Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - South Carolina Delayed Trump's Lame Duck Status... For Now + Why Trump Is Losing In Iran & Trying To Break The West

Transcript

Full Episode - South Carolina Delayed Trump's Lame Duck Status... For Now + Why Trump Is Losing In Iran & Trying To Break The West · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: over exactly this. Companies that branded themselves as unbiased while
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: allegedly pointing people toward whatever would pay them the most
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: as some sort of broker. So if your default is
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to distrust everyone in this space, honestly, I get it.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Medicare advisors whose entire model is that their advisors are
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: not paid to push any one plan. They're just trying
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to help. Yes, there's compensation that goes with it. but
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: it's across the board is what they're trying to do.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, they're advocating for you.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: They're not the insurance companies themselves. They're an actual person
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: who actually goes through your doctors, your prescriptions, your needs,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and then compares them to every single plan available to
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: find the best one that will work for you and
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: hopefully save you a couple dollars too. And here's the
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: part that sets chapter apart. They don't disappear once you've
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: been in They will keep advocating for you. They're kind
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: of like almost like a concierge service. You're just there.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I need help. You're like customer service. You know, the plan,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: you know, help me navigate this again. So you ever
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: get hit with a wrongful medical bill, they'll help you
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: fight it. They want to stay an advocate for you
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: even after you've done this. So look, I get it.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Medicare and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: The whole point of this is to make this easier
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: already have in all of this, point it at your
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: own plan for 20 minutes. It's free. There's no pressure.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4200. Hello there and
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: welcome to another episode of the Chuck Todd cast. We
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: are coming to you on Thursday, August 27th. And that
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: date means a lot to me. It would be my
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: father's 78th birthday. I lost him when he turned just
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: after he turned 40. So it is always one of
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: those things. The fact that that he is. almost been
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: gone as long as he lived is always something that's
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: striking to me. I know for me, it was an
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: odd moment when I crossed a threshold, when I had
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: lived longer without him than with him type of thing.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: But I'm not trying to start on a downer, but
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: it is. So I do it as a, so, hey, dad,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: happy birthday. I do know What I've gotten to do
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: over the last 30 years is something you wish you
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: would have done in much of your life. My father,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: a huge political junkie and a huge sports history junkie.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I feel like in many ways I am trying to
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: live out all the things that he brought into my life.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Let me give you a quick rundown of the show. Look,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: we have a huge– I think there's a lot to
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: learn from South Carolina, and we've got a lot to
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: do there. sort of where things stand just as we're
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: on the precipice of the 60-day sprint. We're not quite
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: at 60 days yet, but we're getting closer and closer,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the 60-day sprint to election day. My guest today is
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Anthony Scaramucci. He, of course, became famous or infamous for
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: his 11 days as Donald Trump's communications director back during
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Trump 1.0. He has become one of the more outspoken
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: critics of Donald Trump and his leadership. particularly of the
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: economy in general. And we spend a lot of time
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: talking about Canada, talking about Mark Carney, and frankly, coming
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: to the conclusion that the leader of the West is
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: no longer the president of the United States, that the
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: leader of the West is the prime minister from up North,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Mark Carney. And what does that mean? And I'm going
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: to get to Carney a little bit, actually, in my
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: full monologue. But I know one thing, anytime I spend
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: time with Anthony, I always learn something. He's somebody steeped
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: in finance and we spend a lot of time in
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: that territory. But he understands people and he reads people
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: and he understands systems and processes, particularly the ones that
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: do or do not work in the world of Trump.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: So I always believe there's a lot to learn from
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: him and how to understand. Because I think we're all
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out how is Donald Trump going to
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: handle becoming a lame duck, right? The Economist has an
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: interesting editorial that is worth your time. They think he's
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: going to be very dangerous as a lame duck. One
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: of the points I make quite a bit about Donald
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Trump is he does not care about the future of
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party. He only cares about it if it
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: impacts his own legacy. If there is no president that
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: is a Republican that succeeds him, he won't see that
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: as a failure of Donald Trump. He will see that
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: as proof that only Donald Trump could make the Republican
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Party successful in the presidential level. So I do think
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: there is a lot to glean from there. Yes, I
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: am sporting USC this weekend. And you may ask, OK,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: we are in week zero of college football. I know
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited about it. And I, as you know,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I have acquired a long list of schools that I
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: feel some affiliation to. I teach at USC. USC opened
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: San Jose State here in week zero. My wife's a
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Florida State Seminole. They open. They have a week zero matchup.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: It is a game that they're supposed to win. There's
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: no and ditto with USC. But college football is back, folks.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: And you know what that means? Pretty much at the
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: end of every Thursday podcast, I'm going to be giving
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: you how I'm watching the weekend, all the hopium that
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: I'll be smoking when it comes to all things University
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: of Miami. To say that my expectations are high, is
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: probably an understatement, but I just feel as good about
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: the determination of this program that the University of Miami
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: is on as I have felt dating back to the
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Johnson era, or frankly, to when the determination of
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: when Ed Reed and Ken Dorsey said, hey, just make
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Larry Coker the coach and we'll coach this team and
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: win the title the next year, which is exactly what
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: happened in the transition from 2000 to 2001. I think
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: these guys got a taste of something and they want
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: to see it all the way through. I know we're
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: missing a big chunk of our, half of our defensive
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: line ended up drafted in the first round of the
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: NFL draft. But I think Mr. Cristobal, I think coach
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: has put together, he's starting to put together the program
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: that Nick Saban has, the blueprint that Nick Saban has outlined,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: that Kirby Smart has replicated. I think Cristobal is coming
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: close to being the next Sabanite to figure this out.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: So that's what kind of hopium I'm on when it
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: comes to college football. But you don't come here for
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: my college football takes. You come here to try to
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: see and understand what's going on with the political landscape.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: So I want to start in South Carolina earlier this week,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: because I think something happened there that is both less
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: important than it looks and more important than it looks.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Darlene Graham won. That's important. She won the runoff. And obviously,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: if you're Donald Trump, you take the win, right? He
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: endorsed her. He went down there. He campaigned for her.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: His political operation did something they hadn't done for anybody
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: else this cycle. They spent money on her behalf, and
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: she won. Wasn't a blowout, but she won. So if
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: the question was simply, does Donald Trump still have influence
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: over Republican primary voters? The answer is a resounding yes.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, just you just look at where he went.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: He went Myrtle Beach while in Horry County, which encompasses
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Myrtle Beach. Darlene Graham won by almost 50 points. She
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: only won by five. I mean, the margin of victory
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: is where Trump went. So this is Trump deserves the credit.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: They did it. They earned it. They dragged her across
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the finish line. So I don't think South Carolina tells
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: us that Trump has suddenly lost control of the Republican Party.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: But it could have, right, if things gone another way.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: If anything, though, he stepped into a race that had
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: become something of a test of his own political strength.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: And his candidate got dragged across the finish line. But
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: she only got there with 52.5%. And I think that
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: number matters. And I think that's why there's something a
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: little bit more about what we saw that tells us
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: something about what to expect in the fall. Because let's
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: remember how she got here. Darlene Graham, she was appointed
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: to the Senate. right, after the death of her brother.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Appointed senators historically are just more vulnerable, and they historically
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: underperform their party or the previous. And the question is,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: how much do they underperform, right? There's certainly, she's got
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: some room to underperform and still hang on, right? But
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: we know there's a difference between inheriting an office and
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: winning it yourself. Now, let's remember what Lindsey Graham got.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Lindsey Graham in his Republican primary back in June before
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: he died, he got nearly 57 percent against a field
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: of five challenge. Darlene Graham running head to head in
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: the runoff got about 52 and a half. So and
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: I think that four and a half to five points
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: is is the appointed senator penalty, if you will. I
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: know these aren't apples to apples races, OK? I want
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: to sit here and pretend this is a precise measurement
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: that you can say it's all five points. But there's–
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: we knew Graham had already had– there was already some
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: negatives that Graham had acquired for being Lindsey Graham, right?
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Not every Republican saw him as a true blue Republican.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Many thought he worked too often across the aisle, things
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: like that. So I do think she acquired some of
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: the negative and didn't get all of the positive, though
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I do think, I don't, as much as I think
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Trump mattered a lot, particularly when you see how well
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: she did in Myrtle Beach, Lindsey Graham had a real
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: organization and she inherited that organization and it would, you know,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: they already were, you know, they have been running a
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: bit scared, smartly so, right? They know, you know, they
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: couldn't take anything for granted in a primary. They ran
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a legitimate primary campaign. They spent a little bit of money.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: They didn't take that for granted. And the fact that
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: that was an operation that was already in motion is
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: something that also helped her. But it did take Trump
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: coming in personally, and it did take his operation and
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: the entire weight of MAGA to get an appointed Republican
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: senator in red South Carolina through a runoff. And I
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: think that's the proper way to frame what happened. This
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: wasn't an overwhelming demonstration of Republican unity. And so it's
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: why I'm suddenly a lot more interested in the general
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: election than I thought I would be at this point.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: And I want to be careful here. I don't know
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: if there's a path for Annie Andrews to win in
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: South Carolina. I do believe there's a path for Annie
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Andrews to make this extraordinarily close. All right. So Lindsey
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Graham won his last general election in 2020 with about 54%.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Jamie Harrison got 44%. And if you recall, 2020 is
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: extraordinarily high turnout in both sides of the aisle. You know,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: And remember, there was a ton of money that Jamie
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Harrison raised. And Lindsey Graham was able to basically counter
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: that almost dollar for dollar. Remember, he would go on
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Hannity going, hey, my opponent's raising all this money. I
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: need your help. So there's a ton of money with COVID.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: You know, 2020 in general is almost like perfect turnout
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: for both parties, right? They each maximized. Everybody pretty much
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: maximized what they could. So we kind of have, you know,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: in an even environment, right? The ceiling for a Democrat's
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: about 44. The question is, in a tilted environment that
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: favors the Democrats, how much more room is there to grow?
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: So I think that's the question here. And it isn't,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: in this particular environment, a Democrat with a real organization
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: can get this thing close enough that suddenly you're talking,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: to put it in some football terms, it's a one-score game, right?
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: It's inside, you know, to me, you know, if in
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: football it's a touchdown, when I say one score, I'm
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: like five. I think almost more in five-point increments, right?
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Five points is my, you know, definition of a one-score campaign,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: if you will. Ten points is a two-score campaign. You know,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: those of you that don't like my sports metaphors, well,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: you're probably not listening because if you're listening, you probably
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: do appreciate my sports metaphors. So I don't know if
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: I see a path to victory for Annie Andrews, but
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I do see a path to 47 or 48%. And
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: the question is, how can that become a winning number?
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: And look, when you're in a race that close, anything
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: can happen, weird things can happen. Maybe she has another
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: debate gaffe. It wasn't the greatest start right after when
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: she said, she talked about, well, her parents didn't have
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: government healthcare and they were fine, except they weren't, right?
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Like it was just an odd thing She's still an
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: amateur candidate. She's still figuring this out. And she could
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: still say some things that may go viral that may
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: make some voters scratch their head. Now, I'd be a
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: bit more bullish for Democrats if this election were six
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: months from now rather than closer to 60 days from now.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: If Democrats had an entire spring to pour money and organization,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: particularly in some of the African-American heavy counties, both urban
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: and rural in South Carolina. I think you could say, hey,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: take this really seriously. I mean, quick aside here, this
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: is where you realize the Democratic Party is missing something
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: leadership-wise or structurally. Mississippi and South Carolina should be organizational
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: focal points for the national party. There should be a
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: separate effort. These were both races that were sort of
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: on the outside of competitive, but not crazy that they
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be. But they didn't, you know, money hasn't been
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: spent over the last six months to go and register
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: African-American voters in Mississippi or in South Carolina. And it
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: could have been. I think Democrats are going to find
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: out that they had some missed opportunities in the South,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: particularly in Mississippi and South Carolina. But, hey, we'll see.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: One of the things that did happen over the summer
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: after that voting rights thing, Supreme Court ruling is we've
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: seen a surge in African-American turnout in primaries. And when
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: a person chooses to vote in a primary, the likelihood
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: they're voting in a general goes up tenfold. OK, so.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: You know, that that to me is one of the
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: wild cards here in South Carolina for Annie Andrews. But
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: I do think the short the two things help Darlene
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Graham here, the short timetable and the fact that this
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: is for a six year term. I think if this
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: were an election for two years, if this were sort
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: of what Sherrod Brown, right? Sherrod Brown and John Huston
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: are running, right? The privilege of winning that Ohio Senate
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: race is that they got to turn right around. And then,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: you know, this is a special to finish the term.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: And then it becomes, then the seat, the Vance seat
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: itself is up in 28. So literally, if Sherrod Brown wins,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: you got to turn around and do it again. If Huston,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: whatever it is, the winner has to turn right around
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: and run again. I actually think, that there would be
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: some South Carolina Republican-leaning voters who may think, you know what,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: I don't like this family inheritance stuff. I don't like
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: this idea she's just going to do whatever Trump asks.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I want a little more independence. I'm going to vote
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: for the Democrat for two years, and then we'll get
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: a good Republican back in here in two years. Because
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: this is six years, I think that you're, you know,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: it's my dad's birthday, so I'll reference my dad. He
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: was on his deathbed deciding who to vote for in
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: a Senate race. And I was helping him vote absentee.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: This is in 1988. Those of you that know Florida history,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: you'll know which race I'm referring to. He liked the
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Democratic candidate better personally, but he wanted a Republican Senate.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: And he voted Jersey over person. And he's, you know,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: I think that that is something that I'm not saying
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of voters vote that way, but enough do. And,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: you know, in a place like South Carolina where there's
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: just no margin for error for a Democrat to get
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: up there, you need a few of those voters that
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: think that way. But I think because it's a six-year term,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: I think that also helps Graham here. But look, Annie
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Andrews also isn't some candidate who just woke up yesterday
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: and suddenly discovered she's running for the United States Senate, right?
