issue or
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: oh my god, five alarm fire. So we're going to
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: start with this. So chunk of whatever Mills gets has good.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: It's nothing to do with how Democrats feel about Graham Platner.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Two things guarantee that. One, there are already going to
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: be some banked votes. Maine's been voting early for weeks.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: A lot of those ballots were even filled out, probably
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: before folks fully understood that Mills was getting out, was
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: right around it, so she was still to a lot
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: of voters in Maine, probably seen as a real candidate.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: So she probably banked, you know, in the first or
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: you know, part of early voting, banked a bit more
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: vote than usual. And they're already locked in, right, they're
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: in a box. They count for Mills no matter what
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: anybody thinks today. And then of course there's the name
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: id factor. She's true term sitting governor. So some people
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: are going to walk in see two names they sort
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: of recognize and one they really recognize and they'll pick
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: the governor. It's not a protest, that's just fame, right.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: So I know there's going to be a certain amount
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: of votes she gets that you kind of you shouldn't
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: make a big deal of. So part of her number
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: is going to be mechanical inertia, if you will. So
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: the real question, and the only interesting question, is how
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: much sits on top of that sort of mechanical floor
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: that we're creating here, because that part the excess, that's
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: the part that's actually a message to platter and to
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: figure out where the floor is and where the danger starts.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: I used two recent elections to basically do all the
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: work for us on this. So the first yardstick I
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: used was a campaign in Iowa in twenty eighteen. This
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: was a governor's race in Iowa Democratic primary in twenty eighteen.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: A state senator named Nate Bolton was running second, pulling
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: around twenty percent semi serious candidate. Then, about twelve days
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: for the primary, multiple women came forward with allegations of
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: sexual misconduct. After those allegations of misconduct from the multiple women,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Bolton suspended his campaign. But, and this will sound familiar,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: early voting had already started in Iowa, his name stayed
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: on the ballot and the votes for him got counted.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: He ended up finishing with five percent, pulling at twenty
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: at the time of the allegations, ending at five. So
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: there's that lesson, and this is the limit of the lesson.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: The five percent is the floor. That's the name id
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: plus banked early votes, and not much else. Because when
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: you leave a race and disgrace your supporter scatter, they
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: run away from you. So Bolton tells us that that
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: mechanical floor is real and it's low. But Mills did
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: not leave in disgrace. There's no scandal attached to her.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: She left over money and frankly over math. She was
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: losing her voters don't have a reason to be ashamed
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: of her. So Mills starts, probably above Bolton's five percent.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: So Iowa gives us the floor, It does not give
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: us the ceiling on this sort of inertia business. Right
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: for the ceiling, I'm using Nicki Haley. So in twenty
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: twenty four, remember Nicki Haley drops out of the Republican
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: presidential race in early March of twenty twenty four, but
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: her name stayed on ballot after ballot, and the guide
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: she'd been running against Donald Trump was somebody a real
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: slice of the party just would not get behind. So
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: Haley became a protest forevehicle, a way to vote not
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: him without having to vote for a Democrat if you
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: were a Republican. And the numbers were quite striking. Right
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: two months after she quit, she pulled seventeen percent in Pennsylvania,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: almost twenty two percent in Indiana, twenty in Maryland, eighteen
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: in Nebraska. And nobody thought Nika Haley was going to
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: be the nominee. This was all protest vote. Everyone understood
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: those numbers for what they were, a measurement of how
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: many Republicans were not sold on there on Donald Trump.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: Both campaigns read it that way. The phrase that got
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: used over and over was red flag. Now here's the
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: part that matters the most for Tuesday. It wasn't just
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: how big the Haley vote was. It was where the
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: Hailey vote was. It piled up in the affluent, college
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: educated suburbs in all of these places, the Philadelphia Coller Counties,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: places like that, which happened to be the exact areas
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: where Trump was weakest. Later in November, the size of
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: the number told you the size of the problem. The
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: map told you whether the problem actually mattered. And that's
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: the platiner parallel here. Yes, no he's not Donald Trump,
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: but I'll let some of you sort of think about
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: that metaphor here a minute. But let's be clear, but
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: he is a wounded front runner. Those old Reddit posts,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: the tattoo that resembled a Nazi sign, and now reporting
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: about explicit, you know, some sexting with women. If Maine
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: Democrats are nervous about handing this guy the nomination against
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins, Janet Mills is the obvious easy place to
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: register that discontent, a respected governor right there on the
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: ballot who pointedly has not told them to stand out.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: So let's start to build the bar. Well, we're gonna
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: start with that floor pull out of late May, a
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: month after she quit the race and before the latest
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: story broke, had Mills sitting around ten percent. So we're
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: going to call that a pure sort of stagnant mechanical
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: number and inertia number. Right name, I D in early votes,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: basically nothing else. So here's how I'm in a great
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Tuesday Night low teen say, twelve thirteen, fourteen percent for Mills,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: I'm going to chalk that up to just aertship, to
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: just this mechanical floor that we're discussing here. That's the
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: famous governor's name doing famous governor things, right, green light,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: don't need to overreact, don't let anybody tell you it's
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: a story. You know. Fifteen percent, that's where you start
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: to see the green turned to yellow as far as
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: my flag is concerned. So why am I saying fifteen
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: Because that clears the famous person who quit zone, if
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: you will, and it beats this this sort of stagnant
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: you know name, you know number by enough of a
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: margin that you can credibly say the scandals moved real votes,
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: that people went out of their way to send a
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: message about platter. So if you look at it, fifteen
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: to twenty five percent, that's kind of the Hailey band, right.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: She would be somewhere between fifteen and twenty one. That's
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: where she lived in stayed after state, and in her
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: case that range was treated correctly as a genuine warning
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: to Donald Trump. So if Mills lands in there, I'm
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: not going to call it on the top line alone.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: I'm going to I want to see the map of
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: where this vote came from. And we're going to go
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: more on that in a minute. Obviously, anything over twenty
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: five percent, and this is, you know, where you have
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: one in four Democratic primary voters or more than one
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: in four actively choosing the woman who quit the race
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: over the man who is going to be their nominee.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: That's a red flag, no asterisk, no explanation. Twenty five
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: or more, and then you're going to start hearing about
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: should he be replaced, because that's even greater than where
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: Haley landed in most states in twenty four That's a
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: party standing up and telling you it is not sold
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: on its own presumptive front runner, and you're going to
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: put him up against one of the most durable Republicans
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: in the country in Susan Collins there in November with
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: Senate Control writing on it. Now, let's talk about the
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: gray zone of that fifteen to twenty five percent bar,
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: which is actually where I expect the number to be.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: I don't think unless somebody decides to insert some super
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: pac money over the weekend to say, you know, you
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: have literally proactively trying to get Mills more votes or
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: trying to damage Platner. I think we're looking at somewhere
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: between fifteen and twenty five percent, you know, And this
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: is where how to interpret the Hailey Lesson I think
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: helps us here. If the Mills protest vote is concentrated
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: in the first district, basically Portland and the southern suburbs,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: the wealthy areas, Democrats should be less worried about it, right,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: Those are blue voters. These are people that don't want
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: to vote for Susan Collins. However grumpy they may be
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: about Platner's character in June, They're probably simply going to
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: go in there and vote Jersey color in November. You
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: could consider a lion's share of the votes coming from
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: the first district for Mills as basically a bit of
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: a wine of a tantrum, but not a full defection.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: But if Mills overperforms in the second district, the rural,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: working class, more conservative northern half of the state, the
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: district that Donald Trump has carried three times now in
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: presidential elections, that's that makes that yellow flag look a
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: little more red because the second district is where all
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: the swing voters are. That is where a statewide main
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: race is one or lost. And if Plattner is bleeding
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Democratic votes in the second on Tuesday means he is
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: weakest in the precise place he cannot afford to be
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: weak in the fall. So it's the same state wide
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: number twenty percent, let's say, but it means two to
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: completely different things depending on where the twenty percent is
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: coming from. Twenty percent out of Portland, yeah, but no
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: twenty percent out of the second district. That's a warning
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: Democrats to take quite seriously. And you might actually hear chatter,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: a little bit of chatter about replacement. So that's the bar.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: So when you're watching us in our live election stream
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: and you see us pull up, we're going to constantly
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: check that main Senate vote. You know, We're going to
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: do our best to let you know where the votes
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: where her support appears to be coming from. And if
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: you want to do it on your own, keep track
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: of where. If you start to see Mills in the twenties,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: where's it coming from? Is it coming from the first
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: or is it coming from the second. And this is
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: if this is making you nervous about democratics chances to
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: win the Senate, or making you nervous about Republican chances
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: to hold the Senate, or Collins's chances to win. I
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: think that's the best way to look at this unique
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: situation where we have a candidate appears to be a
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: bit in battle, and voters have an opportunity to essentially
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: escape this if they choose to just a little extra
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: something to watch for on Tuesday night. All right, with that,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: sneaking a break when we come back, my fascinating conversation
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: with Todd Ricketts about his intriguing app, which I do
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: think all of you should check out Free Spoke, and
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: of course we do a little bit of baseball economics.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: Let's sneak in the break and I'll see on the
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: other side. So joining me now is the owner of
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: the Chicago Cubs, and we're not going to be talking baseball,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: although I might sneak in a question or two about
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: what's coming in the next two years. Those of us
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: who love baseball are word we're going to lose lose
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: half a season. So I'm warning him now. I'm warning
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: you down, mister Ricketts. I will have a labor question
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: towards the end. But you're on here because you've got
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: a new app, and it's more than an app, and
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: it's sort of an interesting and I think it's bigger
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: than that, and I think the consumer facing app it's
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: called free Spoke. I encourage people to take a look
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: at it right now, get your free trial right now,
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: and what it attempts to do. And I'm going to
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: let mister Ricketts describe it in more detail, but I'll
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: just give you my first impressions. You know, it wants
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: to give you an array of perspectives. Label the perspective,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: so you'll see left, right, and middle based on publisher
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: leanings rather than individual reporter leanings. And we'll get into
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: that a little bit. But the idea is to quote
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: paint the full picture. This also particularly on political topics
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: or on issues that are more subjective than objective. Right
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: we have in this, of course, is this war. We
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: can all be claim that it is being fought sometimes
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: between left and right over what is truth, what is
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: what is real, et cetera. And this is one of
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: the more interesting answers I've seen out there. You know,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: All sides media is something that I've been very curious
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: about for a long time, and this is a new
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: entry into this. And mister Todd Ricketts joins me. Now,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: so Todd, how did I do describing it and fill
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: in the blanks here because I didn't do justice to
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: your AI search engine, which I find also quite interesting.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think you did a bring good job,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: and really what we set out to do was, you know,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: I'll step back to where I came at it from.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: It's like, as you look at social media and big technology,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: I felt like, oftentimes you're being led down a narrative.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: Oftentimes you're being let down a narrative that just reinforces
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: what they already know about you to a little.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Information bias, right, and something that the Internet is really
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: made that phrase, which was sort of a phrase that
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: was rarely used pre Internet days to now something we
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: think about a lot, you know.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of it is like, you know,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: these the platforms are trying to get you to spend
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: more time there, but they're also just reinforcing what you
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: see to give you things you'd like. And what that
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: has done, in my opinion, is like it's kind of
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: driven that divide in Americans where you know, I think,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: you know, in previous generations, people were Republicans or people
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: were Democrats, and maybe they talked about politics, but nobody
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: took it to heart in the same sort of way.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: And I think we just got to a point where
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: we couldn't even agree on the facts because where like
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: people are getting driven down to their own side. And
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: so what I wanted to do is like create a
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: search engine and you know, and like a little bit
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: of a a search engine layered on with AI that
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: kind of takes in everything that's being published and finds
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: that overlap and then also kind of defines or kind
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: of tries to like describe each side in like normal terms,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: not no name calling, just saying this is how the
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: where these people are coming from. This is where these
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: people are coming from, and so you can kind of
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: inform yourself because I had a lot of faith in
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: the American people that given good information, they'll come up
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: with good answers. And so that was kind of like
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: where we started. And what we did was we built
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: our own index of the Internet, so we're not relying
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: on Being or Google, and then layered our own algorithm
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: of AI on top of that and really trained our
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: AI to be just the facts. Man, is it current,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: is it relevant? And is it leading? Like when? So
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: what we say is we're not trying to lead anybody
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: in a particular narrative. We're trying to present all sides,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: present everything that we can find, and then let people
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: make up to their own mind.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the search engine aspect to this,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: because you know, I mean that's the part that in
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: some ways I'm excited to see if this will be
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: more functional than search in general at the moment, right,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, with the big tech companies so focused on
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: their AI offerings, search, you know, is search is difficult,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: and frankly everybody's search has become monito tied, right, that's
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: not consumer friendly, it is you know, we're the mark
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: as I always say, right, like you know, when you
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: do a search on an old school Google search, it
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: takes a while before you get out of sponsored content
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: and yeah, that's right. Yeah, And so I would, you know,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: and I think I'm a little nervous about just turning
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: search over to AI. It seems like you're trying to
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: bridge this.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: No, definitely, definitely, And so we do protect your privacy,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: so we're not tracking you like the other companies. And
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: you kind of said it without saying it is that
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: if you're on the Internet and you're getting something for free,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: you are the product like, you are being sold. Your
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: information is being sold. They're trying to find advertisers to
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: match up with like what kind of tennis shoes you like,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: or what kind of car you might buy and so on,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: and so you're being sold out there, and there's a real,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: like I think, long term privacy concern about that because
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: maybe people are like, well, I like seeing the ad
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: from my favorite shoe company and knowing what they're putting
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: out there. But then you're like, where does it stop?
