Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Trump’s Coalition Is Fracturing As Iran War Unravels + Who Is Responsible For The Death Of Roe?

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Full Episode - Trump’s Coalition Is Fracturing As Iran War Unravels + Who Is Responsible For The Death Of Roe? · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: I'm constantly working on this for years myself, and here's
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Speaker 1: an opportunity for you to take matters into your own
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Speaker 1: hands as well. All right, hello there, welcome to the
1:53
Speaker 1: Wednesday episode of the Chuck Podcast. And as we like
1:56
Speaker 1: to say in electioneers, if it's Wednesday, it means somebody
1:59
Speaker 1: voted somewhere on Tuesday. Obviously, the big Tuesday story was Illinois. Uh,
2:04
Speaker 1: and I appreciate those that followed look that to me,
2:06
Speaker 1: the story of Illinois is something I'm going to get
2:08
Speaker 1: into further actually on Tomorrow's on the on the Thursday
2:12
Speaker 1: episode of the podcast, which is I think we are
2:15
Speaker 1: going to look at Illinois as the as the as
2:18
Speaker 1: the shining example of what's wrong with politics today and
2:24
Speaker 1: how money has become too influential on this because what's
2:30
Speaker 1: sort of distressing about what happened in Illinois on Tuesday
2:34
Speaker 1: night is the fact that the story is about the
2:38
Speaker 1: super PACs and the interest groups and which interest groups
2:42
Speaker 1: went are lost, not anything about like the candidates were secondary.
2:47
Speaker 1: And this is a it's one of those we have
2:50
Speaker 1: we have We've somehow crossed some threshold that has made
2:54
Speaker 1: candidates themselves a secondary feature of a political campaign, which
2:59
Speaker 1: tells you something is way out of whack. And the
3:02
Speaker 1: fact that we sort of deal with this in a
3:04
Speaker 1: such normalizing way is very distressing. So uh, look, there's
3:09
Speaker 1: and and and as important as that story is, I
3:14
Speaker 1: do want to spend a lot more time on it
3:16
Speaker 1: in tomorrow's episode, But let me give you a quick
3:20
Speaker 1: rundown of what we got for today, obviously, because I'm
3:26
Speaker 1: not going to overdo the election results business with Illinois,
3:29
Speaker 1: because I hope many of you tuned into the live
3:31
Speaker 1: stream and Crystal is and I earlier on Wednesday broke
3:36
Speaker 1: it down on his podcast, and normally we tape on Mondays.
3:40
Speaker 1: But this week because of my travels, Yes, I went
3:43
Speaker 1: to the wbc UH second semi final and that was amazing. Actually,
3:48
Speaker 1: I want to share share that experience with you in
3:49
Speaker 1: a few minutes as well. But let me do the
3:52
Speaker 1: quick rundown of what I got going on today. We've
3:55
Speaker 1: got to look we the there's there's one story that
3:59
Speaker 1: matters in American altics right now. It's the war with Ron.
4:02
Speaker 1: It is in some ways dictating everything, and it is
4:07
Speaker 1: you can already actually see some political impacts in ways
4:10
Speaker 1: that people haven't noticed yet, and I will point those
4:12
Speaker 1: out to you. But you know, welcome to the well.
4:16
Speaker 1: I called it quicksand. He's in quicksand, and he's in quicksand,
4:20
Speaker 1: and he's in a Chinese finger trap. And the more
4:22
Speaker 1: he tries to pull away, the more he's getting He's
4:26
Speaker 1: getting sucked into both traps. On that one. My guest
4:31
Speaker 1: today is Amy Littlefield, and she is the author of
4:34
Speaker 1: a book called Killers of Roe and what she did.
4:37
Speaker 1: It's you could, on one hand say, oh, it's a
4:40
Speaker 1: history of the abortion rights movement for the last fifty years,
4:44
Speaker 1: from the decision of Row to the overturning of it.
4:48
Speaker 1: With Dobbs, but she did it in a unique way,
4:52
Speaker 1: and she sort of used the murder mystery frame, if
4:57
Speaker 1: you will. She admittedly is an Agatha Christie junkie, and
5:00
Speaker 1: I encourage everybody should go through an Agath at Christie
5:03
Speaker 1: stage if you're a reader. They're wonderful books. I went
5:06
Speaker 1: through my stage and plowed through five or so. You know,
5:09
Speaker 1: it's like you find a murder mystery author and you
5:11
Speaker 1: just go crazy. I did that with Elmore Lennard, and
5:13
Speaker 1: I've done that with various ones. You just sort of
5:16
Speaker 1: go in and you end up bringing like five of
5:18
Speaker 1: one author. Or there's like my friend Daniel Silva, who
5:21
Speaker 1: I just can't wait for every year when he comes
5:24
Speaker 1: out with a new Gabriel and non adventure. So I
5:30
Speaker 1: get it. And so in many ways, she says she
5:33
Speaker 1: it's the influence of an Agatha Christie mystery novel sort
5:36
Speaker 1: of looking who are the suspects Killers of Roe? It's
5:39
Speaker 1: called and it is, you know it is. The suspects
5:44
Speaker 1: are not just those that were against the Roe decision,
5:47
Speaker 1: but those that were trying to support it as well.
5:49
Speaker 1: So it is a fascinating analysis and investigation into sort
5:56
Speaker 1: of the fifty years of reproductive rights and how they
6:00
Speaker 1: went away on that front. So we will have that
6:03
Speaker 1: discussion as well. And then after I've got it, yesterday
6:07
Speaker 1: was the Illinois primary. So what do I have for
6:09
Speaker 1: you in my top five list, my top five all timers?
6:11
Speaker 1: And let me tell you, Illinois is, shall we say,
6:15
Speaker 1: extraordinarily rich with content when it comes to interesting, crazy,
6:20
Speaker 1: controversial campaigns, whether for the Senate, for governor. This is
6:25
Speaker 1: a state that has given us to presidents and foreign
6:28
Speaker 1: prison governors, right, so it is to say it could
6:32
Speaker 1: be the wild West at times in Illinois is an understatement.
6:35
Speaker 1: And there's also crazy stuff about Chicago politics and all
6:39
Speaker 1: sorts of things, so that you will enjoy. We'll have
6:41
Speaker 1: some Q and A. But we got to begin with
6:43
Speaker 1: what's happening with the Iran war and the danger of
6:50
Speaker 1: Mission Creep. And I know I continue to make this,
6:53
Speaker 1: but I think something We're in the middle of something
6:56
Speaker 1: here that is really disturbing, which is we are watching
7:00
Speaker 1: in real time the unraveling of America's place as leader
7:05
Speaker 1: of the free world. And I know that sounds a bit,
7:09
Speaker 1: you know, apocalyptic that I'm saying this, but it's happening
7:13
Speaker 1: in real time. His attack on NATO. Where's NATO? NATO?
7:16
Speaker 1: I asked for their help with the straight of horn moves,
7:18
Speaker 1: the President said, and there's no NATO to be found.
7:21
Speaker 1: And you know, the the this war is going to
7:26
Speaker 1: be known for military precision. And so there's you know
7:33
Speaker 1: this is you know the complaints that are coming from
7:36
Speaker 1: those that support this war. Well, the media is not focused.
7:39
Speaker 1: They are only focused on all the stuff that's you know,
7:41
Speaker 1: not going well. But the military campaign itself is going, yes,
7:44
Speaker 1: it is. But the soft power side, the diplomatic side,
7:47
Speaker 1: the getting silent, making sure the American people know what
7:51
Speaker 1: we're doing, Preparing the American people for something that may
7:54
Speaker 1: be unpopular, that may be a bit of a hit
7:57
Speaker 1: to the economy, lining up allies in advance planning for
8:03
Speaker 1: these things. Gutting of the State Department of its soft
8:06
Speaker 1: power agencies like USAID and the US Information Agency only
8:11
Speaker 1: made it that much harder for you to have diplomatic
8:14
Speaker 1: success following military success. And so this is the classic.
8:21
Speaker 1: He has opened a Pandora's box, and we now know
8:23
Speaker 1: all the reasons why a bunch of previous presidents who
8:26
Speaker 1: would have loved to have eradicated the world of this
8:29
Speaker 1: Iranian theocracy didn't do it because there were certain things
8:34
Speaker 1: they could do to make this an incredibly costly war.
8:38
Speaker 1: And we're now seeing what it is that kept Bush
8:42
Speaker 1: from doing this, that kept Obama from doing this, that
8:44
Speaker 1: kept Biden from doing this, that kept Trump the first
8:47
Speaker 1: time from doing this. But we've got a situation now
8:50
Speaker 1: with this president where there's a few things we have
8:53
Speaker 1: to be concerned about. Concern number one is he is
8:55
Speaker 1: not being told the truth this resignation by a very
9:02
Speaker 1: controversial figure in his own right, Joe Kent as head
9:06
Speaker 1: of the National counter Terrorism Center. This is an extraordinarily
9:09
Speaker 1: important agency, and it became much more important following nine
9:13
Speaker 1: to eleven. And you know, there was a lot of
9:16
Speaker 1: concern when the decision was made to put him in
9:18
Speaker 1: this job. This was somebody who has spoused some extremist
9:22
Speaker 1: views on the right, questionable views about Jewish people, a
9:29
Speaker 1: lot of flirting with the white supremacist alt right, and
9:33
Speaker 1: he was being put in charge of this and yet
9:37
Speaker 1: so whatever, So that's who he is. But he was
9:42
Speaker 1: a Senate confirmed appointment that in some ways should be
9:48
Speaker 1: in the room in theory when presidents make these decisions.
9:52
Speaker 1: And what's been interesting is that when he announced his
9:54
Speaker 1: resignation over the war and basically blaming the Israel lobby,
9:59
Speaker 1: which is a frustrating anti Semitic trope. But I will
10:04
Speaker 1: set that. I'm going to put a pin in that
10:06
Speaker 1: here for a minute. What we learned here is that
10:14
Speaker 1: in some ways, you know, with the statement by Telsea Gabbert,
10:19
Speaker 1: Joe Kent's boss, who I'm surprised is still there and
10:22
Speaker 1: hasn't resigned. Remember her whole rationale for supporting Trump over
10:26
Speaker 1: Harris and Biden was all due to it was Harris
10:28
Speaker 1: and Biden that we're going to take America into it
10:30
Speaker 1: into a war with Iran. It turns out she is
10:33
Speaker 1: now the head of the She's the director of national
10:36
Speaker 1: intelligence for the presidential administration that made the choice to
10:41
Speaker 1: go to war with Iran. And this is a war
10:43
Speaker 1: of choice and war of choices. Just ask Vladimir Putin
10:46
Speaker 1: how a war of choice is going for him. You
10:50
Speaker 1: may be able to decide when to start a war,
10:54
Speaker 1: but who you're going to war against gets a say
10:55
Speaker 1: in the matter as well. And we're learning a little
10:59
Speaker 1: bit more, and I think that it's important to note
11:03
Speaker 1: Tulsa Gabbert's statement sort of in reaction to the resignation
11:08
Speaker 1: of Joe Kent and how she's walking a line here,
11:13
Speaker 1: and I think it gets it to the concern we
11:15
Speaker 1: all should have that our president the commander in chief
11:18
Speaker 1: and everybody's president. At the moment, he is representing the
11:21
Speaker 1: United States of America and he's making these decisions. You
11:23
Speaker 1: may not like it, but he is our president. Is
11:26
Speaker 1: either not being told the truth or people are afraid
11:30
Speaker 1: to tell him things that he doesn't want to hear.
11:33
Speaker 1: But I want to read this statement from Tulsea Gabbard
11:36
Speaker 1: in full from Tuesday on a post that she put
11:39
Speaker 1: on X First of all, that starts this, Donald Trump
11:43
Speaker 1: was overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our
11:45
Speaker 1: president and commander in chief. Well, already we are starting
11:48
Speaker 1: off with a bullshit line overwhelming He did not get
11:51
Speaker 1: fifty percent. It's funny to me to watch all these
11:54
Speaker 1: people and I saw political did this the other day
11:56
Speaker 1: due called twenty twenty four landslide. It's not a landslide
12:01
Speaker 1: if you can't win a majority of the popular vote.
12:03
Speaker 1: It's not a landslide if you don't get the four
12:05
Speaker 1: hundred electoral votes. Folks, Okay, no, president has won a
12:09
Speaker 1: landslide in the twenty first century. No, not Barack Obama
12:11
Speaker 1: in twenty oh eight, and he had the largest victory
12:14
Speaker 1: of anybody in the twenty first century. But I digress,
12:17
Speaker 1: because but this gas lighting of the American people, I saw,
12:20
Speaker 1: like I said, I saw a straightforward newsletter in Politico
12:23
Speaker 1: that knowing in the wake of the of Donald Trump's
12:25
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four landslide, I'm like, what does anybody understand
12:29
Speaker 1: the definition of political landslide anymore? Please? All right? Ronald
12:32
Speaker 1: Reagan won a landslide in eighty four, George H. W.
12:35
Speaker 1: Bush won a landslide in eighty eight, Richard Nixon won
12:39
Speaker 1: one in seventy two, LBJ one one in sixty four.
12:42
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton never won a landslide, George W. Bush never
12:44
Speaker 1: won a landslide, and certainly a guy who's never won
12:48
Speaker 1: fifty percent of the vote, Donald Trump has never won
12:52
Speaker 1: a landslide. Okay, But I'm going to continue more from
12:55
Speaker 1: Tulsea Gabber. As our commander in chief, he is responsible
12:58
Speaker 1: for determining what is and what is not an threat. Interesting,
13:02
Speaker 1: So it is not experts in the field. It is
13:05
Speaker 1: the president, and solely the president who decides what's an
13:07
Speaker 1: imminent threat that's according to this and whether or not
13:10
Speaker 1: to take action he deems necessary to protect the safety
13:12
Speaker 1: and security of our troops, the American people in our country.
13:15
Speaker 1: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is responsible
13:18
Speaker 1: for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the
13:21
Speaker 1: President and commander in chief with the best information available
13:24
Speaker 1: to inform his decisions. After carefully reviewing all the information
13:28
Speaker 1: before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamic regime
13:32
Speaker 1: in Iran posed an aminute threat, and he took action
13:34
Speaker 1: based on that conclusion. I have to tell you, man,
13:38
Speaker 1: this statement's amazing for everything it is trying to do. Right,
13:40
Speaker 1: Tulsa Gabbert is desperately trying to signal that she does
13:44
Speaker 1: not believe in this war without saying she does not
13:47
Speaker 1: believe in the rationale for this war. She wants to
13:51
Speaker 1: keep her job. She's clearly made that decision, and she
13:54
Speaker 1: knows that there's an audience of one that she's got
13:57
Speaker 1: to do. But the fact that she is straining so hard, right,
14:01
Speaker 1: it took three paragraphs for her to explain that it's
14:05
Speaker 1: the president who decides what's an aminent threat or not.
14:08
Speaker 1: So it sounds like she would not believe if she
14:10
Speaker 1: thought it was an inminent threat, she would have said so.
14:12
Speaker 1: But she did not make the choice to say it now,
14:14
Speaker 1: did she. So she is clearly trying to have her
14:17
Speaker 1: cake and eat it too. She's no doubt when she
14:20
Speaker 1: leaves office she's going to say I never stood by
14:22
Speaker 1: that thing. I never viewed it as an a minute threat.
14:24
Speaker 1: But he did. So we all see where, by the way,
14:29
Speaker 1: where it's pretty early to be in the CYA stages
14:32
Speaker 1: of war planning, but we are in the CYA stage,
14:35
Speaker 1: not necessarily CIA, but CYA. And if you need help
14:38
Speaker 1: knowing what that is, just you know, that's urban dictionary stuff,
14:41
Speaker 1: go figure that out. But we are in the CYA.
14:43
Speaker 1: And this is a clear CYA material because it sounds
14:46
Speaker 1: like Telsea Gabbard respects the decision Joe Kent make. But
14:52
Speaker 1: what's clear? And I remember during the run up to
14:55
Speaker 1: the war itself and the decision that was made, a
14:58
Speaker 1: lot of people were asking, well, what where what is
15:00
Speaker 1: Tulsa Gabbard thing? Is she in the room? Right? This
15:02
Speaker 1: is somebody who essentially staked her entire political reputation on
15:05
Speaker 1: being convinced it was the Democrats that were going to
15:07
Speaker 1: start a war with Iran, not the Republicans, and so
15:10
Speaker 1: just the heir, she was trying to justify her bizarre
15:14
Speaker 1: flip flop and you know, to pay no attention to
15:17
Speaker 1: her potentially being you know, compromised by other international entities.
15:22
Speaker 1: Then instead she was just concerned about a president that
15:26
Speaker 1: might start an open ended war. Well, welcome to the
15:29
Speaker 1: open ended war. And she now works for the president
15:31
Speaker 1: that she claimed wasn't going to do that. But here
15:34
Speaker 1: we are. And there's a few things about this Joe
15:38
Speaker 1: Kent resignation, right, this is look, this is somebody who
15:41
Speaker 1: was not qualified for the position anyway, Trump gave it
15:45
Speaker 1: to him, almost as a thumb in your eye to
15:47
Speaker 1: the intelligence community. This was a pope right putting Tulsea
15:50
Speaker 1: Gabbert and Joe Kent there was done to send a
15:55
Speaker 1: message to the to the sort of the non part
15:59
Speaker 1: of intelligence community, that I have no respect for what
16:02
Speaker 1: you do, and we're going to put a couple of
16:05
Speaker 1: incredibly semi crazy skeptics in charge of you. And yet
16:12
Speaker 1: the president had no intention of ever having these people
16:14
Speaker 1: in a room. And so I look at the Kent
16:18
Speaker 1: resignation through the following. There's a variety of ways. First
16:23
Speaker 1: of all, he's a fascinating Rosa test. Right, you can
16:26
Speaker 1: read his statement and if you know nothing about it,
16:28
Speaker 1: and you you know, whatever your personal views are, you
16:31
Speaker 1: can apply it to your feelings about him. Right, if
16:34
Speaker 1: you're frustrated by all the you know, the the the
16:40
Speaker 1: anti Semites that are trying to use Israel as an
16:42
Speaker 1: excuse to say they're not anti Semitic, and how they're
16:45
Speaker 1: and how they're phrasing some of these things, you can
16:48
Speaker 1: do that if you want to say, see even Joe
16:52
Speaker 1: Kent thinks there was no rationale for war, you can
16:54
Speaker 1: do that, right, whatever it is he can provide in
16:58
Speaker 1: some ways, I think people's reaction into Kent and the resignation,
17:02
Speaker 1: particularly in the political space, will tell you more about
17:06
Speaker 1: the point of view that person has not necessarily anything
17:09
Speaker 1: to do with Kent, but it is going to be
17:12
Speaker 1: I think everybody's gonna be curious the first time he
17:14
Speaker 1: does an interview and talks about what evidence did you
17:16
Speaker 1: see and what was out there? What are the terrorist
17:19
Speaker 1: threats and so on and so forth. But like Marjorie Taylor, great,
17:27
Speaker 1: you know, there were some members of the Trump coalition
17:29
Speaker 1: that believed what he said. There were some people like
17:32
Speaker 1: Joe Kent, who aligned himself with the with the far right,
17:37
Speaker 1: sort of xenophobic wing of the Republican Party and saw
17:43
Speaker 1: a fellow traveler, Donald Trump. You know, Marjorie Taylor Green
17:47
Speaker 1: has said you know that, you know, she heard what
17:48
Speaker 1: Trump said and really and felt like, oh, he's thinking
17:52
Speaker 1: what I'm thinking. He's saying what I believe. And then
17:55
Speaker 1: when he doesn't practice what he says, right, And this
17:57
Speaker 1: is Donald Trump's been doing this forever. That's what many
18:00
Speaker 1: of us tried to tell a lot of people over
18:03
Speaker 1: the last ten years. It said, Donald Trump just tells
18:05
Speaker 1: anybody what they want to hear in the moment in
18:08
Speaker 1: order to make his sale or in order to get
18:10
Speaker 1: him to vote for you, or whatever it is. And
18:13
Speaker 1: he's done it. And he put together a unique coalition, right,
18:17
Speaker 1: It's been an uncomfortable coalition. And we're starting to see
18:21
Speaker 1: what happens when you make decisions, right. You see little
18:25
Speaker 1: we've seen little pieces of evidence when he made the
18:27
Speaker 1: decision to be bought off by the tech companies and
18:31
Speaker 1: not do not actually go after big, big tech in
18:35
Speaker 1: ways that he promised, or certainly it was implied through
18:39
Speaker 1: the bann and wing of that MAGA movement right who
18:42
Speaker 1: was just as focused at getting going after big tech
18:45
Speaker 1: as the left was. And he's protecting the AI industry
18:51
Speaker 1: with trying to prevent any regulation that has cost him
18:55
Speaker 1: some support among some in his magabase. Starting this war
19:00
Speaker 1: has cost him more support there. So this is I
19:03
Speaker 1: look at Ken in one way as he might just
19:08
Speaker 1: simply be a true believer. You don't have to agree
19:10
Speaker 1: with him. You may find his political views vile, you
19:13
Speaker 1: may find his views about Israel and Jews and race
19:17
Speaker 1: in America to be terrible, but he believed them and
19:24
Speaker 1: he aligned with a movement that he thought and he
19:27
Speaker 1: also didn't believe in more military adventurism. And suddenly he
19:33
Speaker 1: feels let down. And that's what you do in a
19:37
Speaker 1: presidential administration. Right. We had a pretty high profile State
19:40
Speaker 1: Department official during the Biden administration who resigned over the
19:44
Speaker 1: over Joe Biden's gossip policy. And it was a big
19:48
Speaker 1: deal then. And it's the right thing to do if
19:53
Speaker 1: you can't, if you can't serve a president on a
19:57
Speaker 1: specific issue, and you're kind of charged to do it.
20:00
Speaker 1: And in this case, the head of the Center and
20:03
Speaker 1: counter terrorism. Right, he's now got to monitor the incoming
20:07
Speaker 1: and there is an increased amount of incoming threats potential
20:11
Speaker 1: threats thanks to this decentralized network by the IRGC that
20:16
Speaker 1: is basically declared open season on Western assets, and there's
20:20
Speaker 1: a lot more concern. This is the things that I
20:22
Speaker 1: think the president. Among the many things the president has
20:25
Speaker 1: not done for the public is prepare the public for
20:27
Speaker 1: the fact that we are now less secure today than
20:30
Speaker 1: when this Iran war started. We know that his goal
20:33
Speaker 1: is to he thinks eradicating this regime and preventing them
20:37
Speaker 1: from getting nuclear weapons will make us safer, and maybe
20:39
Speaker 1: he's right, but it's not making us safer right now.
20:42
Speaker 1: We are now less safe. And oh, by the way,
20:44
Speaker 1: everything costs more because of this war, and ultimately that
20:49
Speaker 1: may be how he gets punished politically, not over the inconsistency,
20:53
Speaker 1: not over the hypocrisy of more wars, but simply that
20:56
Speaker 1: he's presiding over an economy that is now in world
21:00
Speaker 1: shape because of his decision to launch the Iran war.