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: She has an organization. She's been raising a decent amount
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: of money. She ran a pretty good primary campaign. Like
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: this is not a fly by night operation. This is
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: not a gadfly candidate. This is a serious candidate. And
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: it is, I would deem it as worth watching. And
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: in fact, I'd probably now put the South Carolina Senate
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: race in a category with some other races that I
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: would not have expected to be spending as much time
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: talking about a year ago. That includes Kansas. That includes Nebraska.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: That includes South Dakota. So it's in that ring of competitiveness, right?
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: It is not the primary ring. This is if the
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: bottom falls out, if this blue wave is a tsunami,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: then we're going to start talking about Kansas, Nebraska. Maybe Nebraska,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: maybe Osborne can win without a tsunami. We'll see. But
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: certainly Kansas, South Dakota, South Carolina feel more like blue
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: tsunami states for Democrats to win them. But that doesn't
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: mean they won't be very competitive. And it doesn't mean
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Republicans may not have to spend some time and resources
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: protecting them, right? Many of these places may ultimately stay Republican.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: But if you're a Republican and you're spending time and
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: resources in September and October defending Kansas, South Dakota, South Carolina,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: even if you win all three of them, already you
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: know something has gone wrong. You're, you know, because you're not,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: you're not able to prioritize your New Hampshire's, your Michigan's,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: your North Carolina's, your Maine's, you know, the races on
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: the front lines or the, or even a Georgia, a
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: race you, you know, that is in the other camp,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: but you'd like to make competitive. Hey, this episode of
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: the Chuck Todd cast is brought to you by Ethos. Look,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: let me tell you about Life insurance. As you know,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Ethos is an incredible portal for helping you find the
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: right life insurance policy. I'm a huge believer in life insurance.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have gotten to college in Washington, D.C. without
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: life insurance. My father had a policy buried somewhere that
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: we discovered, and it wasn't a lot of money, but
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: it was an important bucket of money at a time
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: that my mother, newly widowed, single mom, me, I'm 16.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: It was of enormous, enormous help at that time. And
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: this is why I believe in life insurance. You don't
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: know what could happen to you on any given day.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: This is literally an insurance policy for that. So let
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: me tell you a little bit about Ethos. Ethos makes
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: getting life insurance fast and easy. It's 100% online. You
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: get a quote in seconds, you apply in minutes, and
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: you can get coverage the same day you begin this process.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: There's no medical exam. You just answer a few simple
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: health questions. You can get up to $ 3 million in coverage.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Some policies are as low as $ 30 a month. And
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: you'll get your lowest rate from their network of trusted carriers.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Ethos has gotten 4.9 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: with over 5,500 reviews. So, take 10 minutes to get
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: covered today. Life insurance through Ethos. Get your free quote
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: at ethos.com slash Chuck. That is E-T-H-O-S dot com slash Chuck.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Application times may vary. The rates may vary. That Trustpilot
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: rating was as of August of 2026. But look, here's
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: another reason why I think the South Carolina result mattered
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: beyond South Carolina. Donald Trump desperately needed a Darlene Graham win.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: You know, politics is also part psychology. One loss doesn't
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: necessarily matter. Two losses sometimes don't necessarily matter. But eventually
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: you get a series of things happening and suddenly everybody
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: decides they all mean the same thing all at the
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: same time. And once that happens, you create a rush
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: to the exits. So we'd already seen some Trump endorsed
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: candidates struggle in some places this year, right? We've seen them.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Some Trump endorsed candidates actually lose, right? Particularly in governor's races,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: it's been pretty. And what was funny is on Tuesday,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: before the South Carolina polls closed, there were two little
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: incidents that were quite interesting to me. Tom Tiffany, the
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Republican nominee for governor in Wisconsin, went public with his
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: disagreement with Trump on his decision to bring in imported
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: beef which are pissing off cattle ranchers, which is an
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: important constituency that he's worried about in Wisconsin. Never mind
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: that the Canadian tariff war also has a negative impact
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: on Wisconsin in general. Then you had a candidate, my
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: friend Sahil Kapoor had this from my old colleague from NBC,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: There's a candidate in Kentucky, Ralph Alvarado, the sixth congressional district.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: This is the one Andy Barr is vacating. He's the
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: likely next senator. He's going to replace McConnell. He's the
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Republican nominee for Senate. Well, Ralph Alvarado was the Trump-endorsed
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: candidate who won the nomination for the sixth congressional seat
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: in Kentucky. This is the Lexington seat. This is a
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: marginally competitive seat. It is one that I do expect
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: to be a race decided by less than five points.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: What was fascinating is Sahil did this thing, a side-by-side.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Some of you may have seen it in social media.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: So during the primary, Alvarado bragged about being the Trump
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: and Norris candidate, right? All of a sudden now it's
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: independent-minded Ralph Alvarado for Congress. Scrubbed his website, scrubbed a
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: lot of things, of all things Trump. Again, you know,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: this is one of those things, you know, huh, that's
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: interesting in Wisconsin. Huh, that's interesting over here. So in
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: the world of the rule of threes, had a Darlene
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Graham with Trump's endorsement not gotten over the finish line,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: you see where this is going, right? And it is
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: suddenly you could see a spiral here that would have
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: been quite difficult. By the way, one more little nugget
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: on Kentucky six. If you want, I think Kentucky six
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: is a good blue tsunami test. Kentucky's polls close super early.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: It's one of the first places we're going to get results.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: We're going to get results there faster than we will
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: in some of the Virginia races. If Kentucky 6 is
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: either blue or uncalled after an hour or so, we
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: know the direction of the campaign. We know Democrats are
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: going to be winning the House. The only question we
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: have is by how many seats. But Kentucky 6 is
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: an interesting. And the fact that he's already switched and
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: tried to drop the Trump branding, I think already tells
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: you what they're seeing in their own polling, right? So
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: imagine a Darlene Graham loss in this same news cycle
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: that I just described to you, where you have a
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Republican in Wisconsin with a Trump endorsement publicly criticizing him
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: on a policy decision. You have another Trump endorsed candidate
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: in the House and a swing competitive district in Kentucky deciding, hey,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I need some distance from Trump. And then Trump can't
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: deliver South Carolina. Republicans are defying him. MAGA is losing
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: its grip. Suddenly everybody with a grievance inside the Republican
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Party discovers the courage to talk about it. That's the
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: spiral Trump avoided on Tuesday. That's why this victory sort
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: of now may he may have just postponed the spiral.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: But hey, it postponed it at a time where he
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: couldn't afford to have it happen. So he won his
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: first test. But now what's interesting is if you believe
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the reporting in The Atlantic, and I certainly do, he's
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: about to take his South Carolina experiment and he's going
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: to try to run it nationally. So what do I mean?
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: The Atlantic has this terrific piece of reporting that Trump
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: gathered his political people in the Oval Office to figure
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: out what to do with his enormous MAGA Inc. war chest,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: some roughly about half a billion dollars. heading into the midterms.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: And what's not surprising is that there's a basic disagreement
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: among Republican strategists about what the party should do and
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: how the party should handle Trump. There are those who
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: look at Trump's approval rating. They look at the economy.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: They look at the public anxiety about the war in Iran.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: They look at the overall environment and say, Jesus, for
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: the love of God, localize these elections. Don't play into
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: the nationalization of these elections. Keep Trump away from all
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: of these places. Let the candidate in Ohio run a
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: race that he needs to in Ohio, right? Let the
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: candidate in Iowa run an Iowa race. Let the Republican
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: in a suburban house district talk about the Democrat they're
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: running against, not have to defend all things Trump. That's
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: sort of the standard playbook for the party in power
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: who suddenly got their back against the wall, which is
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: try to make it a choice instead of a referendum, right?
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Try to localize the election. Or try to make it
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: about your opponent. Make it about anything other than Donald Trump.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: That's not the Donald Trump we all know. Trump, of course,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: looked at all of this and apparently reached the exact
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: opposite conclusion. His attitude is basically, well, the Democrats are
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: going to make this election about me anyway. Fine. Let's
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: make it about me. So Trump apparently wants MAGA Inc.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: to spend a chunk of its money on ads touting
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's accomplishments. And I know what you're thinking. What accomplishments?
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Stick with me here. Donald Trump doesn't want to talk
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: about the accomplishments of the Republican Senate candidate he wants
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: to endorse or the biography of a new Republican House
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: candidate he'd like to see win. He would like ads
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: about Donald Trump, his record, his presidency, his economy, his border,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: his agenda. And apparently he told his political team, Hey,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: just go through all of my old clips. You know,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: I talk about my accomplishments all the time. You know,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: all those crazy little vignettes he does when he does
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: his pull-asides with the press. Now, what's fascinating to me
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: is the diagnosis that apparently led him there. According to
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: The Atlantic, Trump has been told by his advisors that
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: part of the reason his numbers are bad is that
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: voters just don't know enough about what he's actually done.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: This is the don't tell the king the truth. Tell
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: him what he wants to hear.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: That's what they've done. Now, look, I've covered plenty of
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: White House. Quite a few of them. And I cannot
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: tell you how many presidents eventually convinced themselves, actually, of
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: some version of this same thinking that Trump has. The
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: policies aren't unpopular. The voters just don't understand them. The
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: economy isn't the problem. The press isn't explaining it correctly.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: People aren't unhappy with what we've done. They just haven't
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: heard enough about what we've done. If we could only
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: communicate better, if only the media weren't so negative, if
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: only the voters knew. It's one of the incredible traps
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: of the presidency, especially with people that advise presidents who
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: are just afraid to deliver bad news because they want
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: to keep their job. They know presidents, at the end
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: of the day, Right. Trump's the most extreme version of this,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: but plenty of president fired, fired an advisor who told
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: them things that they didn't want to hear. But usually
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: presidents are not. This isn't true.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: It isn't that voters don't know enough. Oh, voters know
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: perfectly well what you've done. And here's the thing. They
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: don't like it. And maybe the macroeconomic statistics look pretty good,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: but their own economic statistics, i.e. money in their checking account,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: not so good. Remember, their grocery bill is an economic statistic.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Their rent is an economic statistic, right? When they paid
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: for the vacation they didn't take this year, it's due
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: to their own economic statistic, okay? In fact, Axelrod is
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: quoted in there talking about Obama 2010, right? When they
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: sort of had that same feeling and he said, look,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: you're not going to jawbone people into feeling something that
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: they do not feel, right? Joe Biden should have taught
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: everybody that lesson. He tried this in late 23, early 24,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: that entire ad campaign. trying to show, look at how
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: much we've brought inflation down. Hey, look, all those expensive things,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: they could have been more expensive. No voter is going, hey,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: way to keep the rate of inflation going down. Maybe
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: a bond trader is happy about that, but not everyday people.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: You can show a chart somebody a chart explaining that
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: inflation is coming down. But if the carton of eggs
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: costs more than they remember it costing, the chart's meaningless
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: to them. Okay. Trump also has another problem. He keeps
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: describing this as the greatest economy in American history, right?
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: He doesn't just counter the negative headlines. He's so He's
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: so extreme in his belief that it's beyond, it's fantastical, right?
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: It's not believable. In fact, he said in South Carolina
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: that some people just haven't seen it yet, but they will. Man,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: that is politically dangerous language, folks, because you are not
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: meeting voters where they are. You're essentially telling them your
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: experience is wrong. You're an idiot. You should be trusting
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: me instead. And there's another difference between Trump's problems with
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: the economy and the one Obama had in 2010, by
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: the way. Obama inherited an economic collapse, right? He was
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: able to win reelection in 2012 despite the high unemployment
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: rating because he could credibly say, hey, don't you remember?
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: We drove into the ditch before I got here and
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: I've been trying to get the car out. And let
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: me show you, we're finally out of the ditch. The
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: problem for Trump is that he's deep enough into a
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: second term, right? If this were his first ever term,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: he might be getting a tad more benefit of the doubt.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: But he's deep enough in a second term that some
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: of the economic problems voters are angry about are connected
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: directly to choices he made and they know it, right?
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: The tariffs are his. You know, Liberation Day, April 9th,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: 2025 is the day the Biden economy stopped. The economy
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: stopped being Biden's economy and it started being Trump's economy, right?
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: His decision to levy those tariffs immediately made it impossible
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: for him to credibly blame Biden for the economy anymore.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: He took it over. The trade war with Canada, that's
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: his decision. We didn't have a trade war with Canada
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: before he came into office. Nobody made Donald Trump do
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: these things. Never mind the war of choice with Iran,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: which again has raised the price of energy. And who
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: does that fall on hardest? Folks that drive more. Who
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: drives more? Folks that live in rural states. Who are
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: those folks? His voters. These weren't leftover Biden policies that
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: he reluctantly inherited. He chose these policies. Now, he said
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: they were necessary in order that they had to refashion
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: the economy. That's about bringing manufacturing back. Okay. But the
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: voters don't operate on your 10-year timelines. That doesn't mean
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: they aren't going to play the Joe Biden card, right?
