Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - SCOTUS Guts The Voting Rights Act… Uncapping The House Would Fix It + The “Woke Right” Has Emerged

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Chuck’s Commentary - SCOTUS Guts The Voting Rights Act… Uncapping The House Would Fix It + The “Woke Right” Has Emerged · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: dot com use the code toodcast. Hello there, Welcome to
1:54
Speaker 1: the Thursday edition of the Chuck Toodcast. Has been a
1:58
Speaker 1: pretty busy It obviously started with the scary situation at
2:04
Speaker 1: the White House Correspondent's dinner. There's been a little bit
2:06
Speaker 1: of focus on that. But hello, we're still in this
2:10
Speaker 1: war pause if you will, with Iran with really no
2:14
Speaker 1: end in sight, and I want to talk a little
2:16
Speaker 1: bit about the pretty useless briefing that we got from
2:22
Speaker 1: Pete hag Seth with his testimony before the House. Perhaps
2:27
Speaker 1: the Senate side might be better at this, but you
2:30
Speaker 1: know what, It's pretty clear Pete Haggseth isn't interested in
2:33
Speaker 1: being a public servant and doing the things that you
2:36
Speaker 1: would expect taxpayer funded people to do and explain themselves.
2:40
Speaker 1: He is basically got internet brain, right, he has got
2:44
Speaker 1: his brain is rotting from too much time on the internet.
2:47
Speaker 1: War is way too much about his woke ideology, woke
2:49
Speaker 1: write ideology, whatever. It is, constantly not thinking about actually
2:55
Speaker 1: doing what would be in the best interest of the administration,
2:58
Speaker 1: which is actually make a coherent case for why this
3:00
Speaker 1: war is justified. Because he didn't do a very good
3:03
Speaker 1: job of that, and he does a terrible job at
3:05
Speaker 1: trying to pick political fights he thinks he's doing. I
3:08
Speaker 1: think he thinks he's being helpful to the president. I
3:14
Speaker 1: don't think it's doing what he thinks it's doing. But
3:18
Speaker 1: the big news politically, we got that new map from Florida,
3:20
Speaker 1: and I was talking about it yesterday and it was
3:23
Speaker 1: right in the middle of when I was taping that.
3:25
Speaker 1: We got the Komi News and I'll have a little
3:27
Speaker 1: bit more on that. But the big news is this
3:29
Speaker 1: Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act, and incredible narrowing.
3:33
Speaker 1: Some would call it gutting, depending on your point of
3:36
Speaker 1: view on this, but an incredible narrowing of the Voting
3:40
Speaker 1: Rights Act which essentially eliminates it from usage in the South. Right,
3:46
Speaker 1: the initial reason for the Voting Rights Act was for
3:49
Speaker 1: the systemic way that Southern states in particular disenfranchised black voters,
3:56
Speaker 1: and the point of creating these majority minority districts or
4:01
Speaker 1: plurality minority districts, particularly in the South was essentially right
4:05
Speaker 1: a century's long wrong on this stuff, and it was
4:09
Speaker 1: about representation, making sure that there was a seat at
4:13
Speaker 1: the table when over for over a century there was
4:17
Speaker 1: a denial of a seat at the table. And I
4:20
Speaker 1: want to tackle this in two different ways. Okay, one
4:24
Speaker 1: is the near term politics and what does this mean
4:27
Speaker 1: for the maps? What does this mean for campaign twenty
4:30
Speaker 1: twenty six and really more campaign twenty twenty eight and
4:33
Speaker 1: possibly the redistricting of twenty thirty. But I also want
4:37
Speaker 1: to do something, and you're going to some of you
4:39
Speaker 1: may already know where I'm going to add, but I'm
4:41
Speaker 1: gonna head onto a hobby horse of a solution that
4:45
Speaker 1: I think now hopefully people will see, makes a heck
4:48
Speaker 1: of a lot more sense than when I was on
4:50
Speaker 1: this hobby horse about a year ago where I even
4:53
Speaker 1: did a ted talk about it. But first let's talk
4:57
Speaker 1: about the near term decision. What does it mean? In theory,
5:02
Speaker 1: you may see a handful of states try to redistrict
5:04
Speaker 1: in the South where suddenly the majority minority districts in
5:10
Speaker 1: say Mississippi, Benny Thompson's district could be at risk. You've
5:14
Speaker 1: got the case was about Louisiana, so there'll be a
5:17
Speaker 1: new Louisiana map. It's likely you will go from two
5:21
Speaker 1: majority African American districts down to one. For what it's worth, Alabama,
5:26
Speaker 1: the governor has already said no to any sort of
5:29
Speaker 1: special session, and it's my understanding the court actually pretty
5:32
Speaker 1: much said they can't do anything until twenty thirty. So
5:37
Speaker 1: you know that the state courts that is in Alabama,
5:41
Speaker 1: so they're not going to touch in twenty thirty. We
5:43
Speaker 1: already had the new Florida remap was anticipating this, which
5:47
Speaker 1: is why the Darren Soto District, which is mostly a
5:51
Speaker 1: Puerto Rican district in central Florida, basically got carved up,
5:56
Speaker 1: and it was arguably in anticipation of this. Isn't at
6:01
Speaker 1: this point another district in Florida that somehow this court
6:06
Speaker 1: ruling would have any influence on. There's certainly the possibility
6:11
Speaker 1: in South Carolina. There's certainly the possibility in Tennessee. In fact,
6:16
Speaker 1: it is worth I would point you to the down ballot.
6:22
Speaker 1: It is the down ballot is a publication and a
6:25
Speaker 1: substack that is very much has been on top of this,
6:31
Speaker 1: and they did a terrific analysis state by state of
6:36
Speaker 1: what could happen, what would be at risk. I just
6:40
Speaker 1: you know, rather than me reading to you his work,
6:44
Speaker 1: I was done by David Near and Stephen Wolf. You
6:46
Speaker 1: should subscribe to them. I do. I don't want to
6:48
Speaker 1: take away subscription dollars for them, but they go through it.
6:52
Speaker 1: But like I said, the top line is Alabama's going
6:54
Speaker 1: to be untouched till twenty thirty. Florida has already been done.
6:58
Speaker 1: Georgia if they, I doubt there's an attempt at doing it.
7:02
Speaker 1: And we're going to get into why. I think even
7:05
Speaker 1: if they tried to do something in the Georgia legislature,
7:08
Speaker 1: it would probably implode on them and only elect create
7:13
Speaker 1: more potential democratic seats. And I'm going to give you
7:15
Speaker 1: an example of that in a minute I told you
7:17
Speaker 1: about Louisiana. That's obviously this core case was about Louisiana, Mississippi,
7:22
Speaker 1: South Carolina, Tennessee, and potentially in Texas. But again, they've
7:26
Speaker 1: already done their big remap, So let's see what this
7:28
Speaker 1: all looks like. I think it's a it's not the
7:34
Speaker 1: way they drew their map. They're anticipating winning over as
7:37
Speaker 1: many Latino votes on the Republican side of the als
7:39
Speaker 1: Donald Trump won in twenty twenty four and to a
7:42
Speaker 1: lesser extent in twenty twenty two, and I think there's
7:44
Speaker 1: some questions about whether that holds up on that front.
7:50
Speaker 1: But I want to take you back and sort of
7:52
Speaker 1: what does this mean, because look, I think we have
7:54
Speaker 1: a serious issue about representation of this country in our Congress,
8:00
Speaker 1: and I'm going to get to that because I think
8:02
Speaker 1: there is a better solution than trying to redo the
8:06
Speaker 1: Voting Rights Act, trying to come up with special rules
8:08
Speaker 1: and all of this stuff. There is a cleaner, better
8:11
Speaker 1: way to do this. But let's talk about the near
8:14
Speaker 1: term political impact and when it takes you back to
8:17
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety it was the nineteen ninety one reapportionment map,
8:23
Speaker 1: where essentially it was the Bush forty one Justice Department
8:27
Speaker 1: working with the Congressional Black Caucus, particularly in the southern redraws,
8:31
Speaker 1: where in conjunction with the Voting Rights Act, that was
8:36
Speaker 1: that they needed to have and they got majority increase
8:41
Speaker 1: representation in Congress of African Americans. And essentially the Bush
8:45
Speaker 1: Justice Department saw it that they had a quote win
8:49
Speaker 1: win situation with Black Democrats. They would draw some majority
8:54
Speaker 1: Black districts in the South, and Republicans would suddenly have
8:58
Speaker 1: more districts that they could win because essentially they took
9:02
Speaker 1: a chunk of Democratic voters and put them all into
9:05
Speaker 1: compact districts. I'm going to tell you the story about
9:09
Speaker 1: Georgia in nineteen ninety before this reapportionment began in Georgia
9:15
Speaker 1: four years later. By nineteen ninety four, so at the
9:20
Speaker 1: start of the nineteen ninety decade, Newt Gingridge was the
9:23
Speaker 1: only Republican in Georgia's ten member congressional delegation. At the time,
9:28
Speaker 1: it was a nine one advantage Democrats owned the state.
9:33
Speaker 1: After the nineteen ninety one reapportionment that created essentially the
9:38
Speaker 1: maximum African American districts you could create in Georgia, that
9:42
Speaker 1: was driven by the voting by the previous interpretation of
9:45
Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act the second and the eleventh Congressional
9:48
Speaker 1: district districts because they increased by one, they went from
9:52
Speaker 1: ten to one. Georgia was a growing state, became majority
9:55
Speaker 1: African American for the first time in ninety two, and
9:57
Speaker 1: the delegation went from nine to one to nine Democrats
10:03
Speaker 1: to one Republican for ninety two they win. This was
10:07
Speaker 1: an election that Democrats won. Nationally, Bill Clinton wins, Democrats
10:12
Speaker 1: lose some seats in Georgia, their advantage goes from seven
10:15
Speaker 1: Democrats to four Republicans, and then two years later, after
10:19
Speaker 1: the ninety four tsunami for Republicans, it essentially flips to
10:24
Speaker 1: seven Republicans and four Democrats with three African American majority
10:29
Speaker 1: African American districts and one white Democrat. So essentially, in
10:33
Speaker 1: four years, Democrats went from nine to ten to four
10:36
Speaker 1: of an eleven. And basically it was because they created
10:39
Speaker 1: these maximum a very much large African American majority districts,
10:47
Speaker 1: concentrating black voters in a smaller number of districts. Now,
10:51
Speaker 1: the good news for African Americans is an increased representation
10:55
Speaker 1: in the US Congress, there were more Black Democrats. What
10:59
Speaker 1: it did for the party though, is it actually made
11:02
Speaker 1: it harder for them to elect more Democratic members of Congress.