21:06
Speaker 1: But this resignation is not a small deal. It's a
21:08
Speaker 1: big deal because it's yet I mean, how many more
21:13
Speaker 1: little you know this is his coalition has been fracturing
21:16
Speaker 1: now for a good six months, and we've watched it.
21:18
Speaker 1: And one of the things I like to tell people is,
21:22
Speaker 1: you know, everybody's got a line on Trump. And I
21:24
Speaker 1: think you've heard me say this, but not every Trump
21:27
Speaker 1: doesn't cross the line at the same time. For everybody,
21:31
Speaker 1: your line on when you walked away from Trump may
21:34
Speaker 1: have been a lot sooner than the line that I did,
21:37
Speaker 1: or the line that somebody else did, or the line
21:39
Speaker 1: that Liz Cheney did, the line that air Adam Kingsinger, right,
21:42
Speaker 1: we know the line for John Bolton, the line for
21:44
Speaker 1: Mike Pence, the line for John Kelly. You know, one
21:49
Speaker 1: of the things you learn about Trump over the years
21:52
Speaker 1: is that eventually he alienates everybody around him, every single
21:58
Speaker 1: person not relate to him, and maybe he alienates those
22:02
Speaker 1: related to him too. But I'm you know, family dynamics.
22:06
Speaker 1: Everybody's got weird family drama. So I don't I actually
22:08
Speaker 1: want it. I'm going to kind of minimize that a
22:11
Speaker 1: little bit, but I will go more in the profession.
22:14
Speaker 1: He has done it his entire I went through this
22:16
Speaker 1: every six day years. He has to get a new
22:18
Speaker 1: set of advisors because He's literally alienated everybody around him.
22:24
Speaker 1: This is what he does. Just look at the how
22:26
Speaker 1: few people from term one came over with term two? Yes,
22:30
Speaker 1: a few did. But I think we have one of
22:32
Speaker 1: the more underreported stories about Trump two point zero is
22:35
Speaker 1: how few Trump one point zero saffers who they chose
22:43
Speaker 1: not to go. They he would have taken him. Don't
22:45
Speaker 1: think he wouldn't. There was something he didn't want. I
22:47
Speaker 1: get that, but there were plenty that he would have
22:49
Speaker 1: loved to have come back. And they're like, I ain't
22:51
Speaker 1: riding that rollercoaster again, and so they have chosen not
22:55
Speaker 1: to do it. It says a lot. And I think
22:57
Speaker 1: that this is what we're seeing, is that we continue
23:00
Speaker 1: you to see a slow erosion. And I describe it.
23:06
Speaker 1: I've always described it as a river bed. Every day
23:08
Speaker 1: you look at it and maybe it doesn't look like
23:10
Speaker 1: it's eroded that much, and then you're gonna wake up
23:12
Speaker 1: in November and go, what happened to Republican turn out?
23:16
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24:54
Speaker 1: Now let's go to the ward so and this issue
24:57
Speaker 1: it is traded corners. So we've got a granting president,
25:01
Speaker 1: very upset. He's like begging, now China to come help.
25:06
Speaker 1: This would be interesting. So he wants NATO to. He
25:09
Speaker 1: wanted NATO to get involved in basically secured as straight
25:12
Speaker 1: of Horm moves. Now he's asking for other countries. How
25:15
Speaker 1: maybe he gets help from China to do this. And
25:17
Speaker 1: his argument is, hey, China needs this oil as much
25:19
Speaker 1: as anybody needs it factause the whole world needs, say,
25:26
Speaker 1: the straight of Horm moves to be a place for
25:28
Speaker 1: safe passage for shipping period. It doesn't matter whether you're
25:34
Speaker 1: a country that's allied with the United States, that you
25:36
Speaker 1: are the United States, or that you're an adversary of
25:39
Speaker 1: the United States. Everybody needs this shipping lane open. Now
25:42
Speaker 1: one thing about the United States has been and this
25:46
Speaker 1: is where we this is where and I want America
25:50
Speaker 1: to be the world's beat cop, particularly in the oceans. Okay,
25:56
Speaker 1: and that's what I do. Expect this to help keep
26:00
Speaker 1: shipping lanes open. That that's what we do. It doesn't
26:04
Speaker 1: sound but it sounds like the President was so dismissive
26:06
Speaker 1: of the warnings about the straight of horm moves. And
26:09
Speaker 1: this was always the geographic advantage. And so many analysts
26:12
Speaker 1: about Iran I've pointed this out. This was always their
26:15
Speaker 1: sort of I don't want to call it a get
26:18
Speaker 1: out of jail free card, but this is what has
26:20
Speaker 1: prevented an attempt to decapitate this regime by previous presidents.
26:25
Speaker 1: It's the fact that they can. And now Trump's learning
26:29
Speaker 1: this himself. It doesn't take much for them to louse
26:31
Speaker 1: it up. Right, By the way, loos is a word
26:37
Speaker 1: we don't use enough. It's nice to bring it back.
26:38
Speaker 1: If Trump wants to bring back the sword, God bless them.
26:41
Speaker 1: Let's lost things up. And that's the point, right, And
26:46
Speaker 1: now you've got a regime headed up by the son
26:49
Speaker 1: of the former Supreme Leader who has no incentive to
26:54
Speaker 1: cut a deal with the United States, and what deal
26:57
Speaker 1: with the United States, Israel, or anybody in the region.
27:01
Speaker 1: What deal could you cut with this regime that kept
27:04
Speaker 1: the regime in place and made you feel safe and secure.
27:09
Speaker 1: So I don't know how he walks away from this,
27:12
Speaker 1: And I was unseeing it earlier on Tuesday and on
27:15
Speaker 1: Casey Hunt Show, and Casey Hunt had Liam Pennant, a
27:19
Speaker 1: former Defense secretary, former head of the CIA, and she
27:22
Speaker 1: was just asking him tactically what would it take to
27:25
Speaker 1: secure the Straight and he basically said, look, we can
27:28
Speaker 1: do this, but it's probably going to take boots on
27:30
Speaker 1: the ground. I mean, you can't just do this with
27:33
Speaker 1: airpower and naval power. You're going to have to clear
27:37
Speaker 1: the coastlines, right, And this is what's so I think
27:42
Speaker 1: scary about the decision to start this war is how
27:45
Speaker 1: easily this mission you're going to get mission create. And
27:48
Speaker 1: this was always the concern about trying to do this.
27:52
Speaker 1: And here we are no intent of ever sending ground troops,
27:56
Speaker 1: but now you have to secure the straight of hormones.
27:58
Speaker 1: And now Trump's in a situation where he's alienated a
28:01
Speaker 1: big chunk of the America's allies. Right, a normal president,
28:05
Speaker 1: what we've already we've seen examples of this. Bush one
28:08
Speaker 1: and Bush two went out of their way to get
28:11
Speaker 1: allies bought in in advance, not after the fact, but
28:16
Speaker 1: you do it in advance. H Bush one had had
28:21
Speaker 1: more success than Bush two did in keeping allies on board.
28:25
Speaker 1: But you know what Bush two didn't do. He didn't
28:26
Speaker 1: go out of his way to alien eate NATO or
28:28
Speaker 1: alien eight countries that didn't get on board. He just
28:32
Speaker 1: gave more love to the countries that were on board.
28:36
Speaker 1: One of my favorite you know, don't forget you forgot
28:39
Speaker 1: Poland a response one time in an interview he did
28:42
Speaker 1: when somebody was questioning the lack of sort of of
28:45
Speaker 1: an alliance in the Iraq War, and he says, hey,
28:48
Speaker 1: you forgot Poland. But the point was there was an effort,
28:53
Speaker 1: right and you have to do these things. And now
28:56
Speaker 1: what Panetta was explaining is that we may we did
28:59
Speaker 1: not leave ourselves the flexibility to put together the forces
29:04
Speaker 1: we need immediately to keep this straight open. And so
29:08
Speaker 1: now we've got you know, we've got to move things.
29:11
Speaker 1: This is why it may be that he's begging for
29:14
Speaker 1: outside help because we don't have the resources in place
29:17
Speaker 1: in the moment to do this, not unless you're going
29:20
Speaker 1: to do ground troops, and even if it's a limited
29:24
Speaker 1: number of ground troops, it is what's probably going to
29:27
Speaker 1: be necessary. So now he's in this, he's boxed himself
29:30
Speaker 1: in and this and you're going to get a version
29:33
Speaker 1: of Vietnam syndrome here potentially, which is well if you
29:37
Speaker 1: walk away. Now the regime stays in place. The Straight
29:41
Speaker 1: is weaponized by this regime. They know that their days
29:46
Speaker 1: are You know that they're never going to be accepted
29:49
Speaker 1: into the community of the Middle East. So there's always
29:51
Speaker 1: going to be a threat of terrorism or a threat
29:55
Speaker 1: of this. So there's going to be constant concern and
29:59
Speaker 1: it will gradually raise the price of everything. If you
30:03
Speaker 1: pull out, you kind of weirdly, even though you may
30:06
Speaker 1: had a massive tactical victory, it'll look like retreat and defeat.
30:09
Speaker 1: If the regime stays in place and you cut some
30:12
Speaker 1: uncomfortable deal and just hoping that they'll keep the straight
30:17
Speaker 1: open because you've somehow agreed to keep the regime in
30:20
Speaker 1: place after you have made this big effort to try
30:23
Speaker 1: to topple the regime, and then say, oh no, this
30:25
Speaker 1: wasn't about regime change, you know, or you're in or
30:30
Speaker 1: you have the mindset that you're in for a dime,
30:31
Speaker 1: in for a dollar, right, which is what happened early
30:34
Speaker 1: in the early parts of Vietnam. And that's the concern here, right,
30:38
Speaker 1: And this is the you know, this is why Chinese
30:40
Speaker 1: finger trap. There's no good answer here, and he's boxed
30:46
Speaker 1: America in it is there is every outcome, every potential
30:53
Speaker 1: idea can lead to a bad outcome for the United States,
30:56
Speaker 1: either short term or long term. But what we've really
30:59
Speaker 1: done and the biggest sort of development over the last
31:02
Speaker 1: seventy two hours, there is a confirmation that we we
31:04
Speaker 1: are we are alone. We are alone in this one.
31:11
Speaker 1: And it's because of everything he did over the last
31:14
Speaker 1: particularly over the last year and a half in alienating
31:18
Speaker 1: our allies, alienating NATO, alienating the EU, I mean, the
31:22
Speaker 1: whole thing with Greenland, and now here we are and
31:25
Speaker 1: now he's got the uncomfortable decision what does he do.
31:29
Speaker 1: He's got to get out of this thing. But he
31:31
Speaker 1: can't just walk me. You know, he's the one that
31:33
Speaker 1: like created the situation that's put the straight Orfom moves
31:36
Speaker 1: into this into a critical situation where we are stuck,
31:40
Speaker 1: and our economy is potentially the global economy is stuck
31:45
Speaker 1: dealing with this choke point. And it's his it was,
31:49
Speaker 1: you know, it's his fault. You know, he started it,
31:52
Speaker 1: so he's got to finish it. It's a it is.
32:00
Speaker 1: This is more than just his personal legacy. His personal
32:02
Speaker 1: legacy is toast right. This is other than you know,
32:06
Speaker 1: the kindest thing you're being able to say about his
32:08
Speaker 1: presidency is said it was consequential. That word's going to
32:12
Speaker 1: be doing a lot of work for a lot of
32:14
Speaker 1: people who are going to try to sound not trying
32:17
Speaker 1: to make a judgment of whether this was a good
32:20
Speaker 1: or a bad presidency. It was a consequential one. It's
32:23
Speaker 1: been an MRI, that's for sure, for a lot of
32:25
Speaker 1: people and a lot of entities and a lot of things.
32:27
Speaker 1: But this is, this is this has the potential to
32:34
Speaker 1: be as epically bad for America's reputation, America's ability to
32:42
Speaker 1: execute both soft and hard power and build alliances. This
32:47
Speaker 1: is going to be as damaging, if not more damaging,
32:50
Speaker 1: if we're not careful than Vietnam in the Second rap
32:53
Speaker 1: War and this situation, he's in nothing but bad options.
32:59
Speaker 1: But you know, I think he is stuck with the
33:02
Speaker 1: pottery barn roll here. He broke it and he's going
33:06
Speaker 1: to have to fix it. He broke the straight he's
33:08
Speaker 1: going to have to fix it, and we're now stuck
33:10
Speaker 1: having to do this alone. Now if we commit to it,
33:13
Speaker 1: my guess is other countries eventually will help. Perhaps the
33:17
Speaker 1: Gulf States will help pay for it at least, But
33:21
Speaker 1: we need some real diplomacy here. We haven't had any.
33:23
Speaker 1: We've had very We've had the lack of diplomacy right.
33:27
Speaker 1: The gutting of USAID, the gutting of these things put
33:31
Speaker 1: us in this terrible situation. And I don't know, you know,
33:38
Speaker 1: I think other countries will help us out because they
33:40
Speaker 1: have their own economic interest to protect, and in some
33:43
Speaker 1: ways Trump's counting on this, but ultimately we've got to
33:49
Speaker 1: go first, and we're going to have to do this.
33:51
Speaker 1: And I have a and you know, I I'm not
33:57
Speaker 1: saying he should. I'm just not sure what other choice
34:01
Speaker 1: he's going to have because he's so alienated the rest
34:05
Speaker 1: of the world with this and if the oh, and
34:08
Speaker 1: I don't know how we should feel if the outcome
34:10
Speaker 1: is the US and China doing this in a joint
34:12
Speaker 1: operation Together, which is weirdly kind of looks like what
34:19
Speaker 1: he's sort of kind of trying to propose. So this,
34:27
Speaker 1: you know, everything else is small potatoes at the moment
34:31
Speaker 1: in our political world. This is going, this is this
34:35
Speaker 1: is going to this is defining the political weather for
34:38
Speaker 1: the campaigns. This is everything at the moment. And there's
34:45
Speaker 1: no doubt in my mind he's trying to find a
34:47
Speaker 1: way out of this. And the fact in the matter
34:49
Speaker 1: is he may have boxed himself in and now he's
34:55
Speaker 1: got more political problems with this resignation, which only opens
35:00
Speaker 1: up more wounds on his populist right. It's not great
35:05
Speaker 1: for Jews in America because you're going to continue to
35:09
Speaker 1: have this sort of this caricature painted of support for Israel.
35:15
Speaker 1: That's you know, you can be pro America and critical
35:19
Speaker 1: of Trump. You can be pro Israel and critical oft Yahoo.
35:22
Speaker 1: And I just encourage everybody to realize this and please
35:26
Speaker 1: keep that in mind. Before we get to the interview
35:30
Speaker 1: with Amy Littlefield and killers of Roe, the murder mystery,
35:34
Speaker 1: who were the suspects? And that's what we go through.
35:36
Speaker 1: We go through the leading suspects of who gets the
35:39
Speaker 1: blame for defeating Roe? How much of it is on
35:41
Speaker 1: the side of the abortion rights movement and how much
35:44
Speaker 1: of it is on the anti abortion right side of it.
35:46
Speaker 1: Needless to say, there's a lot of fingerprints on the
35:50
Speaker 1: Dobs on how we got that Dobs decision. Before we go,
35:54
Speaker 1: there's a few things that I think are the first
35:59
Speaker 1: signs that were starting to see. I think that we're
36:05
Speaker 1: starting to see some impact, at least right now, short
36:08
Speaker 1: term softening of support for Republicans in general. There's a
36:11
Speaker 1: couple of new polls coming out of South Carolina that
36:14
Speaker 1: showed Lindsay Graham's personal approver ratings not doing very well.
36:18
Speaker 1: This Annie Andrews, who you've heard on this podcast, much
36:22
Speaker 1: more competitive in these head to heads than anybody's expecting. Now, look,
36:26
Speaker 1: we've been here before with Amy Harrison's campaign back during COVID,
36:30
Speaker 1: and I think in hindsight it turned out that was
36:32
Speaker 1: probably bad polling. But in this I might be more
36:38
Speaker 1: skeptical of if I didn't see some numbers out of
36:41
Speaker 1: Ohio where we see in that Govenor's race be the Kramaswami.
36:46
Speaker 1: Now I've seen multiple poles in a row that show
36:48
Speaker 1: him trailing doctor Amy Actin and remember who she is.
36:52
Speaker 1: She was essentially the governor Mike Dewines chief medical advisor
36:57
Speaker 1: during COVID, became sort of a famous face in in Ohio.
37:00
Speaker 1: And certainly, you know, I I've I've spent some time
37:04
Speaker 1: with her. I'm i'm i've I've found her to be
37:07
Speaker 1: as good of any public health official we dealt with
37:10
Speaker 1: and during the COVID pandemic, and just straightforward honest, I
37:14
Speaker 1: was shocked she got into politics. She didn't strike me
37:16
Speaker 1: as a political person, but I think the experience dealing
37:19
Speaker 1: with COVID sort of got her frustrated and made her
37:22
Speaker 1: decide to jump into politics. But we've now seen a
37:26
Speaker 1: couple of polls in a row that you Ramaswami trailing her,
37:30
Speaker 1: and again, you know, it's it's it's anecdotal. It's also
37:36
Speaker 1: you know, it's a data point, and you know sometimes
37:39
Speaker 1: data points are scattery, scattershot. So we'll continue to wait
37:42
Speaker 1: for more. But I'm certainly yet to see any evidence
37:46
Speaker 1: that this is helping unite Republicans. If anything, it's dividing
37:51
Speaker 1: the country in ways that is not good I think
37:54
Speaker 1: for any incumbent Republican on the ballot. There So just
37:59
Speaker 1: a few things there, and then finally it's worth noting
38:04
Speaker 1: what's happening in the main Senate race and the decision
38:06
Speaker 1: by Janet Mills, the governor there, to go to go
38:08
Speaker 1: hard negative on her primary opponent, Graham Platner and talk
38:11
Speaker 1: about the controversial tech Nazi inspired or themed tattoos and
38:17
Speaker 1: some of his shall we say, uncouth tweets and things
38:23
Speaker 1: like that. This is what primaries are for. And all
38:28
Speaker 1: I would say is is if you are in the
38:31
Speaker 1: national party, you know, sometimes I kind of think nasty
38:35
Speaker 1: primaries only strengthened the potential primary winner and it actually
38:39
Speaker 1: takes the wind out of the sales of the party.
38:41
Speaker 1: On the other side, Like I mean, Donald Trump became
38:46
Speaker 1: a little bit more immune by the general election in
38:48
Speaker 1: sixteen to some of Clinton's attacks, because everybody in the
38:51
Speaker 1: Republican primary tried the same attacks, whether it was Jeb Bush,
38:55
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio, Chris Christy, John Kaysik, you name it, right,
38:57
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz, and they didn't work with in the primary,
39:00
Speaker 1: and they kind of weirdly immunize it. It almost like
39:03
Speaker 1: for voters immunize them. And I would say this, so,
39:06
Speaker 1: whether you're on the Grand Platiner side of things, the
39:09
Speaker 1: Susan Collins side of things or the Janet Mills. The
39:13
Speaker 1: person most disappointed by this should be actually Susan Collins,
39:16
Speaker 1: because you don't want your opponents inoculating themselves on their
39:21
Speaker 1: negatives during the primary. You want, you're hoping that they
39:24
Speaker 1: don't get litigated during a primary, so it looks like
39:26
Speaker 1: new information in a general election. So you know, for
39:31
Speaker 1: those on the Platiner side who are mad at the
39:32
Speaker 1: Mills folks, you should be glad, Hey, get it out
39:35
Speaker 1: of the way. Litigate this now, find out if you've
39:37
Speaker 1: got immunities to this. If you're on the Mills side
39:40
Speaker 1: of things, look, the only way you were going to
39:42
Speaker 1: win is you had to make the case that he's unelectable.
39:44
Speaker 1: That's what primaries are for. And if you're Collins, you're
39:47
Speaker 1: probably a little disappointed that Mills has chosen to do this.
39:50
Speaker 1: But in some ways you get to find out just
39:54
Speaker 1: how just what could work or what doesn't work et Ce.
40:00
Speaker 1: But I also think it shows you you know, so
40:02
Speaker 1: this you know, I happen to think it's healthy. This
40:05
Speaker 1: is why clearing primary fields can sometimes give you false
40:08
Speaker 1: sense of security, because you don't end up vetting your
40:11
Speaker 1: primary candidate, right, your potential nominee, that it's better to
40:16
Speaker 1: have it vetted. You know, for instance, I don't we
40:20
Speaker 1: didn't you know, the taller eco negatives that I think
40:24
Speaker 1: Republicans are going to drop on his head weren't really
40:27
Speaker 1: used in the Democratic primary. So this is going to
40:28
Speaker 1: come across this new information of people and could be
40:31
Speaker 1: more effective in the case. And that I think that's
40:34
Speaker 1: one way to I think at least look at what
40:36
Speaker 1: the main decision is. But it's you know, this is
40:41
Speaker 1: there's going to be a lot of handwringing over this
40:43
Speaker 1: decision by Mills, but at the end of the day,
40:45
Speaker 1: it's it's probably the rip the band aid off moment
40:49
Speaker 1: that if you're over there among Senate Democrats, you may
40:53
Speaker 1: not like any of this, but better to have it
40:56
Speaker 1: litigated with primary voters. Then somehow have a non aggression.
41:00
Speaker 1: You don't do it. It becomes a whisper campaign, but
41:02
Speaker 1: you don't quite test it through, and then you have
41:05
Speaker 1: an unvetted nominee right where the voters didn't get a
41:09
Speaker 1: chance to make that decision on their own. All right,
41:14
Speaker 1: let me take a break. When we come back. My
41:15
Speaker 1: conversation on the investigation into who should be blamed for
41:21
Speaker 1: killing Roe. Let's thinking a break. We'll see on the
41:26
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Speaker 1: insurance is something you should really think about, especially if
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Speaker 1: you've got a growing family. Well, joining me now is
43:15
Speaker 1: the author of a book. It's called Killers of Roe,
43:18
Speaker 1: my investigation into the mysterious death of abortion rights. Book
43:22
Speaker 1: just came out. Well, the investigator in this case is
43:25
Speaker 1: Amy Littlefield. And that's what makes this book, I think
43:30
Speaker 1: a This isn't just a policy analysis of legal strategy.
43:37
Speaker 1: This is in some ways a history of the of
43:42
Speaker 1: the anti abortion rights movement in many ways and the
43:45
Speaker 1: fifty year campaign that was waged and arguably a six
43:49
Speaker 1: obviously considering the Dobbs decision an effective campaign and in
43:54
Speaker 1: many ways. Is the book is designed almost as a
43:57
Speaker 1: murder mystery. You're trying to figure out who you know,
44:00
Speaker 1: who got rid of these rights, how did it happen,
44:02
Speaker 1: did it happen immediately, or as this book essentially teaches you,
44:06
Speaker 1: it's kind of like bankruptcy. It happens very slowly and
44:11
Speaker 1: then suddenly it happens quickly. And Dobbs was the feeling
44:14
Speaker 1: of quickness. But the fact of the matter is this
44:18
Speaker 1: was literally a fifty year campaign that arguably began the
44:24
Speaker 1: hour after the original road decision. So to discuss this
44:27
Speaker 1: book fall out on abortion rights, and it's been well timed.
