Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Trump Doubles Down On His Base + The Libertarian’s Guide To The Galaxy

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Full Episode - Trump Doubles Down On His Base + The Libertarian’s Guide To The Galaxy · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: They're Happy Thursday, and potentially for me, it's the last
1:55
Speaker 1: episode drop of the week. I obviously will have my
1:58
Speaker 1: newsphere and all this stuff, So Happy Thursday. This is
2:01
Speaker 1: my sort of extended weekend drop of the Chuck Toodcast.
2:06
Speaker 1: Got a little more State of the Union fallout, a
2:08
Speaker 1: little more Iran and Cuba fall up, but a primary
2:11
Speaker 1: focus I want to make is get you ready for
2:13
Speaker 1: all things Texas primaries. We'll start that, we'll do a
2:18
Speaker 1: lot of it. Next week. We are days away, we're
2:21
Speaker 1: no longer weeks away from the official start of the
2:24
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six primary season. And if you're a political
2:28
Speaker 1: junkie and you're signed up for me on this, I
2:32
Speaker 1: know what the expectations are. So we're going to We're
2:34
Speaker 1: gonna dig into the numbers, We're gonna dig into the weeds.
2:36
Speaker 1: We're going to see some interesting, interesting closing ad by
2:42
Speaker 1: mister tall Rico on that side. And of course we've
2:45
Speaker 1: got such a week. We know the Republicans are going
2:48
Speaker 1: to a runoff. What we don't know is whether the
2:51
Speaker 1: Democrats end up in a runoff, and I will get
2:53
Speaker 1: to that in a bit. My guest today is the
2:58
Speaker 1: editor in chief of Reason mag which is the essentially
3:01
Speaker 1: the magazine, the news organization, if you will, of the
3:05
Speaker 1: Libertarian Party. It's or the libertarian movement is probably the
3:09
Speaker 1: better way. I don't think they are of a direct
3:11
Speaker 1: relationship with the party itself, but the editor in chief
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Speaker 1: it's Catherine mangou Ward, and I was inspired to book her.
3:18
Speaker 1: I've actually had around in various iterations of the Czech
3:21
Speaker 1: podcast in the past when it was overseen by another
3:25
Speaker 1: another entity. With peacock feathers and stuff. But she wrote
3:31
Speaker 1: an outbed in The New York Times a couple of
3:33
Speaker 1: weeks ago. Basically it was during the you know, the
3:37
Speaker 1: tariff debates and some other things and going uh, essentially
3:40
Speaker 1: the hey, the libertarians told you so, un Trump. But
3:44
Speaker 1: it was it led to an interesting conversation, right, is
3:47
Speaker 1: this a moment for libertarians rights? As skepticism of both
3:52
Speaker 1: parties increases? Is there room for America's largest third party
3:58
Speaker 1: at the moment, which is the Libertarian Party? They have
4:01
Speaker 1: more battle access than any other party other than the
4:03
Speaker 1: Democrats and the Republicans. Of course, as you will hear
4:08
Speaker 1: in our discussion, you know, can you know, can can
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Speaker 1: you galvanize a plurality of the country around a very
4:19
Speaker 1: limited governor government vision that doesn't just appeal to the
4:24
Speaker 1: right but appeals to the left and the right right.
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Speaker 1: And I you know, we discussed there's liberal libertarians. Colorado
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Speaker 1: really is sort of one of those states. You know,
4:32
Speaker 1: you have your conservative libertarians. You know, a place like
4:36
Speaker 1: Idaho is probably the best in Wyoming or two places
4:39
Speaker 1: where are the best descriptions of that? But you know,
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Speaker 1: I know, Catherine, I always enjoy my conversation. We end
4:47
Speaker 1: up veering off into a fascinating discussion about healthcare and
4:53
Speaker 1: health insurance and whether one could be a libertarian and
4:59
Speaker 1: still be supportive of a safety net, and if so,
5:03
Speaker 1: how large of a safety net. So it is I
5:07
Speaker 1: think one of those for you guys, I think you're
5:10
Speaker 1: going to enjoy this. She's she's incredibly smart and a
5:15
Speaker 1: great talker. And I, you know, I have a you know, normally,
5:18
Speaker 1: I right, I I sort of end my weekend with
5:21
Speaker 1: a little bit and I get a lot more notes
5:24
Speaker 1: saying that I've made some of you college football fans,
5:27
Speaker 1: or at least more conversant on college football. Obviously, I'm
5:32
Speaker 1: not going to I promised I wouldn't be, you know,
5:35
Speaker 1: doing the off season, you know, nil scandal of the week.
5:39
Speaker 1: So instead, let's just say I have some strong opinions
5:43
Speaker 1: about the nominations for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
5:46
Speaker 1: But we will put that towards the end. But let
5:48
Speaker 1: me start with sort of the initial fallout from sort
5:54
Speaker 1: of after a day of the State of the Union.
5:56
Speaker 1: You know, you know, I gave you my initial thought.
6:00
Speaker 1: It's literally about fifteen minutes after Abigail Spanberger said good
6:04
Speaker 1: night on that, So those were fresh perspectives without sort
6:09
Speaker 1: of and it really was sort of in many ways
6:12
Speaker 1: a derivative of the live stream that Crystalis and I
6:14
Speaker 1: did in partnership with c span and YouTube, which, by
6:18
Speaker 1: the way, we just had a blast doing that, And
6:21
Speaker 1: once again thank you to c span and YouTube for
6:24
Speaker 1: providing this opportunity where we could literally do a little
6:27
Speaker 1: Manning Cast meets Mystery Science Theater three thousand and you know,
6:31
Speaker 1: I'd like to think we sort of that we took
6:35
Speaker 1: the assignment. We weren't overly snarky. We try to be
6:39
Speaker 1: fun but also relevant, analytical when necessary, quizzical, you name it.