11:06
Speaker 1: So what does that mean now? So this is why
11:10
Speaker 1: these this remap is not going to be as clean
11:13
Speaker 1: as people think. It isn't going to be automated automatic
11:17
Speaker 1: pickups in order to draw these new districts. If they're
11:22
Speaker 1: going to no longer have majority African American districts, well
11:25
Speaker 1: they're going to be. Then you're gonna have African American
11:27
Speaker 1: voters who are vote sort of eight times out of
11:30
Speaker 1: ten more likely to vote Democratic than Republican. You're something
11:34
Speaker 1: going to have a whole bunch more swing districts. Right.
11:36
Speaker 1: We sort of saw this already, and we're getting this
11:39
Speaker 1: example in Florida with the with the Soco district. In
11:43
Speaker 1: order for them to essentially eliminate that district, they spread
11:46
Speaker 1: out Democrats into a whole bunch of other central Florida districts.
11:49
Speaker 1: And it's in theory taken a lot of likely Republican
11:53
Speaker 1: districts and turn them into quote lean Republican district Well,
11:56
Speaker 1: guess what in a waveyear like we're anticipating here in
11:59
Speaker 1: this midterm election with the party out of power sort
12:02
Speaker 1: of seeing a surgeon turnout, the party in power seeing
12:06
Speaker 1: a depression in turnout all of these Any sort of
12:11
Speaker 1: remap that does this sort of spreading out of Democratic
12:14
Speaker 1: voters and trying to put them in Republican seats is
12:16
Speaker 1: suddenly going to dilute these maps. And what it, in theory,
12:20
Speaker 1: could end up doing is creating more swing districts throughout
12:24
Speaker 1: the South, which is exactly what we had in the eighties,
12:29
Speaker 1: and then in pre nineteen ninety and the nineteen ninety
12:33
Speaker 1: one reapportionment between the Bush Jets Department and the Congressional
12:36
Speaker 1: Black Caucus, we did not have nearly the number of
12:41
Speaker 1: swing districts in Southern states in the old sort of
12:44
Speaker 1: Confederate states. So it is a So this is there
12:50
Speaker 1: is a lot of anxiety on the left about this decision,
12:55
Speaker 1: and when it comes to representation. I absolutely understand why
12:58
Speaker 1: there's so much anxiety about this because in some ways
13:01
Speaker 1: it's claiming that we've somehow all of the wrongs that
13:05
Speaker 1: took place all the way through nineteen sixty five is suddenly, oh,
13:08
Speaker 1: they're all gone. Well, we know they're not all gone,
13:11
Speaker 1: and so taking away. This guardrail on representation in the
13:16
Speaker 1: South is quite risky. But just for the political outcome,
13:20
Speaker 1: if you're looking for D versus R on this, this
13:24
Speaker 1: is not an automatic I mean, yes, it gives a
13:29
Speaker 1: Republican's an opportunity to redraw their maps in the South,
13:34
Speaker 1: and so there'll be certainly less court pushback on certain things.
13:37
Speaker 1: Although I still think the Florida map could get some
13:40
Speaker 1: pushback based on what's in their state constitution when they
13:43
Speaker 1: passed a fair districts referendum a few years back. But
13:50
Speaker 1: it's not clear to me that this is going to
13:52
Speaker 1: be an automatic net gain for Republicans. If you get
13:58
Speaker 1: rid of packed part of and districts, and these districts
14:02
Speaker 1: get unpacked, you are essentially going to create more swing areas.
14:06
Speaker 1: Now what you may see is you may see some more.
14:08
Speaker 1: You may see some reciently charged democratic primaries in some
14:12
Speaker 1: of these districts where you will have a large chunk
14:16
Speaker 1: of African American voters, another chunk of Democratic voters of
14:23
Speaker 1: either white Democratic voters, Latino, et cetera. So you might
14:27
Speaker 1: see more. You know that there certainly will be more
14:30
Speaker 1: a diverse set of candidates perhaps running in primaries. How
14:34
Speaker 1: identity politics works in that is going to probably depend
14:36
Speaker 1: on the candidate's running and the issue sets of that day.
14:40
Speaker 1: But when you're just looking at it as far as
14:43
Speaker 1: Democrats versus Republicans, it's not clear to me, And if anything,
14:48
Speaker 1: it could be a wash, if not a potential in
14:51
Speaker 1: a waveyear of an advantage for the out party, which
14:55
Speaker 1: in this year is this. But again, how many districts
14:58
Speaker 1: are we really going to see get changed this year
15:02
Speaker 1: this cycle versus those that will happen for twenty twenty eight,
15:05
Speaker 1: and then of course we have the actual reapportionment going
15:07
Speaker 1: in twenty thirty, so that's the near term political impact.
15:12
Speaker 1: You know, we've already seen, like I said, we've already
15:15
Speaker 1: seen Florida's already did their redraw that would have this
15:19
Speaker 1: is the redraw they would have done. They've almost assumed
15:22
Speaker 1: that the court ruling was going to be what it was,
15:24
Speaker 1: with really the darren Sodo district being the one that
15:27
Speaker 1: falls under the Voting Rights Act on this one, Now,
15:33
Speaker 1: let's talk about what is a better perhaps a better
15:35
Speaker 1: thing to fight for. Now. You know that one of
15:38
Speaker 1: the arcane sort of very political sciencing nerdy things that's
15:43
Speaker 1: out there is this idea of uncapping the House and
15:48
Speaker 1: what does that mean. Well, in nineteen thirty, after a dispute,
15:52
Speaker 1: and I've gone some of you have heard me on
15:54
Speaker 1: this rant before, but in you know, the House of
15:59
Speaker 1: Representatives used to expand with the population of the country,
16:02
Speaker 1: the number that we would have in the House. Not
16:05
Speaker 1: just you don't just decide how you reapportion the foreign
16:10
Speaker 1: and thirty five congressional districts among the fifty states, of
16:13
Speaker 1: course in nineteen thirty it was among forty eight states,
16:16
Speaker 1: but also whether the population size has increased enough that
16:19
Speaker 1: it's time to expand the actual House of Representatives itself.
16:22
Speaker 1: Pretty much every decade before nineteen twenty, every single decade,
16:27
Speaker 1: after every census, we pretty much we expanded the House,
16:30
Speaker 1: and then we stopped doing it. Now, in nineteen twenty,
16:33
Speaker 1: you'll be shocked to know what. You know, there was
16:34
Speaker 1: a big impass and both parties were fighting over this,
16:36
Speaker 1: and they couldn't agree on how many seats to add
16:40
Speaker 1: to the House and which states were going to get them,
16:42
Speaker 1: and there was a big fight, and eventually they got
16:45
Speaker 1: a compromise of let's just lock it down, let's not
16:47
Speaker 1: expand the size of the House. Anymore anyway, they were
16:50
Speaker 1: worried it was getting too big, too unruly, et cetera.
16:54
Speaker 1: And so we've back in nineteen thirty we locked in
16:57
Speaker 1: four hundred and thirty five district and it was one
17:00
Speaker 1: per three hundred and fifty thousand, you know, basically one
17:03
Speaker 1: congressional district for three hundred and fifty thousand people. Well
17:07
Speaker 1: we're now at basically one per eight hundred thousand. And
17:11
Speaker 1: you see, eight hundred thousand is the size of major cities. Right,
17:14
Speaker 1: there's only like eleven cities in America that have a
17:17
Speaker 1: population greater than that, and we now have we have
17:20
Speaker 1: four and thirty five that are just massive, and so
17:24
Speaker 1: that's why we have so much factional representation. So, you know,
17:31
Speaker 1: I understand the frustration about what we saw today, what
17:35
Speaker 1: we saw in the Supreme Court, But if you're looking
17:37
Speaker 1: to get a seat at the table, then you should
17:41
Speaker 1: fight to expand the size of the table. Right, we
17:46
Speaker 1: have not talked about expanding the size of the table.
17:48
Speaker 1: The table being here the House. Now, what was founder's intent.
17:52
Speaker 1: Founders intent was the House of Representatives to grow with
17:56
Speaker 1: the country number one and number two be the most
18:00
Speaker 1: most representative of the people, Right, now, the House of
18:04
Speaker 1: Representatives is not representative of the people. Each congressional district
18:09
Speaker 1: essentially is dominated by a faction. It could be a
18:12
Speaker 1: faction on the right or a faction on the left. Right,
18:15
Speaker 1: it's and it is sometimes a faction within that party
18:19
Speaker 1: that is able to dominate an entire congressional district. And
18:24
Speaker 1: so look, I know some people are out there going,
18:26
Speaker 1: you know, so take Louisiana and Louisianas with thirty percent
18:29
Speaker 1: African American population, if they suddenly have no African American
18:32
Speaker 1: representation or one African American, is that truly fair? If
18:37
Speaker 1: a third, right, third of the congressional districts are not
18:41
Speaker 1: you know, right now they are, right, it's about a
18:42
Speaker 1: third of the population. Third of the congressional district two
18:44
Speaker 1: out of six is majority and representative by African Americans. Now,
18:50
Speaker 1: another way to do this you could always have multi
18:52
Speaker 1: member districts, right, or this idea that you know, Okay,
18:55
Speaker 1: the state of Louisiana has six and you you know,
18:58
Speaker 1: the top six people get elected to those districts. And
19:00
Speaker 1: you would think over time that if there's various constituency
19:05
Speaker 1: groups or identity groups want to make sure they have representation.