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: And how do you how do you maintain control of that?
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: And also, you know, we want to make sure that
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: the people that are buying the ads aren't driving the
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: content you're seeing, like you're saying, like you get a
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: bunch of advertising your sponsored content to the beginning. So
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: we're trying to avoid all that and really just bring
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: the best information we can in front of people. And
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: when you think about all the AI platforms, whether it
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: be Chat, gybt or Gemini or what have you, that
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: still is search. It's not it's not that different than what.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: No, it's just it's curated search essentially.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a thousand times faster. Right if if Google,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: the regular Google search could come up with something a
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: thousand times faster. It can just come up with something
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: that's a little more elaborate and a little more catered
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: and curated to you. And so it's all about like, Okay, well,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: where are those people getting their content? And how are
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: they where are the platforms getting their content? And how
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: much of it is Reddit and how much of it
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: is coming from being and how much physic is coming
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: from Google and other sources.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting, You're not the first baseball owner
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: I've had this conversation with really Frank McCourt project Liberty.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: Are you familiar with what he has been trying to do,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: because you guys are on the same page, and you know, yeah,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: and I understood sort of where he came at this,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: and I always sort of really much empathized. He said,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: you know, fifteen years later, the first five things when
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: you google Frank mccurt is something that happened in his
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: life fifteen years ago, right, And it was this idea
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: that you had no control over your own identity and
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: his whole philosophy. And I think it's it's admirable. But
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know how we put this toothpaste back in.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: But I feel like you're going down this road too,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: which is instead of that US seeking permission of the
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: tech companies to use their product. That essentially, apps or
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: tech companies ask our permission to monetize us. And while
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: they are technically asking our permission, and we're being coerced
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: because if you don't accept the terms and conditions, you
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: don't get the updated bells and whistles. Is this something
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: the market can fix or is government going to have
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: to intervene?
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: Well, just to go back to Frank, I think I
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: think Frank has another layer to what he's trying to
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: do too, is that, like, and if you're going to
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: take the information you know about me and take you
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: to the market and sell it, I deserve to cut
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: of that. I deserve to get I deserve to get
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: paid on that somehow. So I'm using your product. It's free,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: for sure, But if you're going to go sell information
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: about me like that that money, I have a right
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: to some of that as well, if I've opted into that.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: And so I don't know how that lands, but I
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: think it's a great from the philosophical point of view,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: I think it's a great idea. I should be able
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: to go like, well, if I'm going to be on
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: the Internet and they're going to sell information about me
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: based on my patterns, my habits, yeah I should. I
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: should participate in that as well.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: Well, you know it's funny. I remember having this large
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: debate with him, like, you know, it's the and I've
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: had this discussion with high people up at META where
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: we've had this conversation, which is, my data individually is
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: not valuable, but my data coupled with a million people
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: in Arlington, Virginia is extraordinarily valuable. How do you compensate it?
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah? No, I don't know. I don't know what the
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: right answer is, but I love, like I say, philosophically,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: I think it's it's the right direction, and that should
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: be a META. I don't know how they wrap to
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: get their head rep around all the data they do have, right,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: It's like they have so much they're swimming in it,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: and I'm sure that they have trouble trying to keep
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: it organized themselves.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: Well, And I guess that's the question is should data
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: be regulated like a public utility? Is data electricity?
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: I don't you know. I think this is a I mean,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: it sounds like you believe this is an issue that
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: our politicians out of debate rather do you have an
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: opinion on this?
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: Well, what I what I think is it has to happen,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: is it has to come from society, like people have
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: to And I think at some point there's going to
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: be some sort of event that will make it clear
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: to people that they should be more concerned about their
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: Internet identity and how their information is being shared and
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: who has it and so on. And I think it
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: has to be people saying, like, I'm concerned about who
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: has my information, and it has to be that sort
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: of ground swell up before we're going to get a
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: top down sort of answer. And I feel like you,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: if it comes from that direction, then we're going to
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: get a better answer anyway, because it'll be come from
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: people expressing their concerns and wanting to control their own information.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: One of the hallmarks of your app is that it
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: is that it you know, protecting my privacy right, the
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: ideas you're protecting user privacy. So this next question I'm asking,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: I wonder if this if if your protection of privacy
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: gets in the way from you be able to search
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: the following. But you know, one of the things with
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: labeling news does it come from the left, right, or center,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: is that it becomes almost like a neon sign for
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: those that want their news that way. And what you
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: find out and what I think I have frustratingly found
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: out myself and maybe, and I'm curious if you guys
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: have been able to do some research, is that while
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: people say they want all perspectives, they usually only look
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: at one one. Have you been able to denote, you know,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: without violating people's privacy, do the labels? Because this is
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: where I'm torn on the labels in this respect, I
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: think the label should be there. I would just argue
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: put them at the end of the article and humor
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: me a minute, which is, if you add the label,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: then automatically I'm going to our brains right, You're just
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: going to read it. I almost like read it as
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: if somebody from stage left is saying it or somebody
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: from stage right, versus consuming it, forming my own opinion
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: and then seeing, oh, this came from stage left or
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: this came from stage right. And look, it's a small thing.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: But I'm curious if you guys had a debate where
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: do you put the label? You put it high and
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: very prominent. And on one hand, that's the premise of
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: free spoke, right, So I get it. But if you
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: had all done any consumer research of how people are
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: using the labels.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't know if we've had like as
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: sort of like sort of survey of where to label
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: it or how people feel about it. My hope is
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: that when people see those labels, that they'll see something
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: that's left and see something that's right and read both articles,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: or they can kind of come down to our perspectives
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: where it kind of shows that consensus and that overlap.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: But we haven't done anything specific about trying to track people.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: And if people have patterns of like this individual goes
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: to it clicks on everything that says left, or that
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: individual's clicks on everything that says right, Yeah, and we
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: would have trouble finding that because we do protect people's
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: privacy and we don't track people in that manner.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: No, it's something because look I say this as somebody
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: building my own you know, it is if you if
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: you don't tack you know, essentially prominent left or prominent right,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: it is a slower build than if you signpost right.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: And and the irony is that that's been the conundrum
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: of American politics. We all kind of revert to the
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: mean of somewhere between the thirty five yard lines right
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: when push comes to shove, and yet the dialogue is
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: inside is on the other side of those thirty five
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: yard lines in both perspectives, right and so and and
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: the middle is hard to find, especially we're in the
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: middle of a pre a realignment todd you know, meaning
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: that you know what was left is right on some things,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: like take the issue of trade free traders are left
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: owners and protectionist or right? That's what I grew up, right.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: It's it's I would say that in this moment and
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: this strategy that the President is using to try to
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: get to and I think what he wants to do well,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: he definitely wants to or some of the manufacturers, but
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: I think in the end what he wants is just
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: better trade deals than we've had historically. And so I
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: don't know if like the president necessarily wants teris forever
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: he talks in those terms, because he's always he's selling
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: ideas and he's pushing the developer way.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: He speaks like every developer the inabsolute you know, it's
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: kind of the greatest ever, the biggest ever, the most ever.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, yes, you know, he is sort
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: of a developer first.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: But I think I think, like you know, Scott Pascenta
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: said it a bunch of times that you know, if
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: other countries got rid of their tariffs, we'd get rid
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: of all of ours as well. And so it's kind
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: of trying to like land in this place where there's
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: just a little less protectionism going on around the world.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: And I come at him from this view of like
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: in nineteen forty five, we signed trade deals with everybody
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: saying like, we'll buy all the products you can make,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: and we're going to secure the sea lane so your
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: products can make it to the United States, and we
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: weren't so concerned about what they were going to buy
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: back from US, and so we had these like one
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: sided trade deals, and over time that has worked against us.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: In the nineties and two thousands, we were like everybody
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: was like this, free trade, free trade, free trade, Republicans
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: and Democrats alike. And I think the idea that was
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: sold on everybody at that time was we're going to
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: take manufacturing from towns like Youngstown, Ohio, and that may
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: go to Mexico. But then that's going to get backfilled
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: with you know, high tech, you know, high tech service jobs.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: And what happened is we saw a lot of that
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: manufacturing leave and not get that backfilled. So a lot
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: of these small cities were left with unemployment and Methamida
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: mean right, And I think that's what the president sees.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: It sees that like this, these these trade deals that
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: have taken manufacturing away from the US and not brought
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: back the promise of the high tech service jobs that
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: was supposed to come in their place. And he's like, well,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: you know, maybe we just need to bring some of
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: that back on shore until we figure this out.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: We have cross pressure, right, we have sort of like
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: you know eighties you know they you know, I I
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: you know, I remember during the Republican convention when I
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: heard the Teamsters president speak. It would have been fit
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: right in the eighty four convention for Walter Mondale, you know,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: and I don't. And it's and the point being is,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: so this is where I I appreciate the labels, but
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: and I and I think you you hint at this,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: it's like you want to keep them simple, but take
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: take George, well, right, where do you label him, right,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: and and I say this with you know, he is
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: to me a classical conservative small seat. That's right. But
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: my guess is it doesn't fit your these labels's I.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: Think I think he's still he's still would be conservative.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: He's just you know, maybe he's not in step with
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: the Republican Party at the moment. Like we just labeled
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: him Cubs fan and we just hold on to him.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: Hey, we Nats fans claim, you know, he goes to
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: more Nats games than Cubs games.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm sure that's true, But but he sits
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: next to me when he comes to Cubs games.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah okay, but he has his own set in that scapes.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah okay.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: So I can I get off topic for a second
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: and tell a cute story. I was sitting next to
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: him at a at a game against the Mets years ago,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: and Bartolo Cologne was pitching, and he was like, he
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: was like, I don't know if he was forty four
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: or something, and I was like.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: I he told me he was really sixty, like though
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: he never had his birth rate ticket, right, I wouldn't
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: be shocked.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And I'm like, hey, like I don't all
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: I know is that you don't get better after forty
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: I'm like, he must be taking something. I don't know
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: what it is. And he came out of the bullpen
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: and you know, he got that time. He probably weighed
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty pounds. He was big. He was
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: and he's not like super tall either, he was big.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: And George was sitting next to me, He's like, you
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: think that guy is on steroids. And I'm like, well,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: steroids and burritos, baby, But I've had some good times
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: in Georgia. It's not to get too off topic. I
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: know we're talking about la no no, yeah, and.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: I guess that that's my you know, you know what's
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: funny about political labels is it's everybody wants them for
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: everybody else, but not themselves.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, everybody thinks they're in the middle, right, everybody
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: thinks they're that they're they're like the middle of everything,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: and uh so it's tough and and again, yeah, it's
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: not a perfect system that we have. We we kind
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: of use outside outside groups that that label content. We have.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: We have the ability to label it in house, but
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: we haven't started doing that ourselves yet. So we look
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: kind of the outside. So it's really just more of
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: a guy. It's not meant to be this this overarching
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: black and white of because even even within left and right,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: there's like a good range of you know, of uh
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: spectrum there.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: Well, let me ask this, is this a for profit
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: or nonprofit?
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: It's for profit. Yeah, and so we we do we
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: do sell ads like and and we do have a
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: premium service where you can pay five dollars a month
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: to custom as your experience and put in some of
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: your preferences. And we're sort of elaborating on that and
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: trying to expand that out a little bit. So it
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: is for profit and like you say, like we do
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: generate revenues that way, we just don't do in the
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: same way that that other search engines or other platforms
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: have historically.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: And so what is your how many human beings are curating?
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: And how much of this is is AI is sort
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: of some you know, sort of audio some sort of automation,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: Like how much of the human curation is in is
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: in the editorial process?
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: So when you uh, when you come to the side
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: everything that you do as far as when you search,
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: when you type anything into the bar that is going
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: to be one automatic from our AI layered onto our
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: our index. But when it comes to like the current
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: event we have, we do have people to kind of
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: put up like the current event news that are that's
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: on the homepage, and that's curated by humans, and that's
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: really just trying to identify the top stories of the
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: day and a kind of like give like what's breaking
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: and keeps things current and relevant on that homepage. So
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: that's the only part that's really human curated.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: Do you you met? I look, I'm a I'm believing
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: competition whatever it is, and that if your organism, you
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: should always want to have your organization measuring itself against
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: someone or some entity or what it is? Who is
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: free spoke? Who are you measuring yourself against? It happen?
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: Use is it being? What are you measuring yourself against? You?
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: No? I would say it's more being in Google still,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: you know, those would be that those are the people
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: we're looking at. And then because we do have that
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: kind of AI larrying, if you're spending your time on Chat,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: GBT and Gemini, I always tell people like go ahead,
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: like compare, compare to like the results you get from
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: the AI platforms. Two to what you're getting at at
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: free spoke, explain.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: How your large language model works. So if I if
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: you're using claw chet youpt for research, Yeah, what what
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: is the you know, give me, give me the give me,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: give me your pitch and why it's better to use
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: your large your.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: Because we really, we really try to strip out all
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: the bias. You know, a lot of those the clouds
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: are looking. If you're looking for current information, they're looking
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: at places like Reddit where it's there. There's a lot
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: of bias and Reddit, and so if it's taking Reddit
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: at space value, it's going to express itself as do.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: You keep Reddit completely out of your system? Or how
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: do you deal with Reddit?