6:46
Speaker 1: So not going to overdo it on live stream events
6:50
Speaker 1: that aren't about primary nights or election nights. But if
6:54
Speaker 1: there are other big nights that you'd like to see
6:59
Speaker 1: some thing like that, and if you're curious of how
7:02
Speaker 1: we did it, the whole stream is available with Crystaliz's
7:05
Speaker 1: YouTube channel, and we'll have some links on all of
7:08
Speaker 1: our socials as well. But I say that because what
7:14
Speaker 1: I take away on the first day after a State
7:17
Speaker 1: of the Union is what do the two parties want
7:21
Speaker 1: to talk about in the wake of the State of
7:23
Speaker 1: the Union, and in particular, right like, what do certainly
7:27
Speaker 1: when you look at it from the perspective of Trump,
7:31
Speaker 1: what does the Trump White House want to be the
7:34
Speaker 1: second day story? And I think it's pretty clear, and
7:36
Speaker 1: it now sort of reinforces sort of what I believe
7:41
Speaker 1: the mission was on Tuesday night, and that was to
7:44
Speaker 1: try to essentially get the base back back into the
7:49
Speaker 1: high eighties low nineties in his approval rating rather than
7:52
Speaker 1: where it started to slip depending on the poll you
7:55
Speaker 1: look like load to mid eighties, even high seventies. There
7:59
Speaker 1: had definitely been in some erosion, not a collapse, but
8:03
Speaker 1: an erosion in his base. And it was sort of
8:05
Speaker 1: an accumulation. Whether it's Iran, whether it's Epstein files, whether
8:08
Speaker 1: it's Venezuela, you know, some of these, or frankly just
8:12
Speaker 1: affordability itself, the tariffs, you name it. You know, there
8:16
Speaker 1: was some sluggishness, and it was when you see the
8:21
Speaker 1: White House and how what they wanted to showcase, right,
8:23
Speaker 1: they think they had a visual, you know, sort of
8:27
Speaker 1: social media moment there where Donald Trump dared the Democrats
8:32
Speaker 1: to stand up when given the sort of Sophie choice
8:35
Speaker 1: of you know, are you going to protect Americans first,
8:38
Speaker 1: or anybody when it comes to violence or whatever it is,
8:43
Speaker 1: and they clearly enjoyed that contrast. And in fact, I
8:46
Speaker 1: do think and I can't remember if I said this
8:49
Speaker 1: to you guys last night on the live stream or
8:52
Speaker 1: in my on the podcast itself, the Wednesday edition, but
8:57
Speaker 1: the speech really wasn't coherent. What it was was a
9:01
Speaker 1: series of social media moments, right, And when you you know,
9:06
Speaker 1: you go back, and I think I said this before.
9:07
Speaker 1: I think there was a bit of they loaded it
9:10
Speaker 1: up right with with the lou Rawls Parade of Stars mindset, right,
9:13
Speaker 1: and they loaded it up with people who are more
9:18
Speaker 1: popular than the president. Right. So it was allowed him
9:21
Speaker 1: to soak in reflective glory, but sort of almost as
9:26
Speaker 1: much as he loves the spotlight, you know, try to
9:29
Speaker 1: try to share see if he could draft off of
9:31
Speaker 1: the popularity of the Olympic team, the popularity of Metal
9:34
Speaker 1: of Honor folks, the popularity of someone who rescues a
9:36
Speaker 1: little girl during those horrific floods in Texas. It's, you know,
9:44
Speaker 1: not a new strategy, but this was a very aggressive
9:46
Speaker 1: version of it. And when you really look back at it,
9:48
Speaker 1: and it really was more was not a speech, right.
9:51
Speaker 1: There was not a beginning, middle, and end that was
9:53
Speaker 1: very coherent. What it was was a series of social
9:57
Speaker 1: media moments, right, And it was very clippable, and it
10:00
Speaker 1: was clear that that's what they decided to make the
10:04
Speaker 1: speech about. And they wanted some visuals and they wanted
10:09
Speaker 1: some moments and okay, and it was about sewing up
10:14
Speaker 1: the base because they didn't talk to the middle very well.
10:16
Speaker 1: They didn't talk about the top issue in any credible way.
10:21
Speaker 1: Right he went. He basically chose the Joe Biden route
10:24
Speaker 1: of touting the economy. Hey, it's great. Have you seen
10:28
Speaker 1: how wages are up and unemployment is down? We're I
10:31
Speaker 1: mean my friend Casey Hunt Hunter the CNN show The Arena,
10:36
Speaker 1: which I was a panelist on, yes on on where
10:40
Speaker 1: are my Wednesday? Sorry, my days of the week are
10:41
Speaker 1: bloring together on Wednesday. She did an interesting side by
10:45
Speaker 1: side from Biden's last State of the Union in twenty
10:48
Speaker 1: twenty four, where he is still an active candidate for reelection,
10:52
Speaker 1: and it was all about trying to sell you know that, hey,
10:55
Speaker 1: his economic plan was working, and they were trying to
10:57
Speaker 1: convince the public, Hey, the economy was better than you
10:59
Speaker 1: think it is, and here's Donald Trump trying to do
11:03
Speaker 1: the same thing. And it was a really well done
11:07
Speaker 1: side by side, and it was it only reinforced my
11:14
Speaker 1: belief that on the economic issue, this speech did nothing,
11:19
Speaker 1: not only didn't move the needle, might have been a
11:22
Speaker 1: negative impact on that front. The other thing worth noting
11:28
Speaker 1: is the one big initiative right There was a series
11:32
Speaker 1: of that many new ideas that the President announced, but
11:36
Speaker 1: there was a couple that seemed concrete. One is this
11:39
Speaker 1: proposal with AI data centers to make the AI companies
11:43
Speaker 1: find their own sources of power and pay for their
11:45
Speaker 1: own sources of power so that you and I don't
11:47
Speaker 1: keep subsidizing them, which we all are right now, particularly
11:50
Speaker 1: those of us that pay electric bills. Hey, Dominion Power,
11:54
Speaker 1: we are getting hosed right now by all these data
11:57
Speaker 1: centers in Laden County on this front, everybody in northern
12:00
Speaker 1: Virginia knows it. And which should scare Congress is that
12:03
Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of people getting screwed to the
12:06
Speaker 1: electric bills that actually work for members of Congress. So
12:09
Speaker 1: I promise you this is an issue that isn't going
12:11
Speaker 1: to go away, since it actually is going to be
12:13
Speaker 1: impacting people that work in the White House, work on
12:16
Speaker 1: Capitol Hill, work in various parts of government. But the
12:19
Speaker 1: other thing he announced was this idea that Jada Vance
12:22
Speaker 1: was going to be sort of I guess a frauds
12:24
Speaker 1: are And it was clear what it was about. It
12:26
Speaker 1: was about Minnesota. They really want to They really even
12:30
Speaker 1: though Minnesota, I would argue, has now flipped against the President.