19:09
Speaker 1: As long as they finish in the top six, you
19:11
Speaker 1: could have that. Now again, I don't think we're moving
19:14
Speaker 1: to sort of that sort of proportional representation or the
19:20
Speaker 1: idea of multi member districts. It is an idea we
19:24
Speaker 1: usually export whenever we're helping fledgling democracies around the world,
19:28
Speaker 1: because it's the fairest way to get various constituency groups
19:32
Speaker 1: to feel as if they all have a seat. It detata.
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Speaker 1: so use that code. But there's another way to do this,
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Speaker 1: Act of Congress to expand the size of the House.
21:38
Speaker 1: You don't need a constitutional amendment. You don't need new
21:41
Speaker 1: legislation beyond this, beyond deciding. Now, you know, if you
21:44
Speaker 1: ask me, I'd put in a constitutional amendment that said
21:47
Speaker 1: no congressional district can be bigger than point oh three
21:51
Speaker 1: percent of the population. Yes, I've done the math. Point
21:54
Speaker 1: oh three percent of population is essentially one per eight hundred,
21:58
Speaker 1: eight hundred thousand. But this by putting it in the constitution.
22:03
Speaker 1: In theory, this could fluctuate. Right, if we shrink our
22:08
Speaker 1: population shrinks over time, then you know we might have
22:10
Speaker 1: you might actually shrink the House of Representatives. So in
22:12
Speaker 1: this case, it would pretty close to double the size
22:16
Speaker 1: of the House. But here's what you would have. You're
22:20
Speaker 1: essentially making the table bigger, which means you're going to
22:23
Speaker 1: have a more diverse set of representatives when Congress. You're
22:28
Speaker 1: going to have a more diverse set of constituencies represented
22:31
Speaker 1: in Congress. It's not going to just be by identity
22:34
Speaker 1: group either. You're going to have the opportunity. First of all,
22:37
Speaker 1: you have districts that are more compact number one, So
22:40
Speaker 1: they truly will be geographic communities of interest, which matters
22:44
Speaker 1: a lot. You're likely to have less issues, with less
22:50
Speaker 1: need to Jerrymander. I'm not saying Jerrymander wouldn't happen. That's
22:53
Speaker 1: always going to be there. As long as you give
22:54
Speaker 1: the states the right to draw the districts, there's going
22:57
Speaker 1: to be political influence on how that's done. But when
23:02
Speaker 1: you're down, when you're when you're doing one per three
23:04
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand, it's just it's just less necessary.
23:09
Speaker 1: Oh by the way, so, oh, by the way, you
23:12
Speaker 1: would fix the electoral college conundrum that we've been in
23:16
Speaker 1: right as our population has grown. But the numerator when
23:20
Speaker 1: it comes to the electoral college it's been sitting at
23:22
Speaker 1: five point thirty eight forever. Well, if you increase the
23:26
Speaker 1: size of the House, you increase the number of electoral votes,
23:29
Speaker 1: and then you'll you're going to write size the electoral college,
23:35
Speaker 1: and so the likelihood of having a split national popular
23:38
Speaker 1: vote winner and electoral college winter being different. You you
23:42
Speaker 1: sort of shrink that from a you know, ten to
23:44
Speaker 1: fifteen percent chance down to a zero to one to
23:47
Speaker 1: you know, zero point five to one point five percent chance.
23:50
Speaker 1: So it it creates fairness across the board. It's small
23:54
Speaker 1: d democratic. And here's the other thing to me, this
23:57
Speaker 1: is something that a lot of groups on both sides
24:00
Speaker 1: of the AUL should be arguing for. Right now, the
24:02
Speaker 1: large states are underrepresented in the House of Representatives. They're
24:06
Speaker 1: also underrepresented in the Senate. Right right, two senators from
24:11
Speaker 1: Texas have the same amount of power as two senators
24:14
Speaker 1: from Wyoming. If, by the way, if you do this
24:18
Speaker 1: one para one per three or fifty thousand, you might
24:22
Speaker 1: not even add one new seat in Wyoming. Wyoming might
24:27
Speaker 1: still end up being a one congressional district state. But
24:31
Speaker 1: you certainly the big states would have more proper representation
24:35
Speaker 1: in the House of Representatives. So my point is is
24:38
Speaker 1: that I don't I think this There is no there's
24:41
Speaker 1: no ideological advantage to my idea, to this idea. I say,
24:45
Speaker 1: it's my idea, please, it's the founder's idea. We just
24:48
Speaker 1: have stopped listening to what they recommend it. But this
24:52
Speaker 1: will This only improves smaller constituency groups that are fairly
24:59
Speaker 1: large but have no representation in the House of Representatives.
25:03
Speaker 1: Now they're more likely. The Libertarians are more likely and
25:06
Speaker 1: actually have a couple of people actually elected as a Libertarians,
25:10
Speaker 1: and the Greens are likely to have a couple of
25:12
Speaker 1: people elected that way, and you'd certainly lower the barrier
25:15
Speaker 1: to entry, and you'd have a lot more diversity, whether
25:19
Speaker 1: it comes to age, whether it comes to ethnicity, whether
25:22
Speaker 1: it comes to jobs. Right, you also lower the in theory,
25:26
Speaker 1: if you have fewer voters you have to win over
25:28
Speaker 1: the cost of campaigns is less. So, look, the courts
25:34
Speaker 1: have spoken on this, and Congress can do some things
25:37
Speaker 1: to follow, you know, to sort of create a few
25:40
Speaker 1: more guard rails here to make sure minority voters aren't disenfranchised.
25:46
Speaker 1: Frankly anywhere in the country. I mean, I think one
25:49
Speaker 1: of the awkward aspects to this is that we were
25:51
Speaker 1: putting the Southern states, which had a history of this
25:54
Speaker 1: under more of a under more of a Justice Department
25:58
Speaker 1: scrutiny than all the states. And arguably we should be
26:01
Speaker 1: worried about this in all states rather than just the
26:06
Speaker 1: states that traditionally did this. But if you're if you're
26:12
Speaker 1: looking for a way to increase representation and you want
26:15
Speaker 1: more African Americans from the South in Congress, double the
26:19
Speaker 1: size of Congress double the you know we it is
26:23
Speaker 1: and it look I'm saying double. You know, I know
26:27
Speaker 1: that there's all this, well, we don't need more politicians
26:29
Speaker 1: in Washington, and oh my god, it's it's so it
26:32
Speaker 1: would be so big in here. Yeah. Democracy's messy. My goodness,
26:36
Speaker 1: have you seen what India does? They have a messy democracy.
26:38
Speaker 1: But it seems to you know, people feel as if
26:41
Speaker 1: there's at least opportunity and representation and so. And the
26:46
Speaker 1: House was meant to be a bit unruling. In fact,
26:50
Speaker 1: James Madison in the Federalist Papers Federalists fifty seven explicitly
26:57
Speaker 1: was arguing for an expense that the House was always
27:00
Speaker 1: going to have to expand. And the argument was this,
27:06
Speaker 1: he designed the House to grow with the people and
27:08
Speaker 1: remain dependent on the people. He would not like a
27:12
Speaker 1: frozen House at four hundred and thirty five members, which
27:16
Speaker 1: now maps are engineered to dilute the voices of minority votes.
27:21
Speaker 1: It violates the initial promise that the House was supposed
27:26
Speaker 1: to be. And remember who we wanted to elect the House, right,
27:30
Speaker 1: not the rich more than the poor, not the learned,
27:32
Speaker 1: more than the ignorant, not the hoitty heirs of distinguished names,
27:35
Speaker 1: more than the humble sons of obscurity and unpropitious fortune.
27:41
Speaker 1: The electors are to be the great body of the
27:43
Speaker 1: people of the United States. But the founders intended on
27:49
Speaker 1: the Senate not to be sort of a house of lords,
27:53
Speaker 1: you know, elected by state legislatures, to worry about what
27:56
Speaker 1: those states would worry about, a little bit of the
27:59
Speaker 1: cooling saucer. Our house was designed to be the voice
28:01
Speaker 1: of the people. But when you do this, when you frozen.
28:04
Speaker 1: We're at one hundred years now where we haven't expanded
28:07
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives, and yet we've more than doubled
28:10
Speaker 1: the size of the US population since then, we have
28:13
Speaker 1: diluted the voices of minority votes. We have essentially created
28:17
Speaker 1: another Senate. So it is founder's intent. I think I
28:25
Speaker 1: could argue conservatives will benefit in some ways, Liberals will
28:28
Speaker 1: benefit in some ways. You know, Conservatives complain that they
28:32
Speaker 1: have no representation, there's no representation in the state of Massachusetts. Well,
28:37
Speaker 1: I promise you, if you essentially have twenty congressional districts
28:41
Speaker 1: in the state of Massachusetts, you're going to get a
28:44
Speaker 1: couple of conservatives elected. Because you're going to have smaller districts,
28:48
Speaker 1: and you have more concentrated areas, and some of those
28:49
Speaker 1: areas are going to produce a conservative. So whether you
28:53
Speaker 1: are living in a you're a conservative living in a
28:55
Speaker 1: blue state, or you're a liberal living in a red state,
28:59
Speaker 1: this will only increase the chances that your voice will
29:03
Speaker 1: actually be representative from your community or at least from
29:06
Speaker 1: your state that you have some like minded thoughts with.
29:10
Speaker 1: So ultimately, I really believe that that look this, this
29:17
Speaker 1: fight with the judiciary is over. Okay, it is not
29:21
Speaker 1: going to be you know, this is I think it's
29:24
Speaker 1: a waste of time to try to keep fighting in
29:26
Speaker 1: the courts. If the goal is to get a seat
29:31
Speaker 1: at the table, then start fighting to expand the size
29:36
Speaker 1: of the table. Stop fighting over the chairs, and instead
29:40
Speaker 1: fight over the size of the table. Increase the size
29:43
Speaker 1: of the table, and suddenly you can bring your own
29:47
Speaker 1: chair and you'll find your own seat. That is a
29:52
Speaker 1: reform that is small d democratic, and again there is
29:57
Speaker 1: no obvious advantage for anybody except for the American people
30:02
Speaker 1: that feel as if that they're no longer represented in Congress.