44:31
Speaker 1: You guys have had a bunch of questions of me,
44:33
Speaker 1: of wondering where is the abortion issue this year in
44:35
Speaker 1: the midterm elections. Well, here's a good way to have
44:38
Speaker 1: that conversation. Amy Littlefield, the investigator, joins me. Now, Amy,
44:42
Speaker 1: nice to have you on the podcast.
44:44
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Chuck, it's great to be here.
44:47
Speaker 1: So I guess that's it. Let's start with this. Why
44:52
Speaker 1: did you choose this framing and what made it so
44:57
Speaker 1: compelling to you? I mean, I'm going to let the
45:00
Speaker 1: out of the bag. I find it more. I found
45:01
Speaker 1: it to be a compelling framing because it was a
45:03
Speaker 1: nice way to understand things. But you could have gone
45:07
Speaker 1: in a number of directions. Why this one?
45:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean so the murder mystery framing came about
45:14
Speaker 3: because I had covered abortion rights for many years at
45:17
Speaker 3: The Nation and New York Times Opinion and elsewhere, and
45:22
Speaker 3: I was focused really on the grassroots of the abortion
45:24
Speaker 3: rights movement and their strategy trying to defend abortion rights.
45:29
Speaker 3: But I had also written a lot about near death
45:31
Speaker 3: experiences that had been faced by women who had been
45:33
Speaker 3: denied adequate care for miscarriages, principally in Catholic hospitals that
45:40
Speaker 3: basically run under abortion vans, like the ones we're seeing
45:42
Speaker 3: in states like Texas today. Right, You're not supposed to
45:45
Speaker 3: do an abortion in a Catholic hospital, and.
45:49
Speaker 1: Well tried just asking for tried, just asking for recommendations
45:53
Speaker 1: about getting an IUD in a Catholic hospital, exactly and exactly.
45:56
Speaker 1: There can be no written record of this. We'll whisper
45:59
Speaker 1: it to you. We'll talk this person. I mean, I'm
46:02
Speaker 1: not saying I know this from experience, but I'm going
46:04
Speaker 1: to tell you I know this from experience.
46:05
Speaker 3: Yes, a lot of people do because one in six
46:09
Speaker 3: acute care beds is in a Catholic hospital.
46:11
Speaker 2: Right.
46:11
Speaker 1: This is care, right. I mean, it's just like some
46:14
Speaker 1: of the best hospital care in the country is Catholic hospitals.
46:17
Speaker 1: But they do operate with with essentially on one issue,
46:22
Speaker 1: very much through a religious lens, not a scientific lens. Right.
46:25
Speaker 3: And the problem is, these are hospitals that look and
46:27
Speaker 3: operate like any other except that there's rules written by
46:30
Speaker 3: Catholic bishops governing how they administer reproductive healthcare, everything from
46:34
Speaker 3: contraception to gender firm and care to of course abortion care.
46:38
Speaker 2: And so I had.
46:39
Speaker 3: Been interviewing women for years who had wound up in
46:42
Speaker 3: Catholic hospitals when they were losing pregnancies and had almost
46:45
Speaker 3: died as a result. Now these, of course are the
46:47
Speaker 3: stories that we're seeing coming out of Georgia and Texas.
46:50
Speaker 2: And so all of that is.
46:52
Speaker 3: To say that when I learned that Ruth Vader Ginsburg
46:56
Speaker 3: had died and that Roev Wade was almost certainly going
47:00
Speaker 3: to be overturned as a result, I was a new mom.
47:03
Speaker 3: I had a five month old baby. It was COVID times.
47:06
Speaker 3: We're in the middle of a pandemic and about the
47:09
Speaker 3: only thing I could read was Murder Mystery. Specifically, I
47:13
Speaker 3: get the Christie because I was basically, you know, I
47:16
Speaker 3: was anxious, I was angry. I was sad about what
47:19
Speaker 3: I knew was going to happen, and that was my escapism.
47:23
Speaker 2: I was just mainlining, I get the cost.
47:25
Speaker 1: Everybody should go through an Agatha Christie face. This is
47:27
Speaker 1: just a total ast side. I did it at one
47:29
Speaker 1: point in time too. You realize that, you know, look,
47:32
Speaker 1: she didn't quite invent it, but she popularized the genre,
47:34
Speaker 1: and you realize when you read her stuff, you're like, wow,
47:38
Speaker 1: so many people ripped her off. Sorry, it's it aside,
47:41
Speaker 1: but it's so so great that you mentioned that little
47:44
Speaker 1: assign because Agatha Christie's one of those you know it
47:47
Speaker 1: is it is prolift obviously not to go down a
47:50
Speaker 1: rabbit hole. Maybe she didn't write all.
47:52
Speaker 2: I'm ready to go down. I get the Christie rabbit
47:54
Speaker 2: hole with you any time.
47:56
Speaker 1: But it is everybody should go through, and I get
47:59
Speaker 1: the Christie face. But I digress, go ahead.
48:01
Speaker 2: And completely, and for me, I went through it twice.
48:04
Speaker 3: I went through it in adolescence that I was a
48:05
Speaker 3: teenager and first discovered her, and then I went through
48:08
Speaker 3: it again as a new mom, where you know, I
48:10
Speaker 3: just love disappearing into that world that she has created.
48:14
Speaker 2: And yes, indeed we live in the literary world that
48:17
Speaker 2: she has made.
48:18
Speaker 1: She has true crime and all crime. Right. Well, that's
48:22
Speaker 1: the other part of this is that, I mean, look,
48:25
Speaker 1: I think all of us in journalism, all of us
48:27
Speaker 1: in activism, are always looking for more compelling ways to
48:30
Speaker 1: reach more people. In framing this in some ways as
48:33
Speaker 1: a murder mystery, as a crime novel, if you will, right,
48:37
Speaker 1: except that happens to be back not fiction, is a
48:42
Speaker 1: way to perhaps widen the ambisher here a little bit.
48:47
Speaker 3: So, I mean it started out as a way for
48:48
Speaker 3: me and to entice myself to tell a really difficult story.
48:52
Speaker 3: I knew I was going to have to sit with
48:53
Speaker 3: some pretty difficult people. I was going to have to
48:55
Speaker 3: sit and spend hours with anti abortion activists. I was
48:58
Speaker 3: going to have to spend time telling this stories of
49:00
Speaker 3: women who had died as a result of anti abortion policies.
49:03
Speaker 3: You know, the sort of cliff notes version of this
49:06
Speaker 3: history is that it's fifty years of women dying preventable
49:09
Speaker 3: deaths because of policy. It's advanced by men who thought
49:12
Speaker 3: they were speaking to God himself directly, and so it's
49:15
Speaker 3: not easy to sit with that, especially today, right, I mean,
49:18
Speaker 3: people of conscience in this country are having a really
49:20
Speaker 3: tough time. We're watching, you know, bombs being dropped on
49:23
Speaker 3: civilian populations from Gaza to Iran. We're watching you know,
49:26
Speaker 3: constant social media imagery of parents holding their dead children. Okay,
49:31
Speaker 3: it's it's a pretty rough and immigrant neighbors being rounded up.
49:34
Speaker 3: I mean, this is a rough reality we're dealing with.
49:37
Speaker 3: And I knew I was going to have to tell
49:39
Speaker 3: part of the history of how we got to this point,
49:41
Speaker 3: of how the Republican Party, you know, wound up opportunistically
49:44
Speaker 3: using the issue of abortion to end up where they
49:49
Speaker 3: are today, and so I wanted to sort of entice
49:53
Speaker 3: myself into that story.
49:55
Speaker 2: And as I got into.
49:56
Speaker 3: It, I realized, you know, not only is this providing
49:59
Speaker 3: a little bit of for it and escapism and I
50:01
Speaker 3: hope a little bit of humor and levity too to
50:03
Speaker 3: this very serious story, But it turned out to be
50:06
Speaker 3: the right frame to tell the story I was trying
50:09
Speaker 3: to tell because I really was interested in the behind
50:11
Speaker 3: the scenes figures, in the suspects that you don't notice
50:14
Speaker 3: until you get all the way to the end, and
50:16
Speaker 3: then the detective says, you know.
50:17
Speaker 2: She did it.
50:18
Speaker 3: It was the housekeeper who was, you know, always in
50:20
Speaker 3: the background. And I was looking for those people, you know,
50:25
Speaker 3: in the margins of history, right, the people, not the
50:28
Speaker 3: Supreme Court justices. We know that story, right. We know
50:30
Speaker 3: what the Supreme Court did. We know how Donald Trump
50:33
Speaker 3: put the justices there. We know how Leonard Leo picked
50:35
Speaker 3: the justices. We have that story. And I wanted to
50:40
Speaker 3: tell the story of the social movement and of the
50:42
Speaker 3: grassroots activists and the more hidden figures, and discovering them
50:48
Speaker 3: was just as exciting as real life as it is
50:50
Speaker 3: in a novel.
50:51
Speaker 1: No, And that's to me what was really important. I
50:53
Speaker 1: don't think people understood because it was you know, one
50:55
Speaker 1: of the harder things to square over the last thirty
50:58
Speaker 1: years in my professional life covering campaigns was you would
51:02
Speaker 1: have fairly moderate Republicans still stick to some pretty strident
51:10
Speaker 1: views on abortion, and it would always be a bit
51:12
Speaker 1: of a head scratcher at first, and then over time
51:15
Speaker 1: you've just come to learn, you know, if you wanted
51:18
Speaker 1: volunteers to show up at your campaign to stuff envelopes
51:21
Speaker 1: and you didn't have the essentially the old Phyllis Schlafley crowd.
51:28
Speaker 1: You know, they showed up, they licked envelopes, they went
51:30
Speaker 1: door knocking, I mean, and you didn't get campaign volunteers.
51:37
Speaker 1: State parties wouldn't be able to get volunteers had they
51:40
Speaker 1: ever quote moderated their position on abortion.
51:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean the hard reality I think to
51:47
Speaker 3: look at for people who support abortion rights is that
51:50
Speaker 3: the anti abortion movement, one of the ways they won
51:53
Speaker 3: was by erecting an incredibly impressive grassroots infrastructure. And of
51:58
Speaker 3: course they hit the ground running on that because the
52:00
Speaker 3: original infrastructure for organizing in the anti abortion movement was
52:04
Speaker 3: the Catholic Church itself, right, And I tell the story
52:07
Speaker 3: of the passage of the High Amendment, the ban on
52:09
Speaker 3: federal funding of abortion, and how that came about. Basically,
52:12
Speaker 3: what tipped the scales on that was the Catholic Church
52:15
Speaker 3: getting involved in rallying pastors in the districts of critical
52:19
Speaker 3: members of Congress. And what could be a better you know,
52:22
Speaker 3: organizing infrastructure than the Catholic Church, I mean members.
52:26
Speaker 1: More importantly back then and people don't realize this, you still,
52:31
Speaker 1: when did the Catholic Church stop allowing priests to serve
52:35
Speaker 1: in elective office. I don't know that number, but it
52:38
Speaker 1: was right, It was right around then. But the point
52:41
Speaker 1: was is that it was more common in the fifties
52:45
Speaker 1: and sixties and seventies for a Catholic priest to be political,
52:50
Speaker 1: and it was sort of accepted. And then, you know,
52:53
Speaker 1: it's only in the recent last fifty years arguably that
52:58
Speaker 1: this idea of clergy in general, let alone Catholic priests
53:02
Speaker 1: getting running themselves for office. But you had. You know,
53:06
Speaker 1: one of my favorite stories campaign stories to tell is
53:09
Speaker 1: that there was a sitting Catholic priest who ran against
53:13
Speaker 1: Claiborne pell for the US Senate in Rhode Island in
53:16
Speaker 1: the early sixties. That priest would leave the priesthood and
53:20
Speaker 1: start a political television show called the McLoughlin Group, which
53:25
Speaker 1: you may have heard of back in the day, the
53:26
Speaker 1: originator of political punditry on television. But the point was
53:29
Speaker 1: is that the Catholic Church and they had tentacles in
53:32
Speaker 1: both parties. You had. It was this was a case
53:35
Speaker 1: where this was not yet a divisive correct me if
53:38
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, But in the seventies, this was not a
53:40
Speaker 1: red versus Blue issue. This was within both.
53:43
Speaker 2: Parties, right, right, absolutely?
53:46
Speaker 3: I mean Mary Ziegeler talks about how from nineteen seventy
53:48
Speaker 3: three to nineteen eighty four, the majority of anti abortion
53:53
Speaker 3: policies that were introduced in Congress were brought forward by Democrats.
53:56
Speaker 3: Right in the early days, you had Catholic Democrats, you.
54:00
Speaker 2: Know, who were anti abortion.
54:04
Speaker 3: You had pro choice Republicans, some of whom I talked
54:07
Speaker 3: to in my book, like Senator Bob Packwood, who's in
54:09
Speaker 3: his nineties now, you know, complicated guy, but he was
54:13
Speaker 3: a pro choice champion through and through so, and he
54:15
Speaker 3: was a Republican.
54:16
Speaker 1: Oh, there's a certain member of the Bush family that
54:18
Speaker 1: started out as a pro choice Republican politician and then
54:21
Speaker 1: literally flipped to get on a certain Republican ticket in
54:24
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty Arguably.
54:25
Speaker 3: That's right, the man they used to call Rubbers who
54:27
Speaker 3: was so fond of family planning that he earned that Moniker.
54:32
Speaker 3: And yeah, so, so this was not guaranteed to be
54:36
Speaker 3: a partisan issue when it started out by any means.
54:39
Speaker 1: So when would you say that switch flipped? You know,
54:42
Speaker 1: so you talk about the high demend in seventy six,
54:45
Speaker 1: this is massive majorities right at that point, in time
54:48
Speaker 1: for Democrats. So this was This is why you know,
54:52
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who I think think politics
54:55
Speaker 1: began in two thousand and eight, and you know sometimes
54:57
Speaker 1: that they forget that.
54:59
Speaker 3: You know, you might have some listeners who were born
55:03
Speaker 3: that night.
55:04
Speaker 1: I say this with love it. This is why they
55:06
Speaker 1: are Sometimes our history sections are the most popular things
55:09
Speaker 1: we do because because you know, you have to understand
55:12
Speaker 1: these things. So seventy six, this is after the This
55:15
Speaker 1: is basically the first Congress after the Watergate Congress, the
55:18
Speaker 1: Watergate elections, which is just a massive Democratic majorities, right,
55:23
Speaker 1: and this was not and so the High Amendment I
55:25
Speaker 1: assume passed with more Democrats and Republics. Right.
55:28
Speaker 3: This was a Democratic Congress that passed this policy, and
55:32
Speaker 3: it took Democrats. You know, Democrats supported it for years.
55:35
Speaker 3: Joe Biden supported it for many years until you know,
55:38
Speaker 3: a renegade faction of the abortion rights movement made it
55:41
Speaker 3: untenable for him to do.
55:42
Speaker 2: So, you know, he.
55:43
Speaker 1: Supported it through both terms as vice president. He stuck
55:47
Speaker 1: by this. It wasn't until he wanted to be president himself.
55:50
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly.
55:52
Speaker 3: And so you know the part of the history I
55:55
Speaker 3: tell in the book is the history of sort of
55:56
Speaker 3: democratic complicity in the slow and steady erosion of abortion rights,
56:00
Speaker 3: and the High Amendment is really you know where it starts.
56:03
Speaker 3: That's the policy that restricts medicaid funding of abortion. To
56:07
Speaker 3: this day, most states, unless they cover abortion with their
56:10
Speaker 3: own state funds, medicaid patients cannot get their abortions covered.
56:14
Speaker 3: They have to raise hundreds or even thousands of dollars
56:16
Speaker 3: out of pocket, which has put enormous pressure on the
56:18
Speaker 3: abortion rights movement as well to come up with the
56:20
Speaker 3: millions of dollars that it takes to try to fill
56:22
Speaker 3: that gap.
56:23
Speaker 2: It's never been enough. And so you know that policy.
56:26
Speaker 3: I tell the story of some of the behind the scenes,
56:28
Speaker 3: you know, Catholic Republicans that were involved in that history.
56:32
Speaker 3: And of course the Catholic Church played an important role,
56:34
Speaker 3: but so did Democrats, you know, Democrats like Republican I'm sorry,
56:39
Speaker 3: Representative Dan Flood, it was from Pennsylvania who oversaw the
56:44
Speaker 3: sub committee in charge of the Appropriations bill that the
56:47
Speaker 3: High Amendment was sort of being tacked onto, and he
56:49
Speaker 3: was very against the High Amendment. Saw it as an
56:51
Speaker 3: attack on poor people. He railed against it, and he
56:54
Speaker 3: was this Shakespearean theater actor, very dramatic. So this is
56:58
Speaker 3: a you know, attack on poor people's plays, the nose
57:00
Speaker 3: on your face. Well, then what happened. The Catholic Church
57:03
Speaker 3: got involved, sent him thousands of letters. You know, he
57:05
Speaker 3: came from a heavily Catholic district, and he flipped. And
57:08
Speaker 3: that's part of the story of how the High Amendment
57:10
Speaker 3: got through a Democratic majority Congress. I mean another thing,
57:14
Speaker 3: and you know, you know this history even better than
57:18
Speaker 3: I do. But in nineteen seventy six, right, this is
57:20
Speaker 3: the even nineteen seventy six election, Evangelicals are becoming a
57:23
Speaker 3: big political force for the first time. And I think
57:27
Speaker 3: there were plenty of Democrats in Congress who maybe thought
57:29
Speaker 3: Roe v.
57:30
Speaker 2: Wade was a good thing.
57:31
Speaker 3: Most Americans did at that point. And yet they thought
57:35
Speaker 3: public funding of abortion poor people, women of color. Maybe
57:39
Speaker 3: we we can, you know, we better not take a
57:42
Speaker 3: stand on that one this close to an election where
57:44
Speaker 3: there's this new you know, political.
57:46
Speaker 2: Force, and so anti abortion.
57:49
Speaker 3: You know, politics have always been a minority point of view,
57:52
Speaker 3: and this is one of many stops along the way
57:54
Speaker 3: where we can see how that minority point of view
57:57
Speaker 3: asserted itself on a population that disagreed with it.
58:00
Speaker 1: Look, you brought up the sort of the evangelical movement
58:02
Speaker 1: which began, you know, sort of politically first flexed its
58:06
Speaker 1: muzzle with the election of the first ever evangelical Christian
58:09
Speaker 1: to be president, Jimmy Carter, And immediately within four years
58:16
Speaker 1: there's the evangelical leaders, people like Jerry Folwell standing next
58:20
Speaker 1: to Ronald Reagan, who at one point was a supporter
58:24
Speaker 1: of abortion rights as governor of California. How did that moment.
58:28
Speaker 3: Come up in Yeah, and I think the Reagan eras
58:30
Speaker 3: where we really start to see the partisan lines. They're
58:33
Speaker 3: still not totally fixed, you know. I think that's an
58:35
Speaker 3: even more recent development, but I think that's where we
58:39
Speaker 3: start to see the partisan lines start to solidify a
58:42
Speaker 3: bit more. When you have Reagan campaigning on a strong
58:46
Speaker 3: anti abortion position, even though he himself, of course had
58:49
Speaker 3: signed an abortion liberalization law when he was governor of California,
58:52
Speaker 3: later said he regredit it. You know, he gets dubbed
58:56
Speaker 3: in the first pro life president. Of course, he makes
59:00
Speaker 3: at a major issue, and you see right to life
59:02
Speaker 3: groups really supporting him. I mean, one of the interesting
59:06
Speaker 3: pieces of raw material I was able to examine for
59:08
Speaker 3: this book where some communicates between right to life groups
59:13
Speaker 3: and the Reagan campaign in nineteen eighty four, where basically,
59:16
Speaker 3: the right to life groups were saying, listen, we do
59:18
Speaker 3: not have a majority point of view. Right most people
59:21
Speaker 3: disagree with what we want to do, and yet we
59:24
Speaker 3: do have a majority of people who will base their
59:27
Speaker 3: or we do have a strong contingent of people who
59:29
Speaker 3: will base their votes on a single issue of abortion.
59:32
Speaker 3: And so they were basically saying to the Reagan campaign, Hey,
59:35
Speaker 3: we have this huge, super impressive grassroots infrastructure. Use it,
59:39
Speaker 3: Use our volunteers, Use the you know housewives out there
59:42
Speaker 3: who you know, to whom you know, the issue of
59:46
Speaker 3: abortion is an existential threat. Use the you know folks
59:49
Speaker 3: out there or going to Catholic church on the weekends
59:51
Speaker 3: and want to you know, stamp envelopes for the Reagan
59:53
Speaker 3: campaign during the week I mean, this is this is
59:57
Speaker 3: sort of how they built this alliance between their publican
1:00:00
Speaker 3: party and anti abortion diehards.
1:00:12
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting, you could do a very similar
1:00:15
Speaker 1: There was a similar sort of evolution to the gun
1:00:18
Speaker 1: issue that started as a you know, there wasn't a
1:00:23
Speaker 1: arguably there was a pro gun majority in both parties
1:00:25
Speaker 1: first a period of time. But guns and abortion are
1:00:29
Speaker 1: both single issue type of voters, right, the voters that
1:00:34
Speaker 1: say it's their number one issue. It's the there is
1:00:36
Speaker 1: no number two issues. And it's an interesting phenomenon. It's
1:00:40
Speaker 1: sort of like when people try to ask yourself, you
1:00:42
Speaker 1: try to you know, I hear I get this question
1:00:43
Speaker 1: all the time. What is something that has seventy percent support?
1:00:47
Speaker 1: I guess abortion rights. It's sitting somewhere between fifty five
1:00:50
Speaker 1: and sixty five, depending on the stage go into. But
1:00:52
Speaker 1: it's you know, there might be two states in the
1:00:54
Speaker 1: Union where's upside down maybe, but we're talking like Idaho
1:00:58
Speaker 1: and Wildman if and I'm and we're talking narrow. But
1:01:05
Speaker 1: it is this issue of being a single issue voter
1:01:07
Speaker 1: and how if you are, if you really want, if
1:01:10
Speaker 1: you have a minority position and you want outside political power,
1:01:14
Speaker 1: get as many single issue allies as you can on this.