12:34
Speaker 1: Where when you say Minneapolis, the first thing I think
12:37
Speaker 1: voters think of are the two dead Americans and by
12:40
Speaker 1: the hands of Ice agents that they continue to believe
12:44
Speaker 1: there is a contrast, whether it's elon Omar or Tim Walls,
12:48
Speaker 1: and what they believe is somehow fraud that is related
12:54
Speaker 1: to immigration. And you had this announcement with jad Vance,
12:59
Speaker 1: who so frauds are that said that they are going
13:01
Speaker 1: to essentially suspend some of the federal money that is
13:06
Speaker 1: legally appropriated to the state of Minnesota when it comes
13:08
Speaker 1: to medicaid until they produce whatever proof that Jade Vance
13:13
Speaker 1: wants them to produce. What's interesting was what they did
13:17
Speaker 1: is clearly illegal. A won't take you know, you've got
13:21
Speaker 1: to quickly run to a court. You'll get the saying
13:24
Speaker 1: the White House can't do this. They got to release
13:25
Speaker 1: the funds, et cetera, et cetera. But I think that's
13:28
Speaker 1: the feature. This is exactly what right the White House
13:32
Speaker 1: wants to bait the governor of Minnesota, bait all Minnesota
13:36
Speaker 1: Democrats into having this stand up. They clearly want this contrast.
13:44
Speaker 1: It only helps them with the base, It does not
13:46
Speaker 1: help them with the middle, and it only reinforces my
13:49
Speaker 1: belief here that the State of the Union strategy was
13:54
Speaker 1: truly just repair the base, and honestly, for a midterm election,
13:58
Speaker 1: it's not the worst political strategy. You know, if Donald
14:02
Speaker 1: Trump were a better politician, and when it comes to
14:05
Speaker 1: being nimble, he's not very good. Right. What he's good
14:08
Speaker 1: is Johnny one note doing his thing with his bass.
14:11
Speaker 1: He does not pivot very well. He doesn't do you know.
14:14
Speaker 1: My friend Brad Todd wrote a terrific substack of saying
14:16
Speaker 1: what he would like to see from the president. He
14:19
Speaker 1: didn't get what he wanted to see. He doesn't pivot
14:25
Speaker 1: on these things. And it's clear that that he isn't
14:28
Speaker 1: going to do. But if he's your client, right, if
14:32
Speaker 1: you're the White House staff and you got to prepare him,
14:34
Speaker 1: then you want to do what you have to do,
14:36
Speaker 1: which is, you know what, he's more comfortable playing bass politics.
14:40
Speaker 1: He's more comfortable trying to pick a fight with the
14:42
Speaker 1: base of the Democratic Party, make at the base of
14:44
Speaker 1: the Democrats versus the base of the Republicans. That's his
14:48
Speaker 1: comfort zone. Right to create the straw man of the
14:52
Speaker 1: left in order for the right to beat up on them.
14:55
Speaker 1: And what it does is it sort of minimizes friction
14:59
Speaker 1: inside the Publican party, right, that is a safe place
15:02
Speaker 1: to be. And it really turns out that the state
15:04
Speaker 1: of the Union, in some ways it was a very
15:06
Speaker 1: risk averse state of the Union by the president. All
15:09
Speaker 1: he did was play one note to the base without
15:13
Speaker 1: too much attempt at actually trying to be president of
15:17
Speaker 1: all people any of that stuff. But that has never
15:20
Speaker 1: been his mo So if your Republican political strategist, this
15:26
Speaker 1: is probably the best you could hope for. He didn't
15:30
Speaker 1: make things worse picking fights with fellow Republicans. If he
15:33
Speaker 1: had turned it into the Festus state of the Union.
15:36
Speaker 1: I got some real problems with you people, right which
15:40
Speaker 1: there's a small part of all of you that actually
15:42
Speaker 1: would have enjoyed seeing grievance, you know, the Festivust version
15:46
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump and politics and the state of the Union.
15:48
Speaker 1: But that would have been an unmitigated disaster for his party.
15:51
Speaker 1: If he's attacking Supreme Court justices, attacking Thomas Massey, attacking
15:55
Speaker 1: you know, fellow Republicans, that that wouldn't have that only
16:00
Speaker 1: they would have caused more adjecta. But he also sort
16:03
Speaker 1: of left. But he did, you know, the downside of
16:05
Speaker 1: what he did. While he didn't cause new problems for
16:08
Speaker 1: the Republicans, there is no agenda to run on it,
16:14
Speaker 1: is it. I mean, there's no new He didn't the
16:17
Speaker 1: President didn't really issue a call for action by Congress. Okay,
16:23
Speaker 1: past the stock trading band, Well, that's all gummed up
16:25
Speaker 1: by leadership right now, that's ready to go. It's leadership
16:28
Speaker 1: that is choking on that issue because I think many
16:32
Speaker 1: of them aren't ready to give up their stock trades,
16:35
Speaker 1: to be perfectly frank, and you know, so it is
16:41
Speaker 1: what are they going to do if they keep Congress.
16:44
Speaker 1: They don't really have an agenda beyond that. So that
16:47
Speaker 1: is the downside of this strategy by the president. One
16:52
Speaker 1: more note, John, One of my favorite daily newsletters that
16:57
Speaker 1: I read is called news Items by John Ellis I've
17:00
Speaker 1: known John Ellis, he worked, he was a Fox News
17:02
Speaker 1: election analyst for decades. Really smart about this stuff. Happens
17:06
Speaker 1: to be by the way that, yes, John Ellis, he
17:08
Speaker 1: happens to be a part of the Bush clan. He
17:11
Speaker 1: is first cousins with Jeb and George W. Bush. He
17:17
Speaker 1: had an interesting essay this earlier on Wednesday, basically not
17:23
Speaker 1: understanding what the president is up to with Iran, and
17:26
Speaker 1: I think it was a really smart I mean, I'm
17:29
Speaker 1: gonna read his lead here in his app and it
17:34
Speaker 1: was his post is titled Iran, Cuba and American Politics
17:39
Speaker 1: and then with the little subtlely the fifty first State.