30:04
Speaker 1: I ask many of you you live in a congressional
30:07
Speaker 1: district that you feel like has been gerrymandered, you feel
30:11
Speaker 1: like you're represented in Congress. I promise you if we
30:16
Speaker 1: go down this road of increasing the size of the House,
30:20
Speaker 1: you will feel like you have more representation. And this
30:23
Speaker 1: will you'll have more locally oriented members of Congress. It'll
30:26
Speaker 1: be harder to be performative jackasses, right, because there'll be
30:31
Speaker 1: more and that part will be diluted. Yeah, we'll dilute
30:36
Speaker 1: a little bit of political theater. But this is a
30:39
Speaker 1: free market. And here's something else I know about a
30:41
Speaker 1: free market of ideas. When you have more people entering
30:44
Speaker 1: the free market, you're likely to get some better ideas
30:47
Speaker 1: and how to govern this country. That's the best solution.
30:53
Speaker 1: This is how you take if you're upset about what
30:57
Speaker 1: happened this week in the Spring Court, channel that energy
31:02
Speaker 1: into doing something that would be good all parts of
31:05
Speaker 1: the political spectrum. Uncap the House. Let's bring back the
31:11
Speaker 1: people's house. It no longer represents the people. It's easy.
31:16
Speaker 1: Let's get back to Founder's intents. If you believe in
31:19
Speaker 1: a Madisonian democracy, you should believe in expanding the size
31:25
Speaker 1: of the house. All right, I want to turn a
31:27
Speaker 1: little bit to what I'm calling sort of the sort
31:33
Speaker 1: of the woke right moments that we're having, and I
31:35
Speaker 1: think in some ways the Komy the sensitivity about Komy. Right. Look,
31:42
Speaker 1: I'm not going to defend Komi's actions, and I think
31:44
Speaker 1: I said that yesterday. I told you the news sort
31:47
Speaker 1: of broke as it came through. I think we're all
31:51
Speaker 1: fascinated to how the heck did they find a grand
31:53
Speaker 1: jury to do this. I think it's pretty clear we're
31:57
Speaker 1: going to find out what instructions given to that grand jury.
32:01
Speaker 1: This thing may never make it into any This thing
32:04
Speaker 1: could get thrown out the minute the minute. Comey's defense is,
32:09
Speaker 1: can we see a transcript of the instructions that were
32:12
Speaker 1: given to the grand jury? And then once we find
32:15
Speaker 1: those out, it could be game set and matching this
32:18
Speaker 1: thing is thrown out. But I'm old enough to remember
32:23
Speaker 1: when the right thought the left was too sensitive? Right,
32:28
Speaker 1: And you know, any normal rational person you know, can't
32:34
Speaker 1: you know? Are you really telling me that this man
32:37
Speaker 1: who arranged Seashells right was hoping for an assassination attempt?
32:45
Speaker 1: Can you get inside his mind? And you're sure that's
32:49
Speaker 1: what that means? The point being is we just had
32:52
Speaker 1: an election where I thought we were trying to sort
32:55
Speaker 1: of de sense it like we are. Hey, everybody's taken
32:57
Speaker 1: each other too seriously, and all this stuff that was
33:01
Speaker 1: what I thought was the heart and soul of some
33:03
Speaker 1: parts of the Magma movement, right, your great Gutfelds of
33:07
Speaker 1: the world. Right, the rationalizations that they've had about you
33:10
Speaker 1: know what's the lefts too sensitive, they're too woke, they're
33:13
Speaker 1: too worried about being nice to everybody. Well, what the
33:15
Speaker 1: hell is this talk about over sensitivity? This is clearly
33:21
Speaker 1: over sensitivity. Right, And then we're seeing and this, here's
33:26
Speaker 1: the thing. This stuff's bad politics, right, Weaponizing the DOJ,
33:30
Speaker 1: weaponizing the FCC. I mean Brendan Carr, right, the clown,
33:33
Speaker 1: the clown car, Brendan clown Car. And I know I'm
33:37
Speaker 1: not I probably shouldn't be a name color, but he
33:39
Speaker 1: really is sort of just coming across like kind of
33:43
Speaker 1: a dufus on this and again, super sensitive. I'm not
33:49
Speaker 1: going to sit here and say it was a good
33:50
Speaker 1: joke by Jimmy Kimmel. I think the frankly, there's nothing
33:55
Speaker 1: And this is the part that really frustrates me about
33:57
Speaker 1: our politics. Jimmy Kimmel can can both be angry at
34:02
Speaker 1: Brendan Carr and this White House from not caring about
34:05
Speaker 1: the First Amendment and at the same time admit, yeah,
34:08
Speaker 1: I see why, I see how that joke looks terrible
34:11
Speaker 1: after the events of Saturday. That's all right, But everybody
34:16
Speaker 1: gets in their corners and you can't ever admit weakness.
34:18
Speaker 1: And I mean, this is unfortunately why I am a
34:21
Speaker 1: believer that this is this stuff. You know, de escalation
34:26
Speaker 1: has to be across the board or it'll never happen, right,
34:29
Speaker 1: because everybody has this mindset now of well, I'm not
34:35
Speaker 1: gonna I'm not gonna unilaterally disarm whatever that you know
34:40
Speaker 1: means to them in that moment. But again it goes
34:44
Speaker 1: back to apparently an inability to you know, there's no
34:50
Speaker 1: law on the books that says you have to ban
34:56
Speaker 1: bad jokes and bad punchlines, right, I mean, it is
35:02
Speaker 1: and so but the you know, you got Ted Cruz
35:04
Speaker 1: coming out sort of standing up for Jimmy Kimmel on this.
35:08
Speaker 1: I had to tell you this, Brendan Carr and Donald Trump.
35:11
Speaker 1: I mean, Jimmy Kimmel probably ought to give them his
35:16
Speaker 1: six percent rather than his agent because nobody has done
35:21
Speaker 1: more for Jimmy Kimmel's career over the last year and
35:24
Speaker 1: a half than Brendan Carr and Donald Trump, uh and
35:28
Speaker 1: and sort of the woke right, and it is it is,
35:32
Speaker 1: I you know what this really is. There's this everything
35:36
Speaker 1: is retribution, right, Everything is retaliation with Trump, right, everything
35:41
Speaker 1: is you know, it's like, why is he so you know,
35:46
Speaker 1: you know Trump, there are certain things that he just
35:49
Speaker 1: you know, he has to change the name of just
35:51
Speaker 1: to say he has to change the name of or
35:52
Speaker 1: he's going to do because he said he was going
35:54
Speaker 1: to do. Right, So he's got to go after Komy
35:56
Speaker 1: and he's got he's now got an acting Attorney General
35:59
Speaker 1: that literally was his personal lawyer now just doing retribution
36:04
Speaker 1: and things. I think it is notable by the way
36:07
Speaker 1: that Todd blanche is willing to go down these ridiculous
36:10
Speaker 1: roads of questionable you know, targeting of political opponents, as
36:15
Speaker 1: he's already done, whether it's the Southern Poverty Law Center.
36:19
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that's going to struggle when an
36:22
Speaker 1: actual judge takes a look at that with combing, that's
36:25
Speaker 1: going to be quite difficult. And so I think it's
36:32
Speaker 1: pretty clear as I said about Pambondi before. This is
36:35
Speaker 1: somebody who was a prosecutor for half her career. This
36:39
Speaker 1: was not somebody that was going to be comfortable essentially
36:42
Speaker 1: misbehaving as a lawyer. And so I don't think it's
36:47
Speaker 1: an accident that she wouldn't bring these cases and he would.
36:53
Speaker 1: And I think it does take you know, I know
36:55
Speaker 1: many of you are not big Pambondi fans that listen
36:57
Speaker 1: to me here, but you know, everything is by degree right,
37:02
Speaker 1: And as I said before, there was I think that
37:04
Speaker 1: was part of the reason why she got pushed out,
37:08
Speaker 1: because there were somethings she just wasn't going to do.
37:11
Speaker 1: And now Donald Trump has an attorney general that is
37:13
Speaker 1: pretty much willing to do all of his bidding whatever
37:17
Speaker 1: he wants. So you know, judge these people by the alternative,
37:25
Speaker 1: not the almighty sometimes. And I had a feeling that
37:31
Speaker 1: some people might miss Pam Bondi once she's gone, believe
37:34
Speaker 1: it or not, and one of those people might actually
37:37
Speaker 1: be James call me as for what we learned or
37:41
Speaker 1: didn't learn on Capitol Hill about the war. Look, the
37:44
Speaker 1: hearing was useless because hag Seth came in as a
37:48
Speaker 1: partisan and of course, you had plenty of House members
37:51
Speaker 1: who wanted to do frankly wanted to do their viral
37:58
Speaker 1: moments and hope that they get you know it is
38:01
Speaker 1: this is one of those where I wonder what would
38:05
Speaker 1: have happened had there been no cameras. Would the questions
38:09
Speaker 1: have been pointed but more substantive rather than pointed and
38:13
Speaker 1: sort of buzzwords. But you know, Hank Seth in there,
38:17
Speaker 1: he's the line I used on seeing it is they
38:19
Speaker 1: just think he's got Internet brain rot where you know,
38:22
Speaker 1: this is the Mike Lee disease where you've just certain
38:26
Speaker 1: and you know, I saw that Jade Vance gave up
38:30
Speaker 1: X for lent. Good for him. I think it's quite healthy.