1:01:17
Speaker 1: And when you think about the power of the Republican
1:01:20
Speaker 1: Party was able to extract out of just guns and
1:01:25
Speaker 1: abortion basically in the nineties. By that's really I know,
1:01:28
Speaker 1: I'm fast forwarding here, being single issue I don't it
1:01:31
Speaker 1: is it is. It is fascinating whenever we pull these
1:01:35
Speaker 1: questions we used to pull wed ask is there an
1:01:37
Speaker 1: issue that's so important to you that you would vote
1:01:40
Speaker 1: against all your other interests just for this issue? And
1:01:43
Speaker 1: you look and it's always been abortion, one, guns too.
1:01:47
Speaker 1: You know where those things come down.
1:01:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely absolutely, And we've seen what happen when what
1:01:53
Speaker 3: happens when people vote on the single issue of abortion, specifically, right,
1:01:57
Speaker 3: with all of these ballid initiatives that have come about
1:02:00
Speaker 3: up from you know, Missouri to Vermont, you know, across
1:02:04
Speaker 3: the political spectrum, in the wake of the Dobbs decision,
1:02:06
Speaker 3: a record number of states are putting the issue of
1:02:08
Speaker 3: abortion directly on the ballot, and more often than not,
1:02:11
Speaker 3: abortion rights wins in almost any state you go to,
1:02:15
Speaker 3: right because people, when people have the chance to vote
1:02:18
Speaker 3: directly on this issue, they vote in favor of it.
1:02:21
Speaker 3: I think when you're talking about political parties and you
1:02:25
Speaker 3: know whether people are going to vote for a candidate
1:02:27
Speaker 3: based on it, of course it gets more complicated. But
1:02:29
Speaker 3: the anti abortion movement is always known that that's one
1:02:31
Speaker 3: of its straints, that one of the ways that they
1:02:33
Speaker 3: win with an unpopular point of view is that there
1:02:36
Speaker 3: are people who are willing to compromise the rest of
1:02:38
Speaker 3: their you know, values in order to vote for a
1:02:41
Speaker 3: politician who stands against abortion.
1:02:44
Speaker 1: In fact, there's not a lot there were. There weren't
1:02:47
Speaker 1: that many attempts by the anti abortion rights movement to
1:02:50
Speaker 1: go to referendums where they're compared comparatively.
1:02:55
Speaker 2: By the abortion rights movement.
1:02:56
Speaker 1: You're saying, the anti abortion rights movement, Well, I'm trying
1:02:59
Speaker 1: to think that a person I remember a personhood amendment, yeah, empt, Yeah,
1:03:04
Speaker 1: I mean I think that that don't I believe that failed.
1:03:06
Speaker 3: I think its lot in South Dakota or yeah, I
1:03:09
Speaker 3: mean when this personhood fails, when it because people realize,
1:03:11
Speaker 3: oh my god, wait a minute, if you're talking about
1:03:13
Speaker 3: life beginning at conception, right, you're going to come for
1:03:16
Speaker 3: my IVF Are you going to try to come for
1:03:19
Speaker 3: my iud.
1:03:20
Speaker 1: So so when you go. So it is interesting that
1:03:24
Speaker 1: that if they thought, I mean, that's sort of in
1:03:26
Speaker 1: some ways, the lack of action is proof that they
1:03:29
Speaker 1: knew they didn't have majority support.
1:03:31
Speaker 3: Oh, I think they've always known they don't have majority support.
1:03:34
Speaker 3: I think they've always known that, you know, they have
1:03:37
Speaker 3: to find that's why, you know, defenders of abortion rights
1:03:40
Speaker 3: will say democracy and abortion rights go hand in hand.
1:03:43
Speaker 3: The more voting rights you have, the better abortion does
1:03:45
Speaker 3: the more you know. And that's why if you look
1:03:47
Speaker 3: at authoritarian societies, you know, around the world, not just
1:03:51
Speaker 3: here at home, you're going to see that, you know,
1:03:52
Speaker 3: reproductive rights are off in the first ones constrained. I mean,
1:03:55
Speaker 3: these issues can't be separated. When you have one, youre
1:03:59
Speaker 3: women who will have an abortion in her lifetime. You know, yeah,
1:04:03
Speaker 3: that's going to be a pretty popular issue.
1:04:05
Speaker 1: There's another way to look at your book about you know,
1:04:08
Speaker 1: you're chronicling a brilliant campaign strategy that the anti abortion
1:04:13
Speaker 1: rights movement ran versus a the abortion rights activists who
1:04:23
Speaker 1: couldn't believe they were probably spent so much time, couldn't
1:04:26
Speaker 1: believe they were losing. You know. It's sort of like
1:04:28
Speaker 1: there's an there's an old SNL skit, you know, where
1:04:30
Speaker 1: the guy playing John Lovett plays Michael deccause, I can't
1:04:32
Speaker 1: believe I'm losing to this guy, and you're just And
1:04:36
Speaker 1: I've always sensed, I mean, there's sort of two things
1:04:39
Speaker 1: now in hindsight that I want to that I've always
1:04:42
Speaker 1: been curious about what the abortion rights movement. One is,
1:04:48
Speaker 1: was it a was it a failed defense strategy from
1:04:51
Speaker 1: the beginning? Was choice the worst word they could have picked?
1:04:55
Speaker 1: And how did they you know? And what why didn't
1:04:59
Speaker 1: they make freedom and right the centerpiece rather or even
1:05:06
Speaker 1: healthcare the centerpiece. I feel like in the last four
1:05:10
Speaker 1: years those advocating abortion rights have gotten smarter about this,
1:05:14
Speaker 1: but in the previous forty six not so much.
1:05:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think the problem with choice is that.
1:05:22
Speaker 3: Even with rob Way being a lot of the land,
1:05:24
Speaker 3: it was always a false promise, right, It's not do
1:05:27
Speaker 3: people have a meaningful choice when one of the top
1:05:30
Speaker 3: issues that people get an abortion is financial right, and
1:05:33
Speaker 3: I've worked in clinics, so I can tell you most
1:05:34
Speaker 3: people are saying I can't afford this baby right now.
1:05:37
Speaker 1: And so is that It's rare to meet somebody who
1:05:39
Speaker 1: got an abortion who's like, I'm so glad I got
1:05:41
Speaker 1: an abortion.
1:05:42
Speaker 2: They're out there, you know, they're out there. That's not
1:05:45
Speaker 2: you know, there are.
1:05:46
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people, a lot of people are
1:05:49
Speaker 1: getting it's it is. There are other reasons they feel
1:05:53
Speaker 1: they need to do it, and so they don't like
1:05:55
Speaker 1: being told it's a choice exactly.
1:05:58
Speaker 2: It was always a false promise.
1:05:59
Speaker 3: I mean, and you know, when you have the right
1:06:01
Speaker 3: to abortion coming about at the same time that you
1:06:03
Speaker 3: start to see, you know, the eviseration of the social
1:06:06
Speaker 3: safety net in this country, the backlash against the War
1:06:10
Speaker 3: on poverty, the backlash against the civil rights movement, the
1:06:13
Speaker 3: backlash against feminism, the fact that we don't have many
1:06:16
Speaker 3: of the like basic policies like you know, childcare and
1:06:20
Speaker 3: paid family leave that it would take to raise a family.
1:06:23
Speaker 2: Then choice is not really it doesn't really operate the
1:06:28
Speaker 2: way that it promises to do.
1:06:29
Speaker 3: And I think the other issue with it is that
1:06:31
Speaker 3: the choice framework could be weaponized in order to promote
1:06:35
Speaker 3: anti abortion policies. It could be weaponized to say, we
1:06:38
Speaker 3: shouldn't have tax payer funding of abortion, we shouldn't we
1:06:41
Speaker 3: should have parental consent laws. Right, these are two of
1:06:44
Speaker 3: the kind of most popular anti abortion policies that even
1:06:47
Speaker 3: Democrats often supported. Why because you know, if the government's
1:06:51
Speaker 3: supposed to stay out of abortion and it's supposed to
1:06:54
Speaker 3: be a personal choice, you know, then why would they
1:06:57
Speaker 3: fund it?
1:06:58
Speaker 2: Then?
1:06:58
Speaker 3: You know, why wouldn't we want parents involved in this
1:07:01
Speaker 3: choice that belongs to the family. And so I think
1:07:03
Speaker 3: there was a way that it could be used to justify,
1:07:07
Speaker 3: you know, conservative policies, and it's a less encompassing framework
1:07:13
Speaker 3: than freedom. It's less encompassing than reproductive justice, which was
1:07:16
Speaker 3: the framework developed by black women to say we shouldn't
1:07:19
Speaker 3: just have the right to abortion, we should have the
1:07:21
Speaker 3: right to parent and to raise those children in safe communities.
1:07:24
Speaker 3: And especially after the Reagan era, that is not what
1:07:26
Speaker 3: the United States has been able to provide for families.
1:07:29
Speaker 1: You spend a little bit of time on the first
1:07:31
Speaker 1: deaths sort of after the High Amendment, and you were
1:07:35
Speaker 1: talking about how it's a woman who name's Rosie Himanniz.
1:07:39
Speaker 1: Didn't I think there was some thought she'd become a Look,
1:07:44
Speaker 1: this is what happens when you make this more difficult,
1:07:47
Speaker 1: when you add more hurdles on something that the Supreme
1:07:51
Speaker 1: Court said was a right. Okay, and suddenly in order,
1:07:57
Speaker 1: you know, our rights were never supposed to come with
1:07:59
Speaker 1: a fee, right. I think we you know, we decided
1:08:03
Speaker 1: we weren't going to allow poll taxes. Right. I'm not
1:08:06
Speaker 1: trying to, but you know, essentially the idea was your
1:08:08
Speaker 1: right turn't supposed to cost you money. And in this case,
1:08:12
Speaker 1: here's a death because somebody couldn't afford an abortion because
1:08:15
Speaker 1: they were in medicaid. It didn't galvanize. And why didn't
1:08:20
Speaker 1: the galvanize?
1:08:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is the question I asked in the book,
1:08:23
Speaker 3: And I cover the first death of Rosi Jimenez, which
1:08:26
Speaker 3: was the horrible, you know, eight day long saga of
1:08:29
Speaker 3: her getting an infection and dying as a result of
1:08:32
Speaker 3: the infection while doctors were badgering her to talk about
1:08:36
Speaker 3: her abortion and she was pleading to be left alone
1:08:39
Speaker 3: to die in peace. I talk about that first death,
1:08:43
Speaker 3: which was horrible and completely preventable and resulted from this
1:08:46
Speaker 3: policy called the High Amendment, And then I look at
1:08:49
Speaker 3: the second death, which was how was the pro choice
1:08:52
Speaker 3: movement implicated? How are democrats implicated in the fact that
1:08:56
Speaker 3: this policy that killed this woman became accept it became popular,
1:09:01
Speaker 3: became seen as a middle ground on the abortion issue.
1:09:04
Speaker 1: As you're referring to. I think her name is Becky Bell, right,
1:09:09
Speaker 1: and she was under eighteen, so right, right, I could
1:09:12
Speaker 1: tell her parents.
1:09:13
Speaker 3: Becky Bell is a seventeen year old in Indiana. Because
1:09:15
Speaker 3: of a law passed in the nineteen eighties in that state,
1:09:18
Speaker 3: she had to tell her parents and get consent if
1:09:20
Speaker 3: she wanted an abortion. She told a friend, I love
1:09:23
Speaker 3: them too much. I can't tell my parents. I'll disappoint them.
1:09:26
Speaker 3: And so instead she got an unsafe abortion. Her parents
1:09:29
Speaker 3: take her to the hospital, she dies of pneumonia. They
1:09:32
Speaker 3: have no idea what's happened until they get a call
1:09:34
Speaker 3: from the coroner. It says, your daughter died because of
1:09:36
Speaker 3: an abortion. That's what caused the pneumonia that killed her.
1:09:39
Speaker 3: And what's remarkable about them is that they could have
1:09:44
Speaker 3: had the secret that their daughter had died to keep,
1:09:46
Speaker 3: and instead they decided to share it with the world
1:09:48
Speaker 3: and to say, listen, these policies are popular. We would
1:09:51
Speaker 3: have supported them. We like the idea, you know, lots
1:09:55
Speaker 3: of liberals like the idea my daughter should have to
1:09:57
Speaker 3: come to me if she needs an abortion. But they said,
1:09:59
Speaker 3: we she had had an abortion. We had never known,
1:10:01
Speaker 3: because then she would have been here today. And when
1:10:04
Speaker 3: Dobbs happened, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade,
1:10:07
Speaker 3: all but fourteen states in this country were enforcing some
1:10:10
Speaker 3: version of a parental involvement law. And so that's another
1:10:13
Speaker 3: example of how, you know, this incremental erosion of abortion
1:10:17
Speaker 3: rights that killed real people, you know, that killed women,
1:10:23
Speaker 3: How that happened and was supported by people across the
1:10:26
Speaker 3: political spectrum.
1:10:28
Speaker 1: So when you talk to folks on the abortion rights
1:10:30
Speaker 1: side of things as you were investigating this mystery, what
1:10:34
Speaker 1: ownership do they take in? I mean, because you know,
1:10:39
Speaker 1: one of the my conservative legal friends will say, well,
1:10:42
Speaker 1: the initial decision was a bad decision, and in fact,
1:10:45
Speaker 1: I don't understand why equal protection wasn't used as the argument,
1:10:49
Speaker 1: right that they went searching for this right to privacy?
1:10:52
Speaker 1: Now is it the legal argument that did it? Or
1:10:54
Speaker 1: was it the justices desperate to not do a five
1:10:57
Speaker 1: to four right They didn't want a five to four
1:10:59
Speaker 1: in run, so they came up with a convoluted way
1:11:03
Speaker 1: in order to believe it was a seven to two.
1:11:04
Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken, it was sixth three, which one
1:11:08
Speaker 1: the original row? Right? Yeah, yeah, it was it six
1:11:12
Speaker 1: three or seven two, But I knew they didn't. They
1:11:14
Speaker 1: were fearful of a five to four right, right, and
1:11:18
Speaker 1: they come up with this this this version. But you
1:11:23
Speaker 1: know that's my conservative legal friends will say, the reason
1:11:29
Speaker 1: Roe fell is it was poorly it was. It was
1:11:32
Speaker 1: poorly decided. Did you come across those on the abortion
1:11:36
Speaker 1: right sides that look at it now? And say, yeah,
1:11:39
Speaker 1: maybe that wasn't that that maybe that was the original sin.
1:11:43
Speaker 3: I mean, I think you could. I think people will
1:11:45
Speaker 3: definitely find flaws in the legal rationale of Roe v.
1:11:50
Speaker 2: Wade. But I think we both know that that's not
1:11:52
Speaker 2: why it fell. Right.
1:11:53
Speaker 3: They felt because abortion, and it fell because the anti
1:11:58
Speaker 3: abortion movement built very powerful connections and was able to
1:12:03
Speaker 3: orchestrate this, you know, political coup, despite having most of
1:12:07
Speaker 3: society against it. So I don't think it was like, oh,
1:12:12
Speaker 3: there were flaws with the legal rationale and therefore, I mean,
1:12:14
Speaker 3: there's plenty of flawed decisions out there that are still
1:12:17
Speaker 3: the law of the land.
1:12:20
Speaker 1: You know, another culprit. You don't talk about that much.
1:12:23
Speaker 1: You talk about it with High with the High Amendment.
1:12:26
Speaker 1: But you know, I've been I've been growing more fond
1:12:34
Speaker 1: of being of realizing that ninety percent of our political
1:12:38
Speaker 1: problems over the last sixty years in this country stem
1:12:42
Speaker 1: from inaction by Congress. And because of Congress's inability to
1:12:46
Speaker 1: deal with problems, many activists started going to the courts.
1:12:50
Speaker 1: You know, you could argue the courts never should have
1:12:52
Speaker 1: been involved with this. If we had, you know, any
1:12:54
Speaker 1: other system, you would have just had this past legislatively.
1:13:00
Speaker 1: What you know, how has that never really been pursued.
1:13:04
Speaker 3: Seriously, Yeah, it's a it's a good question. I mean,
1:13:09
Speaker 3: there have been attempts. And by the way, Chuck, you
1:13:12
Speaker 3: were right. The original Ruby Wade was seven to.
1:13:14
Speaker 2: Two two.
1:13:17
Speaker 3: And so I mean the question of Congress, and it's
1:13:19
Speaker 3: so true, like the abortion rights struggle has always been
1:13:22
Speaker 3: in the states, right, And I think one of the
1:13:23
Speaker 3: fatal flaws for the abortion rights movement is they did
1:13:26
Speaker 3: not have a huge amount of investment. No one on
1:13:29
Speaker 3: the progressive side of the equation really had a huge
1:13:32
Speaker 3: investment in state legislatures. Right. There was much more focus
1:13:35
Speaker 3: on Washington, d c. And there was very little happening
1:13:38
Speaker 3: in cong.
1:13:39
Speaker 1: The conservative movement has been exact opposite. They have, starting
1:13:42
Speaker 1: in the late seventies, been very focused on the states.
1:13:46
Speaker 1: You know, is something called go pack exactly in the
1:13:50
Speaker 1: old New Gingrid era, but anyway, go ahead.
1:13:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
1:13:53
Speaker 3: And that's where you know, I mean, we're talking about
1:13:55
Speaker 3: hundreds more than a thousand, you know, policies coming out
1:13:59
Speaker 3: of state legislators that chip away at people's access to abortion,
1:14:03
Speaker 3: and basically the abortion rights movement saying well, we'll have
1:14:06
Speaker 3: to fight those in court, right, I mean starting eventually,
1:14:09
Speaker 3: you know, the High Amendment. Eventually they they thought, if
1:14:11
Speaker 3: we can't stop this in Congress, we're going to have
1:14:13
Speaker 3: to fight it in court. And that strategy worked until
1:14:15
Speaker 3: it didn't. Didn't work with the High Amendment, didn't work
1:14:18
Speaker 3: with Roe v.
1:14:18
Speaker 2: Wade.
1:14:19
Speaker 3: You know, it took them fifty years, but that fell
1:14:21
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two. There were moments that I revisited
1:14:24
Speaker 3: where this issue came up in Congress and where you know,
1:14:27
Speaker 3: Democrats in Congress with a Democratic administration actually had an
1:14:32
Speaker 3: opportunity to codify Roe v. Wade until on I look
1:14:35
Speaker 3: at why didn't that happen when it could have? There
1:14:37
Speaker 3: was one moment in the nineteen nineties where there was
1:14:41
Speaker 3: a possibility it could happen, and where basically there were
1:14:44
Speaker 3: disagreements within the abortion rights movement over who do we
1:14:48
Speaker 3: include in codifying the right to abortion? Do we include
1:14:51
Speaker 3: young people? Do we include people who are on medicaid?
1:14:55
Speaker 3: Do we try to you know, protect everyone's rights or
1:14:59
Speaker 3: do we only protect you know, the bare minimum?
1:15:01
Speaker 1: And what you're describing is you know what you know,
1:15:05
Speaker 1: how they what fell through and they had they lost
1:15:08
Speaker 1: Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins when there was an attempt
1:15:11
Speaker 1: to do that in the Senate. And that's the question,
1:15:14
Speaker 1: are you codifying Row right or are you codifying the
1:15:18
Speaker 1: right right? Right?
1:15:21
Speaker 2: And and we saw this happen, you know, I mean,
1:15:23
Speaker 2: and the problem is, right.
1:15:25
Speaker 3: You don't have this sort of vociferous dedication to this
1:15:30
Speaker 3: issue on the Democratic side across the board that you
1:15:33
Speaker 3: do for Republicans who see what a brilliant opportunity it
1:15:36
Speaker 3: is for them to restrict abortion and rile up this,
1:15:41
Speaker 3: you know, contingent of their base that they need for that.
1:15:44
Speaker 3: And so there's disagreements within the abortion rights movement about
1:15:47
Speaker 3: how to contend with the weak support that they get
1:15:50
Speaker 3: from Democrats relatively speaking. And we saw this happen again
1:15:54
Speaker 3: with the Affordable Care Act, right where abortions became this
1:15:57
Speaker 3: scapegoat around the Affordable Care Act. And Obama, who had
1:16:01
Speaker 3: come into office promising to sign the Freedom of Choice
1:16:03
Speaker 3: Act to caudify Row, then when he gets there says,
1:16:07
Speaker 3: that's not my priority. You know, I want to pass
1:16:09
Speaker 3: his healthcare law. And you know, while that law was
1:16:13
Speaker 3: an incredible you know, expanded healthcare to millions of people
1:16:16
Speaker 3: who didn't have it on the abortion rights issue in particular,
1:16:19
Speaker 3: it was seen as a step backwards because of the so.
1:16:22
Speaker 1: Called look I had to cover that hour by hour
1:16:25
Speaker 1: when these negotiations were taking place. It was the so
1:16:28
Speaker 1: called Stupak Amendment, a pro life democrat from Michigan who
1:16:33
Speaker 1: was sort of pro union pro you know, it was
1:16:36
Speaker 1: one of those that Catholic democrats from the seventies that
1:16:40
Speaker 1: you described, and they needed his vote and they came
1:16:44
Speaker 1: up with this convoluted executive order I believe that that
1:16:47
Speaker 1: Obama signed in order to get Stupac on.
1:16:49
Speaker 2: Board exactly exactly.
1:16:52
Speaker 3: And so you know, the silver lining of that is
1:16:55
Speaker 3: that for abortion rights activists, especially those who were younger
1:16:58
Speaker 3: and sort of outside the hill, outside the sort of
1:17:01
Speaker 3: center of political power, that was a real catalyzing moment
1:17:03
Speaker 3: for them to say they're going to escapegoat abortion. While
1:17:06
Speaker 3: they do this, we might as well just go for
1:17:08
Speaker 3: it and call for repealing the High Amendment. And they
1:17:10
Speaker 3: form this sort of long shot campaign to do just that,
1:17:13
Speaker 3: which I talk about as I think the greatest unsung
1:17:16
Speaker 3: success story that the abortion rights movement has had in
1:17:18
Speaker 3: a generation.
1:17:19
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a really.
1:17:20
Speaker 3: Remarkable story of how they got people including Joe Biden
1:17:23
Speaker 3: to talk about the High Amendment and how it needed
1:17:25
Speaker 3: to go.
1:17:27
Speaker 1: Well, if you know, is that the beginning of the
1:17:30
Speaker 1: abortion rights side basically saying, all right, you guys wrote
1:17:33
Speaker 1: the playbook, we'll use your playbook, and we'll start chipping
1:17:38
Speaker 1: sort of chip instead of chipping away. I guess this
1:17:40
Speaker 1: is rebuilding the rights while brick by brick.
1:17:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
1:17:45
Speaker 3: I mean, I think what I would argue is that, yes,
1:17:48
Speaker 3: there needs to be incremental progress, and we are seeing that.