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: You know, what we try to do is it's not
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: about trying to keep people out of the system. It's
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: about always trying to find balance in everything we do.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: So if there's if you type on a search on
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: some sort of topic and there's a thousand stories from
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: the from the right and only four stories from the left,
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: we're going to pick kind of pick four stories from
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: the right and four stories from the left and kind
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: of blend those in. So you're not just saying like
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: saying like oh, there's only stuff on the right. Here,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: we're trying to bring in both sides, regardless of how
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: much content there is all that topic topic from whichever side.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: That's interesting because sometimes there are just some issues that
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: are just you know, I really don't care what the
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: left has to say about you know, Trump Paxton versus Cornyn,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: and I don't care what the right has to say
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: about AOC versus Josh Shapiro, right Like, So there are
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: some issues that you know, it makes more sense to
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: me that only the rights animated or only the lefts animated.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and what you find on some of these topics,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: it's you know, some some topics don't get covered by
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: the left or covered by the right, and so when
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: if you search on that, you're going to find a
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: ton of content from one side and none on the other.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: And so we were just trying to kind kind of
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 2: come back to that just the facts, ma'am sort of answer.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: And so we're trying to pull from both sides, and
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: so it's not and give a balanced point of view
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: that doesn't say like, oh, well, everything on this is
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: from the right.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: If you had your druthers, how would you tell news
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: organizations in the so called legacy media, you know, and
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know what that I know, I know what
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: I think, I know what people mean when they say it.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: I know I'm referring to sort of the quote traditional networks,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: the longstanding newspapers, right, those things, you know, maybe the
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: wire services. What would you like to see as a consumer?
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: Do you want to know about the author, the editor,
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: the publication, you know, what would give you? And I
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: just say this because I think ultimately you know that
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: that I'm sure has informed how you went about this.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: So I'm just so like, what would you if you
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: were in their focus group saying, hey, help us widen
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: our aperture so that we have people left, right and
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: centered consuming our content.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I don't I don't know what I
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: would say specifically to just let's just pick it network news, right.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: But what we have seen, and we've kind of shaped
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: our product around that, is that fewer people are turning
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: to network news or even cable news for their information
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: and more more and more people are turning into podcasts
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: like your podcast. Uh, and you know, people like the
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: Joe Rogan's of the world, and you find all these
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: the Theo Vaughn's, and they're informing themselves through these these
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: podcasts that have huge followings. And if I was somebody
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: at a network right now, I I'd see that as
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: a red flag. It's like, okay, what are we doing
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: that people trust Joe Rogan more than they trust us.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: And I mean, I can start off, I say, Joe
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 2: Rogan is a great interviewer first of all, but it's
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: not it's less about like his views because he lets people,
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: he lets people talk, but he's not necessarily news.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, right, whatever you think of Joe Rogan, he
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: makes it. You know, the first rule of of of
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: any sort of content is make it interesting.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And he like, I mean, Joe Rogan is wherever
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: he's at, he's like, I think he's a good interviewer
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: because he just asked the question and then he stops talking, right,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: and he lets people just go on and on and on,
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: and then he'll he'll go down a rabbit hole. But
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: if I was like at CBS or some place someplace
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: like that today and say like, hey, you know what,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: why why are we losing people to these other these
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: other platforms and these other forms of media, and like
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: really questioning, It's like, okay, so we were holding on
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: to people that are you know, in one profile on
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: the spectrum of politics where we have them, and do
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: we want to expand and make it more consumable or
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: if we just want to focus on the people that
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: we have and and kind of stay in their lane. No.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I could tell you where where
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: I was running into problems was just on length of interviews,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: and you know, and that's that was the that was
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: always the fight. And I used to say, look, you know,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: I refer to the Sunday shows as baseball analytics. Now,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: there was this point in baseball where everybody had the
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: same data. Right at first, it was an advantage for
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: teams that we're using data, and eventually everybody's going to
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: use the same data. And then all of a sudden,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: everybody understood how to you know, do the do the
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: uh you know, you know, do the do the the
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: switch whatever when they when they would move all the
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: infielders to one side or the other, and you know,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: bring in the lefty, the lefty, righty, righty and all
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: this stuff, and it was becoming almost predictable and you
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: knew and was same with Sunday interviews, meaning everybody's knew, oh,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: it's seven to eight minutes. You know, I can filibuster
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: question one and this and this is the pattern, and
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: you know, it's this tyranny of if it just it
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: was no different than anything else you could see during
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: the week. And I used to argue, no, no, no, you
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: got to be you know, this has got to be
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: the long interview. Don't be afraid of it. And what
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: are what's podcast treating teaching us? People want thirty to
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: forty five?
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I mean that's because there's so many of
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: these issues today that where you know, you and I
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: could be asked on a question and you're like, well,
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 2: what do you think of this? It's like, well, my
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: ten second answer is like I agree with that, but
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: we don't agree with that.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: I'm going to interact. You've already proven it once. Look
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: at the trade No, look at the trade conversation we had.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: It was not a simple answer, and it isn't right.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: It is a complicated answer, and you were giving a
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: very complicated, nuanced response, which if you were doing a
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: five minute segment on one of the cable channels, which
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: you've done a few times. You know, boy, if I
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: gave that long answer, then I'm you know, I'm not
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: going to be able to talk about this, this and this.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, one hundred percent, it's one hundred percent. You
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: get into that. I think you hit right on at
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 2: these sound bites don't allow any of the commentators or
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: any of the journalists are part of it, to like
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: really dig deep, to like that second level of information.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: It really it is a problem on television and cable
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: with these short little it's like just ten seconds, like
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: what's your one little sound bite? And even politics gets
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 2: into that too, where it's hard to have a long,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: a long, comprehensive answer answer to anything if you have
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: to put it into ten seconds.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: Well, and then politicians then you get the extra issue,
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: which is they're they're now afraid to do numances because
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: they're afraid something's going to get clipped. Yeah, right, exactly,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: get clipped right, And then that becomes I mean, trust me,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: I've been clipped for years now. Like you said this,
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, but do you hear what I said
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: this and this, which totally changes the context of that.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: You know, right, everything's taken out of context all the time.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: Right, And it's one thing I've I'm guessing I don't
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: want to guess, are you making individual deal with the
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: news organizations, because I don't see any Wall Street Journal,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: and I'm wondering are the paywalls a challenge for this?
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: The walls are a huge challenge. So Luckily a lot
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: of our users on the places that they like, they
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: have a subscription already to places like Wall Street Journal,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: but we don't. We don't highlight or downgrade anybody's results
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 2: based on whether there's a paywall or not. We try
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: to bring the headlines and the little snippets that we
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: can grab and give it the best we can.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: So it is included in your search. So be there
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: the Atlantic, anybody with a paywall.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all that the paywalls do get included in there.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: They just might get and may not get as highlighted
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: as as well, because we don't have enough information on
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: those particular articles to give a full.
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: I will say the labels on the sports coverage, did
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: you guys debate whether you needed it or not?
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: You know, I can't remember, it's been a little while
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: since we did that.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, take the athletic and you note in the
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: about page because the Athletic is labeled left and in
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: the about page you say, look, it's the publisher, and
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: in this case, the New York Times is the publisher.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: I totally understand where you're put in the New York Times,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: but you're like the athletic I don't know, like I
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: just don't think of them as you know, yeah maybe
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: culturally if you.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: None of them are nice to me, so we should
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: just put them as wrong at least maybe not nice
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: to our team.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: But that was the one where you're like, huh, okay,
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know. If I you know sports, you know,
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: there's a handful of places that are trying to put
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: a political lens in their sports coverage. I hope that
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: doesn't become a fat.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 2: That's going to be more like driven by like the
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: advent of the world, like because we draw from those
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: guys than god selves directly. So they're they're putting that
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: label on there, and it's uh, and we're trying to
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 2: we're accepting those as you know, as a base just
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 2: to have something.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: So let me give you the one Devil's Advocate question
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: that something like this, because you know, crowdsourcing subjective material
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: I think is a is a winner. I'm a big
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: fan of it. I want to know right at the
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: same time, fact, just because something's crowdsource doesn't mean it's true.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: So the separation of truth and look, you made your
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: you made your mark in the financial world, and you're
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: making your mark on on actual data and truth. Right,
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: So what's the what's what's what do you feel as
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: if free spokes responsibility is on the miss and disinformation
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: side of things?
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, if you go and you and you
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: click on perspectives and any of these topics, right, what
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: it does is it's fine finding that that gray area
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: that or that overlap between and so often what you
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 2: find is that if it's misinformation, it's coming from one
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: side and it won't show up on the other side
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: at all. And so in the perspectives it kind of
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 2: you kind of get the overlap of like what both
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: sides acknowledge as true and a lot of that, a
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: lot of the other stuff gets kind of it's taken
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 2: over to you know, the left and the right itself.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 2: If as you as you kind of page down on
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 2: this on these searches.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: What's two point Oh, I mean, I have an idea
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: of what free Spoke two point zero would be, but
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: I'm curious what you have planned in your head.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 2: I'd love to you know, I'd love to hear your
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: two point. Oh, but I think as we go forward,
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 2: what we want to do is we want to add
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: more customization to our premium product and let people really
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: kind of tell us what they want and shape that
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: that experience for themselves. So I think that's what we're
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 2: going to be working on for the rest of the
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: year and try to get more and more people into
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 2: that that product.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, I know I know what I'd be
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: doing if I were the hotline using this as a
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: tool right now, because it would perhaps give me the opportunity.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: I want to know what are the what are the
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: where's their agreement? Show me the agreement between between left
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: and right and I, and then highlight the disagreement. Yeah,
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: tell me where you know, like, because that is a
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: consumer right of news and an analyst, it allows me. Okay,
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: they believe it's this is the reason, and they believe
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: it's this is I got it, Okay, And I think
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: you know, my guess is that's where you're headed. Right.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: Round one is putting all this together. You know. Round
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: two is getting to all that and the only fear
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: I have and what I'm envisioning in my head is
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: do I want a human being doing this or do
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: I want AI doing this? And I and I know
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: that it's easier probably to have AI do it. It
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: might be ninety five percent good, but then you worry
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: about the five percent that it that AI doesn't understand,
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: you know, because it's just a probability thing, and then
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: it can screw up the perception the whole thing.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, yeah, the AI is only as good as
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 2: the person who trained it or the people that and
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 2: so we can garbage out right exactly. And so I
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: think I feel pretty good about our technicians who kind
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: of live this every day, who are trying to really
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 2: forget that AI to able to identify bad information on
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: its own right and then again kind of bring that again.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: I keep saying like that just the facts, just the facts.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: We're trying to, like, just put the facts in front
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: of you and let you read them and make up
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: your own mind as to what makes sense to you.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: And I think we'll get better and better in that
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 2: as time goes on, and as we have more searches
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: and more more.
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: Do you see a newsletter business for you?
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: Maybe maybe there could be.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: What do you think is the next business here in your.
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 2: I was actually going to start my own podcast and
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 2: call it the Podcast. So I think you're going to
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 2: be hearing from my attorneys pretty soon.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: And you got better at You probably have better pay
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: attorneys than I do. You know, here's what I learned
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: by calling it the Toddcast. Uh Todd. First of all,
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: as somebody, you know, when your last name is Todd,
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: everybody assumes your first name is Todd. I've been third
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: generation of this. All all the male Todds in my
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: family ended up just succumbing to their last name being
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: their first name. But I had I got to take
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: this with me from NBC because they couldn't. You know,
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: NBC never lets intellectual property leave, but they couldn't claim
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: that they could use the Chuck todcast for somebody else.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sound somebody else named Chuck Todd. That'd be right.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: So this is the this is the hack. If you
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: work for somebody else, name a product after yourself, and
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: at least you have a boxer's chance of keeping your
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: right you.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, but I don't. I don't really know if
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 2: we're going to get into the newsletter business, but we might.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: The world is changing and just.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: The basic business adds and subscriptions, the two models.
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we just need to find more people, more people,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: more people.
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: So of course, all right, before I let you go,
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: I don't you know, don't get an owner of a
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: of a sports team, and you probably somebody probably prepped
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: you in the fact that I was a one of
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: the founders of Sports Business Journal, so cut my teeth
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: and cover, you know, create essentially creating the daily sports
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: business beat, which the industry didn't think it needed until
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: we created the product and then it then you know,
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: Sports Business Journal is what it is today. So baseball
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty seven. This is one of those difficult
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: things because from sixty thousand feet the answer seem obvious,
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: the details are very difficult. If there's a sal can
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: you sell a salary cap without complete equal revenue sharing
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: among the owners?
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the answer is the short answers yes,
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: the network news answer is yes, and a little bit
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: more detailed answer is. All the other leagues have kind
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 2: of gone through this, right, They've all had that growing
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 2: pain of getting into having a hard cap and having
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: a hard floor to make sure that the league stays competitive.
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 2: I think what you'll see in baseball is will have
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: sort of a revenue sharing model that might have to
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: do with TV rights, like taking more TV up to
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: the league and splitting that and making sure that every
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 2: team has enough to breach the floor. And if you
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 2: think of that, it's just like taking you know, one
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 2: hundred million dollars a pay roll away from the Dodgers
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: and taking it to the Pirates and making sure the
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 2: Pirates have enough money to cover it.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: And you, as the owner of the Chicago Cubs, who
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: frankly have more opportunity for revenue than the Minnesota Twins
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: or the Pittsburgh Pirates, you're going to be okay with sharing.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: You know that you're basically contributing more to the pot
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: than the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Minnesota Twins.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: I no, I'm comfortable with that. Like, if the league
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 2: doesn't have competitiveness, we're going to start losing, and so
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: we need to have a competitiveness across the board. Although
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 2: I will say in baseball doesn't spending money doesn't always
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 2: turn into results. The dodge the beauty of the best
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: three or five.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: Please don't ever get rid of it, because it's the
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: great equalizer, right the Dodgers. You know, trust me as
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: a Nats fan, and you know, if you get the
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: Dodgers in a five game series, you got a chance.