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: They're going to play it. I'm just not convinced it's
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: going to land very credibly because none of the policies
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: that are harming this economy are Biden's policies. All of
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: the policies that are harming this economy are his policies.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: He chose to do it. Now, this is where I
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: want Democrats to put down the hopium pipe. about the
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Trump strategy, because I've seen some go, I think it
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: was Tommy Vidor who put on, please, please run these
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: ads with you in them. There is a logic to
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: what he's doing. And let me explain it. Look at
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: the Senate, man. The geography is pretty friendly to Republicans. Ohio, Alaska, Texas, Iowa,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: let's throw in Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, throw in a
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: South Carolina. I have yet to name a state that
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris carried, right? It's pretty friendly territory to Republicans.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: And Trump may be looking at that map and some
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: of his advisors who are sort of egging him on
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: to do this strategy and say, my problem isn't that
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: MAGA voters are going to vote Democratic. They're not going
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: to vote Democratic. My problem is that they won't vote
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: because he's not on the ballot. And if that's your diagnosis,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Then Trump's strategy starts to make more sense than I
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: think folks see it for. Now, how does he execute
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: the ads? You know, is it ridiculous things like the
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: greatest economy on Earth or is there some level of
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: like real realism to it? That's a whole nother story.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: But he's not wrong to be to if he can
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: make the November election feel like Trump is on the ballot,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: as he said in South Carolina, pretend I'm on the ballot.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: just come vote, well, South Carolina, this runoff is some
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: evidence that this strategy can work. Now, he got his
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: voters engaged. His candidate won. I don't want to dismiss
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: the theory, but it was Republicans. It was a Republican-only
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: crowd here, right? The problem is the other half of
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: the electorate, because every MAGA voter you remind that Donald
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Trump is effectively on the ballot is also an independent
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: voter you're reminding that Donald Trump is effectively on the ballot.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Every suburban voter who might have been willing to vote
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: for a individual Republican House candidate because they may like
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: the person better or maybe they don't like the ideology
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: of the Democratic opponent or because they want a divided
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: government now gets told, no, no, no. Don't think about
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: the candidate. Think about Trump. And if you're thinking about
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump before you go into that ballot box in November,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's a good day for Republicans. Democrats
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: want to make this an election, a referendum on Donald Trump.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: They certainly don't want it a referendum on the Democratic
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Party brand. They want it to be about Donald Trump.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: And Donald Trump is now responding. I agree. Let's do that.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: It's a hell of a gamble, folks. When your approval
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: rating is as low as his is. We'll see. I again. They're.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: The one way that this strategy may make sense is
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: it may be a way to save Senate seats. But
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: the fact is that if you need Donald Trump to
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: rescue South Dakota, you need Donald Trump to rescue South
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Carolina in October and rescue Kansas and Nebraska, you're probably
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: already winning in Ohio, winning in North Carolina, winning in Maine,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: maybe even winning in Michigan. I'll tell you, you look
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: at those Alaska numbers, I don't see anything good for
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Dan Sullivan in those numbers that we saw. It may
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: not matter, but this strategy could prevent the blue tsunami
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: that I would talk about. By the way, there's another
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: part of the Republican midterm strategy I've been noticing over
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks. Some of you may have
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: noticed it too. Apparently, the WNBA has become one of
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: the most important issues facing the United States of America.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: That's if you've consumed a lot of conservative media over
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: the last two weeks. If you have, you know exactly
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. You can't escape some segment about
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: the WNBA. Laura Ingraham apparently cares a lot about Enos
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Kanter going to a WNBA game on the same day
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: that we're literally in the middle of all these more
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: serious issues. it's funny to me that there's an extraordinary
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: amount of time being spent by conservative influencers and conservative
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: media trying to spend time on controversies involving the WNBA.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: And to me, it's kind of a tell, right? You know, look,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: some of these WNBA stories are interesting stories and many
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: of them are more interesting as sports stories than anything else.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: But The fact that this is the pivot, we can't
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: really talk about the economy. That's not good for conservatives.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: You can't really talk about the war. That's not good
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: for conservatives. What can keep people happy? You don't want
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: them turning the TV off. Hey, let's play culture war
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: politics with the WNBA. It's a strategy. Okay, you know,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: we're fighting a war with Iran. We've got a trade
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: war with Canada. We have serious questions about whether the
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: United States military even has resources and munitions that it
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: needs to fight a war. People are unhappy about this
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: economy and the cost of living. We've got enormous fights
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: all over the place. And somehow, night after night, one
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: of the biggest stories in conservative media is the WNBA?
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Come on. And we know this isn't about basketball. It's
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: one of the older tricks in politics. Look over here.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Don't look over there. Find a culture war controversy that
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: makes your audience angry, preferably one that divides people along
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: familiar tribal lines and talk about that instead. It's a
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: cheap ploy and a cheap stunt, right? The Fox prime
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: time people have been doing this, you know, and in fact,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: it's what programmed the algorithm, if you will, that now
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: sort of helps conservative media channel, you know, if they
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: want to build an audience right now and they want
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: people to click, make it about the WNBA because it
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: makes them feel like they own the libs. Because on
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: the actual issues that matter to everyday people, they're not
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: owning the libs very well. They're being owned. So we're
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: less than 80 days from an election. President's numbers aren't good.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Voters aren't happy about the economy. They're not happy about
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: the war. Republicans would much rather have their voters angry
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: at somebody in the WNBA than asking why their grocery
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: bill hasn't come down. It's not some grand conspiracy. It's
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: just political programming in 2026. You cover the stories your
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: audience wants to hear. Sure. But you also make choices
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: about which stories you turn into the story. And when
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: enormous national stories are sitting right in front of us,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: and you're spending this much time trying to get people
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: worked up about the WNBA, I think it's fair to ask,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: what would you rather they weren't thinking about. This is
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: actually another reason Trump's decision to make the midterms about
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: himself is so interesting, because conservative media can try to
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: change the subject. Trump apparently doesn't want to. He's saying, no, no, no, no,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: let's talk about me. That's the narcissist in him, right?
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about my presidency. Let's talk about my record. Okay,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: let's make November a referendum on what I've done. If
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: that's the election Donald Trump wants, Democrats will be more
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: than happy to give it to him. And there is
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: something else happening around Trump right now that I think matters.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: The psychology is changing, right? There was a period of
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: time after Trump came back to office where everybody seemed
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: to be asking the same question. How do we accommodate
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: this this time? Let's not fight it. Let's accommodate it. Universities,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: law firms, corporations, foreign governments, many institutions. Everybody was trying
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: to figure out how much they needed to bend. And
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: now we're starting to see people decide, I don't think
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: there's punishment in not bending. Canada walks away from a
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: trade negotiation, right? Gave the old double shooters. European allies,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: they don't, nope, sorry, Trump, we're not following you into
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: the Iran war, good luck. Netanyahu rejected his gossip proposal.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Netanyahu feels comfortable telling him, thanks, but no thanks. Gulf
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: states have been pushing back. They're making their own accommodations
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: with Iran without consulting Donald Trump. Universities and law firms
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: are now back more willing to fight him. Bond markets
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: are essentially looking at some of his fiscal policies and saying, sorry, buddy,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: not accommodating. Even ABC, who made the initial sin of
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: settling with Trump, the worst decision any media head has made.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to, don't get me started on what really,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: It pisses me off because, you know, when you don't
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: use the First Amendment, what's the point, right? But ABC's
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: fighting now, right? They're now suing the administration over threats
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: to its broadcast license. Doesn't mean that all these people
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: have decided Trump suddenly has no power. We know he's
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: the president. He has enormous power. But people aren't afraid
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: to stand up to him right now. Right? And That,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: to me, is a fascinating development. And the question, and
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: this is why I come back, why we cared so
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: much about what happened there in South Carolina, that could
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: have opened the floodgates. Floodgates haven't opened yet, but it
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean there isn't a leak in this dike, if
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: you will, about that. Look, I don't want to ignore,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: before I get to one more point I want to
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: make here, I don't want to ignore this Kennedy Center business.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: But a word of warning to the president on this one.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: You tear down that building. I got like Obi-Wan Kenobi.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: You can strike me down and then he become more
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: powerful than you can possibly imagine. The symbolism of tearing
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: down the Kennedy Center all over because you didn't like it,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: that nobody wants your name on it. And buddy, nobody
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: wants your freaking name on this building. It's disgusting to
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: want to put your name on somebody else's tombstone. Think
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: about it. How gross is that? It's disgusting. The fact
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: they put this in writing, it was in a court filing, right?
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: An actual Justice Department court filing. I mean, you know,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: I don't, the fact, Todd Blanche clearly is shameless because
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: if he had an ounce of shame, you wouldn't have
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: filed this. but government lawyers argued that Trump's, quote, efforts
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: and prestige provide the sole hope for the Kennedy Center's
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: financial survival. Actually, David Rubenstein was doing just fine keeping
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: the Kennedy Center thriving, not just alive. The expansion has
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: been beautiful. It's been done over the last 10 years.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: It was fine. This jackass comes in and ruins the
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: goddamn thing. So yeah, as a Washingtonian and an Arlingtonian,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: As somebody who worked across the street from the Kennedy
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Senator for a decade, I kind of take this a
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: bit personally. And this one, look, it is, you know,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: it would be grosser if he put his name on
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: the Lincoln Memorial. Don't get me wrong. But wow. This
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: government filing, by the way, also argue that Trump is
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: uniquely qualified to oversee the renovation because of his, this
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: is their words, unrivaled expertise in and experience in real
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: estate and construction. Folks, he is a failed real estate developer.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: He isn't that successful at this. He's gotten a couple
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: of buildings built and most everything else that had his
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: name on it was just licensing his name and other
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: people did the legwork. Other people did the negotiating. Other
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: people got the agreements to build. They just slapped his
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: name on it. The one thing that is crystal clear,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: that I respect across the board. Every professional golfer I've
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: ever talked to said he really builds a nice golf course.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: He's good at that. So when he says he's good
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: at building a golf course, there's actually some, he's got
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: some references, people that are not necessarily on his payroll.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: They say, oh, no, no, Donald Trump, he makes a
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: good golf course. But come on, what he's doing to
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: the Kennedy Center, and threatening to bulldoze it. That was,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: you know, it's just, yeah, I let it trigger me
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: because it's just, it's appalling. It's gross. And there are
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: certain things he does where you're like, how is it
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: that this doesn't make everybody's head explode? This is one
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: of those stories. It's just astonishing, right? The administration raising
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: the possibility That if it can't proceed with its renovation plans,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: that includes putting his name on the building in some form,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: that if he can't do that, you know, like the
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: 10-year-old boy, I'm going to take my ball and go home.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: He's literally going to tear the building down instead of
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: allowing it to stand, allowing it to maybe be renovated
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: in new ways he wants to renovate it. But if
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: he can't put his name on it, it's not worth
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: it to him. This is how he feels about this country.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: This is how he feels. If he can't get credit,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: he doesn't care what happens to you. That is not
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: who we want as president of the United States. That's
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: not who we want as a janitor in any company
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: I'd ever want to work with. It's just appalling. And
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: the fact that this is the Justice Department arguing in
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: federal court that a national cultural institution essentially requires the
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: personal prestige and expertise of Donald Trump to survive, seriously?