17:41
Speaker 1: And I'll get to quickly, but let me read his lead,
17:46
Speaker 1: because it does get at to the head scratchers that
17:50
Speaker 1: a lot of people have about what we're up to
17:51
Speaker 1: right now with Iran. It's passing strange politically speaking, that
17:56
Speaker 1: President Trump has chosen to bring the United States to
17:58
Speaker 1: the brink of war or something like that in the
18:00
Speaker 1: Middle East. The President knows his political base, he knows
18:03
Speaker 1: what they will abide and what they will not, and
18:05
Speaker 1: he knows that they will not abide a war in
18:07
Speaker 1: the Middle East. What they might or and perhaps will
18:10
Speaker 1: abide is some kind of decisive strike against Iran, perhaps
18:14
Speaker 1: one that disables some of their ballistic missiles or destroys
18:16
Speaker 1: parts of their nuclear program, or forces them to negotiate
18:19
Speaker 1: some sort of deal that constrains their ability to recavoc
18:21
Speaker 1: in the region and beyond. But that's it, and any
18:24
Speaker 1: suggestion of missing creep is a non starter. Any over
18:27
Speaker 1: long stay is a betrayal of solemn promise of nor
18:30
Speaker 1: more foreign adventures. And then he goes on to say
18:33
Speaker 1: Iran knows this too, So strategically speaking, all Iran needs
18:39
Speaker 1: to do is everything in its power to rope adope.
18:42
Speaker 1: The United States hit us again harder and harder until
18:45
Speaker 1: you've exhausted your available resources and your patients of your
18:48
Speaker 1: political base, and then you'll have to retreat and we
18:51
Speaker 1: will have defeated the Great Satan again. This is essentially
18:55
Speaker 1: what John Ellis is putting in the words of the
18:58
Speaker 1: Iranians there, essentially saying that's the general idea, and I
19:03
Speaker 1: this is the problem. The president has put himself, and
19:05
Speaker 1: he's put himself in this box and around what are
19:07
Speaker 1: you doing and what does success look like? And if
19:12
Speaker 1: you hit the regime and the regime is still there
19:15
Speaker 1: at standing. How long are you going to hit them?
19:18
Speaker 1: How much are you going to destroy? When you break it,
19:21
Speaker 1: you own it? So are we going to rebuild iron
19:25
Speaker 1: at some point? If you do successfully do that? How
19:30
Speaker 1: did that go in a rock when we did all that?
19:32
Speaker 1: So what is it? And then you know, as John
19:37
Speaker 1: points out, it's pretty clear that the President's chief military advisor,
19:41
Speaker 1: the Joint Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Dan Raisin Kane,
19:45
Speaker 1: is basically shooting up all sorts of flares like, we
19:49
Speaker 1: don't have the next day strategy here, we don't have
19:54
Speaker 1: exactly what the what the goal of this operation is, right,
19:58
Speaker 1: And he went to the Wall Street Journal. It's confirmed
20:00
Speaker 1: in the Times, in the in the in the Post. Look,
20:04
Speaker 1: a lot of people in Washington have figured out to
20:06
Speaker 1: strategically speak to Donald Trump. You sometimes need to use
20:09
Speaker 1: the press. So here's Caine going to the Wall Street Journal,
20:12
Speaker 1: where he knows the President will consume. But the Post
20:14
Speaker 1: in the Times are also two news organizations the President
20:17
Speaker 1: regularly consumes. And this is also about getting to people
20:21
Speaker 1: whispering in his ear. There's no doubt Lindsey Graham wants
20:24
Speaker 1: him to go yesterday but this was when when General
20:28
Speaker 1: Kine is making it clear this you know, you're not
20:34
Speaker 1: going to air strike your way to regime change. So
20:37
Speaker 1: what's your goal here? And are you really going to
20:40
Speaker 1: negotiate a deal with these guys? Is that going to go?
20:43
Speaker 2: Well?
20:45
Speaker 1: He kind of sort of laid out a pretext for
20:48
Speaker 1: why he would strike Iran. But if you're not going
20:51
Speaker 1: to put boots on the ground, you're likely not going
20:53
Speaker 1: to change that regime. And they may simply hunker down.
20:57
Speaker 1: And as as as John Alis points out, if they
21:03
Speaker 1: sort of withstand this, the United States says Okay, this
21:09
Speaker 1: is as much as we can do and backs off.
21:11
Speaker 1: Have they withstood the onslaught of the great American Satan? Right?
21:18
Speaker 1: You can see where this is going. Now what John
21:21
Speaker 1: does is pivots and he said, why he thinks all
21:27
Speaker 1: of this is so off? It's so clear that there
21:29
Speaker 1: is no good, There is no Look, there are plenty
21:34
Speaker 1: of good potential outcomes in Iran, but to get to those,
21:38
Speaker 1: you know, to quote Jim Stravertis in the interview he
21:41
Speaker 1: did with me on Newsphere last Sunday, I encourage you
21:43
Speaker 1: to go see that some of you, I hope are
21:45
Speaker 1: have subscribed to newsphere where he said, look, there's probably
21:48
Speaker 1: a one in four chance this does cause regime change,
21:52
Speaker 1: and we're in't a better place in a year than
21:54
Speaker 1: we are today with Iran. And there's every and there's
21:58
Speaker 1: also a one and four chance, he said, that this
22:00
Speaker 1: could go horribly wrong and it galvanizes the Iranian public
22:04
Speaker 1: behind the regime and they get stronger. And then he said,
22:08
Speaker 1: and there's the middle to scenarios, some sort of muddled
22:12
Speaker 1: scenario that essentially is some combination of a mini quagmire.