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: You can't beat on a seven.
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, and if you just look what's happened
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 2: in the Cubs this last week. I look at some
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: of the teams we played, I'm like, there's not one
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 2: guy in that other dugout that's good enough to be
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 2: on this team and they just beat us. So it's
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 2: like the kind of you have to roll with it,
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: but we do need to find like that that balance
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 2: and get into this thing, this this era where you know,
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 2: it's good. It's good for the league. If all the
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 2: teams are profitable at some level and not losing money
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 2: and we have a little bit of competitiveness on the field.
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 2: I think that's good and be good for baseball. And
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 2: you know, some of the modeling that we've worked out
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 2: internally is that you know, right now, players get about
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: forty eight percent of revenues in Major League Baseball. And
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: then and then the model we're going to present that
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm not part of the Major.
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: League Baseball, but you're going to be. Are you on
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: any of these committees where you'll be sitting down now.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: In fact, my brother is our owner representative, so he's
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 2: he's much closer to the league and talks to the
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 2: connatural a lot. But but my instinct says that, like
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 2: we're going to go from someplace where it's forty eight
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 2: percent of the revenues today to like fifty two percent
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 2: of the revenues in the future. Right, Yeah, that's right.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 2: I think you and I think the NFL is about there.
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 2: On the NHL, I think they are all just above
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 2: fifty percent. So what what you'll see is like it's
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: actually more money to players, just in a different form
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 2: than the giant free agent contracts with you know, hundreds
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: of millions.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: No, I mean this is look, I mean, I know
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: what we're going to hear. It's, you know, the Scott
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: Boris view of the world, right, you know, basically unlimited
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: free market. Great if that's the way it works. But
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: you know, let me ask you this as a as
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: an owner, and for me, I'm going to call you
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: relatively new. I say relatively new, right if you have
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: if you've only been an owner for about ten or
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: fifteen years compared.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 2: To seventeen yeah, right.
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: Compared we have some people that have been owners for
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: you know, generations right as longer for sure, and you
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: were in the particularly in the finance world. What's the
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: what's the same about operating a sports franchise and what
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: is different? As a you know, everybody says, well, you
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: got to operate it like a business, but as sports franchise, boy,
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: it's complicated because you know, we were discussing this before
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: we started. Your fan base thinks they own the team,
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: and unlike and only the Green Bay Packers have a
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: fan base that actually can say they own a piece
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: of the team. Although I'm sure if you guys started
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: selling shares you do pretty well. So what's the same
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: and what's the big difference?
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of the same is just trying
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: to run like you say, run it like a business.
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: It's like, how what are we doing on ticket sales?
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: Are we selling every ticket that we can? Are the
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 2: tickets price right?
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 2: Where are we with our corporate sponsors, and and how
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: how they can contribute to the team in ways that
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 2: we can't go with other places. For so, it is
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 2: very much a business. And on the other side, you
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 2: have these opportunities to be completely irresponsible sometimes where you're like, Okay.
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 3: We're just one game out and if we win our division,
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 3: it's going to mean this, and so do we go
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 3: out and and and get that extra free agent or
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 3: or or kind of get outside our own discipline.
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 2: So you always have those opportunities, and I got to say, like,
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's the craziest idea. Sometimes it's just
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 2: it doesn't always work out and then you generally regret it.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: But we keep it pretty tight ship we have. We
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 2: really have a great team of people. There were a
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: lot of great people that were at the Cubs when
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 2: we bought the team, and we've supplemented that with a
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 2: much more. And it's a very disciplined business. And when
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 2: we look at those opportunities to step outside our disciplines
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 2: and the discipline, especially when it comes to the baseball
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 2: team itself, we think long and hard about it.
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: What didn't you know that you were like, oh my god,
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: I wish i'd known this going.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: It's been a little while since since we bought the team,
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 2: and it kind of went through it. It's what you
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 2: don't see is the backside business side of all the teams,
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 2: and you look at other teams and you see how
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 2: they're run and you're like, gosh, I really I wish
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 2: I could give them some advice. I wish not every
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: team and every league is run with the same sort
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 2: of professionalism that we have, and that's why you kind
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: of see some of the variations of teams that can
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: make money or lose money and so on and so forth.
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: So I'm doing this sports history podcast with Jayadande and
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: we've done three deep dives so far, the Dodgers, the
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: the Steelers, and the Warriors. And you know what all
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: three have in common is that their original owner was
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: essentially the local sports promoter. So like Art Rooney for
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: the Steelers, he was the guy that the NFL went to,
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: hey do you want this franchise, because he was the
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: guy you went to if you were bringing a boxing
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: match to Pittsburgh and you wanted to promote it, and
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: he was that guy. And the Warriors owner, the first
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: one in San Francisco, was sort of it was like
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: a nightclub owner. You know when I say that, he
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: didn't own a nightclub, but it was the equivalent of
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: where you would just do it. Can I bring in
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: a marquee name to bring in fannies in the seat
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: so I can sell a few extra concessions. Like how
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: much you know we've seen this transition from sort of
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: the family business model, right the small business owner model,
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: to the twenty first century business you know, acumen, Harvard
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: Business School type of mindsets and take baseball. Would you
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: say eighty percent of the teams are in this bucket now?
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: Or you know, how many of the teams are still
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: in the mom and pops phase of operations?
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 2: Maybe you know, maybe half and half. I'd have to
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 2: like go through team by team and see where they're appens.
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: It's definitely has a few things have changed in the
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 2: last twenty five years that have changed the way the
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 2: businesses are run. First of all, you've seen institutional money
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 2: kind of coming into some of these teams, you know,
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 2: these big of these big.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: Do you have any private equity? Do you guys have
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: brought in? Have you guys brought private equity in or not?
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 2: We have like a wide range of limited partners that
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 2: we brought out at different times, Like we sold off
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 2: some of the team to renovate Wrigley Field, and so
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 2: that a lot of that that was all privately funded,
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 2: and we did that through selling a little bit of equity.
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 2: But what's happened is like these as you bring in
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 2: that institutional money, they want to bring in that professional management.
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 2: And the second thing that you're saying is that as
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 2: teams need new stadiums, the city, county, state governments are
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 2: less and less inclined to finance those. And so I
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 2: don't think that's a problem. But what it does it
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: change the mindsets of the team. Whether they start saying like, Okay, well,
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 2: if we're going to fund our own stadium, we're going
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: to want to own some real estate around our stadium.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 2: We're going to want to own all of our parking lots.
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 2: We're going to want to control that fan experience from
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 2: a perimeter that's not just the venue itself. And so
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 2: that's why you're seeing these kind of entertainment districts and
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 2: we you know, we kind of we built one around
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 2: Wrigley that's been really successful and other stuff are doing that.
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: You tell me, I don't feel like Wrigleyville was a
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: thing until you guys kind of made it a thing.
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: You know, we we really had that mindset of wanting
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 2: to control the neighborhood and control that fan experience for
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: the better. Really, you know, we're just we want to
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 2: make sure our fans are having a great experience when
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 2: they come to the ballpark. And I don't and I
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: don't know what's changed about sports specifically to make it
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 2: like this, but it's no longer just about the two
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 2: and a half hour game or that. You know, even
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 2: for football, you know, the football you have tail getting
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: before the game, and and for baseball you were starting
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 2: to see it's like people come down early to get
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 2: something to eat, and then they go to the game,
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 2: and then they're going to go out, maybe to a show.
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 2: We're just going to borrow to have a few beers.
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 2: Like it's an all day experience regardless of how long
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 2: the game itself is. And so people are trying to
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 2: like make sure that that experience is positive for everybody.
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: Should baseball games be available for free? In Chicago? The
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: Chicago Cubs always be available on supposed free TV, And
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: should that be a philosophy of Major League Baseball?
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 2: I'm going to I'm going to shift a little bit
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 2: and say all team owners want their fans to be
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 2: able to see their games on TV. But the world
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 2: is in such upheaval today whether it's you know, the
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 2: cutting of the court on cable has happened so quickly
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 2: and so much shifted to these streaming services that I
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 2: think it's not just baseball, it's football. Is everybody's kind
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 2: of in the space of like, Okay, we were trying
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 2: to get our games out to be seen, but we're
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 2: also still trying to get paid for the games in
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: the old way that we were when we just went
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 2: to Comcast and they just gave it you.
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: They gave you at hey, we'll sell the ads. Well,
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: we'll make it on the back end. And I'm guessing
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: media networks like now, maybe you guys can sell the
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: ads well.
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: And the funny part is is that everybody was paying.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 2: Everybody thought they were getting Cubs games for free when
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 2: they had their cable, but they weren't. They were paying
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 2: for it in their cable bill and always just included.
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah no, and Apple companies for years just passed along
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: and you didn't realize. And then when you disaggregate that bundle,
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: you're like, well, somebody's got to pay for this. You know,
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: it was always I joke. You know, I made a
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: lot of money over the years on o PM. Other
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: people's money, right, whether it's newsletters that were so expensive
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: that it became a business expense, so there was no
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: individual that you went to for a subscription. And you
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: you know this, a B to B business is sometimes
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: more stable than a consumer facing business.
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And I think what people are finding
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 2: out is they were paying more for their sports than
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 2: they thought. You know, if you have if you're if
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 2: you your cable bill was one hundred and fifty dollars,
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 2: I'm just making it number and you're like, well, I
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 2: bet I've been in paying like two or three of
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: that goes to sports, and you're finding out actually it
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 2: was like twenty five and now if you want to
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 2: get those same games, you're gonna have to pay twenty
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 2: five dollars a month to have that. And so it's
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 2: all it's all just in flux, and I know that
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 2: there's the bigger brains in mind are thinking about it,
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 2: and all sorts of people outside in sports are concerned
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 2: about it. But at the end of the day, I think,
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 2: you know, we're just we're just trying to find out
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 2: where people want to get.
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: To have one dumb request, I'm a season ticket holder,
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: why do I also have to spend extra money to
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: watch the games at home.
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's a good point to get here.
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: That because I always you know, it's interesting what season
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: ticket holders have always gotten m THEMLB Extra Innings package. Yeah,
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: like that's always come with the deal. But look, some
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: of this was new, right. The nets were part of
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: the of the group of teams that all had to
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: scramble to put together a deal before the season started.
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: So it's possible they'll think these things through. Well, let
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: me let me close with this. What's this If you
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: don't win a division, If you don't win the division
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: this year is the season of failure? If you don't
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: get in the playoffs, is it a failure? What's your
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: what's your the goals always win the World Series. I'm
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: it's a bit, But what's what's your realistic? What's a
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: disappointment to you this year? Because baseball is.
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 2: Hard, you know, we kind of you're going back to
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 2: that baseball discipline and business discipline. We shoot to be
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 2: in the playoffs every single year. So if we're not
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 2: in the playoffs, that's some one pointing season to us.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 2: And when I look at our roster and I look
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 2: down the talent that we have. I feel like we
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 2: have an incredibly competitive team. Now we don't have a
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 2: Dodgers as far as like the payroll numbers, but when
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 2: I look at like the talent we have top to bottom,
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 2: if we can, if we can get some of these
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 2: injured guys back on and get everybody playing, get you
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 2: every ready to aggress back to their norm? Right? Uh,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 2: they're they're have an average season. I think we have
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 2: an incredibly competitive team, which is kind of your sky's limit.
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: Have you like bugged your guys going why didn't we
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: sign Murakami? But never mind?
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 2: You know, no, No, I feel like as as an owner,
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 2: you have to like turn that over to the baseball guys.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 2: And because if you get too involved, you can't hold
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 2: them accountable, right like if you if you tell them
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 2: who to get who.
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: We've seen other we've seen other owners and they get
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: really involved. And then if it doesn't go well, especially
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: at the say started the first third of the season,
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: you only have one person to blame.
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 2: Right, That's exactly it. So I never want to be
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 2: the person that gets blamed. So I throw out ideas,
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 2: but I don't I don't like live and die by them.
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: Well pre spoke. This is how much of your bandwidth
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: is on this?
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well a lot, I'd say a lot of it
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 2: at the moment. I'm sure that until Yeah, like i'd say,
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 2: like half of my time's spent on free spoke for
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 2: at the moment, we're trying to get our product in
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 2: a way and place that we like and find new users.
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: Well, I hope you know, just keep reaching down to
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: a There's a lot of great, sort of what I
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: call entrepreneurial local news sites that are really trying to
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: fill the gap. And that to me is you know,
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: the information ecosystem. What you're trying to do is something
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: I think we need. And there's a lot of decent
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: bottom up journalism. They just need a little awareness because
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: Google makes it hard. Google and Facebook made it at
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: first made it easy to be a local publisher. That
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: made it quite difficult. And if you could be a
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: place to help local because that's been the biggest thing
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: that is killed local publishers is how Google is messed
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: with search and awareness. And this feels like an opportunity
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: for local news to get to get some you know,
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: to have a site that won't hide there or only
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: boost you. I mean it feels like you have to
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: pay Google to get boosted. I'm not saying that is
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: how the business works, and I know they would claim
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: it isn't, but that's the way many of these local
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: news entrepreneurs. Yeah, that's the way they feel like it works.