38:33
Speaker 1: Just stay off because you'll do in that doom scroll
38:37
Speaker 1: and you could see, like Mike Lee is one of
38:38
Speaker 1: these people that apparently just doesn't have anything to do
38:41
Speaker 1: at night. He needs a hobby because he spends so
38:44
Speaker 1: much time trying to own the libs or own himself
38:47
Speaker 1: on social media. He sort of spins himself into into
38:52
Speaker 1: crazy and yet nobody has I don't know how many
38:55
Speaker 1: actual physical, personal, in person relationships he has these days.
39:00
Speaker 1: But Haig Seth also seems to have internet brain right,
39:02
Speaker 1: and certainly Sean Parnell, who I think does a lot
39:05
Speaker 1: of his right. He was very much somebody also sort
39:09
Speaker 1: of of that. But when you look at some of
39:12
Speaker 1: the some of the quotes that were out there, right
39:16
Speaker 1: he immediately, you know, for a defense secretary to go
39:20
Speaker 1: out there and basically say that the it was Democrats
39:23
Speaker 1: and Republicans who didn't support this war who were bigger
39:27
Speaker 1: problems than any other adversary. It's look, I don't think
39:35
Speaker 1: he's very well respected. I don't think anybody takes in
39:38
Speaker 1: Washington takes Pete Hegseth very seriously. The problem is he
39:42
Speaker 1: does hold the job of Defense secretary, and it was
39:46
Speaker 1: notable to me that you'd have a partisan hackery from
39:49
Speaker 1: Pete Eggseth, and you'd have General Kane being very disciplined,
39:53
Speaker 1: very a political talking about how he believes in the
39:56
Speaker 1: idea that the military is supposed to be a political
39:59
Speaker 1: when literally Pete hag Seth is doing everything he can
40:01
Speaker 1: to politicize the military. The biggest failure of hag Set's
40:05
Speaker 1: testimony is his inability to make the case of why
40:08
Speaker 1: this war is necessary, and that's been part of the
40:12
Speaker 1: problem that they've had right, which is, you know, Donald
40:16
Speaker 1: Trump seemed to imply regime change. At the same time,
40:21
Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth claims that there is you know, no more
40:27
Speaker 1: they're not doing any more regime change anymore, that that's
40:29
Speaker 1: not something that this uh, that's not something that this
40:35
Speaker 1: Defense Department is focused on anymore. But then he like
40:39
Speaker 1: talks about, well, we're not for regime change, but the
40:41
Speaker 1: regime changed but hasn't really changed, right, But that doesn't
40:46
Speaker 1: seem he couldn't really paint a picture of what an
40:48
Speaker 1: endgame looks like. Uh. And you know, ultimately we kind
40:53
Speaker 1: of all know what the end game is going to
40:55
Speaker 1: look like. It's just waiting to see when the president
41:01
Speaker 1: accepts the fact that if he is doesn't have the
41:03
Speaker 1: stomach to escalate and send in ground troops, then the
41:06
Speaker 1: only choice he has is to negotiate essentially the nuclear
41:11
Speaker 1: deal two point zero. And maybe it'll take fourth dollars
41:16
Speaker 1: and thirty cents a gallon at the guess station. Maybe
41:20
Speaker 1: it's until it hits four fifty, But I continue to
41:25
Speaker 1: believe that's where we're headed. And I'll tell you this,
41:30
Speaker 1: Hexa did not do. I don't think he did the
41:33
Speaker 1: war any good. And you know, here's the other thing
41:37
Speaker 1: that this administration is so bad at and the first
41:39
Speaker 1: Trump administration was not this bad at it. There's never
41:43
Speaker 1: there's never anybody that will say, well, look, I understand
41:46
Speaker 1: why this isn't popular. I understand that why some people
41:49
Speaker 1: are upset. They will never accept the premise that criticism
41:55
Speaker 1: might be valid. And I will tell you, you cannot
41:59
Speaker 1: success fully lead in a democracy if you don't know
42:02
Speaker 1: how to accept the premise of your critics. And you know,
42:07
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, what
42:12
Speaker 1: made them successful two term presidents is that they were
42:15
Speaker 1: really good at that. Some would complain, oh, they're they're
42:18
Speaker 1: they're creating straw man. Yeah, it was. Sometimes their arguments
42:22
Speaker 1: are pushback was creating straw. But they accepted the premise
42:26
Speaker 1: that the criticism was valid, even if they disagreed with
42:29
Speaker 1: the criticism. These guys don't accept the premise that criticism
42:33
Speaker 1: is valid. They're always trying to blame it on people
42:37
Speaker 1: like me, right, anybody in the press. It's got to
42:38
Speaker 1: be the press's fault because somehow, you, the American voter,
42:42
Speaker 1: are too stupid to come to these conclusions on your
42:45
Speaker 1: own you're easily persuaded by us inkstained wretches in the
42:49
Speaker 1: press corps. I mean, when you really think about it,
42:53
Speaker 1: the way they the way they treat the American public,
42:58
Speaker 1: they really have for the intelligence of the American public
43:02
Speaker 1: because they consistently believe that the problem isn't the substance
43:06
Speaker 1: of what they're pushing, that the problem is how it's
43:09
Speaker 1: being interpreted by the press. So do they really think
43:13
Speaker 1: the American voter is that stupid? We can all see
43:19
Speaker 1: this with our own eyes, and ultimately we're seeing right
43:25
Speaker 1: now in the Poland public's not happy. Public's not in
43:30
Speaker 1: favor of this, and I don't think Pete Hagsif did
43:32
Speaker 1: anything this week to improve that standing even among base Republicans.
43:42
Speaker 1: This episode of the check todcast is brought to you
43:45
Speaker 1: by Soul. So if you love that end of the
43:47
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Speaker 1: And yes, I too am a customer, ask Chuck. All right,
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Speaker 1: let's do a little ass Chuck. Hey. My first question
45:24
Speaker 1: is actually in response to the conversation I had with
45:28
Speaker 1: the meteorologists from Watch Duty, Pete Current, jeff Ar Wrights, Hey,
45:32
Speaker 1: great info and guests. My input from living through the
45:34
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen Thomas fire in Ventura, California. If the wind
45:38
Speaker 1: is howling, there isn't much you can do but get
45:41
Speaker 1: the heck out of the way. Eighty mile prour winds then,
45:43
Speaker 1: but I've had anything over fifty is critical too. There
45:46
Speaker 1: was a block home with a flat roof, no attict
45:48
Speaker 1: and a metal framed dual pain windows, and all that
45:51
Speaker 1: survived was the blocks. Just devastating. Also, a friend that
45:56
Speaker 1: stayed to protect his home had a stroke a few
45:58
Speaker 1: days later. Yeah, I bet the local stroke center told
46:01
Speaker 1: them that there was a significant increase in cases afterwards.
46:04
Speaker 1: The bottom line is get ready and leave. Your life
46:07
Speaker 1: is worth more than protecting property. Jeff, I know that
46:12
Speaker 1: that's just great advice. The same thing is true with hurricanes.
46:16
Speaker 1: You know, everybody thinks, you know, what are you going
46:18
Speaker 1: to do against in this case, one hundred and thirty
46:20
Speaker 1: mile an hour wins. You're not going to do a thing.
46:23
Speaker 1: I remember during Hurricane Andrew, we were trying to prevent
46:27
Speaker 1: two French It was a French doors set up at
46:29
Speaker 1: the house I was staying at, and we're literally three
46:32
Speaker 1: of us for about an hour because the doors were
46:35
Speaker 1: buckling and we leaned against it. But it was kind
46:38
Speaker 1: of ridiculous that we were putting ourselves. It's sort of like,
46:42
Speaker 1: if there's an evacuation order, follow the evacuation order because
46:48
Speaker 1: mother nature is undefeated. Matt from Upstate New York rights, Hey,
46:53
Speaker 1: love the podcast. Been following you since your time at
46:55
Speaker 1: Meet the Press. Keep up the great work. Well, thank you, sir.
46:58
Speaker 1: What do you make of the pete Hegseth firing more
47:00
Speaker 1: than a dozen generals. My first thought was that the
47:01
Speaker 1: administration was getting ready for larger military action against Iran,
47:04
Speaker 1: that this was a way to purge officials who were
47:06
Speaker 1: not in line with what the administration is planning. However,
47:09
Speaker 1: grew with your recent opinion that Trump is just seeking
47:11
Speaker 1: a way out of this war with Iran for any
47:12
Speaker 1: type of offering possible. I'm not sure what to make
47:14
Speaker 1: of this purge. Keep up the good work. Look, this
47:17
Speaker 1: purge is just ideological, right. You know, at first, he's
47:20
Speaker 1: going after anybody that he thinks were somehow an affirmative
47:24
Speaker 1: action or some sort of minority driven. Right. He's gotten
47:27
Speaker 1: rid of women that were high ranking, He's purged African Americans,
47:33
Speaker 1: anybody that he in his own head has decided got
47:37
Speaker 1: it because of identity rather than merit. And even though
47:42
Speaker 1: apparently there's plenty of evidence that these people were worthy
47:44
Speaker 1: on the merit. But that's what this is. This is
47:47
Speaker 1: sort of an ideological purge. And then some of the
47:53
Speaker 1: stuff's personal, right, like the guy at the Navy secretary,
47:56
Speaker 1: and he certainly has been trying to get rid of
47:57
Speaker 1: the Army secretary. But that's almost more like political right valries,
48:01
Speaker 1: if you will. But you know, this is it's no
48:03
Speaker 1: different than what Trump and Steven Miller were trying to
48:06
Speaker 1: do at the start of the second term with those
48:09
Speaker 1: which was, you know, they believe that the civilian staff,
48:14
Speaker 1: they believe that the nonpartisan a political staff, whether it's
48:18
Speaker 1: in the Interior Department or at the Pentagon, are somehow
48:24
Speaker 1: standing in the way of their ideology, right, because these
48:28
Speaker 1: people do things like follow the Constitution. These to these folks,
48:32
Speaker 1: you know, actually try to keep politics out of their
48:35
Speaker 1: decision making. And so that's what this has been about.