1:17:51
Speaker 3: You know, I talk about the activists in Texas who
1:17:56
Speaker 3: bring forward legislation to restore full reproductive freedom there even
1:17:59
Speaker 3: though they know it won't pass. Okay, that's an example
1:18:01
Speaker 3: of an incremental you know, you introduce legislation, you know
1:18:05
Speaker 3: it's not going to happen, but you keep doing it,
1:18:07
Speaker 3: and you keep doing it, and you know, years from
1:18:09
Speaker 3: now it finally tips to scales. But I also think
1:18:13
Speaker 3: like that the way that the anti abortion movement succeeded
1:18:15
Speaker 3: wasn't just the incremental legal approach, right, That's where we
1:18:18
Speaker 3: get the most attention, because of course that's what eventually
1:18:22
Speaker 3: resulted in the Supreme Court decision. But they also had
1:18:26
Speaker 3: radical and even extreme militant you know, factions within their movement.
1:18:30
Speaker 3: They had Operation Risk You that was bringing the you know,
1:18:34
Speaker 3: thousands of people. Randall Terry, who I interviewed for the book,
1:18:37
Speaker 3: had a fascinating run in with him. You know. They
1:18:41
Speaker 3: they had their militants, they had their you know, their radicals,
1:18:45
Speaker 3: and you know, they had a long term vision. And
1:18:48
Speaker 3: so I think you need all of it, you know,
1:18:50
Speaker 3: I don't think it's an either or, And I think
1:18:52
Speaker 3: the abortion rights movement often has you know, planned parenthood
1:18:56
Speaker 3: has had a hugely dominant role in the movement and
1:18:59
Speaker 3: has relied on strategy of protecting its own health centers,
1:19:01
Speaker 3: which provide you know, essential services to many. There's often
1:19:05
Speaker 3: been a focus on defending abortion through the courts versus
1:19:10
Speaker 3: having a grassroots state by state strategy. And I do
1:19:13
Speaker 3: think you're starting to see more boldness. I do think
1:19:15
Speaker 3: you're starting to see more radical thinking on the abortion
1:19:18
Speaker 3: right side now that the constitutional right to abortion is gone,
1:19:21
Speaker 3: because there's this recognition that came too late that the
1:19:24
Speaker 3: courts are not going to protect or expand this right.
1:19:36
Speaker 1: Would there be a federalist society without rope.
1:19:41
Speaker 2: That's a great question.
1:19:43
Speaker 3: I mean, I think they would find other quibbles with like,
1:19:45
Speaker 3: you know, women's participation in public life even.
1:19:50
Speaker 1: Well, the reason I said is, I think the whole
1:19:52
Speaker 1: reason we got a federal society, yeah, right, where they
1:19:55
Speaker 1: wanted to no longer have the ABA as sort of
1:19:58
Speaker 1: the vetter of things that they wanted a conservative vetting,
1:20:02
Speaker 1: not a legal vetting on expertise. And you know it's
1:20:08
Speaker 1: you know, basically there's been two sort of one would
1:20:12
Speaker 1: argue very radical schools of thought on trying to deal
1:20:16
Speaker 1: with certain legal issues, one on guns and one on abortion.
1:20:20
Speaker 1: That all these legal arguments basically came through Federalist Society
1:20:27
Speaker 1: meetings and organizations and trainings.
1:20:30
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and Leonard Leo effectively you know, handed Trump the
1:20:34
Speaker 3: names that he knew we're going to overturn Roe v.
1:20:36
Speaker 2: Wade, and you know, here we are.
1:20:40
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess one thing that's super interesting about
1:20:42
Speaker 3: organizations like that and Alliance Defending Freedom is in this
1:20:46
Speaker 3: category as well. You know, you said that the abortion
1:20:49
Speaker 3: rights movement can copy the anti abortion playbook, but you know,
1:20:53
Speaker 3: part of the way that the anti abortion movement got
1:20:55
Speaker 3: where it is today is by copying their enemies playbook, right,
1:20:59
Speaker 3: I mean, I spoke to the conservative architect Richard Vigory
1:21:02
Speaker 3: for this, you figured out how to raise money through
1:21:04
Speaker 3: direct mail.
1:21:05
Speaker 1: He was and arguably the the you know, if you
1:21:09
Speaker 1: hate if you hate direct mail fundraising, if you hate
1:21:12
Speaker 1: email fundraising, you can blame Richard Vigory.
1:21:13
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, Roger Craber, who I also talked to his
1:21:16
Speaker 3: you know, jenemy and your friend on the other.
1:21:19
Speaker 1: Side, old friend or the late Roger.
1:21:23
Speaker 3: It's hilarious to revisit a time when like these letters
1:21:26
Speaker 3: they were sending asking people for money were like this
1:21:28
Speaker 3: controversial new technology. It was like, oh my gosh, what
1:21:31
Speaker 3: are they doing, you know, and now they just go
1:21:35
Speaker 3: into the recycling bin. But but yeah, they they copied
1:21:39
Speaker 3: the playbook of the civil rights movement. They copied the
1:21:41
Speaker 3: rhetoric they call themselves, you know. And and Jennifer Holland
1:21:45
Speaker 3: talks about the civil Rights movement for white people, which
1:21:48
Speaker 3: was the civil Rights Movement for fetuses, and how you know,
1:21:51
Speaker 3: when civil rights activists were saying, hey, we need to
1:21:54
Speaker 3: talk about you know, white supremacy, and white conservatives didn't
1:21:58
Speaker 3: want to do that. Instead, they created their own sort
1:22:01
Speaker 3: of imitation civil rights movement where they were championing the
1:22:04
Speaker 3: rights of the fetus, and they co opted the language
1:22:06
Speaker 3: I mean right to life, you know, and they saw
1:22:09
Speaker 3: themselves as civil rights activists. They ran clips of Martin
1:22:12
Speaker 3: Luther King, you know, they believed that they were carrying
1:22:15
Speaker 3: on the great civil rights struggle of their time. And so,
1:22:20
Speaker 3: you know, I think the other side has really been
1:22:21
Speaker 3: masters of copying the playbook of and you know, Alliance
1:22:26
Speaker 3: Defending Freedom, which ultimately brought the case that you know,
1:22:29
Speaker 3: designed the legal strategy that overturned Roe v.
1:22:31
Speaker 1: Wade.
1:22:32
Speaker 2: You know, they were a response.
1:22:33
Speaker 3: To the ACLU and to left leaning legal power, and
1:22:39
Speaker 3: so a lot of how he got here is through
1:22:41
Speaker 3: reactionary strategies. And I think, you know, the abortion rights
1:22:47
Speaker 3: and left side has not always been as good at
1:22:49
Speaker 3: observing and learning from the enemy.
1:22:52
Speaker 1: So ultimately, a right that a large majority of Americans
1:22:55
Speaker 1: believe should exist was over turned in a fifty year campaign. So,
1:23:02
Speaker 1: if you were to line up five entities responsible for this,
1:23:11
Speaker 1: are there anybody on the pro abortion right side that
1:23:14
Speaker 1: belonged there?
1:23:17
Speaker 3: Wait?
1:23:17
Speaker 2: Say it again, if you were to line know, if you.
1:23:18
Speaker 1: To line up, say the five entities, whether it's people
1:23:21
Speaker 1: or groups that you would say, hey, they deserve credit.
1:23:24
Speaker 1: Or blame however you want to look at this, but
1:23:25
Speaker 1: for you know, for the overturning of dots, for taking
1:23:29
Speaker 1: away this right. Is it only people who are advocating
1:23:31
Speaker 1: to take this right or are there people who in
1:23:34
Speaker 1: theory didn't want to see the right go away who
1:23:36
Speaker 1: also belong on this list?
1:23:38
Speaker 2: Oh?
1:23:39
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely, And that's why you know, I'm in my
1:23:43
Speaker 3: like Miss Marple approach to figuring out who did it
1:23:46
Speaker 3: and why. That's why I talk to people on both sides.
1:23:49
Speaker 3: And I went after, you know, everyone I could talk
1:23:53
Speaker 3: to who had been there on the abortion right side,
1:23:56
Speaker 3: you know, the people who were heads of NAYRAL, of
1:23:59
Speaker 3: the National Organization for Women.
1:24:01
Speaker 2: Of Planned Parenthood.
1:24:03
Speaker 3: I went and talked with fay Watleton, it was Planned
1:24:04
Speaker 3: Parenthood president starting in nineteen seventy eight, and I asked
1:24:08
Speaker 3: them all some version of the same question, which is like,
1:24:10
Speaker 3: what keeps you up at night? What could you have
1:24:13
Speaker 3: done differently? And some people didn't want to take responsibility
1:24:17
Speaker 3: and some people did.
1:24:18
Speaker 2: You know.
1:24:18
Speaker 3: Of course they disagreed about exactly what could have been
1:24:21
Speaker 3: done differently, but I think that they're and look, the
1:24:26
Speaker 3: other issue is they were under resource for what they
1:24:29
Speaker 3: needed to do. And consistently outflanked by their opponents. So
1:24:35
Speaker 3: but I do think you need to look at organizations
1:24:38
Speaker 3: like Nayralan Planned Parenthood and what you know, complicity they have.
1:24:42
Speaker 3: I mean, those were the two most influential organizations, and
1:24:46
Speaker 3: what decisions were made along the way that you know,
1:24:49
Speaker 3: in some way made this a cause that more people
1:24:53
Speaker 3: could support because they were narrowing the frame they were
1:24:56
Speaker 3: talking about choice, they were talking about just protecting Roe v.
1:24:59
Speaker 3: Wade rather than focusing on things like you know, young
1:25:03
Speaker 3: people and public funding. And yet there you know, there
1:25:09
Speaker 3: was damage done as a result of those compromises as well.
1:25:12
Speaker 3: So yes, I think you have to look at at
1:25:14
Speaker 3: people on both sides of his struggle.
1:25:19
Speaker 1: Losing or feeling as if you're having to fight for
1:25:24
Speaker 1: something can be more galvanizing than defending something that's legal. Right,
1:25:31
Speaker 1: and that used to be one of the rationales. And
1:25:33
Speaker 1: the assumption was, you know, why why was the right
1:25:36
Speaker 1: always more motivated by Supreme Court openings and elections than
1:25:39
Speaker 1: the left?
1:25:40
Speaker 3: Right?
1:25:40
Speaker 1: I one of my great you know, I love I
1:25:42
Speaker 1: love butterfly effects with history and you know, like the
1:25:46
Speaker 1: use of one thing had changed, and you know, had
1:25:50
Speaker 1: Scalia lived, I don't think Donald Trump becomes president. It's
1:25:54
Speaker 1: just one of my thess because the right, there were
1:25:59
Speaker 1: people that didn't like Trump's character, who held their nose
1:26:01
Speaker 1: because it issue matters to them so much. Who's on
1:26:05
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court matters to them so much. Even in
1:26:09
Speaker 1: the wake of losing Dobbs. I think there was an
1:26:11
Speaker 1: assumption I had it there was some evidence in pulling
1:26:14
Speaker 1: it would be there that the single mindedness that we
1:26:18
Speaker 1: saw on the right about this issue would basically transform
1:26:21
Speaker 1: itself and become a single mindedness on the left. We're
1:26:26
Speaker 1: not seeing that. Why do you think that is?
1:26:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have to say I shared that misapprehension as well,
1:26:33
Speaker 3: which is why I put myself in the position of
1:26:37
Speaker 3: being in Amarillo, Texas, in a room full of Trump
1:26:39
Speaker 3: supporters on election day, because I was interesting choice. I
1:26:48
Speaker 3: went down there thinking I was so confident that anyway,
1:26:54
Speaker 3: I did have another prediction that turned out to be true,
1:26:56
Speaker 3: which was there was an anti abortion ordinance on the
1:26:59
Speaker 3: ballot in Amarillo, and that anti abortion ordinance failed in
1:27:04
Speaker 3: this super conservative area in Texas, even though, of course
1:27:07
Speaker 3: Trump was elected, and so the activists I happened to
1:27:10
Speaker 3: be spending time with were actually super depressed, you know,
1:27:13
Speaker 3: for that reason, because they've been working very hard on
1:27:15
Speaker 3: this ordinance, I mean, And that disconnect, I think tells
1:27:18
Speaker 3: you a lot, right about the fact that even in
1:27:21
Speaker 3: this super conservative area, this pretty extreme ordinance that was
1:27:26
Speaker 3: trying to stop people from leaving the state of Texas
1:27:28
Speaker 3: to get abortion.
1:27:30
Speaker 1: You couldn't leave the county, right or something like this.
1:27:32
Speaker 3: Right didn't want people and people were passing through the
1:27:34
Speaker 3: Texas can get so they were. It was this kind
1:27:38
Speaker 3: I mean, really to restrict people driving to abortion clinics
1:27:43
Speaker 3: or ordering pills through the mail. It's very hard to
1:27:45
Speaker 3: stop the unstoppable unless you resort to pretty draconian scenarios.
1:27:50
Speaker 2: And this was one of them.
1:27:52
Speaker 3: It was defeated, And so I was talking to as
1:27:55
Speaker 3: many people as I could in the parking lot outside
1:27:57
Speaker 3: these polling places, and some of them had indeed voted
1:28:00
Speaker 3: against this ordinance, right, so effectively in support of you know,
1:28:05
Speaker 3: limited abortion rights and voting for Trump, you know.
1:28:09
Speaker 2: And part of it, I.
1:28:11
Speaker 3: Think is that Trump had convinced some number of voters
1:28:15
Speaker 3: that he was a moderate on the abortion issue.
1:28:17
Speaker 2: He had convinced some number Look what he.
1:28:19
Speaker 1: Did in Florida, I mean, it was sort of you
1:28:21
Speaker 1: know his that you know, you know, it's funny. It's
1:28:25
Speaker 1: just like, you know, it's the there's that Joe Biden saying,
1:28:27
Speaker 1: don't judge me by the Almighty, judge me by the alternative.
1:28:31
Speaker 1: And this is a case where Trump took advantage of
1:28:34
Speaker 1: the alternative. Boy, this six week ballot initiative is so extreme,
1:28:38
Speaker 1: I don't know who could support that. Well, it looked
1:28:42
Speaker 1: moderate because he was to the left of Ron de Santus, right.
1:28:45
Speaker 2: Right right, which worked with a certain number of people.
1:28:48
Speaker 3: I think, and I mean, I think the other issue
1:28:50
Speaker 3: going on, it was fascinating to watch the abortion rights
1:28:53
Speaker 3: activists and their strategy on the ground in Amillo. They
1:28:56
Speaker 3: were basically copying the other side's playbook. They were trying
1:28:59
Speaker 3: to make abortions like a conservative issue.
1:29:01
Speaker 1: Right, don't let the government tell you what to do, right, Yes.
1:29:04
Speaker 2: Get the government.
1:29:05
Speaker 3: The government's trying to make a travel ban here. You know,
1:29:08
Speaker 3: they're coming for your guns, except it's reproductive freedom.
1:29:12
Speaker 2: And it worked.
1:29:13
Speaker 3: And I but I think that there's you know, a
1:29:15
Speaker 3: downside to framing abortion as a conservative issue. Yes, it
1:29:18
Speaker 3: means you can win on the single issue with conservative voters.
1:29:23
Speaker 1: But let me. Let me push back on. Let me
1:29:26
Speaker 1: push back in a second, because this is where I
1:29:28
Speaker 1: get frustrated. The word freedom is not a conservative word, right,
1:29:32
Speaker 1: but the conservatives have more successfully used the word and
1:29:37
Speaker 1: marketed the word as a you know, you see the
1:29:39
Speaker 1: words freedom and patriot right, and automatically there's this assumption
1:29:43
Speaker 1: that they're trying to appeal to the right. And I'm
1:29:45
Speaker 1: sitting here going, hey, I'm a patriot, I'm for freedom.
1:29:48
Speaker 1: I don't know who you know, you know, and and
1:29:52
Speaker 1: it is not lost on me. I mean, Kansas was
1:29:54
Speaker 1: another example of this. We're using these same sort of
1:30:00
Speaker 1: keep the government out of you know, the same arguments
1:30:02
Speaker 1: the right makes on guns. Make it the same thing
1:30:06
Speaker 1: about your personal autonomy and the argument, I mean, the
1:30:13
Speaker 1: good news is it shows you people are not like
1:30:15
Speaker 1: you know people actually, you know, we think everybody has
1:30:19
Speaker 1: a group think. Now, when you frame it this way,
1:30:20
Speaker 1: people do start to personalize. Well, let me put this
1:30:23
Speaker 1: in my shoes. And I think that's why you get
1:30:26
Speaker 1: the numbers that you get on this issue. Is this
1:30:29
Speaker 1: not the playbook? Go with the freedom the freedom messaging
1:30:33
Speaker 1: and the and the autonomy messaging.
1:30:36
Speaker 3: It worked, you know, it worked, and defeating that ordinance.
1:30:40
Speaker 3: You know, it was the message that that you know,
1:30:42
Speaker 3: and it certainly wasn't the first time that it had
1:30:45
Speaker 3: been used successfully. But then, you know, is there a
1:30:50
Speaker 3: downside and then giving people permission to vote in line
1:30:54
Speaker 3: with their conservative politics and other issues?
1:30:57
Speaker 1: Right?
1:30:57
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's an interest one question.
1:31:01
Speaker 1: This is right. It's having personal rights be up for
1:31:06
Speaker 1: debate versus right. This was arguably the whole point of
1:31:09
Speaker 1: the constitution, right, so that we didn't have elections, constant
1:31:13
Speaker 1: elections to determine, well, do you have a right to
1:31:15
Speaker 1: speech this year or not? You know, that's what I think?
1:31:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, oh yeah, that document. Sometimes you forget about
1:31:22
Speaker 3: it these days, right, I know, I.
1:31:25
Speaker 1: Just wish I remember Congress would read it once, you know,
1:31:27
Speaker 1: realize where Article one sits. But I but I digress.
1:31:32
Speaker 1: So where if I three years ago I was pretty
1:31:39
Speaker 1: confident that the right to abortion would be an all
1:31:43
Speaker 1: fifty states by the start of the twenty thirties, why
1:31:48
Speaker 1: am I less convinced that it's going to be the case.
1:31:51
Speaker 2: Why are you less convinced that it's going Yeah?
1:31:53
Speaker 1: And I feel like your book only frankly reinforces my
1:31:56
Speaker 1: newfound skepticism that, oh, is the public going to start
1:32:00
Speaker 1: to tolerate this or accept this or sort of decide
1:32:03
Speaker 1: not to fight this, or is this something that maybe
1:32:06
Speaker 1: when Trump goes away, this reanimates itself, right, Right.
1:32:11
Speaker 3: I mean, I think I don't want to overlook the
1:32:13
Speaker 3: fact that it is animating for a decent chunk of Americans.
1:32:17
Speaker 2: Right.
1:32:17
Speaker 3: I think that you know that one in four women
1:32:20
Speaker 3: will have an abortion in her lifetime. My friend, the
1:32:23
Speaker 3: activist Renee Bracy Sherman likes to say, everyone loves someone
1:32:25
Speaker 3: who's had an abortion, and so for those for those people,
1:32:29
Speaker 3: this is a live issue. This is never something that
1:32:33
Speaker 3: it is always top of mind. And I do think
1:32:37
Speaker 3: it was an issue in the twenty twenty four election, right,
1:32:39
Speaker 3: I know, because I sat in on focus groups, I
1:32:41
Speaker 3: talked to voters.
1:32:42
Speaker 2: It was something a lot of them were thinking about.
1:32:46
Speaker 2: But I don't know why it wasn't enough to tip
1:32:50
Speaker 2: the scales, right, I mean, when.
1:32:51
Speaker 1: He's already a pretty big gender gap. But I guess
1:32:53
Speaker 1: the gender gap wasn't big enough. I mean, there's still
1:32:55
Speaker 1: a significant chunk of women that do not share the
1:33:01
Speaker 1: share the same views on bodily autonomy as a majority
1:33:05
Speaker 1: of women do right right right, you.
1:33:09
Speaker 3: Know, and abortion was pulling as an important issue. You know,
1:33:13
Speaker 3: it certainly rose in importance for voters after the Dobs decision,
1:33:17
Speaker 3: but it didn't outweigh the economy. It didn't outweigh some
1:33:20
Speaker 3: of those other issues that people care about because it
1:33:24
Speaker 3: affects their day to day lives, which again abortion does
1:33:28
Speaker 3: too for a.
1:33:28
Speaker 2: Lot of people.
1:33:29
Speaker 3: I think, you know, I think potentially one you know,
1:33:33
Speaker 3: flaw in the Democrats strategy with this in twenty twenty
1:33:36
Speaker 3: four is again when you talk about just choice, when
1:33:39
Speaker 3: you talk about abortion, when you talk about it in
1:33:41
Speaker 3: isolation from other issues, you don't give people a framework
1:33:45
Speaker 3: to think about it as connected to the economy, as
1:33:47
Speaker 3: connected to you know, all of the other issues that
1:33:51
Speaker 3: they think about in their day to day lives, when
1:33:53
Speaker 3: in fact, it is when people are making decisions about
1:33:55
Speaker 3: the shape of their families based on how much money
1:33:57
Speaker 3: they have, on how much support the government is providing,
1:34:00
Speaker 3: on whether they can pay for childcare. Abortion is an
1:34:03
Speaker 3: economic issue, but I think the way that it gets
1:34:06
Speaker 3: talked about is again in that narrow choice framing. You know,
1:34:08
Speaker 3: this is just about the decision that you make and
1:34:10
Speaker 3: whether you can get to a clinic or not. And
1:34:13
Speaker 3: in fact, the way that people experience it is that
1:34:15
Speaker 3: it's part of the sort of fabric of how they
1:34:18
Speaker 3: you know, shape their lives, who they choose to live with,
1:34:20
Speaker 3: you know, what they choose for their work like this
1:34:23
Speaker 3: is this is not a decision that's made in isolation.
1:34:27
Speaker 3: And I think a lot of the way that it
1:34:29
Speaker 3: got talked about was sort of with these sort of
1:34:32
Speaker 3: narrow stories that were much more about abortion in isolation
1:34:38
Speaker 3: from the rest of people's experiences.
1:34:40
Speaker 1: Is there anything to learn from the fact that birth
1:34:43
Speaker 1: control is in some ways been taken off the political
1:34:48
Speaker 1: debate stage.
1:34:50
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting, you know.
1:34:52
Speaker 1: In that look, we still have some fights over what
1:34:55
Speaker 1: do you do iud s or you know that going
1:34:58
Speaker 1: to get paid for? And A know I but you know,
1:35:02
Speaker 1: it's almost as if those that cared so much about
1:35:07
Speaker 1: getting rid of the right to abortion, we're willing to say, Okay,
1:35:09
Speaker 1: I'm going to be It was always the you know,
1:35:11
Speaker 1: I remember Bobby Jindall, I'm going to make birth control
1:35:14
Speaker 1: free over here in Louisiana. While we also want to
1:35:19
Speaker 1: advocate for not having a right to abortion. Is there
1:35:24
Speaker 1: is there anything to be learned from the fact that
1:35:28
Speaker 1: there is even greater support for birth control that the
1:35:33
Speaker 1: abortion rights movement can sort of draft off of.
1:35:36
Speaker 2: If that makes sense, you know, I'm glad it looks
1:35:39
Speaker 2: to you that way.