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, it totally is how it works. And so
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 2: we were trying to combat that and uh and really
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 2: just informed people. So if you have if you have
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 2: sources that and uh that we're not crawling, you're not
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 2: seeing the show up and free spokes, let us know
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 2: and make sure we get it added to our index.
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: Well, like I said, I love what the all sides
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: guys do and uh, and I know him pretty well
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: and he worked really hard on that on that bias
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: rating system. And I know the ad font stuff too.
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it's good metrics to you. So,
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: Todd Ricketts, this was a pleasure to get to know you.
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: And uh, like I said, I love what you're trying
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: to do when I encourage people to check it out.
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 2: Great, Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: H well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Todd Ricketts.
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: I for like I said, first time I had met him,
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: I had certainly had covered and his brother in his
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: political days, but Todd Ricketts uh, and I find what
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: he's doing fascinating. I think you really should check it out.
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: It is this attempt to try to essentially create an
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: opportunity to use the Internet without constantly feeling product right,
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: that your data is being essentially vacuumed out from under
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: you and used and monetized in all sorts of ways.
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: And so I know, I'm certainly hopeful that this would
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: this uh, some this technology can work, that this will
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: catch on. So do take a look at it. I
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: think it's it's worth your time. And on the baseball front,
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: I thought it. I thought, you know, in full disclosure,
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: it's about a week old. So this was I asked
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: him the baseball sort of workstoppage questions before we got
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: the official salary cap proposal. We kind of knew what
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: was coming in the first round of traded proposals right there.
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: Both were going to do their maximum their maximum issues there.
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: But the reason I focused on local media and this
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: idea because the Cubs are one of those teams you
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: have your haves and you have your have nots, and
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: the Cubs and the Dodgers and the Yankees. They're not
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: the only three teams that have great, incredible local revenue
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: that they basically get to hoard to themselves. They don't
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: have to share it the way the Chicago Bears share
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: their revenue or the La Rams or the New York Giants.
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: So and I've always thought they're real impediment. Part of
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: the issue. It's, you know, players are united, but owners aren't.
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: You know, the owners that feel like they have a
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: greater ability to make money with local revenue don't love
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: the idea in their own heads of quote unquote subsidizing
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: those in smaller markets who in their heads haven't figured
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: it out. Although the smaller markets might say, hey, we've
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: maximized everything we can. The point is if the owners truly,
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: if if, if if Rob Manford in Major League Baseball
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: has actually gotten the owners to all agree to pull
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: their local revenue, that's the that then this idea of
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: some hard ish you know, I don't think we're going
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: to have a hard salary cap, but I think it's
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: going to feel like do you remember as a kid
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: when they had the chocolate sauce that would harden you know,
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: it was liquid and would harden, but then it would
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: crack easily. I envisioned something like that, Right, it's sort
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: of like the NBA style of salary cap meets something
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: a little looser, but the idea that you're going to
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: see a and the cap could be a lot higher
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: than you might expect. Right, it could be essentially what
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: the Dodger payroll is right now, or even one hundred
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: million over what the Dodger payroll is right now, as
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: a way to buy time, right, it's it's I think
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: the owner, the owners and MLB, they've got to come
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: up with a plan where no players playing today will
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: feel like that they're losing money, and in fact, they
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: want to think that they're going to be, in fact
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: making more money in the short term, while those guys
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: can feel like they're bending the cost curve if you
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: remember that and the healthcare debacles in the long term. Right,
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: by creating the sort of future trying to future proof themselves,
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: that would be the rational sort of compromise that could happen.
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: But we'll see, you know, the players of Union has
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: always been one of the most sophisticated and one of
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: the most They also think about twenty years down the road.
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: As much as they think about twenty days down the road.
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: I would argue the owners have always only thought twenty
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: days down the road. They actually don't always think twenty
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: years down the road. But I thought the fact that
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: Ricketts was so comfortable saying, oh, yeah, we're willing to
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: pool local revenue, it's a much bigger deal than I
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: think some of the coverages has made of it. All right,
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: let's get some questions here, ask Chuck. It's a Thursday episode,
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: so we'll go a little a little long on questions here.
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: So the first one comes from Bill s Newberg, Oregon,
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: and he writes, Hey, thanks for the focus on character
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: and politics. I agree that it matters. I'm curious though,
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: if a candidate's poor character is clear, how do you
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: think about voter responsibility in choosing to support them? Is
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: voting for that candidate in some way a reflection on
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: the voter as well? Also, if you tried to book
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: Graham Platner on your show, Thanks Bill S in Newberg, Oregon. PS,
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: My mariners are finally firing on all cylinders. Listen to
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: Ian Bremmer on as a client show. Would love to
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: see you too, do a home and Away on that well.
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: Ian Bremer's coming up pretty soon actually. And as for
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: Graham Platner, we we the invitation is out, it has
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: been out for a while. We would love to have him.
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: I'd love to talk with him. I've certainly he strikes
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: me as somebody that would want to have the conversation
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: I want to have. At least that's what a lot
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: of people tell me. So I am not going to
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: pre judge. I think he's I think that I think
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: the campaign is a may put him out, So we'll see.
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: But I look forward to it, and I think we
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: can have a you know, I've had I'll do LSI
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: ed on this podcast. I've you know, I want all
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: flavors of the political spectrum to make their way onto
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: this podcast because I think the the the audience that
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping to appeal to is is quite broad and
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: one that understands that that you can be one hundred
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: percent assured of your point of view, but you know
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: that ultimately you're going to have to compromise somewhere, and
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: that's that's sort of the big picture thing. So yes
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: on that. So as for character, look and and in
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: some ways I'm glad this question is come here because
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: I also want to. In fact, I got a few
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: on sub stack from folks that I'm going to include
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: because they're very similar in questions that you asked me
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: here because it's it's it's this question of degrees. Right.
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: Let me let me read you one here. Here's one
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: that I think gets it sort of similar. Here's a
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: one from Amy Smith. She writes, I get where you're
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: coming from, but I don't agree with you one hundred percent.
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: I've been a lifelong Democrat from a lifelong Democratic family.
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: As such. Truthfully, there has been a lot of judging
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: over the years, a lot of we are a party
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: that is better than that. While I agree that there
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: should be norms and standards, I'm not sure that space
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: really exists anymore because that leaves no room for people
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: who are different than I am, who think differently or
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: speak differently. It also doesn't allow for rehabilitation if someone
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: accepts responsibility, realizes the air of their ways, and no
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: longer behaves in that manner. Should personal stuff really matter
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: that much?
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 2: Now?
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that covers terrible people like Donald Trump,
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: who have abandoned morality altogether. But I know in my
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: own life. I have made terrible decisions, have hurt family, friends, etc.
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: When I was younger, I had terrible ideas and behaviors,
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: but I eventually quote got it, did what I had
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: to do, make it right, and don't make those same
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: mistakes anymore. Does that mean I should never run for
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: office because at some point in my life I was
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: on the wrong side of something. Truthfully, I don't want
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: to be a part of a party that believes that
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: flawed character is a non starter. I don't know if
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: that makes any sense. Honestly, it makes a ton of sense,
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: and I think this is the look. I don't think
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: there's any one way to look at this. I think
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: we all process this slightly differently. I do process it
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: differently than most of you because I've probably not probably
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: I know I do this, which is I've had a
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: lot of experience covering candidates, covering flawed candidates, being surprised
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: at the flaws, right, you know, stuff that gets unearthed, affairs,
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: money issues, all sorts of things like that. It's how
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: somebody deals with it. And ultimately, I guess I would
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: put it this way in because I got as I
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: it's sort of hinted at you Bill. I got a
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: lot of versions of this same of some form of
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: this question, and I guess I think the voter responsibility
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: is this, you've got all these data points, think about
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: your own life. We all know people that have that
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: have you know, had a rough time in their twenties,
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: maybe had a rough time in their forties, but you know,
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: pulled things together, became the most important or started a
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: great business, or did all these things, you know, after
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: sort of getting getting back on track right on their life,
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: whatever back on track is for them. And yes, I
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: think a rehabilitated person in public office in some ways
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: is somebody who who's probably going to bring a bit
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: of empathy to some decisions. And that's something that does
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: matter to me. So, for instance, I think there were
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: some people with George W. Bush who saw his ability
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: to quit drinking as an asset, and there were others
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: that saw the fact that he became an alcoholic for
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: a period of time as a flaw. And in some ways,
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: it's probably more reflective on who you are as a
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: person to decide which should matter more to you. And
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: that's ultimately it, right, I can't sit here and say
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: what matters to me should matter to you when it
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: comes to character. But you take all this and it's predictive,
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: and ultimately it does become predictive. I will just tell
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: you this in my experience, it's how the candidates that handles.
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: It's how you find out about their mistakes. It's how
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: how they decide to handle it when those mistakes become
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: public information that ultimately tells me who somebody is and
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: perhaps tells me how they'll handle pressure or crisis or
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: an unknown situation. I mean, you know, that's that's what
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: these campaigns ultimately are about. It's pressure testing these folks
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: to see, you know, who are they and how and
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: are they going to be able to in some ways
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: do to do the job. And just because one person
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: believes somebody's personal life should be fair game and another
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: says somebody's personal life should have nothing to do with X,
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: Y or Z, well look we all we all have
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: different reasons for voting the way we vote. So I
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: don't think it's that. But I worry about the slippery slope.
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: I worry about looking the other way. And when you
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: you know the ability to step back and say if
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: if this if instead of Graham Platner, this were Ashley Hinson, Right,
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: what would you say or instead of Graham Platner and
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: this were Byron Donald's And if you're defending Graham Platner,
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: how would you you know? And the thing is, actually,
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: I don't even have to pretend about Byronos. It's Ken Paxton.
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: It's it's Graham Platner. And I've seen folks say, yeah,
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: but this is worse than this, And it's like, you know, now,
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: if you wanted to make the case to me that
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: Paxton has already proven that in public office, he brings
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: his bad morality and bad ethics into office, so that
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: obviously makes him even more unqualified than Platiner. That's a
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: fair argument. My Platner hasn't been in public office. There
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: is there is concern that if he's you know, had
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: uh had a at a very you know, a bit
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: of a tumultuous feels like not the right word here,
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: but a challenging first twenty years of adulthood is you
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: don't know for sure that he's going to somehow bring
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: some of the irresponsibility. And I think in the case
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: of Platiner, it may not be irresponsibility. It may be
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: struggles coming back from war which I think you know.
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: But the question is when, if you've got your personal struggles,
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: if you haven't dealt with them, should you be bringing
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: this into the public square, because there are many people
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: that are counting on you to look out for them,
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: not yourself. And the decision to go into public service
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: to me is you've made the decision that you're going
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 1: to put others ahead of yourself. And if you are
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 1: not prepared to do that because of what's happened in
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: your life, then please go fix what's going on in
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: your life first. Don't bring your personal life and and
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: and have it get in the way of public service.
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: Now that's where I come down on this. I I
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: will you know. I've been making the case that I
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 1: think that unfortunately this is this is predictive, and we've
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: seen this, and you know that that doesn't mean there
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: isn't a redemptive quality to plenty of people. I think.
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: Take the Speaker of the Virginia Assembly. Here's somebody that
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: in his early life got into a lot of trouble.
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: I had to serve some time, fully rehabilitated, paid his
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: debt to society, came back, and over time worked his
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: way into politics. It's right there front and center he
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: you know, announces for office. Here's here's essentially here's my
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: APO file. These are the mistakes I've made. Here's how
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: I've learned from these mistakes. And let me so let
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: me and I know I'm aitt rambling here, and I'll
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: explain why I'm rambling. Some of it is lack of
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 1: sleep from our near all night or with the California
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: primaries on Wednesday night Tuesday night. But there's a few
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: other things I don't want to get to at the
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: end of the podcast, so stay tuned, as they say,
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: But let me let me put out another scenario for
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: for everybody that has written me about the about my
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 1: character critiques here and the yes, I both sided it,
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: and some people hate both sideries, right, But this is
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: one that I'm very concerned about because I do think
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: this is a spiral that that we're going to regret
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: that we're going down. If Graham Plattner said, look, I'm
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: sorry that this came out the way it came out.
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry that somebody decided they didn't want to respect
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 1: the privacy of my marriage and decided to leak this.