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: It's an extraordinary fusion of the presidency, the government, and
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: one man's personal brand. And it brings me to something
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: I wrote about this week on both Substack and Newsphere.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: Because I've spent a lot of time arguing that we
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: aren't going to fix many of our policy disputes until
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: we repair the infrastructure of the democracy. We need to
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: fix the roads and bridges of the democracy, if you will.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: And increasingly, I think one of the biggest broken pieces
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: is sitting right in front of us. It's our two
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: political parties. We have two political parties that don't really
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: function as political parties anymore. The Republican Party is essentially
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: organized around one individual. Donald Trump has such a grip
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: over the party that Republicans who disagree with him usually
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: have three choices. Keep quiet. go along, or leave. Maybe
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: that changes as he becomes more unpopular. And ironically, Trump
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: has helped paralyze the Democratic Party because Democrats are having
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: a real argument about what kind of party they want
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: to be. There's still a large part of the Democratic Party,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: call it the Obama wing, institutional wing, technocratic wing, you
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: can give it different names, but they all kind of
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: believe the same thing, that the system is damaged, but repairable.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: If you make government work better, if you rebuild the institutions,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: if you deliver things people can see, you can restore competence.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: Over time, people will trust government again. But there's another
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: part of the Democratic Party that hears all of that
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: and says, wow, you people have learned nothing. They believe
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: the institutions themselves are failing. They believe the Democratic establishment
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: has been protecting a system that doesn't work. They believe
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: that in some ways the Biden presidency is a proof point,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: although there are plenty of moderates in the party who
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: say Biden tried the progressive presidency and it was a disaster.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: But either way, Biden is held up as proof that
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: it didn't work. And these folks don't want to restore
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. They want to remake it entirely. They
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: want to gut it. They want to Kennedy Center it,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: tear it down and rebuild it, right? And these are
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: real disagreements.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: That's okay.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: You know, it's weird. It's weird that we are trying
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: to force everybody who has these disagreements to pretend they're
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: all members of the same political party because the Republicans
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: have the same problem. A free market conservative who believes
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: in globalization, free trade, lower taxes, limited government, and an
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: interventionist American foreign policy, does not actually share a political
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: philosophy with a nationalist populist who wants tariffs, industrial policy,
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: much tighter immigration, and a more isolationist foreign policy, and
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: is perfectly willing to use government power to reward friends
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: and punish enemies. Those are different political ideologies. Right now,
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: we just call them both Republican? Why? And the progressive
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: who thinks capitalism itself produces unacceptable inequality and a government
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: needs to play a much larger role in the economy
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: is not the same kind of Democrat as the culturally
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: liberal pro-business suburbanite who basically likes markets and just simply
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: wants government to work a little better. Again, why are
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: these people in the same political party anymore? Well, we
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: know the answer. The answer is fear. Republicans stay together
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: because they're terrified of the extreme version of the Democrats.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: And the Democrats stay together because they're terrified of the
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: extreme version of a Republican. That's the marriage inside these
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: two parties right now. That's it. And I have to say,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: I increasingly believe, get divorced. Both parties break up already. Seriously.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: Let them go. Let the progressive wing become a progressive party.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: Let the pro-business liberals become their own party. Let the
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: traditional free market conservatives have their party and let the
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: nationalist populists have theirs. This is an argument for something.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: I'm not arguing for a third party. We actually need
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: four parties, maybe more. Now, before you tell me independents
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: aren't actually independent, that I know. But this is where
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: this number matters so much. Gallup, earlier this year recorded
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: an astonishing number. Nearly half of the country calls themselves independent. 45%
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: of Americans self-describe as independent now. Only 27% call themselves
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Democrats and 27% call themselves Republicans. So just a little
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: over half are comfortable identifying with one of the two
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: major parties. Now, I know most of those independents lean
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: one way or the other, and they eventually vote for
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: one of the two parties when they vote. But here's
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: where I think political scientists and some strategists miss the
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: most interesting thing about this statistic. And we don't ask
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: this question enough. And I want more of my pollster
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: friends to ask these self-described independent. Why won't you call
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: yourself a Democrat or Republican? You tell us you lean
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: one way, but you don't want to become a member
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: of that party. Why? This is a form of protest.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: I believe these voters are telling us, if those are
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: the only choices you're going to give me, Okay, I'll
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: pick one if I have to on election day. Don't
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: make me join one of these two parties. Because look,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: I know there isn't one giant independent ideology waiting to
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: be organized. This has been a fantasy of people that
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: I've been close to for decades. Hell, I've engaged in
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: the fantasy myself, okay? I've been around long enough to
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: know there isn't a coherent political philosophy that's going to
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: unite independents, okay? That's why I don't think one third
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: party solves this. We're 340 million people, folks. Why exactly
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: would 340 million people fit naturally into two political ideologies
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: or somehow three? They don't. And I would argue we
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: never have. The parties have become these enormous political holding companies.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: They raise money. They distribute money. They're kind of money
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: laundering operations to just legalize money laundering operations, right? They
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: do provide ballot access. They can provide some infrastructure for campaigns. Sure.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: They can slap a brand and help candidates have a brand.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: But ask Republicans tomorrow to go write 10 principles that
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: you think every Republican candidate has to agree to.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: Good luck.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Hell, it was so hard. Trump didn't even bother with
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: a platform in 2020. And the 2024 Republican platform was
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: just simply his agenda for the campaign. Ask Democrats to
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: do the same thing. They hate it. There's nothing more
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: vicious than their fight over a party platform that nobody
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: cares about except the people writing the party platform. But
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: they do fear these platform fights because the minute they
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: actually write down what the party believes, they immediately have
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: the fight they're constantly trying to avoid. So instead of
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: trying to get everybody sorted into right and left, it's
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: demoralizing because right now, if somebody on the right proposes something,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: it automatically becomes a right-wing idea. And if somebody on
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: the left proposed it, it's automatically seen as a left-wing idea.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: The label ends up doing the thinking for us. And then,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: of course, it makes compromise on a good idea almost
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: impossible because of its origin. Oh, it's a Democratic idea,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: a Republican idea. I can't cross the aisle to fix that.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: Because if you agree with somebody from the other party,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: it's not seen as you just governing. It's treated as betrayal.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, look at the shit Jeffries is still getting
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: for having just a meeting with Jared Kushner. So this
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: is what I would change. Let these factions inside the
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: parties become parties. Let them run as they actually are. Now, look,
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: we used to have both parties have always been filled
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: with factions. But when we had local and regional culture,
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: it was easy to say, I'm a Kentucky Democrat, not
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: a New York Democrat. I'm a Texas Republican, not a
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire Republican. And that actually meant something. All politics
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: is national. None of that shit matters anymore.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: So instead, let Let's let everybody run as they are.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: And then you have to make coalitions after the election
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: rather than before it. Maybe a free market conservative gets
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: to Congress and says, hey, on this issue, my best
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: partner is a pro-business liberal. Great, work together. Nobody has
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: to change parties to do that. Nobody abandoned their principles
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: to do it. They made a deal because they share
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: a principle. One might call it governing. Maybe on trade,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: the progressive party and the nationalist populist party discover they
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: agree on something. Great. Maybe on immigration, the coalition is
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: different there. Title of reform, you get it. Why does
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: agreeing with somebody about one thing require agreeing with them
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: about everything? This isn't how the rest of our lives
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: work and it shouldn't be in politics. Now, the laws
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: obviously make this extraordinary hard. And I know you've heard
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: me go on my hobby horse before about this. And
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: the two parties run a duopoly. The best example of
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: this is the sore loser law. A lot of states
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: have these sore loser laws, which basically tells candidates that
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: if you enter one of the two major party primaries
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: and lose, in many states, you can't turn around and
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: compete in November under another party label or an independent label.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: It's always been one of the strange things.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Why can't you do that? We're literally using state law
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: to protect the two political parties from competition. That's pretty anti. That's,
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: I thought, was called a monopoly. Like, I don't understand
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: how that's allowed to legally happen. Ballot access laws do
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: the same thing. Partisan primaries do the same thing. Signature
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: requirements that are one thing for the two major parties
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: and another thing if you're a third party or an independent.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: It is literally intentionally taking away competition. We're the United
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: States of frickin' America. Our whole founding principle was a
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: bit more open and competitiveness. But when you put all
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: these rules stacked together, they produce exactly what you would expect,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: this duopoly. So let's stop protecting it. Alaska's experimenting. Everybody
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: runs in the same primary. Four people advance, and then
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: voters sort it out in November with ranked choice voting.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: And Alaskans keep arguing about whether they like it, right?
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: It's on the ballot again as a referendum.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: Good.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: It's called democracy. Laboratory. Experiment. And maybe rank choice voting
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: works there. Maybe you'd rather have an actual physical runoff
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: like we just had in South Carolina. Maybe some states
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: come up with something better than either one of those.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: I don't care.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: If all 50 states use exactly the same thing. What
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: I care about is breaking the assumption that voters must
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: first squeeze themselves into one of the two political parties
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: before they get a meaningful choice. Obviously, you know where
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: I'm going next. If you could expand the House, it
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: would make this easier too. We've been stuck with 435
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: House seats since this country had 92 million people. We
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: now have more than 340 million and we still have
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: 435 House seats. That is not what the founders intended.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: Make the district smaller, give communities more representation, make it
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: easier for different kinds of political movements to find an electorate.
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: And yes, I know the presidency is a harder factor.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: One person ultimately has to become president. Great. And that
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: naturally pushes politics towards two finalists. Fine. Maybe you could
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: have some kind of national first round around Labor Day.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: And you'd have four or five. If you're a major party,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: you qualify anybody, some sort of threshold that allows you
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: to get ballot access. And if nobody gets 50%, the
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: top two advance in November. Maybe you'll have two people
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: from From center-left, maybe it's two people from center-right. Maybe
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: it's center-left versus center-right. Maybe it's far-right versus center-right. Who knows?
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: So look, even if the presidency eventually comes down to
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: two people, why does every state legislative race, every House race,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: every Senate race, and every local political identity have to
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: collapse into the same two parties? It does not. And
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: here's why I don't think this is as crazy as
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: everybody thinks. The four parties already exist. Donald Trump has
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: essentially created a nationalist populist party. If he literally, you know,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: he just happens to have hijacked the Republican Party brand
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: for it. Bernie Sanders could announce a progressive party tomorrow
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: morning and millions of people would know immediately what it
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: meant and they'd sign up. There's a clear constituency for
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: a pro-business liberal party. We have seen it, right? We're
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: watching these Democratic Party primaries. They're pretty divided on this issue.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: So we know that constituency exists. And there are an
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: awful lot of traditional conservatives wandering around wondering, whether the
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: Republican Party they joined is ever going to go back
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: to being what it was. The voters exist. The factions exist.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: The ideological disagreements exist. The only thing missing is permission
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: to divorce. And I know how this sounds. Four parties,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: open primaries, bigger house. Come on, Chuck. Aren't you the
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: guy who spent years saying you cover politics as it is,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: not as you wish it were? Yep. I get it.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: This is hard. The parties don't want it. The consulting
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: class doesn't want it. The donor class is organized around
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: the two parties. They just want influence. It's easier to
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: influence two parties than it would be four. The media
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: is even organized around two parties. Trust me, I find it, right?
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: I'm in this weird place where I don't comfortably fit
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: in one of these two factions. I love it. I
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: think it's why you're here. And the reason I don't
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: fit is because I've never felt comfortable in either major
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: party because I have a diverse set of views, like
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: apparently 45% of the country. Our entire political vocabulary is
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: organized around left versus right, red versus blue, Democrat versus Republican.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: Nobody who currently benefits from this system is going to
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: volunteer to dismantle it. But I have to tell you,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: I'm increasingly believed that the quote, it's too hard has
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: become one of the ways we defend a political system.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: Almost everybody agrees isn't working. You know, I wrote this piece.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: Not a single person's feedback is this is a bad idea.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: The only negative comes from it's unrealistic. Well, guess what?
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: Direct election of senators was unrealistic until it wasn't. The
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: idea of primaries was unrealistic until it wasn't. I think
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: the last decade ought to have cured us of one thing.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: Let's stop confusing the improbable with the impossible. How many
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: of you thought Donald Trump could get elected president in 2014?
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: So look, after watching American politics produce Donald Trump, something
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: an enormous number of us insisted never could happen. I'm
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: done being told that the reason not to try something
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: is that it sounds unrealistic. Political systems change when the
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: old arrangements stop representing the people they're supposed to serve.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: And our system is not serving the people as intended.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: We aren't suffering because Americans have too many political differences.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: We've always had these differences. We're suffering because we've designed
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: a system that pretends these differences don't exist until we've
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: compressed everybody into two teams. Think about how weird that is.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Everywhere else in American life, we demand more choice. What
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: we buy, what we watch, where we get our information.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: We want choice of where we're employed. We want choice
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: in everything. And then we get to politics and say, nope,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: just two choices, pick one. That's it. 340 million people,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: two parties, two nominees, you pick. And if neither one
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: represents you particularly well, right? If one's a shit sandwich
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: and the other's a douchebag, as my friends at South
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: Park once put it, too bad. Look, we know we
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: have this backwards, folks. We know we want more choices.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: We know these factions should be their own parties. It's
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: exactly what the father of the constitution argued for. More factions,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: not less. Let's let them compete. Let them win where
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: they can. Let them lose where they can't win. And
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: then make the people who actually get elected do the
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: thing democracy ultimately requires. Work with people you don't always
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: agree with. So yes, let the parties divorce. Then let
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: the voters decide what replaces them. So maybe the lesson
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: of South Carolina isn't simply that Donald Trump can still
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: move Republican voters. Maybe it's that we've built a political
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: system where the fortunes of an entire party can still
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: revolve around whether one individual can move them. That's not
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: the sign of a healthy political party. And I don't
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: know if the Democratic Party is any healthier. Two giant
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: coalitions held together largely by fear of the other. That's
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: not pluralism anymore. It's a hostage situation. And look, One
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: of these coalitions is going to break if we don't
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: do something about this. Maybe Trump's going to eventually break
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party completely. Maybe the progressive versus center-left fight
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: breaks the Democratic coalition. We'll see. But I think the
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: demand is there. The market is there. Can you bring
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: a product to meet the market that exists? So far...
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: We haven't seen anybody bring that product. Ross Perot came close,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: but he was trying to do one thing. I think
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: in this case, if we break up the two parties
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: into four or six or whatever, ultimately more Americans will
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: feel like they're being heard. And that ultimately should be
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: what we support, which is how do we make our
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: politics more representative of who we are not necessarily what
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: two political institutions want it to be, just because they
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: want to preserve their own power.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: And with that, let's take it a break and we'll
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: bring in my friend, Anthony Scaramucci. So joining me now
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: is somebody I've known quite a long time and somebody that, uh,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: the more we get to know each other, the more
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: we might actually describe each other as friends. It's Anthony Scaramucci.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: In the political world, he's known for his famous 11
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: days in the Trump administration. But in the finance world,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: I view him as somebody who's one of the few
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: guys in finance who hasn't lost his mind and who's
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: at least grounded. And I think that it is a
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: fascinating detour from that the world's financial elite have taken.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: And there's so much to talk about these days. He's
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: got a new book coming out. And at some point,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about that, All the Wrong Moves,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: it is called. It will be coming out in September.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: But Anthony, the last time we saw each other was
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: December 2025 in Abu Dhabi. It was an interview I
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: was doing for Newsphere. And it was my first time
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: to Abu Dhabi. And you gave some incredible, I remember
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: what you said about about what you said about the
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: UAE said, it's not necessarily a country. It's like you're
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: visiting somebody's house.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: So I always say that to people, this is a,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: it's MB, it's MBZ's house, whether you like it or not.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: So it's, and again, if you remember, some people were
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: filming drone strikes and they got in trouble for that.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: That would be like, you know, throwing, throwing mud at
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: somebody's painting in the living room. You know, that that's
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: how they view the things over there. But first of all,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: it's always great to see you. And I do consider
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: us friends and, uh, And we've been through it, you
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: and me. We've been through the ups and downs of
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: life and politics and all the other things. But, you know,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: if we start in Abu Dhabi.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: We're literally 60 days after our talk and people have fled.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: When was the last time you were in the EUAE?