22:17
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a policy quagmire, but it's just a mess,
22:21
Speaker 1: and it's kind of unresolved. Think of it as sort
22:24
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump's attempt to remodel in whatever he's doing
22:27
Speaker 1: with the Kennedy Center, it's kind of half baked and
22:29
Speaker 1: half asked, and that's kind of what it looks like
22:33
Speaker 1: with Iran. So his argument is, what are you doing.
22:38
Speaker 1: You're being a little impatient, right, You could actually simply
22:43
Speaker 1: back off and let Iran shrink on its own, let
22:48
Speaker 1: them deal with more protesters, don't get in the way.
22:52
Speaker 1: But now that he's put all these melody, now it's
22:54
Speaker 1: sort of it looks like this impatience by Trump to
22:57
Speaker 1: just get some action. Right. This is the story of
23:00
Speaker 1: his presidency. His impatience is among his worst instincts, and
23:07
Speaker 1: his impatience leads him to bad outcomes. His impatience on
23:11
Speaker 1: he really believed in this teriff regime he would have
23:14
Speaker 1: gotten the authority from Congress when he had the political
23:16
Speaker 1: capital to get Congress and to give him this authority
23:19
Speaker 1: back in March and April. But he doesn't think that way.
23:22
Speaker 1: He just wants it now. You know. This is this
23:25
Speaker 1: is the immaturity part of the seventy nine year old
23:29
Speaker 1: president of the United States. Right, there's this weird thirteen
23:33
Speaker 1: year old mindset that he has where it's just he
23:35
Speaker 1: wants it now.
23:36
Speaker 3: Now.
23:36
Speaker 1: Now, what John Ellis argues is, as he said, America
23:44
Speaker 1: is now choosing to be impatient with iron. It doesn't
23:47
Speaker 1: make sense militarily, he argues. I agree with him, And
23:50
Speaker 1: it makes no sense politically at all. That's for sure, right,
23:53
Speaker 1: this is this isn't a good military strategy, and it's
23:55
Speaker 1: certainly not a good political strategy. And then he says
23:59
Speaker 1: this and he goes especially because ninety minutes east of
24:02
Speaker 1: Key West, Florida, lies what he calls the mother of
24:05
Speaker 1: all political opportunities, and that's Cuba. He makes the case
24:11
Speaker 1: that Cuba's on the brink of societal collapse. There's a
24:14
Speaker 1: lot of reporting that indicates this. It does not appear
24:18
Speaker 1: that this regime is going to hang on the rest
24:20
Speaker 1: of this calendar year, and it may collapse without having
24:25
Speaker 1: to put an armada surrounding the island of Cuba to
24:30
Speaker 1: make sure the regime goes away. It's going to collapse
24:33
Speaker 1: on its own, and the United States is going to
24:37
Speaker 1: almost have no choice, and it's certainly going to have
24:39
Speaker 1: the ambition, especially with Marco Rubio Secretary State, and so
24:43
Speaker 1: many Republicans and Cuban exiles in South Florida who've been
24:47
Speaker 1: dreaming of the moment that this is going to happen,
24:52
Speaker 1: and the Cuban American community would flood the island with
24:55
Speaker 1: money and resources. It could the infamous line that Dick
25:04
Speaker 1: Cheney said about Iraq, oh, well, we greeted as liberators,
25:09
Speaker 1: Cuba might actually greet us as liberators. And certainly the
25:17
Speaker 1: reunification of Cuban families, the economic opportunities it is, as
25:27
Speaker 1: he says, he goes it's not going to win him
25:29
Speaker 1: a Nobel Peace Prize but it actually offers him an opportunity,
25:34
Speaker 1: as he said, to create a fifty first state. We'll see.
25:38
Speaker 1: Maybe this is how Puerto Rico or DC happens, maybe
25:41
Speaker 1: Cuban and DC coming together. By the way, it's not
25:46
Speaker 1: the craziest idea. There was some talk of making Cuba
25:48
Speaker 1: state back in the early twentieth century. Maybe it stays
25:55
Speaker 1: as a standalone country. Maybe it becomes sort of what
25:57
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico is, commonwealth with the association with the United States.
26:04
Speaker 1: Maybe it stays an independent country with free and fair
26:08
Speaker 1: elections and things like that. But I think what the
26:11
Speaker 1: point Ellis is making is there's a fairly easy foreign
26:15
Speaker 1: policy victory that might be available to you in this
26:17
Speaker 1: hemisphere without too much blood and treasure. There is a
26:23
Speaker 1: foreign policy outcome that Trump is trying to will in
26:27
Speaker 1: the Middle East that has more opportunities for it to
26:33
Speaker 1: go haywire. And yet the president's in patience has put
26:38
Speaker 1: him where he is now. Now if he doesn't do
26:43
Speaker 1: anything in Iran, it's Taco Trump. So anyway, I just
26:48
Speaker 1: thought I wanted to highlight the piece because I thought
26:50
Speaker 1: Ellis nailed it. It was sort of like, this is
26:52
Speaker 1: a head scratcher politically, strategically, militarily, and they're only I think,
27:03
Speaker 1: you know, there's only a I'm going to use the
27:06
Speaker 1: Stavriti's measurement about a one and four chance that Giess
27:11
Speaker 1: goes as well as it could be. And even if
27:13
Speaker 1: it does, it could drain us of resources that the
27:21
Speaker 1: public may not like. And it's certainly going to be
27:23
Speaker 1: the type of distraction that makes it look like the
27:25
Speaker 1: President is more focused on his legacy, building his own
27:29
Speaker 1: you know, stuff overseas, rather than the cost of living
27:34
Speaker 1: here at home, where Cuba is a quasi it's like
27:39
Speaker 1: one of the few foreign policy issues that's quasi domestic.
27:47
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31:03
Speaker 1: All right, so this weekend is the final weekend before
31:06
Speaker 1: the primary season kicks off all things Texas. It's not
31:10
Speaker 1: just Texas on the battle on Tuesday, North Carolina as well.