48:39
Speaker 1: When you really start to look at the list, you'll
48:41
Speaker 1: notice there's quite a few women that he's purged from
48:45
Speaker 1: these ranks, quite a few minorities that he's purged from
48:48
Speaker 1: these ranks. Next question, he goes, great episode. Oh, this
48:56
Speaker 1: is a question on dynastic. I probably I'll put it dynastic. Okay,
49:00
Speaker 1: we speaking of dynastic, it's a good time for me
49:03
Speaker 1: to say the latest episode is up. We do the Steelers.
49:07
Speaker 1: It is fantastic. I promise you. If you're a Steelers fan,
49:11
Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear from you because I want
49:13
Speaker 1: to know if we did you right on this. But here,
49:16
Speaker 1: let me get this question. He goes, great episode. Please
49:18
Speaker 1: pass along my thanks to Jaa as well my partner
49:21
Speaker 1: Jay Adande. As someone who watched those seventy Steelers teams,
49:24
Speaker 1: I loved hearing Bill Nunn get his due, and I'd
49:26
Speaker 1: even argue that seventy sixteen might have been their best
49:28
Speaker 1: despite not winning an all quick note that Dolphins would
49:30
Speaker 1: have been fifteen to no, not sixteen to no. Heading
49:32
Speaker 1: into that game. Also, I didn't realize that Steel Curtain
49:34
Speaker 1: was the first all black defensive front. Such a cool
49:37
Speaker 1: piece of history. Thanks for all the great content. I
49:39
Speaker 1: really enjoying it. Well, I appreciate it. And that's that's
49:41
Speaker 1: what our goal is with Jay and I with these series,
49:45
Speaker 1: and said, so, I call it sports History Podcast, but
49:47
Speaker 1: it's about It's not just sports history, it's our history, right,
49:51
Speaker 1: It's you know, especially both Jay and I are pretty
49:55
Speaker 1: close in age, and you know, the seventies and the
49:58
Speaker 1: eighties were our coming of age eras, and so yeah,
50:01
Speaker 1: we're these the seventies Steelers sort of had a different
50:04
Speaker 1: type of imprint on us. But that's how we want
50:07
Speaker 1: to deal with this with all of these franchises is
50:10
Speaker 1: to you know, let them live and breathe and the
50:13
Speaker 1: eras that they were in and you know what the
50:16
Speaker 1: cultural moments at that time meant. And you know, we're
50:21
Speaker 1: getting ready to dive in to tell you. I read
50:24
Speaker 1: the book I read for this one to prepare. The
50:27
Speaker 1: one I read the most thoroughly was Dan Rooney's memoir
50:31
Speaker 1: about his seventy five years in the NFL, and it
50:33
Speaker 1: was just amazing and in fact, it was Dan Rooney's
50:38
Speaker 1: decision to open with his perspective on the immaculate reception.
50:43
Speaker 1: That made me think, that's how we've got to open
50:46
Speaker 1: the show. So, man, this makes me feel good. Thank
50:48
Speaker 1: you for that question. Dan from Arlington, Right hey, longtime listener,
50:53
Speaker 1: also a neighbor here in Arlington, Yes you are. I
50:55
Speaker 1: was intioned your take on Israel and the Democratic Party
50:57
Speaker 1: and it made me wonder how you see this evolving
50:59
Speaker 1: politically A post Trump posting at Nahu Era. Do you
51:02
Speaker 1: think Democrats return to a more neutral or traditionally supportive
51:04
Speaker 1: stance on Israel or is this shift more permanent? And relatedly,
51:08
Speaker 1: does someone like Josh Shapiro have a viable path given
51:10
Speaker 1: where the party is today? So that's a great question.
51:13
Speaker 1: I'm going to take the second part first. There's a
51:16
Speaker 1: and I don't know if I'm seeing this with clear eyes,
51:19
Speaker 1: I will confess to that. I think, you know, we
51:21
Speaker 1: all have our biases that we're born with and all
51:24
Speaker 1: of that, Right, which is I think it's going to
51:27
Speaker 1: be hard for a Jewish Democrat to win the nomination.
51:31
Speaker 1: I hope I'm wrong about that, but I think it
51:35
Speaker 1: will be this cycle. I think there's always now I
51:40
Speaker 1: think if you're going to I think Josh Shapiro is
51:44
Speaker 1: addressing it better than any of the other Jewish Democrats
51:46
Speaker 1: that are thinking about running for president. It's quite a few,
51:49
Speaker 1: by the way, including Ram Emanuel J. B. Pritzker, Josh Shapiro,
51:53
Speaker 1: maybe even John Ossa, but Shapiro sort of leaned in
51:57
Speaker 1: and I think, you know it, I do think. I
52:00
Speaker 1: think his candidacy if he runs, even if he doesn't win,
52:04
Speaker 1: and let's say we all decide that's the reason, right
52:06
Speaker 1: that that's you know, there were some people that never
52:08
Speaker 1: were going to vote for him. There if he uses
52:12
Speaker 1: his candidacy to remind Democrats that you can be a
52:17
Speaker 1: defender of Israel's right to exist and be a critic
52:20
Speaker 1: of their policies, and that there is space for that,
52:24
Speaker 1: you know, I think right now unfortunately, you know, even
52:27
Speaker 1: a guy like now who's not creating space for that,
52:30
Speaker 1: but I think there is you're asking, I, look, I
52:34
Speaker 1: think this is a generational shift, and you know, it
52:38
Speaker 1: might be a generation before before this goes back to
52:45
Speaker 1: you know, when I first entered politics, the Democrats were
52:48
Speaker 1: more pro Israel. It was the Republicans had more anti
52:53
Speaker 1: Israel politicians in their coalition than pro Israel politicians. Right,
52:58
Speaker 1: Papuchannan was a loud voice on that, but he wasn't alone.
53:01
Speaker 1: Bob Novak, one of the leading conservative journalists of the
53:03
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties, was was a loud voice against military
53:09
Speaker 1: support for Israel. And so it's I'm certainly skeptical, and
53:17
Speaker 1: in twenty eight you know, I certainly think it is
53:20
Speaker 1: it is a higher hurdle for Josha bro I'm saying
53:23
Speaker 1: it should be a higher hero of course, but I'm
53:25
Speaker 1: just saying I think it's a higher hurdle. But I
53:28
Speaker 1: actually appreciate how he's been trying to lean into it
53:31
Speaker 1: and sort of deal with it rather than sort of
53:34
Speaker 1: try to avoid it. Right. I think this is one
53:36
Speaker 1: of those ripped the band aid off, and let's see
53:39
Speaker 1: if we can have the correct, nuanced conversation on this
53:44
Speaker 1: and get back to being supportive of democracies in the
53:47
Speaker 1: Middle East period, right and promoting I mean, to me,
53:51
Speaker 1: it was always I thought pretty easy to support Israel
53:54
Speaker 1: was at the time. It's only real democracy in the
53:57
Speaker 1: Middle East, and the United States should always be on
54:00
Speaker 1: the side of democracies that exist and should be supportive.
54:04
Speaker 1: But you know, you could be critical of policy, and
54:08
Speaker 1: I think that that's that's something our politics isn't mature
54:12
Speaker 1: enough to handle at the moment. Vince C. Berkeley, California. Right, hey,
54:19
Speaker 1: long time listener here. I've lived in New York for
54:20
Speaker 1: most of my life and now I'm in Berkeley, California.
54:22
Speaker 1: I wanted to revisit a question I said earlier about
54:24
Speaker 1: statehood for Puerto Rico and DC. How do you see
54:26
Speaker 1: the political path forward for either becoming states and what
54:29
Speaker 1: would the implications be for national politics. Well, Vince, I'm
54:32
Speaker 1: a believer that the only way for either to get
54:39
Speaker 1: statehood is to go together. I think I think that
54:45
Speaker 1: there is Republican support for Puerto Rican statehood. Rick Scott
54:49
Speaker 1: supports Puerto Rican statehood. I think Marco Rubio supports Puerto
54:52
Speaker 1: Rican stated and Puerto Rico has a Republican elected governor.
54:56
Speaker 1: It's a pretty bipartisan island. It's a very it's two
55:00
Speaker 1: already competitive politics on the on the in the Commonwealth
55:03
Speaker 1: of Puerto Rico. By the way, as an aside, you
55:07
Speaker 1: may have heard it in my interview with with a Teamah,
55:13
Speaker 1: but you know, if if if the right really wanted
55:19
Speaker 1: to put put a wedge in the Democratic Party. Not
55:22
Speaker 1: only do you propose giving Arlington back to d C,
55:26
Speaker 1: but then be and say, well, we'll give We're going
55:29
Speaker 1: to take Arlington back from Virginia, give it to d
55:33
Speaker 1: C and let d C be a state. Right. That's
55:38
Speaker 1: that would be if you really wanted to quote own
55:41
Speaker 1: the Libs on the right, you know that that would
55:45
Speaker 1: create a wedge issue. How badly do you want state?
55:47
Speaker 1: Hut right? But in some ways that just shows you,
55:53
Speaker 1: right that the rights not very clever. Everything is every
55:57
Speaker 1: everything is a sledgehammer. You know, every problem is a
55:59
Speaker 1: nail and every solution is a sledgehammer. But that's you know,
56:04
Speaker 1: it sort of reveals, you know, because if you if
56:07
Speaker 1: you gave Arlington back to d C, then you really
56:10
Speaker 1: are disenfranchising a big chunk of voters. You better franchise
56:14
Speaker 1: enfranchise them and so come out and support a statehood
56:19
Speaker 1: if that's it. If that, and I am curious, I
56:21
Speaker 1: wonder if the price of statehood was Arlington, would Democrats
56:26
Speaker 1: still be in favor of it. I actually think they would.
56:29
Speaker 1: I mean, again, I'm not trying to carve up Virginia,
56:34
Speaker 1: and I you know, I'm fine with with with my
56:39
Speaker 1: tax bill right now in Virginia versus what my tax
56:42
Speaker 1: bill would be in the district. I only tease a
56:46
Speaker 1: little bit there, but in all seriousness, I think d
56:50
Speaker 1: C statehood in Puerto Rican statehood, either they both happen
56:53
Speaker 1: together or neither happens, because right now DC is just
56:57
Speaker 1: seen as more likely to be two Democratic Senate seats.