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: But I'm not going to hide from this. Yes, I
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 1: did these things, and you know, if you and if
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: it bothers you, I understand, and you're going to give
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: me time to work back up. It's, you know, the
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: more defensive someone gets in these situations without sort of
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: acknowledging the wrongdoing or accepting responsibility or trying to sort
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 1: of say, yeah, but you know, one of my this
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: is a piece of advice I gave in a commencement
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 1: speed yeah, butt right, don't give me the butt you know, yes,
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: take responsibility. Don't say but if it wasn't for this,
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: this or this, I might not have made this mistake,
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: or I might not or you might not have known,
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: and we wouldn't have had to have this conversation. I
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: think perhaps this might have landed differently. So this is
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: a very long winded way for me to say. Ultimately,
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: on these issu shoes, in my opinion, it's as much
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: of how they acknowledge the character fall, how they lean
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: frankly lean into it, accept responsibility and say well this
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: is look I'm you know, this is not who I am,
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: and let me explain why I'm not this anymore. And
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: then you know, look, we can you ask a great
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 1: question about when does forgiven And this was the question
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: I think from substact sort of when when does somebody
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 1: get when have you paid your debt? We went through
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 1: this with the me too movement, which is, if you
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: own up to your bad behavior, if you sort of
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: you know, take take responsibility and all of this, are
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: you canceled or are you suspended? You get my drift
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 1: there right? And are you welcome backed or is there
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 1: always an asterisk and you're not necessarily welcome back into
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: your profession whatever that's per fashion is. And I think
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 1: we you know, we've we've collectively struggled with this, and
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 1: I think we individually are always all more empathetic, and
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 1: collectively collectively we're usually a bit more skeptical of people,
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 1: of people's redemptive qualities. And so you know, it's and
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 1: and again, the other point of the column is my
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: criticism was less about Platner himself and more of the
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: blind defenses that partisans are making to sort of look
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: the other way. Some of these same people that are
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 1: defending everything defending Platner like this mocked those on the
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: right who were using the same language, the same rationalizations
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: to come to the conclusion that they were going to
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 1: support Donald Trump or that they were going to support
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 1: Ken Paxton. And I think that that's the that's where
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: the brand damage to the Democrats comes in. It's not
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: it doesn't become about Graham, plattn or anymore. It becomes like, oh,
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 1: you only believe character counts for the other side that
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: when questions are raised here, if the person's winning, you
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 1: know you're not going to risk a senence. It over
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: back just the other way. Right, it wasn't that long
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: ago that essentially Democrats forced Al Franken to resign. Also
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: that they could have Democrats could keep the high ground
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: in the Doug Jones Roy Moore Senate race, which they
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: did win. Next question, Christen Roscoe, Illinois. Right, second time
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 1: are here. I don't miss an episode even on trail runs. Well,
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that. As someone who worked in the in
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: facilities management, I'm all for expanding the house, but I
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: wonder about the logistics. How would the Capitol accommodate hundreds
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: of additional members and staff. Would it require major construction
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: or is there space to support that kind of expansion? Well, actually,
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 1: I hope you caught and I'll be curious. I hope
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: you caught the Q and A portion they asked Chuck
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: from Wednesday's episode, because someone asked a similar thing and
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 1: we talked about One of the questions was about It
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily about the logistics, but I sort of turned
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: it into the logistics because I told I was telling
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: folks that I had a student and I'm going to
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: share more of these next week, their ideas that they
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: had of fixing Washington, because I know you guys will
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 1: love to hear some of the but one of the
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 1: more unique one was to take Congress out of Washington.
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 1: That basically Congress should should meet every year in a
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: different location around the country, and that you know, logistically,
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: this is much more viable to do today than it
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: would have been thirty years ago, let alone two and
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 1: fifty years ago. So to get at your physical so
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 1: to get at the facilities issue. So here's how I
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 1: would do it. My recommendation, we're at my eight hundred
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: and ninety members, if from my House of Representatives at
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 1: eight ninety members, which would be one per four hundred thousand,
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: I would make the district offices the main offices for
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 1: members of Congress. That's where all the staff is there.
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: I would make Washington so we already have all this
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: House office space that there's suites, Senate offices or you know,
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: multi floors. You know, there's there's one hundred person staffs
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 1: and Senate offices. So if you essentially, at least on
• 2:10:31
  Speaker 1: the House side, everybody just you know, every member of
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: Congress got a office and like you know, one other
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: room with two you know, with with with with the
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 1: two staff are shared, that would be enough. And that
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 1: the essentially the main office and the main staff and
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: the main people that interacted with constituents were all in
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: the state offices, all in the district offices. I would
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: allow for remote voting, but only from the district office
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 1: main office of the of the House representatives. And then
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 1: you'd have these so I you know, I think that's
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: how you would deal with this logistics challenge. Right, this
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: is not about adding you know, if there's say three
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: thousand House staff, right more than that. But I'm gonna
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 1: let's put it five thousand staff for the four hundred
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: and thirty five members. Suddenly, where the hell are we
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 1: going to put another five thousand staffers? See, I wouldn't
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 1: do that. I'd almost figure out a way to take
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: your eight ninety and cap it at about twenty five
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 1: hundred staffers total for the for the for the eight
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: hundred and ninety, right, So what does that put you
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: at about two and a half two point five staffers, right,
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 1: you know, per per office in the capital, and then
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: you have a more expansive office in the district itself.
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: So I think remote governance plays a role here in
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 1: order to make this a bit more feasible. Rather than
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: just building three more house office buildings that you know,
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 1: maybe you build one more house office building because they
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: got to put Pelosi's name in a house office building,
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: first woman Speaker of the House. You know, her name
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: needs to be on a building. I think, you know,
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 1: whatever you whether you're left or right, I think she's
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: earned that. Moniker. Uh, you know, so maybe you add
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 1: the Pelosi house office building you when when you expand
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: the house. But I think that there is I think
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 1: there is a way to do this without allowing logistics
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: to crush the idea. Next question comes from Jake and Denver, Colorado.
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 1: He says, Hey, your recent deep dive on character raised
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: a question for me. How much should it Canada's private
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: sexual behavior factor into public judgments of character, and where
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 1: should journalist draw on the line and reporting on those
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 1: details where you're at risk of setting a standard that
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 1: discourages otherwise qualified people from running for office. A loyal
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: to timer, I mean, ask questions, not vulneral. That's very funny,
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 1: Jake in Denver. Well, look, here's the thing. We over
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 1: corrected after Gary Hart, right, We excuse me, we over corrected.
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: We were we were on the wrong. We were sort
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: of overly moralistic with Gary Hart. And we've clearly over
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 1: corrected with Donald Trump, right, like you know, we we've
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 1: you know, and and so we've we vacillate here. It
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 1: is ultimately, if you're going to do risky behavior and
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: you're going to have a security clearance, that's a national
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 1: security vulnerability. So if you're asking me about that, I
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: think that it is the line you got to draw,
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: is you know, our you know is you know, it's
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: just why there is a deeper dive of background checks
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: and extra vetting for people that get various levels of
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: security clearances when it comes to the American government. So
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: I think that there's there's some fair lines to draw here.
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: I think I I you know what happens in the
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 1: bedroom should stay in the bedroom. How people treat people
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 1: and deceive people is a different story. And if you're
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: a serial decepter in your personal life, I think that's
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: a relevant piece of information for the voting public. There
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: are plenty of people that are going to say that's
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: a character trait, that's you know, if you're comfortable doing this,
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 1: then you might do this. And I don't know if
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: I want that. I don't, you know, you know, so right,
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 1: there's you're you're getting at to all of the debates
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 1: that we've had in I've had in newsrooms for thirty years.
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 1: What's fair game? What isn't? Now I can tell you
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: what political consultants believe is fair game. All of it.
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 1: Everything is fair game. They'll say, oh, some things are
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 1: off limits, will say kids are off limits. But at
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 1: what point are kids off limits? Right? Kids below twelve
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: are off limits? Kids below sixteen? You know, at eighteen
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 1: and nineteen. We've certainly seen plenty of political campaigns try
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 1: to make behaviors of adult children part of the issue.
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 1: I'll just be frank, I've always thought it was weird
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 1: that Hunter Biden is about the same age as I am.
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 1: We treated this idea that Joe Biden should know everything
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 1: about Hunter Biden's finances of a forty nine at the time,
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: a forty nine year old man, and I was like,
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: my mother knows nothing about my finances. And I think
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 1: at the time I was a forty nine year old man,
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 1: and I, you know, just not. I don't think it's
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure there are some adult children that
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 1: are very financially intertwined with their parents and they and
• 2:15:56
  Speaker 1: they share, and there's plenty of adult children who you know,
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily share their financial details with their parents, and
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: vice versa that their parents. And so I've always been
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 1: I've always thought, I don't see how that's fair game.
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 1: Now if you're trading off your family name, like you know,
• 2:16:16
  Speaker 1: Hunter's business dealings, that was another story, as he was
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 1: certainly basically pitching himself as the son of a vice
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 1: sitting vice president to get business, not necessarily something else.
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 1: But to me that there was some life, you know,
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: that was the debate we would have in our newsrooms there.
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: And so I think on the private life, it's well,
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: I'll give you I'll give you an example where I thought,
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 1: I think that there's a fair critique of whether this
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: was this should be a news story. The original potential
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 1: Republican challenger to Barack Obama in two thousand and four
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 1: in the Illinois Center Race gentleman by the name of
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 1: Jack Bryant. The scandal that basically took him down was
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 1: a detail in his divorce records. He was married to
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 1: at the time. I think she's still an actress, still
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: a working actor, but it was of some prominence at
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 1: the time Deep Space Notch. She was a character on
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 1: that show. For any of you Star Trek fans, and
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 1: you know, in the divorce records, I think it came
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 1: out that she, you know, was you know that one
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 1: of the one of the things that you know, she
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 1: basically said was he was trying to pressure her to
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 1: have essentially to have sex in a in a public
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 1: club of some sort or some sort of swingers club
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 1: or something like that. And you know, one of one
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: of my sort of punchlines back then, and I'll admit
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 1: younger version of me being a little snarky, was man.
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 1: It's not often that a politician finds themselves in a
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 1: scandal because they want to have sex with their own wife.
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: But obviously you needed to know the details, understand it,
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 1: but was that relevant to voters? You know, sex lives
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 1: or sex lives. People have kinks, fetishes, and you know
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 1: there are some laws on the books that some fetishes
• 2:18:15
  Speaker 1: are illegal, but you know kinks, there's plenty of people
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 1: have their thing. And if we start going down that road,
• 2:18:22
  Speaker 1: we start losing you know, the feeling of personal freedoms. Right,
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 1: this is you know, we're not we don't want to
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 1: get a welly in here, but you're you're The question
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: you're asking is also exposing that there is no right answer.
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 1: I think what you're what you're what you're helping to though, explain?
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 1: Is this is why? This is why a lot of
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 1: people don't want to run for office who might make
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: terrific public servants. It's not that they haven't things in
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: their life that they think are disqualifying. It's maybe there
• 2:19:03
  Speaker 1: are things in their life they just don't want to
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 1: see public. And whether we like it or not, this
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 1: stuffs always going to get public because we live in
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 1: a zero sum game when it comes to political campaigns,
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 1: and each side simply once they know there might be
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 1: at least one voter that that bothers and hey, every
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 1: vote counts, right, So you know there's no one rule
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 1: book for how reporters report things. The standards that I
• 2:19:29
  Speaker 1: have are different, frankly than the standards that that somebody
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: else has. They what what I would do versus what
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 1: someone you know? I? You know, do I think I've do?
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 1: I think I could set some standards that that should
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 1: be broadly agreeable to seventy percent of people in my business.
• 2:19:55
  Speaker 1: I do. I think I think I could come with that.
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: I think most of us in this business could. But
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: I don't think you're ever going to get that. So
• 2:20:04
  Speaker 1: it comes down This is why it ultimately comes down to.
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 1: You know, you're when you when you run for public office,
• 2:20:12
  Speaker 1: You're going to have to be comfortable in your own
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 1: skin because nothing's ever going to stay a secret. All right.
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from Andrea and Los Angeles. Sening writes,
• 2:20:21
  Speaker 1: can you help me understand something? It states like Florida
• 2:20:24
  Speaker 1: have no income tax and are exploring eliminating property taxes.
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: Where does the revenue come from to fund government and services?
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 1: With population growth already straining resources, How does that model
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 1: hold up long term? Appreciate your insight regards Andre in
• 2:20:35
  Speaker 1: La PS. If you're reading this on the pod. I'm
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 1: now a member of the full time four x timers club. PSS,
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 1: you nailed something many missed about the Spencer Pratt Merrill run.
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: His reach doesn't seem to extend beyond certain areas or
• 2:20:47
  Speaker 1: into working class communities. Uh yeah, I if it's if
• 2:20:54
  Speaker 1: you haven't figured it out now, h it is. It's
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 1: it's pretty clear who Karen Bass would prefer to run against,
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: and it is not the mom Dannie Acolyte. Karen Bass's
• 2:21:11
  Speaker 1: political base and Spencer's Pratt's political base do not overlap
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: at all. Karen Bass's political base is about three x
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: higher on a bad day than Spencer Pratt's political base
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: in La So I think I think, you know, do
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: I think he'll do. You know, he'll may get You
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: know that you're looking at a fifty four forty six,
• 2:21:34
  Speaker 1: fifty five forty five final between the two of them,
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 1: if it does, for sure come down to them. And
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 1: then we had a lot of ballots account literally as
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 1: the time of this question being asked, half the ballance there. Look,
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: you just asked your question about Florida. I can tell
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 1: you how they fund service is now right? When you
• 2:21:52
  Speaker 1: there are certain things like registering a car in Florida
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: is astronomically expensive, right, so you get feed to death.
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 1: You get fee over here, feed feed feed feed fees.
• 2:22:02
  Speaker 1: You know, we don't in Florida. They don't raise taxes,
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: they raise fees. And they say, hey, we don't raise taxes,
• 2:22:08
  Speaker 1: but they raise fees. There's quite a few Republican governors
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: over the years who have claimed they have not raised taxes,
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: but have raised fees through the roof registration fees. And
• 2:22:19
  Speaker 1: because it doesn't apply to everybody, isn't it isn't sort
• 2:22:23
  Speaker 1: of forced apply to everybody, but it's sort of only
• 2:22:25
  Speaker 1: if you choose to do certain things do you pay
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: this fee? Is it not considered an overall tax? But
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 1: to me, if you're paying money to the government, it's
• 2:22:34
  Speaker 1: a tax. You can call it a fee, you can
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 1: call it a tariff, you can call it a tax.