31:13
Speaker 1: But we don't have a big, huge There's a few
31:15
Speaker 1: congressional primaries that we're going to be keeping an eye
31:17
Speaker 1: on in North Carolina. But look, the big stories are
31:22
Speaker 1: the two primaries, the Republican primary between John corn Can
31:27
Speaker 1: Paxton Wesley Hunt, and it's pretty clear that's going to
31:29
Speaker 1: be a runoff, and it's looking clear all the time
31:33
Speaker 1: that it's going to be Paxxton and Cornyn in the runoff.
31:37
Speaker 1: So I actually want to focus the remainder of my
31:39
Speaker 1: time before we get to the interview on what's happening
31:42
Speaker 1: inside the Democratic side, because what happens in the Democratic
31:45
Speaker 1: primary could very well influence what happens in the Republican runoff.
31:52
Speaker 1: So again, you see, it was what I sort of
31:55
Speaker 1: predicted a couple of weeks ago that eventually you'd see
31:57
Speaker 1: Wesley Hunt fade. You're starting to see west Hunt fade.
32:00
Speaker 1: Both Cornan and Paxton have much better to get out
32:03
Speaker 1: the vote organizations on the early vote, and you're starting
32:06
Speaker 1: to see that. So I think what will matter a
32:10
Speaker 1: bit is I think it's a fairly I wouldn't call
32:17
Speaker 1: it a big deal, but it's not a small deal, right,
32:19
Speaker 1: we'll call it a medium deal. If Cornan is the
32:22
Speaker 1: leading vote getter on the Republican side. If Cornyn is
32:24
Speaker 1: able to be the leading vote getter, that is because
32:27
Speaker 1: he's never been ahead in any poll that wasn't released
32:32
Speaker 1: by his own campaign. He has pretty much trailed out
32:34
Speaker 1: in every public poll and every other private poll not
32:37
Speaker 1: by a lot. I mean, you see, and it gets
32:39
Speaker 1: really tied at some points, been one or two points.
32:41
Speaker 1: But Paxton has had a consistent lead, and there's certainly
32:46
Speaker 1: plenty of reasons to believe you'd rather be Paxton in
32:49
Speaker 1: the runoff than Cornyan in the runoff. Paxston's going to
32:51
Speaker 1: have the more devoted voters, and runoffs tend to favor
32:56
Speaker 1: the candidate closer to the political base of that party
32:59
Speaker 1: rather than you don't get as many sort of casual
33:03
Speaker 1: voters showing up for that second round. Sometimes it happens,
33:07
Speaker 1: every once in a while, the runoff will get a
33:08
Speaker 1: higher turnout than the primary itself. We saw that happen
33:11
Speaker 1: in a Mississippi Senate race back in twenty fourteen that
33:17
Speaker 1: featured one of these these these primary challenges to a
33:23
Speaker 1: sitting senator. But what could so I think, look the
33:30
Speaker 1: order of finish matters. You know, cornn getting the top spot,
33:34
Speaker 1: maybe that encourages Trump to get on board. Corn can't
33:38
Speaker 1: win this without Trump unilaterally endorsing him and essentially unindorsing Paccton.
33:43
Speaker 1: And there seems to be really only a couple of
33:46
Speaker 1: ways this can happen. One is Corn needs to be
33:48
Speaker 1: the leading vote getter. I will be surprised if he is.
33:53
Speaker 1: But you know, when you drop the amount of money
33:56
Speaker 1: he's dropped, you assume he's got a very good on
33:59
Speaker 1: the ground organization, and the Cornn voter is going to
34:03
Speaker 1: show up. Right, the corn And voters in the in
34:06
Speaker 1: the the nice neighborhoods where George W. Bush lives in
34:10
Speaker 1: and around where my son goes to school at SMU. Right,
34:13
Speaker 1: that's Cornn Country. Now you go further into North Texas
34:16
Speaker 1: and you get to Paxton Country. The further the closer
34:20
Speaker 1: you get to Fort Worth. But you know, in the
34:23
Speaker 1: in the the wealthier suburbs of Houston and Dallas, assuming
34:28
Speaker 1: they've stayed voting in Republican primaries, it's a big if
34:31
Speaker 1: there are quite a few sort of former Bush Republicans
34:34
Speaker 1: that now vote in Democratic primaries because of Donald Trump,
34:39
Speaker 1: that's going to be key. I think that is a
34:41
Speaker 1: It is a Like I said, it doesn't mean that
34:43
Speaker 1: Cornyn is guaranteed to survive the runoff if he's a
34:46
Speaker 1: leading vote getter, but that is something to watch for
34:49
Speaker 1: in it will matter, But we're still you know, it's
34:53
Speaker 1: it's a there's going to be a runoff, and you know,
34:56
Speaker 1: we've got it's a long runoff. It goes all the
34:59
Speaker 1: way basically Memorial there, which brings us to this democratic
35:03
Speaker 1: back and forth between James Tolerrico, who is a darling
35:07
Speaker 1: of this sort of establishment and donor crowd, and Jasmine Crockett,
35:12
Speaker 1: who has very you know, run her own race kind
35:15
Speaker 1: of a anti establishment and yet she is getting the
35:20
Speaker 1: support of the more mainstream Democratic primary voters. This has
35:26
Speaker 1: been a fascinating divide to watch. I think there are
35:29
Speaker 1: a lot of people who haven't paid attention much to
35:31
Speaker 1: Crockett and Talla Rico and assume that Crockett is the
35:35
Speaker 1: more base based Democrat and that Talla Rico is the
35:41
Speaker 1: more moderate electable Democrat. And yet many of the progressive
35:45
Speaker 1: groups that have endorsed, and two of the biggest progressives
35:49
Speaker 1: have actually not endorsed in this race, AOC and Bernie Sanders,
35:52
Speaker 1: who have gotten involved in a lot of primaries, not
35:54
Speaker 1: involved in this one. They have stayed out. But you
35:57
Speaker 1: have p triple c Adam Green is a big part
36:02
Speaker 1: of this. For those of you that are are in
36:04
Speaker 1: progressive politics, progressive you know, they definitely usually endorse on
36:09
Speaker 1: the progressive side, they endorsed tall Rico, and when you
36:12
Speaker 1: actually look at the vote, at the raw splits inside
36:16
Speaker 1: the Democratic primary, there was a University of Texas poll
36:18
Speaker 1: out there, and there's there's a more recent one. Tall
36:20
Speaker 1: Rico campaign put out a poll claiming they were now
36:23
Speaker 1: up four points. There's another poll that's been circulating earlier
36:27
Speaker 1: on Wednesday that showed Jasmine Crockett up double digits. Now
36:31
Speaker 1: that pole had been conducted, a big chunk of it
36:35
Speaker 1: conducted before the Colbert FCC incident. I guess we'll call
36:42
Speaker 1: it acush. They had nothing to do the FC the
36:44
Speaker 1: accusation of all of that, which of course gave tall
36:47
Speaker 1: Rico a lot of a lot of attention. So there's
36:52
Speaker 1: you know, so is his Crockett up double digits or
36:55
Speaker 1: is tallerco up two or three? You know, Tallerrico releases
37:00
Speaker 1: own pole because I think they didn't like this narrative
37:02
Speaker 1: that was developing that oh wow, Crocket's about to could
37:05
Speaker 1: she win this without a runoff? There is a third
37:07
Speaker 1: cannon on the ballot, very underfunded. But you know, this
37:11
Speaker 1: race is forty nine forty eight. You know, the third
37:14
Speaker 1: candidate only needs to get you know what the third
37:17
Speaker 1: candidate gets anything over three or four points, well, I
37:23
Speaker 1: think the likelihood of a DEM runoff suddenly inches up.