1:35:40
Speaker 3: I spend a lot of time for my job as
1:35:43
Speaker 3: a reporter hanging around with anti abortion activists.
1:35:46
Speaker 1: No. I know, the activist community still wants to get
1:35:48
Speaker 1: rid of birth control, but it doesn't have.
1:35:50
Speaker 3: A traction right right, right, But it's very live for them.
1:35:54
Speaker 3: I mean, that is their end goal, right. They think
1:35:57
Speaker 3: abortion should go. A healthy member of them think ib
1:36:00
Speaker 3: should go as well. But of course, you know, savvy
1:36:05
Speaker 3: politicians are more circumspect about that, you know, I mean again, listen,
1:36:10
Speaker 3: Richard Viggery. You know we just talked about and his
1:36:13
Speaker 3: ilk saw the way that they could make abortion specifically
1:36:17
Speaker 3: uh political issue and sort of manufactured it as a
1:36:21
Speaker 3: political issue that could rally strategically, could bring Catholics into
1:36:26
Speaker 3: their coalition, could bring social into their coalition exactly, and
1:36:30
Speaker 3: how are they going to get Catholics to to, you know,
1:36:33
Speaker 3: come into the fold of the Republican Party on the
1:36:35
Speaker 3: issue of abortion, right, And so they isolated it as
1:36:39
Speaker 3: a political issue, even though that's not how it is
1:36:41
Speaker 3: in human beings, real lives. Right, the issues of birth
1:36:44
Speaker 3: control abortion are.
1:36:47
Speaker 1: Intertwined, and that I've always thought, could could the could
1:36:50
Speaker 1: the Morning after pill become the parental notification of the
1:36:54
Speaker 1: abortion rights movement where where they're they're essentially the instead
1:36:59
Speaker 1: of the chip away the building that this is you know,
1:37:02
Speaker 1: as you know, and this goes to the whole should
1:37:06
Speaker 1: is it going to take you know, is it going
1:37:08
Speaker 1: to take fifty years to get the right back or
1:37:10
Speaker 1: maybe twenty five years to take the right back? Because
1:37:12
Speaker 1: this has to be this has to be methodical. It
1:37:15
Speaker 1: has to be sort of one brick at a time,
1:37:17
Speaker 1: because hoping that there will be a Congress that will
1:37:19
Speaker 1: do this and a president that'll sign it, that that
1:37:21
Speaker 1: actually that's just like buying scratch off or scratch off
1:37:24
Speaker 1: lottery tickets that you're better off at least making incremental progress.
1:37:29
Speaker 1: And the more you know, parental notification getting mainstreamed right
1:37:34
Speaker 1: kept the idea that abortion was controversial, right, meaning once
1:37:38
Speaker 1: you take away and there's an argument you made, if
1:37:42
Speaker 1: the Morning after pill became mainstream, then all of a
1:37:45
Speaker 1: sudden people see it, it's no longer it's less controversial, right,
1:37:49
Speaker 1: So you're tipping away out a psyche. And I guess
1:37:52
Speaker 1: that's my question, could could is where do you expect
1:37:57
Speaker 1: the abortion rights activist community to go to be going
1:38:01
Speaker 1: immediately to try to get a congressional answer here or
1:38:03
Speaker 1: this long sort of basically mirror image campaign brick by brick, right.
1:38:10
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the predominant place where the abortion
1:38:13
Speaker 3: rights movement, at least the sort of ground troops within
1:38:16
Speaker 3: the abortion rights movement have gone at this point is
1:38:19
Speaker 3: they're just providing abortions regardless of what the laws in
1:38:22
Speaker 3: these states.
1:38:23
Speaker 1: Say, right to sue daring, you know, yeah, and.
1:38:27
Speaker 3: They have sued and so far, you know, this is
1:38:30
Speaker 3: all going to end up before the Supreme Court. But
1:38:32
Speaker 3: you have eight states that have passed shield laws that
1:38:34
Speaker 3: say a doctor in New York or Massachusetts can ship
1:38:38
Speaker 3: medication abortion to Texas or Alabama, and they're doing this
1:38:41
Speaker 3: for free or for very cheap and will protect them. Right,
1:38:46
Speaker 3: States like my state of Massachusetts are protecting those clinicians.
1:38:50
Speaker 3: So far, this is held up, and so what that
1:38:52
Speaker 3: means is that the number of abortions has gone up
1:38:55
Speaker 3: since the Dobs decision, and so I think it remains
1:38:59
Speaker 3: to be I mean, finally, we're seeing the kind of
1:39:01
Speaker 3: like legal experimentation that the anti abortion movement was so
1:39:05
Speaker 3: good at happening on the abortion right side. I think
1:39:08
Speaker 3: that's what these shield laws are. I think it remains
1:39:10
Speaker 3: to be seen if the Supreme Court's gonna let it hold.
1:39:13
Speaker 3: I think it remains to be seen if after the
1:39:15
Speaker 3: midterms are done, the Trump administration comes in with some
1:39:18
Speaker 3: sort of restriction on abortion pills by mail. I mean,
1:39:21
Speaker 3: it tells you everything that they seem to have decided
1:39:24
Speaker 3: not to do so before the midterms.
1:39:27
Speaker 1: But I think there are seems to be some You
1:39:29
Speaker 1: talk to some of my folks I've talked on the right,
1:39:32
Speaker 1: and they're really bitter that RFK Junior is sitting at
1:39:35
Speaker 1: HHS because of this very issue.
1:39:38
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, you know, and you know, the FDA
1:39:42
Speaker 3: could crack down on, you know, abortion pills by mail.
1:39:46
Speaker 2: You know.
1:39:46
Speaker 3: Project twenty twenty five line lays out a way that
1:39:48
Speaker 3: the Justice Department could invoke the eighteen seventy three Comstock Act,
1:39:52
Speaker 3: this Victorian era anti vice law, to stop the mailing
1:39:55
Speaker 3: of abortion pills. And so far, you know, Trump hasn't
1:39:58
Speaker 3: seemed interested in doing I mean, he's busy waging war
1:40:02
Speaker 3: in Iran, I guess, but also I think that you know,
1:40:05
Speaker 3: his strategists understand that this is a deep liability for Republicans,
1:40:10
Speaker 3: and so I think what you're seeing is that people
1:40:13
Speaker 3: are sort of rising up to the challenge of this
1:40:15
Speaker 3: public health emergency and providing abortions wherever they can. There's
1:40:20
Speaker 3: another slower process that's going to have to happen with
1:40:23
Speaker 3: restoring the legal rights so that the experience for people
1:40:26
Speaker 3: seeking these abortions isn't fraught with fear and risk as
1:40:29
Speaker 3: it is today in states where abortion is banned.
1:40:32
Speaker 1: So do you want to reveal your suspects? I mean,
1:40:38
Speaker 1: in some ways we've been talking about it, all of them,
1:40:40
Speaker 1: but we're coming to an end here. Or do we
1:40:41
Speaker 1: want to make people read it all the way to
1:40:43
Speaker 1: the end?
1:40:43
Speaker 2: Okay?
1:40:44
Speaker 3: I give a Christy spoiler alert, Chuck and she's dead. Okay,
1:40:48
Speaker 3: thank goodness, she's not here because she hated it when
1:40:50
Speaker 3: people spoiled her endings.
1:40:52
Speaker 2: Murder on the Orange Express spoiler alert. Okay, you get to.
1:40:55
Speaker 3: The end of that book or that movie, if you
1:40:58
Speaker 3: watched it and what happens, you learned that they are
1:41:00
Speaker 3: all guilty, they all did it, And that was my
1:41:03
Speaker 3: experience with you know, the death of Roe was death
1:41:05
Speaker 3: by a thousand stab wounds. It was death incrementally over decades.
1:41:09
Speaker 3: It involved people on the Democratic and the Republican side.
1:41:13
Speaker 3: It involved grassroots activists you've never heard of. It involved
1:41:16
Speaker 3: people who didn't care about abortion but saw a political
1:41:19
Speaker 3: opportunity for themselves. And it involved diehards who thought they
1:41:22
Speaker 3: were the great civil rights heroes of their time and
1:41:24
Speaker 3: who believed they were earning a ticket to heaven by
1:41:27
Speaker 3: restricting abortion and you know, putting women through hell. And
1:41:32
Speaker 3: some of those suspects are pretty colorful characters, and I
1:41:36
Speaker 3: talk about them all in my book.
1:41:37
Speaker 1: No, it's an important look. It's a bit of a
1:41:40
Speaker 1: history book, but it's one of these. But it's also
1:41:44
Speaker 1: obviously it's still a relevant I mean, you you cannot
1:41:48
Speaker 1: deal with today's politics without understanding and in many ways,
1:41:52
Speaker 1: I I don't know this shit. In fifty years from now,
1:41:57
Speaker 1: maybe you'll be around to see this out. I will be,
1:42:00
Speaker 1: But you know, I think we are at the end
1:42:04
Speaker 1: of this movement somehow, some way. That Trump is sort
1:42:07
Speaker 1: of the the dead cat bounce and and and we're
1:42:11
Speaker 1: going to see an entirely different conservative movement in this
1:42:14
Speaker 1: country grow after he leaves the stage. But that may
1:42:18
Speaker 1: be on my own version of TDS. So what do
1:42:20
Speaker 1: I know? But and I think that's the that's the mystery,
1:42:24
Speaker 1: right are we Are we at the beginning of something
1:42:26
Speaker 1: or at the end of something?
1:42:27
Speaker 3: Mhmm, Yeah. I'm a total hope practitioner. I read a
1:42:36
Speaker 3: lot of Rebecca Soulnett. I believe in hope, So I'm
1:42:38
Speaker 3: gonna I'm going to choose to believe you there, although
1:42:40
Speaker 3: I have to say, you know, some of what is
1:42:43
Speaker 3: coming out of the extreme right fringe it's not even
1:42:47
Speaker 3: extreme fringe anymore.
1:42:48
Speaker 1: In the I don't know what to call fringe right exactly.
1:42:52
Speaker 1: Fringe it's in the center camera some days.
1:42:56
Speaker 2: What do you call it?
1:42:56
Speaker 3: You know? I I think there there's folks now who
1:43:01
Speaker 3: are gaining way more attraction in the anti abortion movement
1:43:04
Speaker 3: who think that women should get the death penalty for abortions.
1:43:08
Speaker 3: There's a legislation being introduced. You know, this is gaining
1:43:11
Speaker 3: more traction than it did before. There are people who
1:43:13
Speaker 3: think women should not have the right to vote. You know,
1:43:16
Speaker 3: I'm profiling some of the women leaders of anti abortion
1:43:19
Speaker 3: organizations who have men constantly harassing them, saying you shouldn't
1:43:23
Speaker 3: have a job, you should be at home. You know,
1:43:26
Speaker 3: this is coming out of the right wing part of this,
1:43:30
Speaker 3: of the anti abortion movement.
1:43:31
Speaker 1: So well, it's been interesting to see like a Marjorie
1:43:34
Speaker 1: Taylor Green, who you knows, I don't think it's coming
1:43:38
Speaker 1: out and saying, hey, this mega movement's a very pro woman.
1:43:42
Speaker 3: It's interesting, right, It is interesting to see what choices
1:43:46
Speaker 3: women make when they look around and discover just how misogynists,
1:43:50
Speaker 3: you know, their peers are in.
1:43:52
Speaker 2: This coalition, and some of them are staying and some
1:43:54
Speaker 2: of them are leaving.
1:43:57
Speaker 1: I don't know if if there isn't a senator named
1:44:00
Speaker 1: Katie Britt that IVF is protected. Yeah, yeah, I mean
1:44:05
Speaker 1: it is interesting. The women in this in the Republican Party,
1:44:08
Speaker 1: who you can tell are very are very They're not
1:44:15
Speaker 1: comfortable with the position they've been put in. Look, they
1:44:18
Speaker 1: made the choice, so I'm not going to say, but
1:44:20
Speaker 1: you can feel that discomfort.
1:44:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's interesting. You mentioned Kansas.
1:44:26
Speaker 3: You know, this was the first state to vote directly
1:44:28
Speaker 3: on abortion after the Dobs decision in twenty twenty two,
1:44:31
Speaker 3: and I was on the ground there going door to
1:44:33
Speaker 3: door with some of the doorknockers, and there were people
1:44:35
Speaker 3: who came to the door who were women who are
1:44:38
Speaker 3: registered Republicans who are like, yeah, I'm really worried about
1:44:43
Speaker 3: this because my IVF. And I told my mom, you
1:44:46
Speaker 3: know you better, you know you better vote the right
1:44:49
Speaker 3: way on this because my IVF. You know again, this
1:44:51
Speaker 3: is what happens when you come for an issue that's
1:44:53
Speaker 3: central to people's decision making and autonomy, Well, create coalitions.
1:44:59
Speaker 1: You know. Technology. I always thought technology helped the anti
1:45:03
Speaker 1: abortion rights community when you could see that heartbeat, so
1:45:08
Speaker 1: we're like right, and that allowed them to make the
1:45:10
Speaker 1: weak designation and keep moving it up, moving it up.
1:45:15
Speaker 1: Is there technology that benefits the rights side of this?
1:45:18
Speaker 1: As we keep going.
1:45:19
Speaker 3: Forward, social media seems to be helping the abortion rights
1:45:25
Speaker 3: move and get their word out. I mean a lot
1:45:27
Speaker 3: of young people are out there, you know, sharing their
1:45:30
Speaker 3: abortion stories. I mean, you know, people sharing their personal experiences,
1:45:34
Speaker 3: whether it's on TikTok or Instagram or you know, breaking
1:45:38
Speaker 3: this down saying like hey, you know, I think a
1:45:41
Speaker 3: huge part of the way the anti abortion movement one
1:45:44
Speaker 3: is through creating this impression that abortion is this deeply
1:45:49
Speaker 3: divisive deeply shameful, deeply stigmatized.
1:45:52
Speaker 1: They stigmatized it, yes.
1:45:54
Speaker 3: Exactly, and that was one of the main triumphs of
1:45:57
Speaker 3: Operation Rescue. I think if you're blockading clinics, if you
1:45:59
Speaker 3: have one of people getting arrested in the parking lot,
1:46:01
Speaker 3: it sends this impression that this is a battleground, even
1:46:05
Speaker 3: though when you look at the polls, it's like, oh,
1:46:07
Speaker 3: most people seem to actually support this issue and think
1:46:09
Speaker 3: that the status quo is probably fine, you know. And
1:46:15
Speaker 3: so you know, I think people sharing their stories, people
1:46:18
Speaker 3: talking about this issue in a way that you know,
1:46:22
Speaker 3: I have an event coming up with Beckeraya Tucker, the
1:46:25
Speaker 3: Sweet Feminists, and her thing is like she's on social
1:46:27
Speaker 3: media and she makes these cakes and then she writes
1:46:31
Speaker 3: like throw abortion rights slogans on the cakes, you know,
1:46:34
Speaker 3: and shares them on social media. I mean, hey, that's
1:46:36
Speaker 3: the use of technology to spread a pro abortion rights message.
1:46:40
Speaker 1: Well, it's like I said, your book is well timed,
1:46:44
Speaker 1: just simply by the number of questions I've been getting
1:46:47
Speaker 1: about the campaign trail and where is this issue and
1:46:49
Speaker 1: where should it be? And we know Democrats are wringing
1:46:52
Speaker 1: their hands about culture issues and all sorts of things.
1:46:56
Speaker 1: Oh they're losing the manisphere, should they? You know, not
1:46:58
Speaker 1: this or that. But I have a feeling this Your
1:47:02
Speaker 1: book's going to get more traction and people are gonna say, oh,
1:47:04
Speaker 1: that's right. People care about this issue.
1:47:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, people care about this issue because it affects
1:47:09
Speaker 3: the shape of their lives, men and women, and because
1:47:13
Speaker 3: lives are at stake, because women's lives are at stake.
1:47:16
Speaker 3: And I hope that we remember those stories. I know
1:47:19
Speaker 3: that people do, and I know that, you know, true
1:47:21
Speaker 3: believers on the right side of history are keeping those
1:47:23
Speaker 3: stories alive and keeping them in front of mind, even
1:47:26
Speaker 3: if people seem to think voters have forgotten.
1:47:29
Speaker 1: Well, Amy, pack up a bunch of bag if that
1:47:32
Speaker 1: Christine novels for your book, doer right, so you can,
1:47:35
Speaker 1: you know, have some you know, have some reading to
1:47:37
Speaker 1: do in.
1:47:37
Speaker 2: Your downtown you know, I will. I think I'll go
1:47:40
Speaker 2: read one right now.
1:47:42
Speaker 1: Congrats of the book. It's like I said, you took
1:47:45
Speaker 1: a topic that I'm not gonna lie to you. I
1:47:48
Speaker 1: know it well. I've you know, if you cover American
1:47:51
Speaker 1: politics over the last thirty years and you aren't familiar,
1:47:55
Speaker 1: you're doing yourself a disservice. It's so woven in to
1:48:00
Speaker 1: campaign tactics and why messaging sounds what it does, and
1:48:03
Speaker 1: all of these things and so many interest groups that
1:48:06
Speaker 1: literally exist solely because of this issue. And so if
1:48:10
Speaker 1: you're not as well versed in this, I highly recommend
1:48:13
Speaker 1: this book because you do a terrific job of making
1:48:16
Speaker 1: the history also digestible. As we all know, we have
1:48:20
Speaker 1: the attention economy coming for us all the time, you know,
1:48:23
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you'll have a TikTok version of your
1:48:25
Speaker 1: books soon, but in the meantime, good old fashioned reading,
1:48:29
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with it.
1:48:31
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for saying that you got it.
1:48:43
Speaker 1: Well. Many of you had actually asked been asking me
1:48:46
Speaker 1: questions about abortion and the midterms, and so guess what
1:48:50
Speaker 1: it turned out I think to be a good conversation
1:48:54
Speaker 1: to have on this issue. And you know, as I
1:48:59
Speaker 1: think I said during the interview itself, I'm a believer
1:49:03
Speaker 1: that you know, these issues, you know, they may ebb
1:49:06
Speaker 1: and flow in significance to the voter in a given
1:49:09
Speaker 1: election cycle, but issues like abortion rise back up when
1:49:13
Speaker 1: people are particularly when people feel a bit more satisfied
1:49:16
Speaker 1: about their economic situation. And right now, that may explain
1:49:20
Speaker 1: why we are seeing less about reproductive rights and a
1:49:23
Speaker 1: lot more about the economy. All right, well, it is
1:49:28
Speaker 1: that time. It is our Wednesday podcast, and we just
1:49:31
Speaker 1: you know, I know you guys, some of you enjoyed
1:49:33
Speaker 1: our livestream coverage of the Illinois primary night. Well, in
1:49:38
Speaker 1: the spirit of Illinois, that's what my top five list
1:49:41
Speaker 1: I'm as you know. I've been excitedly, frankly, using some
1:49:46
Speaker 1: old research that I've been doing, frankly for decades about
1:49:52
Speaker 1: the all time great campaigns, not necessarily presidential campaigns, but
1:49:55
Speaker 1: statewide campaigns of all time. And so I thought this year,
1:49:59
Speaker 1: you know, instead of letting that continue to gather dust
1:50:02
Speaker 1: in this unwritten book that at some point I'm going
1:50:04
Speaker 1: to write that, instead I share this fine research with you,
1:50:10
Speaker 1: my fellow political junkies. And you know what, I think.
1:50:16
Speaker 1: I enjoyed doing this, and this is sort of what
1:50:20
Speaker 1: originally got me into politics. I enjoyed a good campaign, yarn.
1:50:25
Speaker 1: So in the spirit of that, my top five, my
1:50:28
Speaker 1: top five all time Illinois races in history, top top consequential,
1:50:43
Speaker 1: ones that had huge impact, ones that were just fascinating,
1:50:48
Speaker 1: all sorts of things. And I'll tell Illinois, let's just
1:50:51
Speaker 1: say it was really hard to narrow things down to five.
1:50:54
Speaker 1: I could have included a mayor's race or two in
1:50:58
Speaker 1: Chicago that I think would have been worthy of an
1:51:00
Speaker 1: all time top five. I didn't, but Harold Washington certainly
1:51:04
Speaker 1: deserves honorable mention the eighty three Chicago mayor's race there,
1:51:10
Speaker 1: but I didn't do that. This is a tough one. Hey,
1:51:13
Speaker 1: when you're the state of Illinois, right, Illinois might be
1:51:16
Speaker 1: the only state where reformers, future presidents, and convicted governors
1:51:21
Speaker 1: have all come out of the same political ecosystem. So
1:51:24
Speaker 1: it makes Illinois so rich. Now, look, I'm not gonna
1:51:26
Speaker 1: I gotta lie to you. I don't expect any of
1:51:28
Speaker 1: the Illinois races this cycle to crack our top five
1:51:34
Speaker 1: in all time, but hey, it's a state that has
1:51:36
Speaker 1: produced to presidents Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama and has
1:51:39
Speaker 1: sent four governors to federal president. Every single campaign has
1:51:43
Speaker 1: a shadow on it in this state. So if Texas
1:51:47
Speaker 1: is the home of some high stake soap operas over
1:51:49
Speaker 1: the years, from Manpa the Monpa governors, if you will,
1:51:54
Speaker 1: to LBJ to what could be an all timer this
1:51:58
Speaker 1: year with that Senate rate, Illinois is a home to
1:52:03
Speaker 1: the gritty political thriller, and it's got quite a few
1:52:07
Speaker 1: all time races to it. Today we're looking my five
1:52:11
Speaker 1: most consequential statewide campaigns in Illinois history. So look, I
1:52:15
Speaker 1: want to make because the corruptive, the corrupt governors are
1:52:20
Speaker 1: not really going to be a feature of the old
1:52:22
Speaker 1: time top five campaigns because in many cases we didn't
1:52:25
Speaker 1: know they were corrupt during the campaign itself. He found
1:52:27
Speaker 1: out later, but you know, we should note four governors
1:52:32
Speaker 1: have gone to prison. Otto Kerner was a bribery scandal
1:52:34
Speaker 1: tied to a racetrack stock deal. Dan Walker was a
1:52:37
Speaker 1: reformer who turned felon after leaving office. George Ryan was
1:52:41
Speaker 1: the guy who essentially sold state licenses in exchange for bribes.
1:52:45
Speaker 1: And then, of course Rob Logoyevitch, who famously tried to
1:52:48
Speaker 1: sell Barack Obama Senate seat. And it's Lagoyevitch that gave
1:52:52
Speaker 1: us one of those all time great lines that get
1:52:55
Speaker 1: used today. I've got this thing and it is efing golden,
1:53:00
Speaker 1: except he didn't say fing. That thing, of course, was
1:53:03
Speaker 1: the Obama Senate seat, since he controlled the appointment process.