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 1: It's it's money out of your pocket that goes into
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 1: the coffers of the government.
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 1: This you're getting at the fundamental problem. And this is
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 1: why this is. This is it's not feasible like at all.
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: This is simply a pr stunt to desperately try to
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 1: motivate some voters in Florida to show up to the
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 1: polls in twenty six with this sort of you know
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 1: there is in it. This is where I think people
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 1: misunderstand the Santis. DeSantis comes from a certain strain of
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 1: the conservative movement there really wants small government and doesn't
• 2:23:19
  Speaker 1: believe that government should be involved in the services that
• 2:23:22
  Speaker 1: it's involved in, and would like to starve the beast,
• 2:23:25
  Speaker 1: as the right used to call it. And so if
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 1: you get rid of property taxes, well then that is
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: going to put strain on local governments and you and
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 1: I I think look at it as bugs. And I
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 1: think DeSantis would argue this is a feature of this idea,
• 2:23:40
  Speaker 1: and those that are the most fired up about that
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 1: or that, now, the campaign against this is really easy.
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 1: Do you like trash pickup? Okay, then don't vote for this.
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 1: Do you like this, well, then don't vote for this,
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 1: right And I think that that's why I think this
• 2:23:54
  Speaker 1: is going nowhere. All right, last, let me do one
• 2:23:59
  Speaker 1: more or question here and ask check. And then I
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 1: got a little something I'd like to share with you guys,
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 1: longtime listener, first time writer. This comes from adib Audi writes.
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 1: With recent large settlements by the government, what's to stop
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 1: future administrations from using similar tactics for their own policy goals.
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 1: Does this risk creating a race to the bottom and
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: how policy gets implemented? I know you often advocate for
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 1: taking the high ground. How does that apply in moments
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: like this? Thank you well. I think good news here
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 1: is that we finally found the line right. And this
• 2:24:27
  Speaker 1: was sort of the point that I was making in
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: Wednesday's episode, and perhaps you wrote in this question before
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: you heard that we found the line on the weaponization
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 1: fund right, and it did in it. To me, it's
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 1: proof if Republicans that are uncomfortable with Trump's behavior want
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 1: to push back, they can. They can do it. We
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 1: just saw it. They made them shut down this fund.
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 1: Now they're still trying to keep the settlement, with this
• 2:24:55
  Speaker 1: ridiculous settlement that somehow the IRS never gets to look
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 1: into his taxes going backward ever again, and he somehow
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 1: settles some years long audit dispute, the audit and dispute
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 1: over his tax filings that he's been having with the
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 1: government for decades somehow just goes away. I think we
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 1: still have to deal with that situation. And if you
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 1: are following John Cornyan's Twitter feed. John Cornyan is ready
• 2:25:20
  Speaker 1: to stick a knife into this idea, and meaning Congress
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 1: can essentially proactively kill this deal completely rather than let
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 1: the they're trying to say, oh no, we're getting ready
• 2:25:36
  Speaker 1: of the fund, but they're trying to keep the one
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 1: small part of the deal on somehow giving him permanent
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 1: immunity on every tax on everything he's ever filed for
• 2:25:45
  Speaker 1: his taxes. Not immunity going forward for what it's worth,
• 2:25:47
  Speaker 1: but immunity. But I don't know how. I just don't
• 2:25:50
  Speaker 1: know how that's feasible there. So I guess what I'm
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 1: saying is is that I don't know if I have
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 1: to accept the premise of your question. And isn't that
• 2:25:59
  Speaker 1: good news that that in this case? I mean I
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 1: think that that was the point. Like if somehow that
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 1: became legal and I don't know where the hell we're going, right, Uh,
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 1: if that became legal and we had more and more
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 1: presidents manipulate you know, executive power this way, Uh, and
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 1: essentially you know, find this loophole to essentially steal money
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: from the tax payers. Yeah, this would be you know
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: what I really hope we all do collectively. And I
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 1: know what I'm hope. What I'm trying to do here
• 2:26:39
  Speaker 1: is Donald Trump has provided an incredible public service and
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: we ought to we ought to thank him for. And
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: what do I mean by that? He has been an
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: mri for loopholes in the government, in our system, in
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 1: the executive versus the legislative. And you know, whether it's
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 1: violation of quote unquote norms which turned out to be
• 2:27:01
  Speaker 1: just accepted practices that had no controlling legal authority to
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 1: borrow a phrase, and so we're he is, to me
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 1: made it. He's helped us find the things that we
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 1: need to codify to essentially prevent future presidents from abusing
• 2:27:30
  Speaker 1: the system the way he abused the system, whether it's pardons,
• 2:27:34
  Speaker 1: whether it's how the Department of Justice works. You know,
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 1: one of the reforms no one talks about that I
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 1: think is one hundred percent necessary. Is I am Now?
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 1: You know, I am never trusting another president to appoint
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 1: attorney general. And I know I say that, you know
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 1: it's you know, Donald, you know, Donald Trump, But I mean,
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 1: think about it. You know, we sort of look back
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 1: fondly at the idea that a president appointed his brother
• 2:28:03
  Speaker 1: attorney general. Boy, in hindsight, is one of the most
• 2:28:07
  Speaker 1: ridiculous things that we could have ever thought of, Like
• 2:28:12
  Speaker 1: imagine if Donald Trump tried to appoint his sister at
• 2:28:18
  Speaker 1: the time, who was alive was a federal a federal
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 1: judge to the Attorney general. Now I know that after
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 1: that was done, I think we passed a law to
• 2:28:29
  Speaker 1: try to prevent something like that from happening again. But
• 2:28:35
  Speaker 1: it's pretty clear to me that the risk of putting
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 1: the rule of law in the hands of a president
• 2:28:46
  Speaker 1: is a mistake. And because if they're going to if
• 2:28:51
  Speaker 1: they can essentially put their personal attorney there. I don't
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: know who Todd Blanche. I know Todd Blanche just draws
• 2:28:57
  Speaker 1: a paycheck from the United States tax He does not
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 1: work for the United States. He works for Donald Trump.
• 2:29:04
  Speaker 1: And he's made it almost crystal clear that he works
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 1: for Donald Trump. He should he is somehow he should
• 2:29:12
  Speaker 1: never have gotten to that position. Now, we counted on
• 2:29:15
  Speaker 1: norms to do that. We counted on checks and balances
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: in the legislative branch to prevent something like this. He's
• 2:29:22
  Speaker 1: the acting attorney General. I do not think he could
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 1: get confirmed to the permanent job for what it's worth
• 2:29:28
  Speaker 1: at this point in time, given the relationship you know,
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 1: Trump has fully burned his relationship with the Senate Republicans,
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 1: so you know he's going to get ideological things that
• 2:29:37
  Speaker 1: he wants to get done, but some of the ego
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: stuff he's going to have a much harder time getting
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 1: out of the Senate at this point for the rest
• 2:29:45
  Speaker 1: of his term, because it's not like the Senate numbers
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 1: are going to get better for Trump after twenty twenty six,
• 2:29:51
  Speaker 1: whether Republicans have control or not, it's going to be
• 2:29:54
  Speaker 1: a smaller majority. And so the point is that's just
• 2:30:01
  Speaker 1: another example. Trump is exposed a laundry list of reforms
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 1: we got to do to Essentially, it's like it's like
• 2:30:10
  Speaker 1: your house went through a storm and you found out, oh,
• 2:30:14
  Speaker 1: we have leaky windows here, we've got a roof that
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 1: we need new roof tiles over here, and we weren't
• 2:30:19
  Speaker 1: We didn't realize the house couldn't handle a heavy storm, right,
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 1: And you now got to you got to put in
• 2:30:28
  Speaker 1: stronger reinforcements. And Donald Trump has provided a roadmap for
• 2:30:33
  Speaker 1: reform in all of the ways that he has legally
• 2:30:37
  Speaker 1: abused the system to his own personal benefit. And we've
• 2:30:40
  Speaker 1: got a lot of work to do. And it begins
• 2:30:43
  Speaker 1: with dealing with you know, with preventing things like these
• 2:30:46
  Speaker 1: personal lawsuits that get settled with the government, that whole business.
• 2:30:51
  Speaker 1: But there's a lot of things, and like I said,
• 2:30:53
  Speaker 1: this is I am. I am bullish that we are
• 2:30:58
  Speaker 1: that over the next fifteen years we are going to
• 2:31:00
  Speaker 1: do a lot of reform. I'm not saying it's going
• 2:31:03
  Speaker 1: to happen this year, for in the next two years,
• 2:31:05
  Speaker 1: but I think we are. We are we are nearing
• 2:31:08
  Speaker 1: this breaking point where we're going to have the Samuel L.
• 2:31:11
  Speaker 1: Jackson reaction. Enough is enough. I'm sick and tired of
• 2:31:14
  Speaker 1: these gosh darn MF snakes on this MF plane. Right,
• 2:31:21
  Speaker 1: We're going to We're we're going to hit that moment
• 2:31:24
  Speaker 1: as voters. I've personally hit that moment. I'm just enough
• 2:31:29
  Speaker 1: is enough? Can we just you know, stop this race
• 2:31:33
  Speaker 1: to the bottom crap? And I think the voters are
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: going to get there. You know, it may not be
• 2:31:39
  Speaker 1: this cycle, maybe one more cycle, maybe it's a cycle
• 2:31:41
  Speaker 1: and a half, but you know, in the decade of
• 2:31:44
  Speaker 1: the thirties, we're going to start to really have a
• 2:31:45
  Speaker 1: major reform movement. Certainly, if you if we continue to
• 2:31:49
  Speaker 1: track the way we're tracking with sort of history rhyming
• 2:31:54
  Speaker 1: of the early twentieth century in the in the mid
• 2:31:56
  Speaker 1: to late nineteenth century. So someday we may thank Donald
• 2:32:03
  Speaker 1: Trump for showing us all the ways that we needed
• 2:32:06
  Speaker 1: to repair this democracy. Before I go, I want to
• 2:32:17
  Speaker 1: tell you the story of a remarkable woman, Dorothy Burns.
• 2:32:23
  Speaker 1: She happens to be my grandmother, and she passed away
• 2:32:27
  Speaker 1: this week at the age of ninety nine. She turned
• 2:32:31
  Speaker 1: ninety nine this February, and she never She had her
• 2:32:39
  Speaker 1: faculties to the very end. Her memory was terrific. She
• 2:32:45
  Speaker 1: never missed a birthday, whether it was her great grandkids,
• 2:32:50
  Speaker 1: her grandkids, her kids, friends, family. Her physical infrastructure started
• 2:32:59
  Speaker 1: was breaking down on much faster than her brain ever did.
• 2:33:02
  Speaker 1: And I always felt, you know it was she, you know,
• 2:33:06
  Speaker 1: to to know she couldn't She couldn't really move anymore.
• 2:33:09
  Speaker 1: Her osteoporosi has made that very difficult. She couldn't see
• 2:33:15
  Speaker 1: sud maclear degeneration, and she'd become fully blind over the
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 1: last five years. She was starting the loser hearing. But
• 2:33:21
  Speaker 1: she was a red Book on tape listener. My friend
• 2:33:26
  Speaker 1: Daniel Silva, the author, used to be so he she
• 2:33:31
  Speaker 1: loved Daniel Silva books, and she used to first read
• 2:33:35
  Speaker 1: the large print editions as her vision was going. And
• 2:33:37
  Speaker 1: then and God blessed Jamie, my friend Jamie Gingell and
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 1: Daniel Silva. They would always always make sure that they
• 2:33:44
  Speaker 1: had the right type of addition that my grandmother could read.
• 2:33:48
  Speaker 1: I just that always tickled me, and it always tickled
• 2:33:51
  Speaker 1: her as well. She lived in a and I just
• 2:33:59
  Speaker 1: think about the life she lived, born in nineteen twenty
• 2:34:02
  Speaker 1: seven and all the things she saw. She she went
• 2:34:10
  Speaker 1: to one year of college in what is now Illinois State,
• 2:34:15
  Speaker 1: but back then it was a teap the Illinois Teachers College,
• 2:34:18
  Speaker 1: as she used to say, my parents let me go there,
• 2:34:22
  Speaker 1: but I was to get my Mrs Degree as many
• 2:34:25
  Speaker 1: people back then used to call it. She met my grandmother, grandmother,
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 1: my grandfather. He came home from the war, went to
• 2:34:33
  Speaker 1: essentially a Jewish singles night at the temple, and met
• 2:34:38
  Speaker 1: my grandmother and the rest is history. I look, when
• 2:34:46
  Speaker 1: you're a fifty four year old man with a ninety
• 2:34:47
  Speaker 1: nine year old grandmother. I've known her a long time,
• 2:34:52
  Speaker 1: and I would say, you know, we're selling celebrating America
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 1: to fifty And it's made me think about the first
• 2:35:00
  Speaker 1: time I got to participate in a big national celebration
• 2:35:03
  Speaker 1: of a commemoration. And it was the one hundredth anniversary
• 2:35:06
  Speaker 1: of the Statue of Liberty. And this is the summer
• 2:35:09
  Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty six, and this is probably when my
• 2:35:12
  Speaker 1: grandmother and I bonded the most. My grandmother, like I said,
• 2:35:16
  Speaker 1: she so, you know, nineteen eighty six, I'm fourteen. Do
• 2:35:21
  Speaker 1: the math. She's fifty seven to fifty basically about my
• 2:35:25
  Speaker 1: age right now. And she was she was wanting to
• 2:35:31
  Speaker 1: take some dishes and some things to one of her children.