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: So that was the last time. So I'm scheduled to
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: go back in November. That's Abu Dhabi Finance Week. My
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: conference business, SALT, we used to do a conference in
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: Abu Dhabi prior to COVID. And then after COVID, the
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: government asked us if we could merge our sort of
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: event programming into the government's event programming, which we agreed
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: to do. And so we were running some programming for
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: them inside of Abu Dhabi Finance Week. That's where I
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: saw you at that very beautiful Four Seasons. But, you know, listen,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: at that time, you said to me, what is one
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: of the safest places in the world? I say, Abu Dhabi,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: you know, you could leave your car keys on the
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: dash and roll your windows down, unlock your doors, and
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: that car will stay put forever. I mean, they have
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: a very low crime rate. It's an amazing culture there.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: But they've been being attacked because they're one of the
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: Western allies and one of the allies of the United
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: States are being attacked as part of the Iranian-American-Israeli war.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: And I think it's hurt the economy. I It's hurt
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: the expat economy there. But I'll say this about the UAE.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: They'll be back. They'll be back in force and size
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: and scale. They really have a great business model there.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: And it's a beautiful country. And I intend to go
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: back there in November as I have done the last
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: five or six years.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: What kind of long-term damage do you think has been
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: done between the relationship between the United States and the
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: Gulf states? And I ask it because You know, the
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: reason to have American military bases was for security. You know,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: that was thought of, it was an extra aspect of security.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: And General Barry McCaffrey, retired general, you know, said on
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: social media over the weekend, we're taping here in the
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: last week of August. He said over the weekend that
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: he feared that we'll never, those American bases are never
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: going to be there again. And that the American footprint
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: in the Middle East, for better or for worse, is
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: going to shrink. And I don't know whether that's good
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: for global security, let alone American security, let alone Israeli security,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: if that's something, which of course is arguably the primary
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: reason we had done this.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: Well, Chuck, I agree with him, but I would say
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: it a little differently than him. I would say that
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: America now has to face the reality of of its
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: military industrial complex. And so I think the Gulf War,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: this latest iteration of the Gulf War has proven that
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: we're at a step with where warfare is right now.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: You probably read these things as I read them. The
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: Ukrainians did some exercises with us in Texas. They demolished us.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: They figured out a way to use these drones. You know,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: you've got anywhere from $ 1, 500 to $ 2, 000 drones that have
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: been technologically upgraded by the Ukrainians. They've stopped a couple
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: million man army, the Russian army in Ukraine. We are
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: not where we need to be. What's happened to us
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: is there's a circuit. Eisenhower was right. Military industrial complex won.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: There's a circuit between the lobbying community, the defense contractors.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: the Senate, the presidency, the Pentagon. And that circuit is
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: we're making military materiel that's perhaps already obsolete, but we're
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: doing it anyway. And so we've exposed that seam. So
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: I predict we'll have a smaller footprint. It'll be a
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: different footprint. And I predict that the Iranians are going
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: to be closer to to their Sunni neighbors. That's the
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: irony of what happened because they said, hey, if you
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: bomb us, we're going to close the Strait of Hormuz.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: The president didn't care. They bombed them. They closed the
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: Strait of Hormuz. I think the president was vexed by...
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: the Mosaic Defense Doctrine. And so, if you don't mind,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: you know what it is, but I'm going to repeat
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: it just quickly. No, you should.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: Please.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: I did not know what it was until I got
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: to the White House in 2017. It was in the
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: Presidential Daily Brief. It's public, so it's not like I'm
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: sharing confidential information. But the Iranians basically looked at us
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: over 20 plus years in the Middle East and said, okay,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: if the Americans come for us, it's going to be
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: a decapitation strike. That's what the Israelis are famous for.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: If the Americans team up with the Israelis, they're going
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: to try to decapitate us. So how do we protect
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: us from that? And the Iranians came up with the
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: Mosaic Defense Structural, where they had 31 separately autonomous units,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: nine layers deep. If you looked at the depth chart,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: nine layers deep. So if you killed the first... Group
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: of leaders, other guys stepped in. You killed those guys,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: no problem. Another group stepped in and they were operating semi-autonomously,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: which is why in negotiations, the president was vexed in
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: the negotiations because certain people were willing to negotiate in Iran.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: Other people were not. And so the Iranians have done
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: exactly what they said that they would do. Implement the
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: Mosaic Defense Doctrine, close the Strait of Hormuz, hit our allies,
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: hit our military installations. Again, the American press doesn't report
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: this as accurately as they should, but our naval supply
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: depots in Kuwait and Bahrain have been decimated.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: Well, that's why the Lincoln was in the desperate straits
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: that it was. We had no ability to.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: With what should have been essentially locally sourced ability to resupply.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: They were resupplying from Diego Garcia, which is a British territory,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: 2,200 miles away. So you had three-day resupply turned to
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: 10-day and in some cases 12-day resupply. And that caused
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: an absolute catastrophe. Of course, the president's response to that
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: and Exxon's response was to fire the editor-in-chief and two
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: of the reporters of the Stars and Stripes because they
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: know how to count. And they're trying to tell you
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: what's going on in the area as they have been licensed.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: Imagine Eisenhower doing that or somebody like even MacArthur doing that.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: They didn't even do that.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: I can't get over the last 25 years of defense budgets, right?
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: 9-11 happens and we think, okay, We're dealing with an
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: asymmetric enemy, stateless enemies now. So there was at least
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: rhetorically a mindset of, hey, we've got to shift gears, right?
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: We've got to get out of the Cold War mindset.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: We've got to get out of this. And yet over
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: 25 years, we never did. And there's two ways you
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: can look at American military might over the last 50 years,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: essentially our entire lifetimes, Anthony. We've arguably only won one war,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: and that was the first Gulf War, where we had
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: a goal and we met it, right? Get Saddam out
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: of Kuwait. We achieved the goal. We walked away. I
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: do think 50 years from now, the Iraq War and
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: the second Iraq War and this Iran War will probably
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: get conflated to America's missteps in the Middle East. It'll
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: be seen as an entire era, the irony of that,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: and that Trump arguably took over the Republican Party by
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: repudiating the Bush foreign policy. And he, of course, ends
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: up doing a version of it very poorly. But let's
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: talk about the defense industry. I mean, to me, the Pentagon,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: what you just described, that sort of loop of the
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: military industrial complex earlier, that's what's broken. More than anything else,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: that is what's broken. And I, for the life of me,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: can't figure out how to get Washington to focus on that.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, there's a big thing here, and I'll
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: send you an op-ed that I put on Substack. It's
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: basically an open letter to these guys, you know, I'll
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: take everybody back to January 17th, 1961, the farewell address
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: of Dwight Eisenhower. And he had gravitas. He was the
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: five-star general that led us in Europe and the Normandy invasion,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: et cetera. He said, listen, eight years here in the presidency,
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: there's a feedback loop between the lobbyists, the military defense contractors.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: And if we're not careful, they're going to take over
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: and they're going to bleed us out. And so they've
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: been doing that. And I think you have to remember,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: when we had a supposed peace dividend, the government allowed
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: a consolidation of defense industry suppliers. We went from 51
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: separate and disparate defense industry suppliers to the big five.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you bring that up. It's a nightmare. I
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: think the reason why people are afraid to fly Boeing
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: planes is because of this consolidation over time in all
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: of these aspects. I mean, look, that's not directly about
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: the military, but Boeing cares more about its defense contracts
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: than it does making good passenger airplanes these days.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, there's definitely truth to that. When they
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: started merging into other things like McDonnell Douglas, they let
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: their safety standards lax. And there was tremendous layers of
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: bureaucracy that they've had to clean up since the 737 incidences.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: But here's what I would say. You have five players
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: that act like a monopoly cartel. So the prices are
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: sky high. The attempt to do multiple bid contracts have
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: been reduced. And they are taking advantage of Citizens United,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: something you and I know a lot about. And so
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court rendered in January of 2010, unlimited amount of
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: money can go into the political system. And we are
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: nine to one from January of 2010, 16 and a
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: half years later, Chuck. We're spending nine to one, and
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: guess what's happening? Big business, big pharma, big defense, they're
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: all getting what they want from the Congress. The big,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: beautiful spending bill is elemental of that. Those guys got
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: breaks in it, corporate welfare, tax cuts, and the little
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: guy got screwed. This is a very big problem. We
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: are in desperate need of systemic reform. You've just got
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: a lot of contracts out there where people are like, okay,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: We're going to renew the contract because it's in my district.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: We're going to renew the contract because it's in my state.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: But wait a minute, that contract is obsolete. You're going
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: to shoot a $ 2 million missile at a $ 50, 000 drone.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: It doesn't make economic sense anymore, but we're doing it,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: and we're in this sort of feedback loop that we
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: can't break. And so it's a huge problem, Chuck. And remember,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: I was on the business executives for national security before
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: I joined President Trump's administration. Right. He promised to do
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: something about it. When we sat around in 2016, we
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: had these discussions. He promised to do something about it.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: He's made it worse. He fired John Fallon. I don't
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: know if you remember Fallon. He's a former Wall Street guy.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: He was Naval Secretary. One of Fallon's private complaints was
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: they wanted to build battleships, which are obsolete. We don't
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: need those anymore. Trump thinks we're in the 1940s. He
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: wants a battleship. They told Phelan, well, let's just go
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: with a single bid contract. Phelan said, wait a minute,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: you know, that's like actually illegal. I can't do that.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: And so Hegseth fired him. You know, and this is
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: the sort of stuff that's going on inside the military.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: And I got to tell you, you know, we've embarrassed ourselves.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: We've exposed ourselves and we've embarrassed ourselves in this war.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: So said differently, we spent a trillion dollars, but we
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: run out of munitions because after five months. That's unconscionable. Now,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: our adversaries are looking at say, okay, wait a minute,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: I'm a middle power, US is a much bigger economy
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: than me, bigger military, but they've got it so screwed up,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: and it's got so many layers of pork barrel spending
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: in it, that I could probably beat these guys if
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: I'm a little swifter on my feet, as it relates
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: to my military technology.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: Or go the other way. I mean, we're going to
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: pivot to Canada here in a minute, but it's not
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: just Canada, but the middle powers in general. The reason
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: to do a deal with the United States, you're like, well-
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: They're the military. They're going to have our back. They're
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: our security agreement. They're not just a financial arrangement. They're
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: a security arrangement. Well, if the United States can't protect
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: its own, how are we going to protect our allies?
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: To me, what's happened to the Gulf states has sent
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: a message to everybody that has a security agreement with
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: the United States. Good luck.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: Well, listen, I agree with that. Listen, I'm a realist,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: so there will always be– those states will have a
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: relationship with the U.S. There'll be some arms purchases, and
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: there'll be commercial activity, and they do need– That, I think,
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: economic relationship. I think the burden sharing of these bases, though,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: I think those states will look around and say, well,
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: wait a minute. We probably haven't. It didn't work. It
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: was a paper tiger for us. We thought it was
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: going to be a little bit more of a shield
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: for us. It turns out that it isn't. And I
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: think you'll see those states, frankly, draw more lines across
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Gulf into Tehran. Because
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: their attitude is, look at what the Chinese did a
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: few years ago with the Saudis and the Iranians. They
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: were trying to bring them closer. If you remember, they
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: bridged a peace deal and some level of understanding there
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: prior to the war. And I think they're going to
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: want more of that, not less of it. There has
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: been discussion. I'm not saying this is going to come
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: to pass, but there has been a discussion where the Saudis,
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: the Turks, and the Iranians team up in a mutual
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: defense contract. I'm not saying that's going to happen. But
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: the notion that people are talking about that versus where
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: we were even six or 12 months ago, I think
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: is actually unthinkable. So listen, the world will change again.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: I guess my message to my fellow Americans that are
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: listening in, we are so much better than this. I mean,
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: we've got a bunch of stupid people, frankly, that are
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: running these processes, and the country is not stupid. So
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: we have to clean this up, and we have to
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: get to people that are willing to embrace the reality
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: of the situation and get some reform done. But by
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: the way, the minute you say that, you know, these lobbyists, man,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: they come at you. They start shooting. You know, you know,
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 2: the word. No, I mean, this is why I'm not.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not convinced that either party. is going to
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: be able to do what we need. It's going to
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: have to come from a third.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: Or fourth party. Let's say Chuck Todd declares his candidacy
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: for the presidency, which we would do way better with
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: Chuck Todd than we would with these current clowns. But
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: let's say you declared yourself for the presidency and it
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: looked like you were doing well and you were doing
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: well with a reform message.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: These guys would come out and they would disembowel you.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: They would find every single thing about your life. They
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: would try to disfigure you, turn you into a two-dimensional
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: caricature of yourself because they want this gravy train to exist.
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: And this is always what happens with parasitic activity. The
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: parasite depletes the host to the point where the host dies,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: and then it hurts the parasite. So my message to
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: these guys is, hey, guys, why don't we knock it
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: off at this point? This is not working. And, you know,
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 2: I know we're in a race for somebody to get
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: to a trillion dollars, but I would just submit to you,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: your fellow neighbors are suffering. Are you really of that
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: great wealth if you're living in a barbed wire McMansion
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: with security while your fellow neighbors are suffering? So I
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: would ask these people to reconsider this, actually.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, one of the stories that didn't bite so far
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: with this war is that as much as the rising
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: cost of energy has created financial pressures globally, there's no
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: doubt about it, it has not triggered a global recession.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: And part of that reason is China decided not to consume.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: And China had a stockpile of oil that perhaps we underestimated,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: and certainly the markets underestimated. And it certainly sent a
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: message to me that said, oh, is China now more
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: powerful than OPEC when it comes to the oil markets?