37:28
Speaker 1: There was a ut Austin yu Goov poll that was
37:32
Speaker 1: circulating and it was conducted the second through the sixteenth,
37:35
Speaker 1: so it started before the Colbert incident, as I was saying,
37:39
Speaker 1: And what was interesting about what we saw the Democratic
37:43
Speaker 1: prime was a very small sample, so I'm mindful of that,
37:45
Speaker 1: just three hundred and seventy Democratic likely voters, and they
37:48
Speaker 1: had crocket ahead by double digits. What was interesting is
37:51
Speaker 1: when you went inside the numbers, it looked to me
37:56
Speaker 1: like an old Sanders Clinton divide in the Democratic primary
38:00
Speaker 1: battles in twenty sixteen. And what do I mean by that?
38:03
Speaker 1: So in a lot of these, particularly the southern primaries,
38:07
Speaker 1: the splits would be very, very consistent across the board.
38:11
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton would do better among actual registered Democrats, better
38:16
Speaker 1: among African American voters, and in some ways better among
38:19
Speaker 1: Latino voters, while Bernie did better among it was competitive
38:24
Speaker 1: among Latino voters, did better among white voters, which white
38:29
Speaker 1: Democratic voters are usually more progressive, and Democratic Party did
38:32
Speaker 1: not do well among African American voters. He did well
38:35
Speaker 1: among younger voters and Hillary Clinton did well among older voters. Well,
38:40
Speaker 1: Crockett had a big edge among older vote. Basically, she
38:43
Speaker 1: was winning all voters fifty plus. Talerico was only winning
38:47
Speaker 1: voters eighteen to thirty five. Now, why does that matter
38:49
Speaker 1: a primary, Well, the more reliable primary voters are older,
38:57
Speaker 1: an African American, and female. Well, Crockett was ahead in
39:01
Speaker 1: all of those demographic groups there. Now look Tall Rico's
39:05
Speaker 1: poll that he put out later in the day after
39:07
Speaker 1: this double digit lead of Crocketts was sorted, and it
39:10
Speaker 1: wasn't the only poll that has shown Crockett ahead. She's
39:12
Speaker 1: been ahead pretty much the entire primary campaign. Would you
39:18
Speaker 1: look at the makeup of her supporters in these polls,
39:22
Speaker 1: her coalition looks more durable for showing up to the polls. Now, look,
39:26
Speaker 1: I think we're going to have a huge turnout among Democrats.
39:28
Speaker 1: We've seen it in special elections. So the bigger the turnout,
39:33
Speaker 1: the better perhaps for Tall Rico. And in fact, if
39:35
Speaker 1: you look at the Tall Rico poll that was put out,
39:39
Speaker 1: one thing that they wanted to emphasize that the ut
39:42
Speaker 1: Pole didn't do was this idea of the electability question,
39:52
Speaker 1: who can win and primary Democratic primary voters. According to
39:57
Speaker 1: tall Rico's pollster, said tall Rico's more likely to at
40:00
Speaker 1: the GP nominee. Forty seven percent picked tall Rico, only
40:03
Speaker 1: twenty two percent pick Crockett. Back in December, when they
40:06
Speaker 1: tested the electability question, tall Rico's edge was only four points. Look,
40:15
Speaker 1: I think electability is a very hard thing to pull
40:18
Speaker 1: because it's a very subjective thing, right, what I think
40:22
Speaker 1: is electable. Sure, you could say, hey, I've been doing
40:24
Speaker 1: this thirty years. I think I have an idea of
40:27
Speaker 1: which kind of candidates have the highest ceiling, and I
40:31
Speaker 1: think that's the better way to do it. Look, considering
40:35
Speaker 1: the history of Texas, the history of eddy state, we've
40:39
Speaker 1: only had a handful that of elected African American women
40:43
Speaker 1: statewide to the United States Senate. So it is hard
40:46
Speaker 1: not to sit there and say, the white male pastor
40:49
Speaker 1: probably has a higher potential ceiling than a general election
40:54
Speaker 1: than an African American congresswoman from Dallas. Except I would
40:59
Speaker 1: say being from Dallas is actually might be a good
41:04
Speaker 1: advantage versus Tallarico's base of Austin, which is a bit
41:08
Speaker 1: more progressive. So, but I understand this idea of who's
41:12
Speaker 1: got a higher ceiling. The fact is polls have shown
41:15
Speaker 1: they both are ahead of Paxton right now, and part
41:18
Speaker 1: of that is thanks to John Cornyan and the Senate
41:20
Speaker 1: Republican packs that have been very supportive of Cornyn. They
41:23
Speaker 1: have dropped a mother load of negative ads on Paxton.