57:02
Speaker 1: And if you can convince Republicans and look, you know,
57:05
Speaker 1: we've got to enfranchise voters and your things are going
57:08
Speaker 1: to be competitive in Puerto Rico, and it will be
57:11
Speaker 1: a competitive state. You might win both. You might win one,
57:14
Speaker 1: you might win the euro right, but just certainly get
57:17
Speaker 1: you know, it won't. It won't be the dilution of
57:20
Speaker 1: advantages that you think. And I think those on the
57:23
Speaker 1: right that think Puerto Rico is just part of this
57:26
Speaker 1: grand plan by the left to quote unquote rig the Senate,
57:29
Speaker 1: well that's pretty insulting to Puerto Ricans, plenty of whom
57:33
Speaker 1: have voted Republican for decades. And I think it exposes
57:40
Speaker 1: an interesting form. You know, I think if that is
57:43
Speaker 1: your mindset, then you don't believe in a diverse Republican party.
57:48
Speaker 1: You believe in the in the in the a white,
57:51
Speaker 1: homogeneous Republican Party, because again, Puerto Rico's, like I said,
57:57
Speaker 1: pretty competitive politically. All right. Next question comes from uh
58:06
Speaker 1: Trevor in Austin, Texas, and he writes, hey been a
58:08
Speaker 1: fan since the tim Resser days and really appreciate your perspective.
58:11
Speaker 1: Always wondered why interviewers don't more often pres Lindsay Graham
58:15
Speaker 1: by replaying his January six remarks distancing himself from Trump
58:18
Speaker 1: and asking what changed? Is that a matter of access,
58:20
Speaker 1: time constraints or something else? And with his reelection coming up,
58:23
Speaker 1: do you expect him to shift his posture again? Well?
58:26
Speaker 1: Part of it is how you know, how long you
58:29
Speaker 1: know the expression beating a dead horse? Right? You know
58:31
Speaker 1: it's early on a lot of those questions were asked
58:36
Speaker 1: of them, and then you know it's sort of like
58:39
Speaker 1: when and you know, you get caught up in the
58:43
Speaker 1: news of the moment versus sort of you know, like
58:49
Speaker 1: to me, if I had Lindsay Graham for for forty
58:51
Speaker 1: five minutes, I'd darn right I definitely asked that question. Frankly,
58:54
Speaker 1: if I'd had him for ten minutes, I'd still want
58:57
Speaker 1: to ask that question. He somehow was afraid of coming
59:00
Speaker 1: on Meet the Press after January sixth. I wonder why
59:03
Speaker 1: that was. But he is somebody that has always been
59:07
Speaker 1: fearful of tough interviews and because he you know, and
59:12
Speaker 1: he used to be a fairly easy guest book, right,
59:15
Speaker 1: and then as soon as as soon as sort of
59:18
Speaker 1: he made his decision. But again, you know, Lindsay Graham's
59:20
Speaker 1: got a lot of problems, right. You know, the Steele
59:22
Speaker 1: Dosier got spread around Washington thanks to Lindsey Graham. Right,
59:28
Speaker 1: he was one of the biggest proponents of the Steele Dosier.
59:32
Speaker 1: He was one of the bigger contributors around town of saying, hey,
59:35
Speaker 1: this is serious. People need to take this seriously. So look,
59:40
Speaker 1: he's always done this for political survival and I think
59:44
Speaker 1: he's a survivalist. And so what does that mean you're asking,
59:47
Speaker 1: is he going to sift his posture again, whatever it
59:50
Speaker 1: takes to keep that sentency. If he has to become
59:54
Speaker 1: a liberal Democrat. Lindsey Graham's will become a liberal Democrat.
1:00:00
Speaker 1: I think we kind of see, right, you know, Lindsay
1:00:03
Speaker 1: Graham was one type of Republican and then Donald Trump
1:00:09
Speaker 1: came around, John McCain passed away, and he became a
1:00:11
Speaker 1: different type of Republican so and part of that was
1:00:14
Speaker 1: simply his state shifted right. South Carolina Republicans were more
1:00:18
Speaker 1: Maga than they were McCain, and they were pro Lindsey Graham.
1:00:21
Speaker 1: And ultimately, Lindsay is going to go where his voters go.
1:00:26
Speaker 1: And if his voter suddenly shifted hard left, Lindsey Graham
1:00:29
Speaker 1: would suddenly shift hard life. I think he wants his
1:00:33
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Speaker 1: may vary. To the last question for the weekend, This
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Speaker 1: one also comes from Texas. Kelly Ax from Aubrey, Texas Rights, Hey,
1:02:29
Speaker 1: why died to push back in your point that Democrats
1:02:31
Speaker 1: need to tone things down and focus on being more
1:02:33
Speaker 1: measured than Republicans. To me, that approach can come across
1:02:36
Speaker 1: as passive, especially when many voters respond to more direct
1:02:38
Speaker 1: and emotional messaging. Should Democrats be more willing to call
1:02:41
Speaker 1: out what they see as harmful rhetoric and actions more forcefully,
1:02:44
Speaker 1: even if that means matching some of that intensity, or
1:02:46
Speaker 1: does that risk doing more harm than good politically? Well, look, Kelly,
1:02:50
Speaker 1: I I think I've made my point clear on this.
1:02:54
Speaker 1: I think that and I look, I'm just going to
1:02:58
Speaker 1: look backwards over the last ten years. I think that
1:03:01
Speaker 1: Democrats have benefited by being the adult party, and I
1:03:05
Speaker 1: think anytime they're not behaving like the adult party, like
1:03:08
Speaker 1: the grown ups in the room, it may make the
1:03:12
Speaker 1: base feel better, like finally you're punching back. And I
1:03:17
Speaker 1: know that there's this mindset of what wrong and strong
1:03:19
Speaker 1: beats weak and right and short term that might be true,
1:03:25
Speaker 1: but long term, being right is going to mean something.
1:03:32
Speaker 1: And I just think that this goes back to and
1:03:36
Speaker 1: maybe this is a good place to end, because I
1:03:38
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about the Democratic autopsy that we're not seeing,
1:03:40
Speaker 1: and Ken Martin and I have a few theories and
1:03:43
Speaker 1: they're just theories, and I want to throw them out there,
1:03:46
Speaker 1: but finish your question. Answering your question, I get it,
1:03:49
Speaker 1: and I think that there's there's sort of this fine line.
1:03:52
Speaker 1: I think that the Democrats need you need to be strong,
1:03:55
Speaker 1: but you can be strong in your rhetoric about behaving
1:04:00
Speaker 1: like adults, right versus deciding, oh, let's just start saying
1:04:07
Speaker 1: the f wort a lot more and that'll make us
1:04:08
Speaker 1: cool in the manisphere, right, Like, I think it's learning
1:04:13
Speaker 1: the wrong lessons from Trump, you know, I think the
1:04:17
Speaker 1: right lessons to learn from Trump's success is show up
1:04:20
Speaker 1: everywhere in you know. Whether I don't love this style
1:04:26
Speaker 1: of politics, but frankly, you know, be everywhere all the time. Now.
1:04:34
Speaker 1: I think you got to do it in a tad
1:04:36
Speaker 1: more disciplined way. But you know, whatever you think of Trump,
1:04:39
Speaker 1: he is who he is, right, you know, this is
1:04:43
Speaker 1: the authentic version of whatever he is, I always say
1:04:45
Speaker 1: he's authentically and authentic. But it works, right, nobody denies
1:04:50
Speaker 1: that that that Trump bars all these things. So, yes,
1:04:54
Speaker 1: be a bit more authentic, don't be so cookie cutter.
1:04:58
Speaker 1: But I think that there is a group of voters
1:05:03
Speaker 1: that gravitate towards the adult in the room, and if
1:05:10
Speaker 1: there's no adult in the room, they're going to look elsewhere.
1:05:13
Speaker 1: I just think it it is, it is. I know
1:05:16
Speaker 1: right now politics feels binary, but it doesn't always have
1:05:20
Speaker 1: to be binary. If you're not if you're if you're
1:05:22
Speaker 1: not careful, I mean, just you know, maybe it gets
1:05:27
Speaker 1: you a hollow victory like Labor got in the UK,
1:05:31
Speaker 1: right Labor Keir Starmer got these massive majorities, but you know,
1:05:35
Speaker 1: all they were was a reactionary anti Tory party. They
1:05:39
Speaker 1: got their big majority and they had no idea what
1:05:41
Speaker 1: to do with it, and they're afraid of offending different
1:05:46
Speaker 1: aspects of the coalition, so they don't end up doing anything.
1:05:51
Speaker 1: So I again, I know what I'm saying is not
1:05:56
Speaker 1: popular in a more partisan corners, and I guess what
1:06:00
Speaker 1: I'm trying to speak from is from this. You know, look,
1:06:02
Speaker 1: I'm I I Others will call me a centrist or
1:06:07
Speaker 1: a moderate. I consider myself an incrementalist, meaning you know,
1:06:11
Speaker 1: I'm I'm you know, I do think it should If
1:06:16
Speaker 1: you're going to make change for three hundred fifty million people,
1:06:19
Speaker 1: you got to bring as many people along as you can,
1:06:21
Speaker 1: and so you take incremental steps in order to get there.
1:06:27
Speaker 1: I think that you know, these are the voters that
1:06:31
Speaker 1: decide these elections. They are not a large chunk of
1:06:34
Speaker 1: the primary electorates. And I know this isn't what wins
1:06:38
Speaker 1: a primary, but like I said, I think it. I
1:06:40
Speaker 1: think it's I think there's a chunk of voters, which
1:06:45
Speaker 1: brings me to and I'm going to close with this.