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: What do you make of that? And I'm impressed with
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: what China thought about here, right? China could have weakened
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: us by letting this global recession happen. But instead, they said,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: you know what? Our two biggest markets are North America
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: and Europe. And we probably... will also feel pain if
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: a recession is triggered. And we rely too much on exports.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: We have our own economic. It was an interesting strategic
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: decision that the Chinese made here. And it is both
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: impressive and scary if you're sitting here as the United States.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: Well, again, they have 50-year plans. They have 100-year plans.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 2: You can go to plan 2049, which is the 100th
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: anniversary of the Maoist revolution. And they'll tell you how
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: many rail cars they're going to have, how many maglev
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: trains they're going to have. They're going to tell you
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: how much infrastructure they're going to build, how much Wi-Fi
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: is going to be in the entire country of China.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: So to me, we don't do that. We have four-minute
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: soundbites on TV. We have two-year and four- and six-year plans.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: We don't have 25-year plans. They are benefiting from that
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: in terms of the planning, but where they're weakening actually
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: is in terms of the processes related to freedom. And
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: so one of the great things that we have, which
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: makes us neurally plastic, is the First Amendment. My big
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: fight with Trump actually started in 2019, two years after
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: I was fired. I was still loyal to the president,
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: but where it started with me is I wrote an
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 2: op-ed saying that the press is not the enemy of
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: the people, Chuck. I said, not only does the press
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: check power, it teaches creativity. If you teach a second
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: grader that they can speak and think freely, they go
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: on and create Facebook. They go on and create Google.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: The Chinese are at a great disadvantage to us because
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: of that, because they have to steal our intellectual property.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: They're curbing their citizens' ability to think creatively. And so
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: we still have an advantage over them if we can
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: get back to some kind of organized process and some bipartisanship.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 2: and some long-term thinking because this is an incredibly entrepreneurial
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 2: group of people in the US. We learned in the
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: first stages of the Iranian war that our AI technology
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 2: from a math perspective and from a military strategic planning
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: perspective is way more advanced than the Chinese technology. If
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: you're making the point that they had more in reserve
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 2: and they're better planners than we are, they certainly are.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: If you're making the point that they're long-term thinkers, why
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: force us into a recession right now where they need
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: to continue to urbanize and migrate people from, indigent people
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: from farms into middle class living, which has been their
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: goal for the last 45 years, 47 years since 1979.
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: That's all well said and done. I agree with all
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 2: of that. But I don't think China... If you really
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 2: study China, it's seven balkanized provinces that are glued together
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: by the 110 million people of the 1.4 billion that
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 2: are in the Chinese Communist Party. So, yes, they're doing
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: well in some ways. But in other ways, we continue
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 2: to outmatch them because of our flexibility and our innovation.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 2: Where we're screwed up is we're letting this gerontocracy run
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: the politics of the country. That's where we're screwed up.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: We've got a group of aging baby boomers that have overpromised,
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: they've overspent, and they've undertaxed relative to the overspent. Now,
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: the great irony of everything that I just said, it's fixable.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: It's totally fixable, but it would require a return to
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: the PAYGO laws that you and I are familiar with
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 2: in the 1990s. It would require us to have some
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: discipline in the budgetary process around the Pentagon. The Pentagon
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: says they have $ 4. 5 trillion. dollars worth of materiel. They
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 2: have yet to pass an audit. So we don't know
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: if it exists or it doesn't exist. And they've yet
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 2: to pass an audit. And nobody in the Congress, nobody
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: in the executive branch of the United States is holding
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: them accountable. because their beds are being feathered by defense
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 2: contractors and by lobbyists. So guys, what do you want
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 2: to do? We know we're in trouble. We understand why
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: we're in trouble. We can fix why we're in trouble.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 2: But you guys are fraidy cats. You would rather stay
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 2: in power and indulge yourselves personally than serve the public.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: Is Mark Carney the leader of the West right now?
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: I think he is. I put that out on, I
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: put that out, it was the first thing I put
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 2: out on Twitter over the weekend. He is the leader
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 2: of the West, a very well-educated man. You know, I
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 2: have a personal relationship with Mark that goes back 30 years.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: We were at Goldman Sachs together. We were on the
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 2: financial services board together at the World Economic Forum. I
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: interviewed Mark when he was going, Alistair Campbell and I
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: interviewed Mark when he was in the primary versus Christian Friedland.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 2: to ascend to the prime ministership. And Mark Carney understands
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 2: the reality of Donald Trump. Donald Trump wants to sever
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: the United States from the West. You can pretend otherwise.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 2: He's done everything that he possibly can with the constraint
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: of the Congress and the State Department.
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: It's the one thing he's consistent about. You know, he's
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: inconsistent about so many things. Not on this.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: No, he wants to sever the relationship. He acts like
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 2: everyone's taking advantage of us when you can prove economically
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: no one is taking advantage of us. This is a
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: Vladimir Putin dogma. I'm not saying the president is an
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: agent of Vladimir Putin, but if he was, he would
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 2: have to get an A +. in terms of what
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: he's doing, in terms of creating the divide in the West.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: And so now this is our closest ally. We have
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 2: no military on one of the longest borders in the world.
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: By far our closest ally, by far the one that
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: we do the most business with. And he wants to
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 2: hurt them. For some reason, he's decided that he wants- I.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: Thought this was a Trudeau thing. I really did think
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: it was- somewhat you know everything with trump sometimes is
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: more personal than than anything else right and i thought
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: his initial sort of anger and all that stuff was
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: and and look was trudeau you know enjoying that moment
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: enjoying sort of being that there there's no doubt and
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: i i think there's a reason canadians soured on him
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: and there's a reason the canadians wanted you know look
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: to a guy like carney doesn't surprise me in any
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: way but i thought maybe that that that replacing Trudeau
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: would stop, would sort of, would have Trump pull back
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: a little bit on this personal- Well, you.
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 2: Have to remember, this is a little, I'm gonna give
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: you a Chris Christie analogy here, okay? So Chris, a
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 2: rough and tumble guy, and his rough and tumble aides
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: thought that it was a good idea to shut down
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 2: the George Washington Bridge. So whether Chris had anything to
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: do with it or not, it was a leadership issue
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: that was, you know, the subordinates were trying to please
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: the leader, right? So Jameson Greer had a deal done
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: middle of last week, so much so that Donald Trump
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: tweeted out that he had a deal done. He was
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 2: pausing all this and pausing all that. And then in
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: comes Howard Lutnick trying to please the leader. OK, and
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: he wants to fight with Mark Carney over bilingual packaging
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: on cornflakes. So the great irony is this thing stalled
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: not on steel, but it stalled on whether or not
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: we should have French and English language on cornflakes. And
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: so you have to understand Carney and his personality. I
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: call this the Quebec clause. Once they put in the
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 2: Quebec clause, okay. Carney looked around and said, this is
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 2: fantastic for me because you know.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: As long as you don't, they've been fighting.
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 2: About potential separatism of Quebec. And now Carney's like, well,
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 2: I'm here to defend Quebec and their culture and our sovereignty.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: The guy's got a 67%. a public approval rating in
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: his own country. So there's been nobody that has been
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: more valuable to Mark Carney's political career than Donald Trump.
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: He's galvanized the country. So what do you got going on?
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 2: You got falling tourism numbers, a boycott of our liquor
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: and our spirits and wine, and you got the Canadians
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: super angry with the Americans in a way that's completely
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 2: nonsensical and unnecessary. But that's Donald Trump and his minions.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: But I actually even think in this one, Trump is
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 2: actually was caught off guard by this. Because if you
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: look at his response over the weekend, it was quite tepid.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: His truth social.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: He just thought it was a negotiating. I'm guessing he
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: thought maybe this is a negotiating ploy and he. and
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: assume that everything would get worked out.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but he's locked and loaded a little bit more
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 2: desperately this morning. But I'll predict here on your program
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: that this gets resolved inside of the next two weeks.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 2: The reason why Carney put out September the 8th- Oh.
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: I was just going to say he was buying time.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: No, I- Let me ask you this though about Mark Carney,
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: because Carney did something interesting, right? He sort of He
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: sort of pulled back from the cultural left a little
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: bit during his campaign, right? Sort of reshifted things. And look,
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: in some ways, Trump was a perfect vessel for him
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: to do this. Hey, look, we've got to deal with
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: our neighbors to the south. This is not a time
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: to divide ourselves on issues that are certainly important, but
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: they're not front and center at the moment. It in
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: some ways reminded me of what Democrats did with Biden.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: But of course, Biden ended up not being a success.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: No matter what you think of his presidency, Trump's return
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: means it was a failure, right? There's no other way
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: to look at Biden's presidency other than a complete failure
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: because Trump came back. And so is the Carney path
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: still there for the Democrats, do you think? Or do
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: you think because of the Biden failure, that even though
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: this Carney path looks successful in the North, maybe- You know,
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: the Democrats feel too burned on the left from from
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: their Biden experience.
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to say that the Carney path is
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 2: not a path for the Democrats because they're at war
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: with each other. I I would say this. If Mark
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 2: Carney was an American citizen, he would likely be the
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 2: Democratic Party front runner because he's a winner. And I
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 2: think they would probably capitulate to him and his sort
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 2: of technocratic charisma to try to get back to the presidency.
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: But the problem with the Democrats, let me tell you
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 2: who leads the Democratic Party right now. And that's Donald J. Trump.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 2: If someone said to me in a trivia question, who
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: leads the Democratic Party? Donald J.
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: Trump.
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 2: What are you talking about, Anthony? Well, he is the
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: white cue ball. at the end of the billiard table
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 2: that smashes into the Democrats and has them going in
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 2: every which direction. They hate on each other. They fight
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 2: with each other over the culture. Everyone's looking for a
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 2: pure form of socialism or even a strike at communism.
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 2: And Trump is laughing at them. You that I find unbelievable, actually.
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 2: And so they have no galvanizing coalition building figure. Barack
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 2: Obama built a coalition. What was interesting about Obama's campaign
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 2: in 2008, and you've written about this, I'm sort of
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 2: plagiarizing from you, is that he built a coalition away
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: from the Democratic establishment. The Democratic establishment was owned by
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 2: the Clintons. And so he said, OK, I got to
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: go after independent voters. I got to go after non-voters,
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 2: younger people. And I've got to build this coalition. You
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 2: know who's a coalition builder? It's Donald Trump.
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: That's right. He couldn't win inside the establishment of the
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: Republican Party. Of course.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 2: The coalition is splintering now, but he is a coalition builder.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: You can't pretend otherwise. That's how you get to the presidency.
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: So you'd have to name the people in the Democratic
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 2: Party that are running for president. And my reaction to
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 2: each one of those people, despite their strengths and weaknesses,
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 2: I don't see the coalition builder. You know, the hard
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: left hates Newsom. They treat him like he's Ronald Reagan,
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: I think. I mean, they hate him.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: No, and Newsom is one of these. He's in such
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: an impossible position because he's the pro-business Democrat in California.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: but he's to the left of Gretchen Whitmer. And so
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: he just can't play in the Midwest. He just can't.
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 2: Well, not only that, let me tell you something about
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 2: the conservatives. Don't underestimate the conservatives in terms of their
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 2: assassination of character. They looked at Hillary Clinton in 1993
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: and said, holy, we've got to go after her. They
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 2: spent three decades going after her. So when she ran
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: for president, there were very high negative ratings of her.
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 2: Fox News spends an hour a night on Gavin Newsom.
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 2: Gavin Newsom is a tall, attractive guy that's running, if
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 2: you take it outside of the United States, the fourth
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 2: largest economy in the world. And as he's proven, this
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 2: article came out last week, there are more startup activity
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 2: in California than Florida and Texas combined. But Gavin Newsom
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: has been pilloried. for at least a decade by the
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 2: conservative media. So when he starts his presidential run, assuming
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 2: he's going for the presidency, he has that negative. In
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 2: other words, he is the most formidable guy to the right,
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 2: as Hillary Clinton was to them. And they're good at
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: character assassination.
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: They are. Yeah, I just– look, we– Californian Democrats have struggled.
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: Going to be hard, Chuck. But I don't see the
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 2: coalition builder there. And by the way, this is the
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 2: same problem for the Republicans. This is why– This is
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: an interesting deus ex machina sort of a campaign. Somebody
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 2: from the outside could enter the race, a business leader.
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: We're going to see somebody. Maybe multiple somebodies.
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 2: Somebody's going to enter the race and say, hey- This sucks.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 2: I'm going to try to help you fix it. Let
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 2: me at least prescribe what's wrong with the country and
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 2: how we can fix it. And who the hell knows?
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 2: It's such an anti-incumbency environment, Chuck, that we may end
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 2: up with somebody outside the mix again.
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: I'm more convinced our next president is not going to
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: be somebody that has Washington experience at a minimum. That's
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: for sure. Well, I would love to do more with you, Anthony.
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 2: We'll find the time. You're the man.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: All right, this week, it's my top five list. And
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: this week, I'm going to do the Republican presidential nomination
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: for 2028. And, you know, I did a little thing
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: on one of my little shorts that I do for
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: FanDuel Predicts about J.D. Vance. And what was interesting is
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: it inspired a quite hot reaction from the president's pollster,
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: Tony Fabrizio. who it was sort of one of those, huh?
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: And the whole point was about J.D.
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: Vance.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: And the point of my short was that I think J.D. Vance, look, he's,
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: right now he's in the number one slot. You want
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: to put my top five list? I'm going to give
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: it to you really fast. And then I want to
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: explain my top five list and what I'm thinking, right?
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: The Republican field we know is going to be smaller
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: when you have a sitting vice president as sort of
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: being groomed to be the heir apparent. It is just,
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: you know, you're going to have a hard time, you know,
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: finding room if you're not part of that faction. So J.D.
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: Vance is in my number one slot. But the point
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: I was making is that he's actually a very weak
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: sitting vice president. When you look back at other sitting
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: vice presidents who were in the position he's in, he's
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: got a very weak electoral track record, right? This is
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: a guy that barely got out of a primary. He
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: needed Peter Thiel's help, needed Donald Trump's help. That was
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: not a primary he was going to win, right? He
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: was flailing there at the end, got into like a strange,
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: remember the debate fisticuffs where Bernie Marino and J.D. Vance,
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: I think we're going to get to, you know, we're
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: going to throw down. You know, when you compare him
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: to an Al Gore, you know, who, or you compare
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: him to even a Richard Nixon, right? Vance, you know,
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: his own electoral track record isn't that strong. Frankly, it's
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: quite similar to Kamala Harris, right? Both Kamala Harris and
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: in her statewide runs and J.D. Vance in his lone
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: statewide run underperformed where sort of generic Democrat should have
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: done in California or generic Republican should have done in Ohio.