1:53:07
Speaker 1: So do keep in mind as we go through my
1:53:09
Speaker 1: top five races here that Illinois ambition and scandal. Let's
1:53:13
Speaker 1: just say they tend to travel together. Look, number one
1:53:18
Speaker 1: on the list is pretty easy. And to me, it's
1:53:25
Speaker 1: not even a close call. It's Barack Obama's two thousand
1:53:28
Speaker 1: and four Senate campaign, a campaign that may never maybe
1:53:33
Speaker 1: never should have happened or never should have been successful,
1:53:37
Speaker 1: but he benefited from not one but two candidate collapses
1:53:42
Speaker 1: in order to secure a victory for the United States
1:53:45
Speaker 1: Senate that would ultimately lead him to the presidency. This
1:53:49
Speaker 1: might be when I ultimately will put together my five
1:53:54
Speaker 1: all time US Senate races, and I will say this
1:53:58
Speaker 1: one is going to be I don't want to say
1:54:01
Speaker 1: it's guaranteed, but LBJ and this one right when you
1:54:05
Speaker 1: involve a future president in your Senate campaign, is this
1:54:10
Speaker 1: controversial or unique? It may qualify for an all time
1:54:14
Speaker 1: top five in the nation's history. So but let me
1:54:19
Speaker 1: tell you the story a little bit. And look, I'm
1:54:21
Speaker 1: not going to give you all the details that I'll
1:54:23
Speaker 1: say for the much longer version of this story, but
1:54:26
Speaker 1: it starts with the primary that most people forget, the
1:54:29
Speaker 1: Democratic primary. The early front runner wasn't Barack Obama was
1:54:32
Speaker 1: a well funded stock trader and guy who helped gain
1:54:36
Speaker 1: the system on blackjack, sort of basically an old card
1:54:41
Speaker 1: counter named Blair Hall. And at the time you spend
1:54:44
Speaker 1: twenty five million dollars of his own money. In two
1:54:46
Speaker 1: thousand and four, back when twenty five million dollars with
1:54:47
Speaker 1: a lot of money, Hall was leading until his divorce
1:54:51
Speaker 1: records were unsealed, revealing allegations of domestic abuse. His campaign
1:54:58
Speaker 1: collapsed almost immediately. It cleared the lane for Barack Obama.
1:55:03
Speaker 1: At the time still a fairly wasn't that well known
1:55:07
Speaker 1: of an Illinois state senator, was not getting huge donations,
1:55:10
Speaker 1: was doing well at these campaign forums next to Blair Hall.
1:55:13
Speaker 1: But Blair Hall had all the money and Illinois's an
1:55:16
Speaker 1: extraordinarily expensive state to campaign. But that had collapses. Obama
1:55:21
Speaker 1: wins the Democratic primary with just over fifty percent of
1:55:24
Speaker 1: the vote, and it appeared to set up what was
1:55:28
Speaker 1: going to be an all time center race. We were
1:55:29
Speaker 1: going to have a couple of them that year. Dashelthuone
1:55:32
Speaker 1: was happening in South Dakota and we were gonna have Obama.
1:55:35
Speaker 1: Jack Ryan. No, not Jack Ryan from the Tom Clancy novels,
1:55:42
Speaker 1: but this Jack Ryan had sort of the Hollywood good
1:55:45
Speaker 1: looks if you will, and he was himself a former
1:55:49
Speaker 1: investment banker. His then former wife was a fairly well
1:55:53
Speaker 1: known actress at the time named Jerry Ryan. She was
1:55:55
Speaker 1: known for a character she played on one of the
1:55:58
Speaker 1: Star Trek spinoffs called Voyager. Well, their divorce records were unsealed,
1:56:04
Speaker 1: and they included allegations that Ryan had pressured her to
1:56:07
Speaker 1: go to sex clubs in two thousand and four. Obviously,
1:56:11
Speaker 1: today's politics, this might have actually helped him in a
1:56:13
Speaker 1: primary these days, but it did not help him at
1:56:18
Speaker 1: the time. It was one of the more I remember
1:56:19
Speaker 1: one of the punchlines I used to use in public
1:56:22
Speaker 1: speaking gigs, I said, Jack Ryan was the first Republican
1:56:26
Speaker 1: first candidate for office whose political career came to an
1:56:29
Speaker 1: end because he wanted to have sex with his wife.
1:56:32
Speaker 1: Now he wanted to have sex with his wife in
1:56:34
Speaker 1: a public place, at a sex club. But it was
1:56:36
Speaker 1: unique in that you had a guy lose his political
1:56:40
Speaker 1: career not because he wanted to have sex with somebody
1:56:43
Speaker 1: else's wife, but with his own. Still, the Republican Party
1:56:49
Speaker 1: paniced Ryan withdrew and then the Republican Party went on
1:56:53
Speaker 1: a basically their own version of American idol, Illinois idol
1:56:57
Speaker 1: desperately looking for a replacement candidate. Mike Ditka was seriously
1:57:01
Speaker 1: considering it at one point, the former Chicago Bears coach.
1:57:04
Speaker 1: He ended up saying no, and who who did in
1:57:07
Speaker 1: Illinois settle on? But Alan Keyes, a conservative commentator from Maryland,
1:57:13
Speaker 1: who of course had pretty much no ties to the
1:57:15
Speaker 1: state of Illinois, in fact, had run for I believe
1:57:19
Speaker 1: the Senate in Maryland at one time ran in Illinois.
1:57:24
Speaker 1: But they were desperate for a candidate, and in you know,
1:57:26
Speaker 1: a senate residency, rules are pretty loose and lax. It's
1:57:29
Speaker 1: not like the governor's race. So he becomes the replacement candidate.
1:57:34
Speaker 1: Obama wins, but it is worth noting that the more
1:57:38
Speaker 1: important race for Obama was the primary. Because he wins
1:57:41
Speaker 1: the primary, he becomes this sort of gee whiz winner,
1:57:47
Speaker 1: if you will, meaning everybody's like, who is this guy?
1:57:49
Speaker 1: Check out? This guy's name is Barack Hussein Obama. He
1:57:53
Speaker 1: just won a Senate primary. All of the candidates around
1:57:57
Speaker 1: him are collapsing. The guy's going to win a Senate seat,
1:57:59
Speaker 1: let's you know. And he was getting enough traction and
1:58:02
Speaker 1: interest among donors that somebody suggested to John Kerrey at
1:58:05
Speaker 1: his political at his nominating convention in Boston that he
1:58:08
Speaker 1: had a tap Barack Obama to be the keynote speaker. Well,
1:58:11
Speaker 1: probably the single most important speech that Barack Obama had
1:58:15
Speaker 1: ever given. So if he doesn't accidentally win that Democratic primary,
1:58:20
Speaker 1: he doesn't get picked to give that speech. There's not
1:58:23
Speaker 1: a red America, blue America. It's a red, white, and blue,
1:58:25
Speaker 1: et cetera. We may not have a president Barack Obama.
1:58:30
Speaker 1: This Senate race it has it all sex scandals, card counting,
1:58:36
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. And what was weird about it?
1:58:39
Speaker 1: It was never The campaign was never about Barack Obama.
1:58:42
Speaker 1: It was always about somebody else. Blair Hall, Jack Ryan, Allen, Keys,
1:58:47
Speaker 1: Mike Getka, it was. It was just one wild and
1:58:50
Speaker 1: weird race, and it delivered one of the most consequential
1:58:52
Speaker 1: figures in modern America. So number two on my list
1:58:59
Speaker 1: is one that was a bit historic in nature, but
1:59:01
Speaker 1: it was accidentally historic. It was the election of Karra
1:59:03
Speaker 1: Moseley Brown, the first black woman to the United States Senate,
1:59:06
Speaker 1: and the race itself is often remembered for the result
1:59:09
Speaker 1: and the historic result, but the campaign was something else entirely.
1:59:14
Speaker 1: The real fight was between the incumbent Senator Alan Dixon
1:59:17
Speaker 1: and a wealthy primary challenger, a self funder named Al Hoefel.
1:59:21
Speaker 1: Hoefeld spent millions attacking Dixon. Dixon was weakened by one
1:59:25
Speaker 1: key vote nineteen ninety two. It was triggering. This was
1:59:28
Speaker 1: and it was this early Illinois primary that triggered the
1:59:31
Speaker 1: idea that this was going to become the year of
1:59:34
Speaker 1: the woman in nineteen ninety two, at least in Senate races.
1:59:37
Speaker 1: Because Dixon had supported Clarence Thomas during the Anita Hill hearings.
1:59:41
Speaker 1: The Democratic primary turned into a bitter two way war,
1:59:45
Speaker 1: very expensive between Dixon and Hoefeld. But there was a
1:59:48
Speaker 1: third candidate in the race, a lesser known office holder
1:59:52
Speaker 1: from Cook County. The Cook County Recorder of Deeds was
1:59:56
Speaker 1: her office title at the time, woman by the name
1:59:59
Speaker 1: of Carol Moseley, and look, she was considered kind of
2:00:02
Speaker 1: an afterthought in this race because she didn't have the
2:00:05
Speaker 1: financial resources of Hoefeld or of the sitting senator. But
2:00:08
Speaker 1: as Dixon and Hoefeld tore each other apart, suddenly Braun
2:00:13
Speaker 1: benefited from sort of not being the one either slinging
2:00:17
Speaker 1: mud or being hit by the mud, and she was
2:00:20
Speaker 1: able to consolidate an interesting group, an interesting group of voters,
2:00:24
Speaker 1: Black voters, reform minded voters, and voters that were angry
2:00:27
Speaker 1: about Thomas. Sure, the ven diagrams overlapped, but it got
2:00:31
Speaker 1: her thirty eight percent of the vote, which was enough
2:00:33
Speaker 1: to win. She knocks off a sitting senator and a
2:00:36
Speaker 1: primary Alan Dixon Hoefeld loses, ends up finishing third. She
2:00:41
Speaker 1: wins the general election by a fairly comfortable margin. In
2:00:44
Speaker 1: ninety two. Illinois was still considered a swing state back then,
2:00:47
Speaker 1: but everything was moving left Bill Clinton's victory and she
2:00:49
Speaker 1: wins fifty three forty six. But for me, it was
2:00:54
Speaker 1: a reminder of the dynamics and a reminder was an
2:00:57
Speaker 1: early lesson for me because we'd get one literally a
2:00:59
Speaker 1: month later in Wisconsin, very similar situation where you had
2:01:03
Speaker 1: that Russ Feinegeld ended up win a Senate seat. He
2:01:06
Speaker 1: was the third candidate in what appeared to be a
2:01:09
Speaker 1: two way brutal primary that got so nasty voters decided
2:01:14
Speaker 1: not to support either of the top two candidates and
2:01:16
Speaker 1: supported the candidate that wasn't engaging in the mud fight,
2:01:19
Speaker 1: just like with caramel Ley Braun. So it was really
2:01:21
Speaker 1: a reminder of the dynamics of three way elections and
2:01:24
Speaker 1: they're very difficult. We're seeing We saw that again, right
2:01:27
Speaker 1: third party groups attack one candidate in a crowded primary,
2:01:31
Speaker 1: they're able to get rid of that candidate. We saw
2:01:34
Speaker 1: that in a couple house races in these Illinois primaries,
2:01:36
Speaker 1: and yet they still didn't get the candidate they wanted
2:01:39
Speaker 1: to win because the dynamic ended up benefiting, you know,
2:01:42
Speaker 1: in candidate A attacks candidate B. It was candidacy that
2:01:45
Speaker 1: benefits and that to me was what that campaign also
2:01:50
Speaker 1: taught us. My third one on this list and this
2:01:52
Speaker 1: is something I'm rarely going to do, but it's so
2:01:54
Speaker 1: impactful you have to include it, and that is the
2:01:59
Speaker 1: nineteen six the presidential campaign of Kennedy Nixon in the
2:02:04
Speaker 1: state of Illinois, because it created a myth or a
2:02:07
Speaker 1: legend that still sort of percolates in our politics today. Right,
2:02:12
Speaker 1: Kennedy won the state of Illinois by just under nine
2:02:15
Speaker 1: thousand votes, less than two tenths of one percent. And
2:02:20
Speaker 1: of course, the legendary Richard J. Daily, mayor of Chicago
2:02:24
Speaker 1: and head of the Democratic machine. He is credited with
2:02:28
Speaker 1: delivering these enormous margins in Cook County. Nixon, of course
2:02:31
Speaker 1: dominated downstate. Really that's always been the case. It's more
2:02:34
Speaker 1: conservative downstate. The further you know, you southern Illinois is
2:02:38
Speaker 1: more southern than Illinois is is one of the jokes
2:02:41
Speaker 1: you'll get. But it is in this race that the
2:02:45
Speaker 1: legend was created that in some ways still still popularizes
2:02:49
Speaker 1: right wing conspiracy theories to this day. For decades, Republicans
2:02:52
Speaker 1: have claimed that Chicago turnout was suspicious, some precincts reported
2:02:56
Speaker 1: near total voting, and that the results may have been manipulated.
2:03:00
Speaker 1: There's never been any definitive proof that fraud changed the outcome,
2:03:04
Speaker 1: but the perception mattered, and it's stuck, stuck forever. Right.
2:03:07
Speaker 1: Nixon really popularized a lot of a lot of conspiracy
2:03:10
Speaker 1: theories for the right that Donald Trump still carries out today,
2:03:13
Speaker 1: and this is one of them. Nineteen sixty helped cement
2:03:17
Speaker 1: a belief inside the Republican Party that urban political machines,
2:03:20
Speaker 1: especially in big democratic cities, could manipulate outcomes. It just
2:03:26
Speaker 1: you know, and because in many cases, because there's so
2:03:29
Speaker 1: many votes to count, they take longer to report. Right,
2:03:33
Speaker 1: our Illinois, you know, our coverage of the Illinois primaries.
2:03:36
Speaker 1: You know, we were waiting for Cook County because they
2:03:40
Speaker 1: count in one big center and so you know, Republicans think,
2:03:43
Speaker 1: oh my god, we're winning, and then Cook County comes in,
2:03:45
Speaker 1: we're losing. Well, if Cook County came in first, you
2:03:47
Speaker 1: never would be winning, you know, it just you know,
2:03:50
Speaker 1: it's the order that votes get counted is different in
2:03:54
Speaker 1: every state, but it can create the appearance of confusion
2:03:57
Speaker 1: and corruption, especially if you want a WEAPONI and exploit it.
2:04:01
Speaker 1: So that's what sort of you know, the suspicion didn't
2:04:06
Speaker 1: start in nineteen sixty, but it really gave. It became
2:04:09
Speaker 1: the modern example, and it got tied to a presidential election,
2:04:12
Speaker 1: and the belief has echoed ever since in debates over
2:04:14
Speaker 1: city vote counts, skepticism about large urban turnout, arguments about
2:04:19
Speaker 1: election integrity that continue today. But there's an important reality
2:04:22
Speaker 1: that gets lost when talking about Kennedy, Nixon and Illinois
2:04:25
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty. Let's say Nixon had won Illinois, Kennedy
2:04:30
Speaker 1: went a stone won the presidency. It wasn't the decisive state.
2:04:35
Speaker 1: Illinois was dramatic, it was close, it was controversial, but
2:04:38
Speaker 1: it was not decisive. But the mythology mattered more than
2:04:41
Speaker 1: the math. Nixon, of course, chose not to challenge the
2:04:44
Speaker 1: result because flipping Illinois wouldn't have mattered. He still would
2:04:46
Speaker 1: have lost the presidency, but it entered political folklore. This
2:04:51
Speaker 1: is the state where the machine may have helped pick
2:04:55
Speaker 1: a president, and it gave the right a grievance that
2:04:58
Speaker 1: they still mythologized today and tried to create legislation to
2:05:03
Speaker 1: deal with, even though it is simply a symptom of
2:05:09
Speaker 1: where the people live. Number four on my list is
2:05:15
Speaker 1: Paul Simon v. Charles Percy nineteen eighty four. Percy actually
2:05:19
Speaker 1: gets an honorable mention for a previous race, and I'll
2:05:22
Speaker 1: talk about it here. This one was just great political drama.
2:05:27
Speaker 1: Paul Simon was the Democrat most famous for his bow tie,
2:05:30
Speaker 1: and he was the challenger the incumbent Republican. Incumbent Charles Percy,
2:05:34
Speaker 1: was moderate, nationally respected, and arguably was beginning started to
2:05:40
Speaker 1: Percy's loss in this election was the beginning of the
2:05:43
Speaker 1: end of the moderate Republican in Illinois. There still a
2:05:46
Speaker 1: few more would get elected governor in the nineties, but
2:05:48
Speaker 1: it was when it was starting to come to an
2:05:51
Speaker 1: end because Conservatives started to get frustrated with moderate Republicans
2:05:55
Speaker 1: and this race. Paul Simon benefited the most from this,
2:05:59
Speaker 1: because you don't win a Senate race in nineteen eighty
2:06:02
Speaker 1: four against a Republican incumbent if you don't have some
2:06:05
Speaker 1: Reagan voters on your side, and Simon had Reagan voters
2:06:08
Speaker 1: on his side. Here Percy himself, a lot of people
2:06:13
Speaker 1: were shocked that he ran again in eighty four because
2:06:15
Speaker 1: he almost lost in seventy eight, and during that campaign
2:06:18
Speaker 1: he ran one of the most famous ads in political
2:06:20
Speaker 1: history because he was the first time an incumbent basically
2:06:25
Speaker 1: admitted to misdeeds. It was the I'm sorry ad, and
2:06:29
Speaker 1: it worked. The ad he's candidate to camera and in
2:06:33
Speaker 1: this case incumbent to Cameron, he said, I have made mistakes.
2:06:35
Speaker 1: I have disappointed some of you. For that, I'm sorry.
2:06:38
Speaker 1: Well it worked. He survived, but six years later the
2:06:41
Speaker 1: environment had changed completely. The fact that Percy loses in
2:06:45
Speaker 1: a Reagan landslide year, Simon gets fifty Percy forty eight.
2:06:50
Speaker 1: Simon beat him by focusing that Percy had basically gone
2:06:53
Speaker 1: Washington too distant from the voters, and he was a
2:06:56
Speaker 1: bit too much of an elitist and it worked. But
2:07:02
Speaker 1: what really helped Simon the most is that you actually
2:07:05
Speaker 1: had super conservatives, just like we had that example in
2:07:09
Speaker 1: Texas for John Tower, when the conservative when the liberal
2:07:13
Speaker 1: Democrats decided not to help out the conservative Democrats and
2:07:17
Speaker 1: actually go elect a Republican. That's what happened here. The
2:07:20
Speaker 1: conservative Republicans retired of the moderate Republicans and they decided
2:07:23
Speaker 1: to screw it, let's get him out and take over
2:07:26
Speaker 1: the party. And well it got Simon that Senate seat,
2:07:29
Speaker 1: even in Reagan's landslide here and the fifth one, I
2:07:33
Speaker 1: put this one. Look, it's very debatable, and I'm fully
2:07:39
Speaker 1: I am fully prepared for many of you to say, ah,
2:07:42
Speaker 1: this doesn't belong in your top five. But is the
2:07:44
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six Democratic primary chaos and the takeover by
2:07:49
Speaker 1: the Larouchies. Lyndon Larous is this crazy figure in American politics,
2:07:53
Speaker 1: has run for president multiple times from prison, and he
2:07:55
Speaker 1: has his acolytes. And you know, if you're of a
2:07:58
Speaker 1: certain age, you remember Rushi's setting up trying to recruit
2:08:01
Speaker 1: people to their movement in front of post offices, and
2:08:04
Speaker 1: that used to be their primary place of recruitment. You know,
2:08:09
Speaker 1: in d C. You'd see him on the on the
2:08:10
Speaker 1: corners near right there near the old Executive Office building,
2:08:14
Speaker 1: and at Union Station you'd see them and it was
2:08:16
Speaker 1: always you know, they had a huge conspiracy, you know,
2:08:18
Speaker 1: there was they could tie Liberal. It was sort of
2:08:21
Speaker 1: one of these things that talked about, you know, the
2:08:23
Speaker 1: Queen Elizabeth was a drug cartel and all sorts of
2:08:26
Speaker 1: weird stuff. But it had a real following there, and
2:08:30
Speaker 1: probably its peak following was in the eighties, and it
2:08:32
Speaker 1: was eighty six that it had the peakest of followings.
2:08:36
Speaker 1: It's the strangest election Illinois may have ever had because
2:08:40
Speaker 1: two Larouche's entered Democratic primaries for state wide offices, not
2:08:43
Speaker 1: the top of the ticket, but for other state wide offices.
2:08:47
Speaker 1: And it was a low turnout, low information primary, and
2:08:51
Speaker 1: voters picked names they didn't recognize, and two LaRouche candidates,
2:08:54
Speaker 1: one the lieutenant governor nominee was a gentleman by the
2:08:58
Speaker 1: name of Mark Fairchild of Larusghi, and a woman named
2:09:00
Speaker 1: Janis Hart won the nomination for Secretary of State. Well,
2:09:03
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party was just stunned that essentially their party
2:09:06
Speaker 1: got high checked by the Larushies. The gubernatorial nominee was
2:09:10
Speaker 1: their failed nominee from four years earlier, Adelete Stevenson, the
2:09:12
Speaker 1: third Yes, the son of the one time presidential nominee
2:09:16
Speaker 1: wo would lose twice to Dwight Eisenhower. Stephenson refused to
2:09:20
Speaker 1: run with these larushies, did not want to head the
2:09:22
Speaker 1: ticket right, so he dropped all of the Democratic ticket
2:09:27
Speaker 1: completely and created a new party, the Illinois Solidarity Party.
2:09:30
Speaker 1: Because they couldn't figure out how to get rid of
2:09:32
Speaker 1: the luracies, wouldn't leave, they couldn't fare, so essentially they
2:09:34
Speaker 1: abandoned the party, which in hindsight was probably the mistake.
2:09:38
Speaker 1: Obviously the election descendant of chaos, Republicans won in Landslide.
2:09:43
Speaker 1: It was one of the biggest victories eighty six, a
2:09:45
Speaker 1: huge Democratic gear nationally by the way, but not in
2:09:48
Speaker 1: Illinois because of this stupidity, and it was it really
2:09:55
Speaker 1: was a reminder and actually was an early canary in
2:09:59
Speaker 1: the coal mine about how much Democrats back then they
2:10:01
Speaker 1: were always so focused on national politics and not not
2:10:05
Speaker 1: minding the store at home, right, And when you think
2:10:09
Speaker 1: that six years later Republicans would just would just sort
2:10:12
Speaker 1: of out maneuver and out organize the Democratic Party and
2:10:16
Speaker 1: state legislatures all over the country take over a redistricting process.