1:06:47
Speaker 1: Actually I've got one sports item I want to share,
1:06:51
Speaker 1: but I'm going to close. I want to close my
1:06:53
Speaker 1: sort of political side of things. So Ken Martin went
1:06:55
Speaker 1: on Pods of America. It was clear that they had
1:06:57
Speaker 1: a strategy of finally, Okay, we're going to let the
1:07:00
Speaker 1: Pod save America boys beat us up over not releasing
1:07:04
Speaker 1: the autopsy, but we're going to make it clear we're
1:07:06
Speaker 1: not releasing the so called twenty twenty four autopsy. And
1:07:09
Speaker 1: I've talked to people who were involved in being interviewed
1:07:12
Speaker 1: for the autopsy, and nobody's quite sure where it comes down.
1:07:15
Speaker 1: And I think the question is it clearly is going
1:07:18
Speaker 1: to have make some recommendations. And the question I have,
1:07:23
Speaker 1: and I think I get what Ken Martin fears, it
1:07:26
Speaker 1: will start a fight, right, whatever you release, And obviously
1:07:29
Speaker 1: the longer you wait, the more you impact. Right, this
1:07:32
Speaker 1: autopsy should have been released last Thanksgiving. Let everybody sort
1:07:36
Speaker 1: of get their anxiety out, you know, complain about it,
1:07:41
Speaker 1: beat up each other, all that stuff could have been
1:07:43
Speaker 1: done over the holidays. You turn the page, you focus
1:07:46
Speaker 1: on on the midterms, and you move forward. But I've
1:07:49
Speaker 1: been trying to think, what is it that the autopsy discovered.
1:07:52
Speaker 1: Is it going to be too critical of Biden and
1:07:55
Speaker 1: they don't want to do that. Is it going to
1:07:56
Speaker 1: be too critical of the old Democratic establishishment, is going
1:08:01
Speaker 1: to be too critical of progressives? Is it going to
1:08:03
Speaker 1: be like who is it that they're afraid of picking
1:08:05
Speaker 1: a fight with that the autopsy is going to say, Hey,
1:08:10
Speaker 1: you know the big problem is this right? It's you know,
1:08:14
Speaker 1: is it a branding issue? Is an ideo ideological issue?
1:08:17
Speaker 1: Is it too much identity politics? Is it do the
1:08:21
Speaker 1: groups have too much power? Right? Is it too many
1:08:24
Speaker 1: billionaire donors. What you know, there's there's a variety of
1:08:27
Speaker 1: constituency groups that any individual one of those groups might
1:08:32
Speaker 1: have been picked on in this autopsy, and maybe that's
1:08:35
Speaker 1: what they're afraid of. But it's certainly not giving, you know,
1:08:41
Speaker 1: I think it's it's a and I think we know why.
1:08:43
Speaker 1: There's just no money going to the d n C.
1:08:45
Speaker 1: Right Democrats are keeping up with Republicans on fundraising at
1:08:49
Speaker 1: every level except one the DNC. And I don't think
1:08:55
Speaker 1: showing this type of fear of being a party leader,
1:08:57
Speaker 1: which I think Ken Martin is showing here. It feels
1:08:59
Speaker 1: like year of his coalition being upset about something that
1:09:05
Speaker 1: was said in that you know autopsy, Perhaps is why
1:09:09
Speaker 1: he wants to keep it sealed. I don't know how
1:09:13
Speaker 1: it's helpful. I hope they at least share it with
1:09:16
Speaker 1: Democratic strategists, or they share it with candidates, or they
1:09:18
Speaker 1: share it with somebody, because what's the point of doing
1:09:21
Speaker 1: it if you're not going to try what's the point
1:09:24
Speaker 1: of trying to figure out how to learn lessons from
1:09:26
Speaker 1: a loss if you actually don't share the lessons that
1:09:30
Speaker 1: were learned from the loss. Right, But it's possible that
1:09:35
Speaker 1: this autopsy will help will help resolve the debate that
1:09:41
Speaker 1: Kelly X and I are having about whether Democrats ought
1:09:46
Speaker 1: to take the high road or not on things like this.
1:09:51
Speaker 1: I just want to make one comment, and I want
1:09:53
Speaker 1: to just make a mass one comment about because I'm
1:09:57
Speaker 1: going to take an unpopular opinion here on being happy
1:10:03
Speaker 1: that the NCAA back is expanding the men's and women's
1:10:08
Speaker 1: basketball tournament from sixty eight teams to seventy six teams. Look,
1:10:13
Speaker 1: I wanted to see it to ninety six, and I
1:10:14
Speaker 1: think I even outlined an idea of how easily it
1:10:16
Speaker 1: can be done. And yes, it means Tuesday and Wednesday
1:10:19
Speaker 1: become Thursday and Friday, you know, as packed of a
1:10:22
Speaker 1: schedule as you have on Thursdays. And yes, the more, Yes,
1:10:25
Speaker 1: we're gonna have more games on Tuesday and Wednesday. I
1:10:26
Speaker 1: don't think the two best days of the NCAA Tournament
1:10:30
Speaker 1: are Thursday and Friday, those first round one games right
1:10:34
Speaker 1: the round of sixty four? Are you telling me I
1:10:37
Speaker 1: could have two more days that are filled with that
1:10:42
Speaker 1: many games? You're gonna give me two more days of
1:10:45
Speaker 1: sixteen games each? Count me in. That's a good thing,
1:10:51
Speaker 1: isn't that what we want here more schools, rightly, more money,
1:10:56
Speaker 1: more everything for everybody. Right, it's one of those again.
1:11:00
Speaker 1: It's like expanding the House of Representatives, right, you expand
1:11:03
Speaker 1: the table rather than fight over a minimum number of seats.
1:11:06
Speaker 1: But I want to make one more. Look, and some
1:11:10
Speaker 1: of you may say, well, ninety six is too much,
1:11:12
Speaker 1: but I know the argument, well seventy six is too much.
1:11:14
Speaker 1: But here's where you're actually wrong. And I'm just going
1:11:17
Speaker 1: to just do a math equoid for everybody arguing that
1:11:20
Speaker 1: somehow this tournament's being diluted by making it seventy six teams.
1:11:26
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty five, when the NCAA expanded to sixty
1:11:30
Speaker 1: four teams, there were actually only two hundred and seventy
1:11:35
Speaker 1: six Division one basketball programs so you had which meant
1:11:42
Speaker 1: the round of sixty four meant twenty three percent of
1:11:45
Speaker 1: all Division one programs got into the tournament. Well, now
1:11:51
Speaker 1: there are three hundred and sixty one Division one men's
1:11:54
Speaker 1: basketball programs. Okay, there are more actual programs than there
1:12:00
Speaker 1: were in nineteen eighty five with sixty four, So this
1:12:04
Speaker 1: is just twelve more in the field. And so what
1:12:07
Speaker 1: is the number Seventy six teams out of three hundred
1:12:10
Speaker 1: and sixty one means twenty one percent of all Division
1:12:14
Speaker 1: I programs will get into the field. It's actually a
1:12:18
Speaker 1: lower ratio of Division one programs making it into the
1:12:24
Speaker 1: into the NCAA Tournament then when they expanded it in
1:12:27
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, when it was sixty four teams out
1:12:30
Speaker 1: of two seventy six. I know math is a problem
1:12:33
Speaker 1: for many people and they don't want to hear it,
1:12:36
Speaker 1: but nobody seems to be aware that we keep expanding
1:12:39
Speaker 1: the size of Division one men's basketball and women's basketball.
1:12:43
Speaker 1: There are more Division I basketball. We have Grand Canyon.
1:12:47
Speaker 1: Now we didn't have Grand Canyon. We have Florida Golf Coast.
1:12:49
Speaker 1: We didn't have Florida Golf Coast. Right, you can keep
1:12:51
Speaker 1: going and going, basically almost one hundred more NCAA programs,
1:12:56
Speaker 1: so of course you had to expand. The point is
1:12:59
Speaker 1: not only to seventy six, not dilute. And you know
1:13:04
Speaker 1: the biggest beneficiaries are going to be the sort of
1:13:07
Speaker 1: the high mid majors, the A ten. So yeah, that's
1:13:11
Speaker 1: why I'm happy fight GW revolutionaries have a better shot
1:13:15
Speaker 1: in than ever before. A ten probably becomes a four
1:13:19
Speaker 1: or five bid league. Now should should become a maybe
1:13:23
Speaker 1: a three or four consistently a three to four bid league,
1:13:26
Speaker 1: and maybe as many as five. This should be good
1:13:28
Speaker 1: for the AA whatever they call the American Conference. I
1:13:31
Speaker 1: guess we're only supposed to be called the American on
1:13:34
Speaker 1: that front, and possibly the Mountain West. But this, I
1:13:41
Speaker 1: think the criticism is a bit misplaced, and we actually
1:13:45
Speaker 1: look at it by the numbers, we were overdue for
1:13:51
Speaker 1: expanding the NCAA tournament to where it is, and again
1:13:56
Speaker 1: next year with seventy six teams, fewer perk out of
1:14:00
Speaker 1: teams will make the NCAA tournament than when it was
1:14:03
Speaker 1: expanded to sixty four in nineteen eighty five. It's been
1:14:08
Speaker 1: a math heavy episode of the check podcast, but hey,
1:14:11
Speaker 1: this is what you get when you sign up from
1:14:12
Speaker 1: my podcast. I'm always gonna throw some data at you,
1:14:15
Speaker 1: throw some by the numbers at you, because sometimes arguments
1:14:21
Speaker 1: are just that arguments. Data trumps it all. And with that,
1:14:27
Speaker 1: have a great weekend, enjoy the enjoy the NBA playoffs.
1:14:30
Speaker 1: I still am I'd like to see a few more
1:14:33
Speaker 1: competitive games. It feels like we've had way too many blowouts.
1:14:37
Speaker 1: Hopefully that'll change. That'll change when we move from the
1:14:42
Speaker 1: first round to the second round. But enjoy that, Enjoy weekend,
1:14:46
Speaker 1: and i'll see it Monday. Hey,