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: So it was strange. It wasn't a personal shot. It
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: was just sort of pointing out the obvious that, hey, J.D.
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: Vance may be the frontrunner, but he's probably a weak frontrunner.
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: And anyway, that's the point I want to make here.
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: And so my top five list really is, so you
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: put Vance in the one slot. And I'm going to
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: go ahead and put Rubio in the two slot, but
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: I ultimately don't believe Rubio runs, right? I don't think
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: both Rubio and Vance run against each other. And, you know,
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: I think this is something I pointed out in Super Tuesday.
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: I'll put Rubio in the two slot because obviously he's
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: polling very strongly. And there's, I think, a real constituency
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: for him inside the party. I think, you know, if
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump really wanted to give the Republicans a better
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: shot at holding the presidency- He'd be getting behind Rubio
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: and not Vance. Vance has no chance of winning the
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: free market wing of the party. Rubio is seen as
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: sort of establishment adjacent, but also MAGA adjacent, might have
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: a better shot at bridging the divide between the two
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: factions that I described earlier in my mind that I
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: think ought to be two separate parties, right? If we
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: were in our four-party system, Vance would be the front
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: runner for the Nationalist Party and Rubio would be the
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: front runner right now. for the free market party. Both vulnerable,
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: but both in a weirdly, in a stronger position in
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: those two separate parties. Both weirdly, oddly weaker when you
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: try to combine them into one entity. I ultimately believe
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: Rubio doesn't run. Rubio's surrounded by people that have made
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: money in politics. Rubio hasn't. And I think he's not
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: going to be, while I, nobody ever says no to
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: the running mate slot. Don't believe the hype that they would.
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: If offered, everybody takes it because it is the, you know,
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: when you look at history, right, the easiest way to
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: get to the presidency is the vice presidency. I think
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: Rubio would prefer to sit out, especially, right, like this
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: economy doesn't, you know, the Iran war is not getting better.
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: You know, it's possible that like 06 to 08, that
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: 26 to 28, you know, bad gets to worse, you know,
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: and suddenly you, you just want to walk away from
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: that wing of the party. You want to, in Rubio
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: taking a timeout comes back in 2032, you know, still
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: relatively young for presidential politics. And I ultimately believe he's
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: going to do that and go make some money. He's
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: not made, he's not worked in the private sector. He's
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: basically been in politics for most of his adult life.
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: And to his credit, It doesn't appear he's tried to
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: cash in while in office the way so many other
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: people in the Trump world have done that. And then
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: in my number three slot, I just put the name Trump.
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: I'm not saber rattling here. Look, here's my belief. In
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: slots one, two, and three, Vance Rubio and somebody from
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: the Trump family, two of those three people will be running.
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's Rubio. And I think a Trump
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: family member only gets in if Vance looks like he
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: can't win. And I say Trump family. Is it Junior?
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: Is it Eric? Is it Laura Trump? Is it Ivanka?
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: I think I wouldn't rule out any of it. And
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: the cynic in me believes that there's so much money
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: at stake for the Trump organization that keeping this grift
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: going is going to be important. And they may fear
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: that Vance won't necessarily keep the gravy train going, that
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: Rubio won't do it, and maybe it takes a Trump
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: to be able to keep that gravy train going. So
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: in that sense, I still actually think this field's unformed. Now,
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: in my four and five slots are two candidates that
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty convinced are both going to run. I think
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: Nikki Haley's going to run, and I think Rand Paul's
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: going to run. And I have them in the four
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: and five slot. I don't have Ron DeSantis here. Here's
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: a guy that I don't think could get reelected as
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: governor of Florida right now. He has somehow both alienated
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: Trump world and he doesn't really have a home in
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: the free market world. So I just, you know, and
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: I think he's a bit charismatically challenged for presidential politics. Frankly,
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: it's what I think is Rand Paul's greatest challenge. Now,
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: Paul's candidacy is the one that intrigues me the most
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: because Paul, of all the candidates here, and I know
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: I'm putting in the five slot because he's not polling
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: very well yet. But if you were to ask me
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: if I were to put money on any of these,
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: who would I want to put money on early? It
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: would be Rand Paul. Paul has been a credible critic
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: of Trump on the two things that are enormously unpopular
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: with the public right now, tariffs and the Iran war.
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: And he's been there from the beginning, right? He has
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: been a critic essentially of this type of foreign policy
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: for decades, let alone in the Trump era. And he's
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: been a big critic there. He's been supportive of some
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: things Trump has done on immigration and some other areas.
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: And so he has this– of all the non-MAGA candidates,
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: he strikes me as he's most likely to have the
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: personality that MAGA might like, a little bit of a
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: of that you know i'm not a that he's not
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: establishment he's not conventional but he also is a free
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: market conservative on something more as a libertarian right i
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: i just think paul's intriguing the one thing i would
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: say is i can't remember when i've ever seen ran
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: paul smile and i do think um I do think,
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: you know, Donald Trump's an exception on everything. Usually in
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: presidential politics, you can't be this. You can't be Debbie Downer. And,
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: you know, part of Rand Paul's, you know, sort of
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: what is his brand is, I'm going to tell you
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: the hard truths. But his brand is, I'm always only
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: going to tell you the hard truths. And I think
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: that at some point, you got to give people something
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: to smile about and something to be hopeful about. But
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: The biggest message I want to get across on this
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: top five list is first, look, the Trump machine sort of,
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: you know, is there going to be one part of
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: the Trump machine that runs or two? I don't think
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: three do. But for now, I'll have them taking up
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: the three slots of Vance Rubio and Trump family member.
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: But look, Haley's going to be the sort of the
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: Mitt Romney wing, the pre-market wing in general. Hall's the
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: interesting wild card to me. who might be able to
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: forge a path. Look, is Ted Cruz going to try
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: to find a run? Maybe Tucker Carlson. I'm a little
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: more skeptical of the Tucker thing than others are. And
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure where there's room for Cruz. I think
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: he wants to be sort of a little bit Rand
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: and a little bit Haley. But the reason I, I
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: sort of rate Haley higher than, than others do is
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: it's important. If having run before means you already have
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: some people, you know, You already have an organization that
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: is outside of the Trump orbit. And then if you
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: can find a few ways into the Trump orbit, you
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: can suddenly build a pretty formidable organization. So that's my
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: top five this week of where I put the 2028 Republicans. Vance,
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: a weak number one, but he's definitely– he's in the
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: catbird seat. Rubio would be the stronger, I think, heir apparent,
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: but that is not the choice that has been made.
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: He sits in number two. A Trump family member, I'm
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: putting in that three slot because I think if Vance falters,
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: that's where Trump world tries to pivot first. And then
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: in the non-Trump column, Nikki Haley at four, Rand Paul
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: at five. So there's my top five of the week.
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: you by FanDuel baseball fans. Think you know who's hitting
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: a homer today? Well, FanDuel is giving you a free
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: chance to call your shot with daily dares. Joining the
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: action is easy. You just make your free pick on
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: who's hitting a home run in their game. And if
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: you're right, you'll get a profit boost to use on
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: your next bet for a chance at extra winnings. You've
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: got nothing to lose and you get a lot to gain.
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: And don't forget, you can make A free pick every
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: day during the MLB season. It's just another reason why
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: FanDuel is the home for home runs. So are you
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: ready to play your game today? Join all the action
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: at FanDuel.com. That's FanDuel.com to play daily dingers and make
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: your free pick on who's hitting a homer. Play ball
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: of the MLB. 21 plus in select states for Kansas
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: and affiliation with the Kansas Star Casino. It's 18 plus
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: in D.C., Kentucky, Wyoming. If you have a gambling problem,
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET or call 1-888-789-7777. You can also
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. You can visit the
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland for help. You can visit gamblinghelplinema.org. You
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: can call 800-327-5050 in Massachusetts. You can call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY, or
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: you can simply text HOPE-NY-NEW-YORK in order to get some
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: help with any gambling concerns. Finally, you can also call
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: 1-877-770-7867 if you're in Louisiana. All right, let's do some questions.
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: It's the Chuck Toddcast second favorite mayor. Sorry, mayor. My
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: GW compadre, David Hold of Oklahoma City. He is in
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: the one slot, John. But it is Mayor John Imperiali
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: of Harvey Cedars checking in. Don't worry, you're definitely the
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: official mayor of the Five Timers Club. He actually thinks
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: this is his fourth question that he's sent in. As
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: I listen to all the 2028 speculation, I keep finding
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: historical parallels. AOC feels like the next Bernie, Mark Kelly
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: like John Glenn, Gavin Newsom like Michael Bloomberg, while Pritzker
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: and Beshear give me Bill Clinton vibes, and John Ossoff
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: reminds me of Barack Obama. That leaves Pritzker, Beshear, and
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: Ossoff as my current favorites among the long shots. How
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: far off am I with these comparisons? Thanks for keeping
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: us all informed and thinking. John, I love your thinking
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: on Pritzker. Most of all of the three. Pritzker is
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: the guy that wants to run as basically the progressive
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: who can pass stuff, right? And he's got a track
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: record in Illinois. He really has gotten a lot of
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: the wish list he can point to and say, hey,
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: I've done it in Illinois. I've done this in Illinois
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: and I've done this in Illinois. And he's got his
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: own money, right? And so he doesn't need to worry
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: about raising money, which is usually the first eats up
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: the first six months of a campaign. He can essentially
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: have an organization first. I think what he did in
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: essentially becoming the super PAC for the Senate candidate there
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: in Illinois, overcoming Roger Krishnamoorthy's money and the Congressional Black
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: Caucus tells me he's got a serious organization in the state.
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: And I think I think Pritzker is as undervalued as
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: anybody in the list. I think Bashir– I'm with you
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: on Bashir and Ossoff maybe, right? I think Ossoff feels
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: a little shiny right now because he appears to be
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: winning more comfortably than anybody would have expected in a reelection.
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 1: I think he certainly has the ambition. I sort of
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: view Ossoff as a bit more of sort of– a
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: bit more like Buttigieg. rather than Obama. By the way,
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: I think in a normal primary season, Buttigieg would have
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: won the nomination in 20. I think it would have been,
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: you know, without COVID. I think it's, you know, and
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: there's this idea that they had to hurry up and
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: rally around a candidate if there was this feeling that, oh, no,
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: this is going to go a while. I think it's
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: Pete and Bernie that go all the way to the end.
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: And my gut is that Pete ekes it out out
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: of donor fear and establishment fear of Bernie. Um, but like,
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: I think that like 5149 in my head, not like
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: a slam dunk that I think it's that way. Um,
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: it's interesting your comparison of Newsom to Bloomberg. I, I,
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: I guess I see what you're seeing sort of somebody
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: with high name ID that feels like it's just not
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: going to go anywhere the minute, the minute you announce. Um,
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: I've interviewed Bashir probably four times now in the last
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: two years. And I will tell you this, you know,
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: each time I'm always like, I need to see a
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: little more personality. And this last time, he's gotten comfortable
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: in his own skin more and more each time. I
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: do think he begins with a potential juggernaut of governors
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: that could be very supportive of him. Democrats, you get
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: a guy like Rob Sand, right? He's willing to campaign
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: with Andy Beshear. I don't think he's willing to sit
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: next to J.B. Pritzker. And so the army of new
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: Democratic governors could be interesting for him. Let's say, what
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: if a Doug Jones pulls a pulls an upset in
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: Alabama with Tommy Tupperville. I just think Beshear, somebody can
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: go in any state, right? Democrats will invite, any state
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: would invite him. So he's not quite Bill Clinton yet,
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: and maybe nobody can be Bill Clinton. That's a high bar.
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: He's one of the great political athletes of his generation.
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: But I see where you're going there. So I'm with
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: you for sure on Pritzker and Beshear. That's a rough–
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. I think Kelly's got more
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: personality than Glenn. But I– you know, astronauts have to
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: be good loners. And sometimes loners don't make the most
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: charismatic people, right? Because you've got to be comfortable sitting
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: in a small little compartment all by yourself. So sometimes
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: that leads to less charismatic behavior, which may explain why
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: John Glenn– never could get very far in presidential politics,
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: been one of my theories. So I see where you're going.
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: I strongly believe, especially if AOC doesn't run, I think
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: Pritzker becomes the, I think Pritzker is everything. He becomes
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: the billionaire progressive who's actually won office, right? Not like
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: the self-funding guy from California who constantly runs and never wins.
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: Pritzker could be that version of it. And Pritzker is
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: just a better back slapper. and stuff. So I think
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: Pritzker is definitely– if the Democratic Party wants to go left,
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: Pritzker might be the perfect progressive wing candidate who can
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: reach out and bridge the divide. Better than an AOC
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: could or a Roe-Connor could on that one. All right,
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: next question comes from Christy. She goes, hello from Kentucky's
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: 5th District. Oh, an old Hal Rogers district. I was
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: a Republican from 1986 until January 6th. I have quite
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: a few Republican friends who say January 6th was their
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: last day as a Republican. You and Liz Cheney, right?
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: And then you said on January 6th, you finally registered
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: as independent. I've enjoyed hearing your thoughts on Andy Beshear.
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: My dream bipartisan ticket would be Beshear and Kasich. You
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: and me both would be a good one, huh? Who
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: I actually campaigned for. So what would your dream bipartisan
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: presidential ticket look like? Love the podcast, Christy. Look, I
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: don't know if Kasich would be a good vice president.
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: I think John would agree that he wouldn't be a
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: good vice president.
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 2: On that.
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: That's interesting. I'll tell you who, you know, I'll tell
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: you the ticket. Let me give you what I think
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: would be the Dolly Parton ticket. Give me two pastors.