• 2:35:35
  Speaker 1: Her my aunt lives in New York City, and she
• 2:35:37
  Speaker 1: wanted to drive from Delray Beach, Florida, to New York
• 2:35:41
  Speaker 1: City during the summer. And she didn't want to and
• 2:35:45
  Speaker 1: nobody wanted her to drive alone. So I'm fourteen and
• 2:35:49
  Speaker 1: I we do this road trip, and we decide and she,
• 2:35:54
  Speaker 1: you know, we take our time. She is to do
• 2:35:55
  Speaker 1: the driving the whole time. Right, I'm fourteen, So she
• 2:35:58
  Speaker 1: wasn't going to do me. I'm doing I'd have done
• 2:36:00
  Speaker 1: it in one night, but you know, she we stopped.
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 1: We stopped in Savannah, and we spent a little extra
• 2:36:06
  Speaker 1: time and we did Williamsburg and we did We did
• 2:36:10
  Speaker 1: essentially what I would call the American Revolution Tour, all
• 2:36:14
  Speaker 1: up and down the East Coast and uh, any major
• 2:36:21
  Speaker 1: historical site that was within within driving range of I
• 2:36:26
  Speaker 1: ninety five we hit making our way, spent a lot
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 1: of time in Washington, d C. And uh. Back then,
• 2:36:36
  Speaker 1: I had a cousin here who and that's for what
• 2:36:38
  Speaker 1: it's worth, it's when I really got the bug about politics.
• 2:36:41
  Speaker 1: We were visiting my cousin at the time, he was
• 2:36:44
  Speaker 1: like twenty five, and we stayed with him. He had
• 2:36:48
  Speaker 1: this big old apartment in Adams Morgan, and he gave
• 2:36:55
  Speaker 1: me the sort of the tour of d C that
• 2:36:57
  Speaker 1: a twenty five year old would give. And man, I
• 2:36:59
  Speaker 1: just thought DC was amazing. And from then on I
• 2:37:03
  Speaker 1: was coming to school in Washington. I didn't know how
• 2:37:05
  Speaker 1: I was doing it, where I was going, but I
• 2:37:07
  Speaker 1: was coming there, and we did everything to get We
• 2:37:14
  Speaker 1: did this entire tour, all the Smithsonian stuff, and then
• 2:37:17
  Speaker 1: then we went to New York and we did the
• 2:37:19
  Speaker 1: U N and we did, you know, all of the
• 2:37:22
  Speaker 1: more historical stuff. I'm not a bit you know, fourteen
• 2:37:25
  Speaker 1: year old fourteen year old boys who loved baseball and
• 2:37:27
  Speaker 1: football at the time. Every time we stopped somewhere, I
• 2:37:31
  Speaker 1: was buying a pack of baseball carts. You know, this
• 2:37:33
  Speaker 1: is eighty three, eighty four, So I was obsessed, still
• 2:37:35
  Speaker 1: obsessed with collecting me Oh, I kidding, I'm obsessed with
• 2:37:39
  Speaker 1: baseball cards today, right. So we didn't she didn't. We
• 2:37:45
  Speaker 1: didn't do a lot of the art museums, although my
• 2:37:47
  Speaker 1: aunt did make me go to the go to the
• 2:37:49
  Speaker 1: go to the mat and then we enjoyed the amazing
• 2:37:57
  Speaker 1: it's the frankly, the greatest fire display outside of Washington,
• 2:38:02
  Speaker 1: DC that I've ever seen to this day was the
• 2:38:05
  Speaker 1: Statue of Liberty celebration in nineteen eighty six. And now
• 2:38:11
  Speaker 1: we drove, drove back, but it was this was it
• 2:38:14
  Speaker 1: was interesting. You know, my memories of my grandmother as
• 2:38:19
  Speaker 1: a little kid, she was she was not the person
• 2:38:21
  Speaker 1: to get on the floor and do that type of stuff.
• 2:38:25
  Speaker 1: But the second I was reading books, she was. She
• 2:38:30
  Speaker 1: read all the time. She was somebody that knew a
• 2:38:34
  Speaker 1: little bit about a lot of things because she was
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 1: constantly reading. And after my grandfather died, she was constantly traveling.
• 2:38:42
  Speaker 1: She loved cruises and she did all sorts of cruises,
• 2:38:46
  Speaker 1: and she was always trying to not She didn't go
• 2:38:49
  Speaker 1: on a cruise to relax. She wanted a cruise to
• 2:38:52
  Speaker 1: get to somewhere she wanted to see whether it was.
• 2:38:56
  Speaker 1: She did a freighter cruise. She didn't want to spend
• 2:38:58
  Speaker 1: twenty hours on an airplane, so she wanted to go
• 2:39:00
  Speaker 1: see Australia. So she spent thirty days on a freighter
• 2:39:03
  Speaker 1: cruise with nine other senior citizens and a crew and
• 2:39:06
  Speaker 1: played bridge for thirty days and read a bunch of
• 2:39:09
  Speaker 1: books and literally sailed the seas thirty days to Australia.
• 2:39:18
  Speaker 1: Three weeks in the country thirty days back when I
• 2:39:21
  Speaker 1: think she left and came and went out of Jacksonville,
• 2:39:24
  Speaker 1: if if I remember, and she was just what I
• 2:39:30
  Speaker 1: think what my grandmother passed on to me was this
• 2:39:34
  Speaker 1: sort of curiosity. She always wanted to know more. She
• 2:39:37
  Speaker 1: wanted to see the taj Mahall, so she figured out
• 2:39:39
  Speaker 1: a way to get to India to see the taj Mahll.
• 2:39:41
  Speaker 1: She wanted to see the Pyramadge. She is somebody she
• 2:39:43
  Speaker 1: got to check off. She did. You know, this is
• 2:39:47
  Speaker 1: what's remarkable. At ninety nine, you know she was she said,
• 2:39:51
  Speaker 1: she goes I'm not saving any money. I'm not here
• 2:39:54
  Speaker 1: to pass on money. You know. She wanted to live
• 2:39:59
  Speaker 1: these experiences, uh and see the world, and she did.
• 2:40:05
  Speaker 1: And I used to always get a T shirt from
• 2:40:07
  Speaker 1: wherever she wherever she came from. That and that's that
• 2:40:13
  Speaker 1: was my grandmother through my teenage years. So fast forward
• 2:40:17
  Speaker 1: a little bit, and you know, I'm starting to have
• 2:40:20
  Speaker 1: a little bit of success in the late nineties, and
• 2:40:24
  Speaker 1: I want to I want to get my grandmother a
• 2:40:27
  Speaker 1: fun gift for her. I think at the time it
• 2:40:30
  Speaker 1: probably was her seventieth birthday. This is twenty seven, Yeah,
• 2:40:34
  Speaker 1: right around her seventieth birthday. It's actually probably it was
• 2:40:38
  Speaker 1: probably it was probably for her seventy fifth birthday. I
• 2:40:42
  Speaker 1: got her computer and one program, a genealogy program. Well,
• 2:40:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure if the rest of my family loves
• 2:40:52
  Speaker 1: that I did this or hates that I did this,
• 2:40:54
  Speaker 1: but my grandmother for the next ten years became essentially
• 2:40:58
  Speaker 1: an expert at genieology, and she threw herself into it,
• 2:41:02
  Speaker 1: and she made family trees for all every every aspect
• 2:41:07
  Speaker 1: of my family, of my family lines on my father's side,
• 2:41:09
  Speaker 1: on my mother's side. She did it for my wife
• 2:41:11
  Speaker 1: on her father's side and on her mother's side, and
• 2:41:14
  Speaker 1: she did it for her in laws and and anybody
• 2:41:18
  Speaker 1: that asked. Frankly, and she she got so into it.
• 2:41:24
  Speaker 1: She would show up and do research at the Mormon
• 2:41:27
  Speaker 1: temples because the Mormons, as you know, have some of
• 2:41:30
  Speaker 1: the best uh uh research centers when it comes to
• 2:41:35
  Speaker 1: genealogy records that you can find. And you know, she
• 2:41:40
  Speaker 1: just she learned the you know, I knew that I
• 2:41:42
  Speaker 1: had a grandmother that would figure it, would would sort
• 2:41:44
  Speaker 1: of take to the Internet, and she really she was
• 2:41:48
  Speaker 1: a great Web one point zero user. Unfortunately, as her
• 2:41:54
  Speaker 1: vision went, you know, she she the technology that allow
• 2:42:00
  Speaker 1: for a lot more verbal to be able to do
• 2:42:03
  Speaker 1: a lot more of this communication just straight verbally and
• 2:42:05
  Speaker 1: even like text to type and all this stuff really
• 2:42:08
  Speaker 1: didn't quite come into time for her to take the
• 2:42:11
  Speaker 1: best advantage of it. But even in these last few
• 2:42:14
  Speaker 1: years where she couldn't see it all, we had set
• 2:42:16
  Speaker 1: up her iPhone so that it would be essentially automatically
• 2:42:19
  Speaker 1: answer always on speak her phone and put it this
• 2:42:23
  Speaker 1: way to allowed her and she would just say, call Chuck,
• 2:42:26
  Speaker 1: or call Sherry, or call Janet, and she was able
• 2:42:30
  Speaker 1: to she would communicate like I'll get out. And the
• 2:42:34
  Speaker 1: other thing that she was incredibly good at is just
• 2:42:39
  Speaker 1: she was always finding family with this genealogy. Sometimes you
• 2:42:42
  Speaker 1: were like, you know, hey, I'm going to Charleston, South
• 2:42:47
  Speaker 1: Carolina for some work, Grandma, and she goes, well, you know,
• 2:42:50
  Speaker 1: we have a cousin that lives so and so I
• 2:42:52
  Speaker 1: found this cousin. I didn't know them, but I've since
• 2:42:54
  Speaker 1: called them. They helped me fill out this part of
• 2:42:56
  Speaker 1: the family tree of an in law that was like
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 1: to and You're just like, Okay, I'm not going to
• 2:43:02
  Speaker 1: go look up that relative, Grandma. Sorry. What she she
• 2:43:07
  Speaker 1: always did. She was incredibly good at making friends with
• 2:43:10
  Speaker 1: people she didn't know. She just had a couple and
• 2:43:15
  Speaker 1: so look, this all just happened recently, meaning in the
• 2:43:19
  Speaker 1: last few hours, so I'm not on a lot of sleep,
• 2:43:22
  Speaker 1: but I wanted to be able to share something about her.
• 2:43:25
  Speaker 1: I think her great gifts was her curiosity. Was her
• 2:43:30
  Speaker 1: was her openness to how quickly she would make somebody
• 2:43:35
  Speaker 1: a close friend. She loved getting to know new people,
• 2:43:41
  Speaker 1: and it was part of that curiosity in her. There's
• 2:43:46
  Speaker 1: a part of me that's always lamented. Was she born
• 2:43:49
  Speaker 1: thirty years too soon? You know she she was stroves,
• 2:43:54
  Speaker 1: you know, and she she loved the fact that she
• 2:43:58
  Speaker 1: was able to do jobs work when she was younger,
• 2:44:03
  Speaker 1: but not everybody, and at that time that was not
• 2:44:06
  Speaker 1: seen as acceptable that she would work outside the home.
• 2:44:10
  Speaker 1: And and there was I've always gotten the sense there
• 2:44:13
  Speaker 1: was some tension there, and it was always a part
• 2:44:15
  Speaker 1: of me. I was lucky. I've had two grandmothers who
• 2:44:17
  Speaker 1: had in my heart of hearts, you think, you know,
• 2:44:20
  Speaker 1: they didn't get to live the life they deserve to
• 2:44:23
  Speaker 1: have simply because of the way society treated women as
• 2:44:27
  Speaker 1: second class citizens in their jair in most of their lifespan.
• 2:44:33
  Speaker 1: But I just wanted to share that with you guys's
• 2:44:37
  Speaker 1: she was a force of nature. And you know, when
• 2:44:43
  Speaker 1: you make it to ninety nine, you never think you're
• 2:44:44
  Speaker 1: going to lose them. And yet at the same time,
• 2:44:49
  Speaker 1: you know, her body was breaking down. Her brain was
• 2:44:53
  Speaker 1: all there, but her body was breaking down. And so
• 2:44:57
  Speaker 1: I think she's at peace. I think she it's no
• 2:45:00
  Speaker 1: more pain. And I just thank her for giving me
• 2:45:05
  Speaker 1: that curiosity, giving me that setting an example that hey,
• 2:45:13
  Speaker 1: you can always make new friends, and she did it
• 2:45:16
  Speaker 1: almost all the way to the end of her life.
• 2:45:18
  Speaker 1: One of the great gifts. So thanks for humoring me
• 2:45:22
  Speaker 1: here and listening to me sharing my memories of my grandmother,
• 2:45:25
  Speaker 1: Dorothy Bernstein ninety nine years old. And with that, don't
• 2:45:34
  Speaker 1: forget to call your grandmother if your grandmother's stile around,
• 2:45:37
  Speaker 1: and your grandfather and your mom and your dad, all right,
• 2:45:41
  Speaker 1: and I'll see in about seventy two hours