2:10:19
Speaker 1: When you realize, look at this mess that was taking place,
2:10:23
Speaker 1: and you know, the ultimate machine state Illinois, and the
2:10:27
Speaker 1: Democratic primary was paying. Party was paying so little attention
2:10:30
Speaker 1: of what was going on inside its own party that
2:10:32
Speaker 1: two Larouche's come in. I think, you know, in hindsight,
2:10:36
Speaker 1: it turns out this was just another piece of evidence
2:10:40
Speaker 1: of a party that was not was not sort of
2:10:46
Speaker 1: paying attention to the little things. Every election matters, Every
2:10:50
Speaker 1: down ballot election matters, every state legislative race matters. Republicans
2:10:55
Speaker 1: understood that a lot sooner in the modern era than
2:10:58
Speaker 1: Democrats did. That LAROUCHEI race is one I think for
2:11:02
Speaker 1: the books, few that I didn't include but could have
2:11:05
Speaker 1: been worthy and some of your, some of you seventy
2:11:07
Speaker 1: two governor guy named Dan Walker, he borrows it became
2:11:11
Speaker 1: the thing to do. He had walking with Lawton Chiles,
2:11:13
Speaker 1: did it in Florida, Lamar Alexander walk the state of Tennessee,
2:11:15
Speaker 1: and Dan Walker walked the state of Illinois to quote
2:11:18
Speaker 1: defeat the machine. The irony is that he would win
2:11:21
Speaker 1: the governor's race and eventually himself be sent to prison.
2:11:24
Speaker 1: Rod Bolgoievich two thousand and two governor. The irony to
2:11:27
Speaker 1: this race is that he wins because of the George
2:11:32
Speaker 1: Ryan corruption scandal. He actually he gets to run against
2:11:37
Speaker 1: a guy named Jim Ryan, no relation to George Ryan,
2:11:39
Speaker 1: who was the Jim Ryan was the ag. There was
2:11:41
Speaker 1: all sorts of ryety of the Dan Ryan Expressway. There's
2:11:44
Speaker 1: so many Ryan's in Chicago. That's why I think the
2:11:46
Speaker 1: Democratic primary they try to always have it in Saint
2:11:49
Speaker 1: Patty's day, right, it teaz But just having the last
2:11:53
Speaker 1: name of Ryan was a penalty. And two Bogoyevitch wins
2:11:57
Speaker 1: because of his scandal and of course becomes literally the
2:12:01
Speaker 1: next governor. I mean, this was astounding. The governor elected.
2:12:05
Speaker 1: Basically the two elected governors in a row ninety eight,
2:12:08
Speaker 1: George Ryan Otu Blagoyevitch both end up serving time. And
2:12:14
Speaker 1: like I said, Harold Washington nineteen eighty three, Chicago mayor
2:12:17
Speaker 1: might be another one I'd put on there. So there's
2:12:18
Speaker 1: my list of the most consequential Illinois Center races. I
2:12:24
Speaker 1: could you could do it? You do a mini series
2:12:27
Speaker 1: on Obama two thousand and four, So many butterfly effects
2:12:30
Speaker 1: of that one. But as you can see Illinois. One
2:12:33
Speaker 1: thing it has is a rich, rich history of fascinating campaigns.
2:12:39
Speaker 1: So Netflix, if you're listening and you're ready to greenlight
2:12:41
Speaker 1: this series, I could literally do an entire season based
2:12:46
Speaker 1: on the state of Illinois and it's every week kuk
2:12:49
Speaker 1: Ear and cook ear campaign. So move over, Ryan Murphy,
2:12:53
Speaker 1: Have I got an American horror story for you? Illinois politics?
2:13:05
Speaker 1: Ask Chuck. First question comes from John A from New Orleans.
2:13:11
Speaker 1: He says, Chuck, really appreciate your analysis and want to
2:13:13
Speaker 1: ask about something that's been frustrating me. When reporters, often women,
2:13:17
Speaker 1: are publicly denigrated or have their motives questioned by President
2:13:19
Speaker 1: Trump or members of his administration while they're simply doing
2:13:22
Speaker 1: their jobs, why don't more journalists push back forcefully in
2:13:24
Speaker 1: the moment while still remaining professional. It seems like letting
2:13:27
Speaker 1: those comments go and challenge risks normalizing them or making
2:13:29
Speaker 1: them seem incredible from your perspective as a journalist. What's
2:13:32
Speaker 1: the calculation in those situations? Well, I can tell you
2:13:36
Speaker 1: what the calculation is now, John, which is like, do
2:13:39
Speaker 1: you want to become a story? Right? Every journalist, especially
2:13:42
Speaker 1: of a certain generation, and I'm of that generation, where
2:13:45
Speaker 1: you let the idea is you let your words speak
2:13:47
Speaker 1: for themselves, you let the reporting speak for themselves. You
2:13:49
Speaker 1: don't feel like you should have to defend your work.
2:13:51
Speaker 1: I think that's the biggest mistake we've made collectively over
2:13:56
Speaker 1: the last twenty five years. And I wrote a whole
2:13:59
Speaker 1: long opat about this in The Atlantic some fifteen years ago,
2:14:02
Speaker 1: ten twelve years ago, about the mistake we made not
2:14:06
Speaker 1: fighting back when Fox character assassinated so many of us
2:14:09
Speaker 1: for a three or four year period there, and how
2:14:14
Speaker 1: just we didn't defend our work this specific situation. So
2:14:21
Speaker 1: I can tell you how I handled myself in these situations. Now,
2:14:26
Speaker 1: we didn't have anybody like Trump, okay to deal with
2:14:29
Speaker 1: when I briefly covered Bush but covered more Obama than
2:14:33
Speaker 1: anybody else in my days at the White House. But
2:14:36
Speaker 1: when you're in that press pool situation, right when you
2:14:41
Speaker 1: and I put it this way, Robert Gibbs could be
2:14:50
Speaker 1: Robert might be listening. He's a friend. I consider him
2:14:52
Speaker 1: a friend. We've known each other way too long. But
2:14:55
Speaker 1: we could have our battles publicly on air. You can
2:14:58
Speaker 1: go back and find some good new two clips of
2:15:00
Speaker 1: our back and forth, and he could be a little tough,
2:15:04
Speaker 1: and he could be a bit dismissive, and what if
2:15:08
Speaker 1: he got dismissive or they got defensive and they were
2:15:11
Speaker 1: trying to avoid a question in that press room, and
2:15:14
Speaker 1: it was and then it was my turn to ask
2:15:16
Speaker 1: a question. You know, I get called on instead of
2:15:18
Speaker 1: asking my question, I'd simply I'd like to get the
2:15:21
Speaker 1: answer to that follow up you didn't answer. Let me
2:15:23
Speaker 1: repeat the follow up that was set over there with
2:15:28
Speaker 1: To me, that is the professional way to respond. So
2:15:31
Speaker 1: when he denigrates Caitlin Collins or something like that, refute
2:15:37
Speaker 1: and then mister President, I'd like to repeat the question
2:15:41
Speaker 1: you again, and then you literally repeat Caitlyn's question in
2:15:45
Speaker 1: that situation that he denigrates, but you make it clear
2:15:50
Speaker 1: trying to get the question answered. So I think that's
2:15:53
Speaker 1: the best way to do it, because ultimately, you're you're
2:15:58
Speaker 1: you know, I always say, when you're asking questions of
2:15:59
Speaker 1: the press, you're a stand in for the public, so
2:16:03
Speaker 1: you know, and so get to get him answered. And
2:16:05
Speaker 1: when you're working in a collective environment, even though you
2:16:08
Speaker 1: compete with other news organizations, ultimately we're all trying to
2:16:11
Speaker 1: do the same thing, which has surface more information out
2:16:13
Speaker 1: of this administration, and in that sense, you should have
2:16:17
Speaker 1: the back of your colleagues. Now I can say today's
2:16:20
Speaker 1: calculation is there's fear of retribution from Trump, there's fear
2:16:24
Speaker 1: of losing access, and then there's the pressure that comes
2:16:27
Speaker 1: from their bosses, particularly if you work for a more
2:16:30
Speaker 1: well known news brand that where the corporate parent cares
2:16:33
Speaker 1: more about their image than the journalist's integrity. Which, again
2:16:37
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say something. All I'm looking I'm waiting for
2:16:42
Speaker 1: the three heads of the corporations that own the three
2:16:46
Speaker 1: broadcast news divisions that Brendan cars threatened to stand up
2:16:50
Speaker 1: for those journalists, and they have not publicly stood up
2:16:52
Speaker 1: for those journalists. Brian Roberts, Bob Eiger, David Ellison, speak up,
2:16:58
Speaker 1: speak up. If you don't, you're sending the message to
2:17:01
Speaker 1: your journalists that you do not have their back. So
2:17:04
Speaker 1: what Brendan Carr has said is operable if you do
2:17:07
Speaker 1: not speak up and defend your journalists. So get your
2:17:11
Speaker 1: shit together, guys, and defend your journalists. You don't have
2:17:15
Speaker 1: to attack the president. You can defend your journalists without
2:17:19
Speaker 1: attacking anybody and making it political. Defend their integrity. This
2:17:24
Speaker 1: is something you have refused to do for years, and
2:17:28
Speaker 1: here we are. But in this case, to your question, John,
2:17:31
Speaker 1: that's to me the best way to do that. Next
2:17:35
Speaker 1: question goes from Jason from Virginia. Hey check. One thing
2:17:37
Speaker 1: I really enjoy about the new format is the chance
2:17:38
Speaker 1: to ask questions and interact with the show. I'm curious
2:17:40
Speaker 1: there are lessons from sports fandom that could help reduce
2:17:43
Speaker 1: polarization and politics. For example, I might feel about Miami
2:17:45
Speaker 1: as a uf alum the way you feel about Florida,
2:17:48
Speaker 1: but we could still easily talk sports and laugh about it.
2:17:51
Speaker 1: Why does politics feel so much harder? And how do
2:17:53
Speaker 1: we get back to recognizing the things we actually agree on.
2:17:56
Speaker 1: I think about this a lot when people attack Kirk
2:17:59
Speaker 1: kurb Street and I've I've I've probably taken a shot
2:18:04
Speaker 1: or two at herb Street over the years because I've
2:18:06
Speaker 1: been frustrated about something ESPN has done and right, and
2:18:09
Speaker 1: there's this feeling that he's the voice of college football
2:18:11
Speaker 1: and so and you know, people will say, well, he's
2:18:14
Speaker 1: in the tank for Clemson, or he's in the you
2:18:16
Speaker 1: know because his kids are on Clemson's team, or he's
2:18:18
Speaker 1: in the tank for Ohio State, or he's in the
2:18:20
Speaker 1: tank for the SEC and and then I think about
2:18:24
Speaker 1: it when he does the ridiculous which I kind of
2:18:26
Speaker 1: think is ridiculous. He will he will make predictions about
2:18:29
Speaker 1: every game except the ones he calls, and you're like,
2:18:31
Speaker 1: you know, I don't. I think you can sort of.
2:18:34
Speaker 1: I get it's sort of like a phony attempt at integrity,
2:18:39
Speaker 1: and I just think that's silly. But I have empathy
2:18:43
Speaker 1: for him because I think this. You know, I can't
2:18:46
Speaker 1: tell you how many college sports fans watch a game
2:18:48
Speaker 1: and are convinced the announcers are against them. My I
2:18:54
Speaker 1: have a relative. I'm not going to single out their
2:18:56
Speaker 1: relationship to me, because I'll just let them assume I'm
2:18:59
Speaker 1: talking about them, but not actually have them know I'm
2:19:02
Speaker 1: talking about them in this case, but I have a
2:19:05
Speaker 1: relative who always assumes that the announcers are against Miami.
2:19:09
Speaker 1: And look, there has been era Parsigian was against Miami
2:19:14
Speaker 1: when calling Notre Dame games. That was obvious, and we
2:19:18
Speaker 1: saw it in the famous eighty seven game when Miami
2:19:21
Speaker 1: kicked Notre Dame's ass and our era cried on television
2:19:25
Speaker 1: that how dare somebody run up the score against Notre Dame?
2:19:27
Speaker 1: When Notre Dame. All they did was run up the
2:19:28
Speaker 1: score when he was their coach. But that neither here
2:19:31
Speaker 1: nor there. But the point is, nine times out of ten,
2:19:35
Speaker 1: the announcers are just trying to essentially go with the game, right.
2:19:41
Speaker 1: If the game is going in one direction, you sound
2:19:43
Speaker 1: like you're in the tank for one direction. You know,
2:19:45
Speaker 1: you just sort of move at the game. And so
2:19:50
Speaker 1: I've long thought about it that way, So I put
2:19:53
Speaker 1: it this way. I don't take attacks personally. You know,
2:19:57
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how often I would get it.
2:19:59
Speaker 1: You know, you see your tone changed when you interviewed
2:20:03
Speaker 1: a Democrat versus when you interviewed a Republican. I don't
2:20:06
Speaker 1: think my tone changed. I think you're listening with a
2:20:09
Speaker 1: different ear because you're making a presumption about a bias
2:20:12
Speaker 1: that you think is there, but you don't have evidence
2:20:16
Speaker 1: of it. So you're now you're going to try to
2:20:18
Speaker 1: use facial expressions in tone. Right, Like what I used
2:20:22
Speaker 1: to say is all right, this is somebody who's already
2:20:24
Speaker 1: a partisan. Right, I used to say, the worst people
2:20:27
Speaker 1: to talk about whether somebody is being fair or not
2:20:29
Speaker 1: as a partisan, because a partisan is looking for people
2:20:32
Speaker 1: that agree with them. They're not looking for fairness, They're
2:20:34
Speaker 1: looking for bias. That's the irony here. So the point
2:20:39
Speaker 1: is is that I do think about the coverage of
2:20:41
Speaker 1: college football and the passion that's behind it, and how
2:20:43
Speaker 1: quickly we assume someone's against our team or whatever, to
2:20:46
Speaker 1: be a little more patient with critics when people want
2:20:51
Speaker 1: to make assumptions about because what I have found is
2:20:54
Speaker 1: when I have substantive conversations with a critic, they're pretty
2:21:01
Speaker 1: rational and they sort of they get exactly what I'm saying,
2:21:03
Speaker 1: and they kind of while without fully acknowledging that they
2:21:07
Speaker 1: were looking at me through their own bias, not through
2:21:10
Speaker 1: my bias, that you can have some rational discussion. So
2:21:15
Speaker 1: I do in that sense. I do. But look, this
2:21:18
Speaker 1: is why I'm a big fan of using sports in
2:21:19
Speaker 1: my interviews with many politicians, because I do think it's
2:21:22
Speaker 1: a way to remind people we have plenty in common
2:21:25
Speaker 1: even when we disagree. And by the way, I'm sorry
2:21:28
Speaker 1: you have to root for the Gators. Next question comes
2:21:31
Speaker 1: from Matthew. Matthew from Bourbon, Indiana, big fan of the show.
2:21:35
Speaker 1: How much do you think Trump's gutting of the State
2:21:36
Speaker 1: Department last year led to the failed planning to have
2:21:38
Speaker 1: an effective evacuation plan in the Middle EAGs during the
2:21:40
Speaker 1: Iranian War. As you mentioned in your previous episode, there
2:21:43
Speaker 1: was a large military build up prior to the launch
2:21:45
Speaker 1: of the war, But the State Department is the agency
2:21:47
Speaker 1: that leads non combatant evacuation operations, not the military. Appreciates
2:21:50
Speaker 1: your inside Matthew, Look, it's not just that. How about
2:21:54
Speaker 1: dismanling USAID and failing to be a support mechanism for
2:21:58
Speaker 1: the opposition inside of Iran and helping the opposition be
2:22:02
Speaker 1: ready for a moment that that we were trying to
2:22:05
Speaker 1: create for them. You know, I think part of the
2:22:09
Speaker 1: both you know, this is going to be a This
2:22:12
Speaker 1: war is going to be the definition of tactical success,
2:22:16
Speaker 1: but overall failure because we blew this. You know, we
2:22:20
Speaker 1: we blew up our soft power capabilities over the last
2:22:24
Speaker 1: year and change, and those soft powder power capabilities were
2:22:29
Speaker 1: just not you know, you can have all the hard
2:22:31
Speaker 1: power you want, but if you don't have those soft
2:22:33
Speaker 1: power capabilities, then you don't have the ability to essentially
2:22:38
Speaker 1: use your tactical success to cement a diplomatic achievement. And
2:22:45
Speaker 1: so I think I think there's a direct correlation here
2:22:48
Speaker 1: with our failure in Iran, and I say, look, we
2:22:52
Speaker 1: should be careful here. It's not it's not a lost
2:22:54
Speaker 1: cause yet. It's it's possible that there's a the regime
2:22:57
Speaker 1: gets toppled and we can get to a better place.
2:23:00
Speaker 1: But this was this was a pretty poorly executed Well,
2:23:04
Speaker 1: we may have a tactical military victory here, it's a
2:23:06
Speaker 1: pretty poorly executed strategy because we don't know what the
2:23:09
Speaker 1: strategy is, what is the endgame, And now it's probably
2:23:13
Speaker 1: going to be filled with mission creep because if if
2:23:17
Speaker 1: you leave now, it only keeps it only keeps the
2:23:19
Speaker 1: regime and power. You've made things worse and oh, by
2:23:21
Speaker 1: the way, you screwed up the global economy. So in
2:23:24
Speaker 1: order to make this, in order probably to keep this
2:23:27
Speaker 1: mistake from being worse, we're going to have to escalate
2:23:31
Speaker 1: in ways that the public's not going to find very popular.
2:23:34
Speaker 1: But yes, I think dismantling usaid, I think there's both
2:23:40
Speaker 1: indirect and direct impact. The gutting of the State Department
2:23:43
Speaker 1: is a huge reason why we are failing in the
2:23:47
Speaker 1: soft power part of this Iranian war. Last question for
2:23:52
Speaker 1: this episode, it comes from Dan and Fairfax. Hey, did
2:23:57
Speaker 1: Governor Spamberger just tee up at GOP wave during the
2:23:59
Speaker 1: next round of st legislative elections. A lot of what
2:24:01
Speaker 1: she signed in the law will get activists upset, but
2:24:03
Speaker 1: the gun control measures might result in role voters turning
2:24:06
Speaker 1: out in droves. Northern Virginian's rich in residents and those
2:24:08
Speaker 1: in the Tidewater might support gun controlled by I bettet's
2:24:11
Speaker 1: an eighty twenty issue in the rest of the state.
2:24:12
Speaker 1: Thanks Dan and Fairfax. That's an interesting way of looking
2:24:14
Speaker 1: at it. I just think in general, this has been
2:24:16
Speaker 1: the most partisan start of any of any Democratic governor
2:24:24
Speaker 1: in the twenty first century that we've had, right Warner, Caine, mccauliffe.
2:24:28
Speaker 1: You go through she's and yet she didn't run as
2:24:31
Speaker 1: a partisan, and I don't think she is as partisan
2:24:34
Speaker 1: as the legislature is now. It's sort of like what
2:24:37
Speaker 1: happened to my friend Pat McCrory North Carolina. The legislature
2:24:39
Speaker 1: sort of dragged him into these conservative causes that he
2:24:42
Speaker 1: never wanted to be was running on and governing on.
2:24:45
Speaker 1: And I have a feeling spam Burger is feeling the
2:24:47
Speaker 1: same way here. She's the governor, but she's being dragged into,
2:24:50
Speaker 1: dragged into signing legislation that she may generally be supportive of,
2:24:53
Speaker 1: but not necessarily wanting to prioritize by a very very
2:24:58
Speaker 1: aggressive legislature. Right now, look, I think these this is,
2:25:04
Speaker 1: this is dangerous territory. But we'll see the numbers of
2:25:07
Speaker 1: the numbers. I mean, northern Virginia, Richmond and Tidewater may
2:25:11
Speaker 1: may just be that much bigger of entities. I mean,
2:25:15
Speaker 1: this is an interesting if if guns alone or that,
2:25:18
Speaker 1: I think the vulnerability guns might rally your rural voters,
2:25:24
Speaker 1: which which certainly can matter a bit. I think the
2:25:27
Speaker 1: bigger thing is how partisan and sort of the you know,
2:25:33
Speaker 1: slamming through. I mean, I just find this entire redistricting
2:25:36
Speaker 1: referendum and the messaging campaign and the gas lighting. I just, oh,
2:25:41
Speaker 1: I hate this. I know, I'm a good government guy.
2:25:44
Speaker 1: I'm a pro democracy person, so I hate every part
2:25:47
Speaker 1: of this redistricting war left and right. Okay, this is
2:25:51
Speaker 1: this fight fire with fire is only going to damage everybody.
2:25:55
Speaker 1: I mean, it reminds me of a joke that my
2:25:58
Speaker 1: an old friend of mine named Matt Cooper, editor over
2:26:01
Speaker 1: at Washington Monthly, now great reporter at Newsweek, back when
2:26:05
Speaker 1: Newsweek was Newsweek. The twentieth century newswek no twenty first
2:26:08
Speaker 1: century Newsweek. But Matthew Cooper used to do some stand
2:26:12
Speaker 1: up comedy.
2:26:13
Speaker 4: And he's and he had this ref about, you know,
2:26:18
Speaker 4: imagine if the beer companies behaved like political candidates do
2:26:22
Speaker 4: in their TV ads.
2:26:24
Speaker 1: And you know, and bud Light and Miller Lte went
2:26:27
Speaker 1: after each other, and bud Light ran an ad that said,
2:26:29
Speaker 1: Miller Light claims it's less filling, but what they don't
2:26:33
Speaker 1: tell you and they just start reading the ingredients of
2:26:37
Speaker 1: the beer that with the five syllable words and all
2:26:40
Speaker 1: this stuff, you know, and then you'd have a response
2:26:43
Speaker 1: ad going Miller going negative on bud Light. They claim
2:26:46
Speaker 1: they're the king of beers. But what they don't tell
2:26:48
Speaker 1: you is, you know, that sort of thing that eventually
2:26:50
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be that, as he said, people wouldn't just
2:26:52
Speaker 1: stop drinking Budweiser drinking Miller Light. They just simply stopped
2:26:55
Speaker 1: drinking beer. And his point was that's what's happened to politics, right, Well,
2:27:00
Speaker 1: this is my concern about what Democrats have done here
2:27:03
Speaker 1: with this basically deciding the best way to unrig our
2:27:08
Speaker 1: democracy is to rig the democracy, right, you know, the
2:27:12
Speaker 1: best way to enfranchise voters that have been disenfranchised in
2:27:16
Speaker 1: Texas is to disenfranchised voters in Virginia or in California.
2:27:20
Speaker 1: It's just not going. It's just doesn't stand up to scrutiny, right,
2:27:26
Speaker 1: and it doesn't pass the logic test. And all it
2:27:29
Speaker 1: does is just fuel the cynicism of politics that ultimately
2:27:34
Speaker 1: they just want power, and the parties will take any
2:27:37
Speaker 1: shortcut to power, and they'll use any rationale to grab power.
2:27:43
Speaker 1: And that's that's the and that's the cynical response from
2:27:51
Speaker 1: the voter that I fear is coming. If we're if
2:27:53
Speaker 1: we're if we're all not careful there. All right, let
2:27:57
Speaker 1: me get off the soapbox here, because guess what, I'll
2:28:00
Speaker 1: be back in twenty four hours. And with that, thanks
2:28:03
Speaker 1: for listening.