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: Give me James Langford and Raphael Warnock. I think the
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: country desperately needs what I call a pastor for patriotism,
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: a reminder of who we want to be, not who
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: we are as idds. So when I'm looking for, when
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: I think about, hey, we need to heal first. And
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not, I think I've made it clear here. I'm
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: not the biggest fan of, organized religion generally. I, I culturally,
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: you know, I certainly was raised with a Jewish education. I,
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: my kids have a Jewish education, um, because I think
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: it's important to have knowledge of the old Testament. I
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: really do. I think it's really important to have knowledge
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: about religion to function, whether it's in politics, religion, uh, literature, music,
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: you name it. I, you know, I think we, we,
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: you know, understanding, um, the origins of, of religion and
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: the mythologies behind so many of them. And frankly, how
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: similar they all actually are. Right. You know, I, I
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: find it, I find, I find it fascinating how the
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: old Testament, new Testament, the Quran book of Mormon, right.
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: Like how much they all agree. Right. Everybody focuses on
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: what's different, but I digress there. So that's always been one,
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: like if, if we just needed to be healed, right.
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: Give me two pastors, right? Warnock and Lankford. They are both,
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: by the way, ordained pastors. Lankford is– I know some
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: of you may think, oh, he doesn't stand up to
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: Trump enough. He's the guy. I just– I do think
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: he would be– he is a responsible actor. So that's
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: one of my thoughts on a bipartisan ticket. Another one
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: I might give you is– You know, I think, you know,
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: do a Mark Kelly, you know, Mark Kelly and Nikki Haley.
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: You know, I think could be, if you really think
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: we needed that to heal the country. But I think
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: my favorite, I like yours, Bashir and Kasich, but my
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: favorite is Warnock and Lankford. Because I think that that
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: they could speak to some parts of the country that
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: not conventional politicians don't always get an audience with. And
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: I think that that could be quite helpful. Anyway, just
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 1: food for thought there. All right, Sam. Chuck Hotty Toddy
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: from Mississippi Second. I recently went down a Nixon Watergate
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: rabbit hole and started watching old firing line episodes with
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 1: William F. Buckley Jr. And it feels like watching politics
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: from another planet. Whatever you think of Buckley, he had
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: an identifiable principles. Yes, he did. So what happened to
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 1: the ideological identities of both parties? And what does it
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: even mean to be conservative or liberal today? And how
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: do we get back to parties offering a vision for
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 1: the country beyond simply beating the other side? I'm going
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: to hang up and listen. Go Rebs. Your canes broke
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 1: my heart last year. Hey, man, God love you on
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: Ole Miss. I think we're all kind of rooting for
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 1: Ole Miss to succeed. Um, in, uh, in spite of
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: what Lane Kiffin attempted to do the program. Um, and
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: I don't want to, I have to tell you, I
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: am glad I am on the, uh, I appreciate you
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: not bringing up the Hail Mary or the close to
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: Hail Mary. Yeah, I think it could have been pass interference.
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: Put it this way, that was more pass interference than
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: the one that Miami got flagged for illegally, or not illegally,
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: but ridiculously in the Ohio State National Championship that they
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: were given by the officials on that one. That one
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: was a questionable one against you guys. But here's where
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: I always say, remember, had they called it, you'd have,
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: I think, gotten half the distance. You know, you wouldn't
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: have started it. It wasn't a one-yard line. It's, you know,
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: the way the college rule works. So it still would
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: have been another throw to the end zone. And I'm
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 1: pretty convinced that our defense would have stopped you there.
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: But I don't want to face Trinidad Chambliss again. He
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: is the only quarterback that seemed to do well against
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: Miami's defense last year. But hopefully, hopefully, Sam, you heard
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: my opener about the four parties. I think that's, you know,
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: because we used to have these ideological diversity in the
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: parties because we had local and regional culture and our
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: political culture could, you could be a Mississippi Democrat and
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: that meant something different than a Michigan Democrat. You could
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: be a Illinois Republican and that meant something different than
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: being a Wyoming Republican. And voters got it and voters
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: understood it and it was somewhat accepted. We sort of–
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: as everything, all politics got national, it got homogenized. And
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: this is where– is it the 2000 election where it
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 1: was just so close and everybody became red and blue?
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 1: And we started to just– oh, Florida is a red
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: state or Georgia is a blue state or Illinois is
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: a red state or blue state, whatever. And I think
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 1: we just– our vocabulary got binary, right? Hey, I– I
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: was a part of this culture, so I can't say that,
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 1: I can't say, oh, what, you know, I contributed to
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: it in hindsight. But I think that's part of it, right?
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: I think that this is what's wrong with our politics
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 1: is that it doesn't, you know, we've always had ideological
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: diversity in the country. We used to have two parties
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 1: that tried to represent that. Now we don't. And I
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 1: think it's harming our politics. And I think the voters
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: are telling us they don't like this. Why else are
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 1: nearly half of them deciding not to register with either party?
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: That to me is the protest. And that to me
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 1: is the sign that, yes, they want what we want back.
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 1: But I think they want if we had four coherent visions,
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: then we might have a better marketplace for the competition
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: of ideas. All right. Next question comes from Beth Clavina, Dean, Ph.D.
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: from KU, Rock Chalk. Dear Chuck, I'm writing from Shawnee, Kansas, Kansas'
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: third district, longtime viewer and listener from MTP to now.
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: Kansas continues to come up as potentially competitive state, particularly
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: with Roger Marshall's Senate seat, but our GOP-controlled legislature passed
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: a law allowing the governor to fill certain statewide vacancies
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: from a list of three candidates chosen by a departing
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: officeholder's party with rumors that Marshall could leave for a
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: role with the Trump administration. Do you think that could
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: actually happen before November? And what impact could it have
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: on the Senate race and Kansas voters? You know, I'm
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: glad you– I've had this rumor sent to me a
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: few times. And I know of this law. Other Republican
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: legislatures have tried to– Kentucky has this. It's never been
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: challenged in court, right? And, you know, if the state
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: constitution simply says the governor has the power to appoint
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: I have a feeling if the governor chose to go
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: another direction, I think the state– I think we know
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: where the state Supreme Court would go and then it
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: might go all the way– ultimately, you're just interpreting a
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 1: state constitution. And the US Supreme Court usually defers to
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: a state Supreme Court on this. So I'm not convinced
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 1: that those law– I know the law that they passed.
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not convinced those things are constitutional. in a state constitution,
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 1: but they, again, we haven't had it play out. It's like,
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: you know, Bashir, there's some restraints. The Kentucky legislature said that,
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: you know, if something happens to McConnell, he basically has
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 1: no role in this whatsoever. That's not what the state
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: constitution says. And it's just never been tested in the courts.
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: But I've heard that, I just can't, it In a
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: race where you actually have a viable Democratic candidate in
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 1: the Methodist minister, Adam Hamilton, I just can't imagine Republicans would–
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: I think that actually makes the seat even more vulnerable
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: for Republicans. So I don't think that they do that.
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, and at this point, if Roger
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: Marshall is looking for a job and I get the
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 1: sense that he doesn't love being a senator, he doesn't
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: like talking to reporters. He doesn't seem I I've never
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: he seems a bit introverted about it. Doesn't I don't
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: get the sense he loves this. Jerry Moran, I think,
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 1: loves being a senator. So if you're telling me he's
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 1: looking for a way out, maybe, right? But I think
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: they would wait till there's a Republican governor so that
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't have any of these legal issues. And I
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: think right now, who knows, but I would probably favor
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 1: the Republicans picking up the governor's mansion again. So appreciate
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 1: the question. I'm glad you asked it because I've seen it.
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: And I just didn't, I've heard this rumor. It didn't
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: seem as viable, didn't seem viable, but You're not the
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 1: first person to tell me about it. I know it's
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: sort of all over the place. All right. Last question
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 1: comes from Amanda and it's from Australia. Good evening from Australia.
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: And thanks for the Canberra shout out. You got it.
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: Watching the midterms from afar, I'm curious whether we're overlooking
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: potential shifts outside the usual battlegrounds, particularly the rise of
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: independence across states like Nebraska, South Dakota, Idaho, Montana, and
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: some of the grassroots democratic efforts in the South. Are
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: these regions being ignored because of limited polling? And assumptions
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: that they're safely read and could races in places like Mississippi,
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: South Carolina, Kansas, or the Northwest tell us something bigger
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 1: about how the electorate is changing? Look, I am skeptical.
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 1: I see where you're looking. I'm certainly, you know, to me,
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: the most interesting, the race I'll learn the most about,
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: about this Democratic brand problem versus Republican fatigue versus opportunity
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: for a third party or independent is actually Idaho. Idaho's
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: as red of a state as you can come. If
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: the candidate, by simply dropping the D label, running as
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: an I, can get 45%, then I think there's something
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: we're missing. Then I think it, frankly, reinforces my analysis
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 1: from the start of this episode, which is the two
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 1: parties aren't representing the country very well. There is an
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 1: underrepresented majority plurality of voters out there, that when given
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: a choice that isn't predictable blue, predictable red, they're going
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: to gravitate to it if they can. So of all
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 1: those places you discuss, Idaho is the most interesting to me.
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: I do think it's more of a reflection on the
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party brand than anything else, right? We know that
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: I'm a believer that every state has a fulcrum, meaning
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: there's always a place to go find a 50% to
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: find 50% to be on your side if you can
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 1: be comfortable getting to that fulcrum position, right? I think
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 1: every state can be competitive if you find the, you know,
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: middle ground. Not everybody's middle ground is in the exact
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: same place. You know, maybe you have to be a
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: pro-life Democrat, for instance, or a pro-life independent to win
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: an argument on economic populism in Idaho, right? I'm just
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 1: throwing something out there. But the point is, is that
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: there are, you know, There's certainly, you know, I believe
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: Idaho is a place that has approved Medicaid expansion. So,
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 1: you know, there is, you can get there. The question is,
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 1: can a candidate comfortably get there on some of the
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: cultural issues to make some of those voters feel comfortable
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: on that score? But I do think if the independents
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 1: do really well, it is, I think it's as much
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 1: of a reflection about the Democratic brand as anything else.
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: And I think it would be a you know, I wouldn't,
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be jumping for joy if I were Democrats,
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 1: if their majority is powered by, they only got the
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: Senate majority because they're in coalition with essentially a center
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: right to center left independent movement. Um, I think it
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 1: only actually reinforces my belief that really this country would
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 1: be better off if we were a four party system.
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: So Amanda, what a great way to end because we
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: get to end where we began. Um, as I said,
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: it's week zero. Um, if there's two games that I am,
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: I have the most interest in besides, look, I want
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 1: to see Florida state. They better beat New Mexico state.
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 1: I don't think they're going to let a lot show
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: cause they have tougher games down the road. Um, particularly
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: one against mom and son are going up against each
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: other the following weekend for SMU opens at Florida state. So, um,
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure who I'm allowed to root for. I
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: don't want to utter a thing about it on that one.
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: Trust me. But the two games I'm most intrigued about
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: in Week Zero, one is North Carolina-TCU, the one in Ireland.
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 1: We've now had a couple of years in a row
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 1: this Ireland game has just led to a debacle for
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 1: the teams that travel in it. I don't know whether
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: these college kids can't handle the extra travel, whatever it is.
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: but both Kansas State and Iowa State were sluggish after
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: their game in Ireland. You had Florida State and Georgia
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: Tech two years before that, you know, seemed to have
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 1: problems recovering from the Ireland game. So I'm curious about
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 1: TCU and North Carolina. North Carolina in particular, the Belichick experiment.
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 1: If he wins his opening game, okay. If he loses
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 1: it by a little bit, all right, maybe things are gonna,
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: if he gets blown out, The wheels could fall off
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 1: of the North Carolina in such a hurry that we
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 1: could be looking at an 0-4 season on that. So
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: that game intrigues me, especially Miami has to play North
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 1: Carolina this year. And then the other game that intrigues
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: me is North Carolina State and Virginia. Virginia won 10
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 1: games last year. Had Virginia beaten Duke in the ACC
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 1: title game, I don't know if Miami gets in. I
• 2:13:52
  Speaker 1: still think they do. And that both Miami and UVA
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: would have been in, and Notre Dame still would have
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 1: been left out. But it was certainly easier– For Duke
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: to have won, allowing that weird conference thing that allowed
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 1: James Madison in and all that business. But how good
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: is Virginia? They won 10 games last year. Was that
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 1: due to schedule? Was that luck? Well, I think we're
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 1: going to find out. And NC State is parentally the
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 1: team that you think, boy, I think I don't want
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 1: to play them, but boy, they always seem to underperform
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 1: in games you think that they shouldn't. So those two
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 1: games strike me as the most interesting. And then I'll
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: be watching Hawaii at Stanford because Miami has to play
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 1: Stanford the following Friday. That's right. Week one begins Friday
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 1: for me, a week from Friday. So with that, so
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: college football is back, folks. The next, and I love it,
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 1: college football gets a weekend all to its own and
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 1: most of next weekend, the first sort of two weeks
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: all on their own. So I hope one of the
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: things I hope I did last year was start to
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: get you guys to appreciate the joy that is college football.
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: I know the rules are a mess. The conference leaders
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: are jerks. The NCAA is ridiculous. But man, the fans
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: are the best, right? Because of how much we care.
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 1: We all care too much. College football fans truly are fanatical,
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 1: which to me is what makes college football different than anything.
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 1: any other sport. So with that, enjoy week zero. Thank
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 1: you for listening. If you get a chance and you
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: haven't liked and subscribed, please do so. And more importantly,
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 1: tell a friend. We love what we're building here. We've
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: been growing. That's all thanks to you guys. So let's
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: keep it up. We'll see you in about 96 hours.