41:28
Speaker 1: It has barely budget his primary numbers, but it has
41:32
Speaker 1: heard him with general election voters, which is why what
41:37
Speaker 1: happens in this Democratic primary may dictate what could happen
41:42
Speaker 1: in the Republican runoff. But the big thing I wanted
41:47
Speaker 1: to make clear as you're watching these Texas primaries unfold
41:50
Speaker 1: on Tuesday night, and by the way, I'm going to
41:52
Speaker 1: have a live stream all of you. We'll put it
41:55
Speaker 1: on X We're going to put on YouTube. I'll be
41:57
Speaker 1: in partnership with my friends at Decision Desk, and of
41:59
Speaker 1: course Chris Jeffrey Skelling, he's going to be on there again.
42:02
Speaker 1: We're going to have our parade of data stars helping
42:06
Speaker 1: us break down not just the Senate primaries, which of
42:08
Speaker 1: course we'll all be in pins and needs for, but
42:10
Speaker 1: there's a slew of fascinating House primaries, including whether Tony Gonzalez,
42:15
Speaker 1: who is having to deal with the Republican congressman from
42:18
Speaker 1: South Texas having a deal with a whole bunch of
42:20
Speaker 1: resignation calls due to the affair with the woman who
42:24
Speaker 1: killed herself by lighting herself on fire. You've had bipartisan
42:28
Speaker 1: calls for his resignation. I have a feeling the voters
42:31
Speaker 1: are going to take care of his political career. But
42:33
Speaker 1: whether or not, you know, he has to resign or not,
42:36
Speaker 1: I think the voters are going to make that decision
42:37
Speaker 1: for him. Dan Crenshaw the only Republican incumbent congressman in
42:45
Speaker 1: Texas running for reelection who did not get endorsed by
42:48
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. In fact, his opponent was just recently endorsed
42:51
Speaker 1: by Ted Cruz. That will be an interesting primary. Obviously,
42:54
Speaker 1: we've got all the redistricting stuff that happened when Texas
42:57
Speaker 1: started the remap, So there's a lot going on and
43:00
Speaker 1: we're going to have it all covered the Election nine
43:03
Speaker 1: live stream. We will be there, and we're also going
43:06
Speaker 1: to cover North Carolina and yes, Arkansas. Probably the only
43:11
Speaker 1: November competitive election in Arkansas, if there is going to
43:14
Speaker 1: be anything competitive at all, would be the Little Rock
43:16
Speaker 1: congressional seat that's french Hill these days, He's a pretty
43:21
Speaker 1: well liked figure, so I'm highly suspect. But in a waveyear,
43:25
Speaker 1: if any member of Congress in Arkansas is going to
43:29
Speaker 1: get held under sixty or even close to the fifty
43:31
Speaker 1: five percent mark, you would id the congressman from Little Rock,
43:36
Speaker 1: which is French Hill these days. So but to go back,
43:41
Speaker 1: you know, this Tall Rico Crockett race I think is
43:45
Speaker 1: clearly going to be pretty close if it ends in
43:48
Speaker 1: a runoff. Trump may not get is involved. If Tall
43:52
Speaker 1: Rico wins without a runoff, I've talked to some Republican
43:56
Speaker 1: sources who indicate that that might get Trump on off
44:00
Speaker 1: the fence on Paxton and endorse Cornn, especially if Cornin's
44:06
Speaker 1: a leading vote getter, and I go back to that,
44:09
Speaker 1: Cornan has to be the leading vote getter, I think
44:11
Speaker 1: to even have a chance because he can play the
44:13
Speaker 1: quote unquote winner card right. Trump doesn't like the back losers,
44:17
Speaker 1: so in that sense he might be able to claim
44:20
Speaker 1: he backs a winner. If Crockett wins without a primary,
44:24
Speaker 1: I think a lot of Texas Republicans and perhaps even
44:28
Speaker 1: some Senate Republican strategists are going to convince themselves it
44:32
Speaker 1: won't matter who they nominate. I'm not sure I agree
44:36
Speaker 1: with that, but I understand when you look at the
44:39
Speaker 1: history of this country with African American women Senate nominees,
44:44
Speaker 1: it's Texas. You can go through all the reasons why
44:48
Speaker 1: he seems uniquely unelectable. Ken Paxton does. And I think
44:56
Speaker 1: what people miss about Jasmine Crockett is he's not the progressive.
45:01
Speaker 1: She is much more of a working class Democrat, much
45:05
Speaker 1: more of a Jim Cleiburn Democrat. If you're going to
45:09
Speaker 1: go in sort of congressional black caucus politics, there very
45:13
Speaker 1: much in not necessarily on the far left of the
45:19
Speaker 1: spectrum here, So you know, it's certainly she's going to
45:24
Speaker 1: get painted as an extremist. She's certainly been very loud
45:28
Speaker 1: on social media, you might say, and there's no doubt
45:32
Speaker 1: how the Republicans are going. But I let's just say,
45:36
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be writing I wouldn't write this race off.
45:39
Speaker 1: I still think it doesn't matter who the Democratic nominee is.
45:43
Speaker 1: It's going to be hard to win in Texas, but
45:45
Speaker 1: it's going to be quite competitive no matter which one
45:47
Speaker 1: of these two cadis. I think we've seen the better
45:50
Speaker 1: campaigner is Jasmine Crockett Talla Rico may have the better
45:56
Speaker 1: resume as far as donors are concerned, but I don't
46:00
Speaker 1: think he's Pete Buddhagen yet. And I think there's been
46:03
Speaker 1: a lot of people betting that maybe he's the next peat.
46:08
Speaker 1: I think when you see that, you know, I think
46:11
Speaker 1: he really if he loses this race and doesn't make
46:14
Speaker 1: it into a runoff, even we will say the way
46:18
Speaker 1: the fact that he was that he that comment about
46:22
Speaker 1: Colin alright, wasn't mediocre candidate, it was mediocre black candidate.
46:29
Speaker 1: I think that it had a It's very possible this
46:33
Speaker 1: impacts voters much more deeply than you think, like going
46:37
Speaker 1: huh the pastor thinks in identity politics too, And I
46:43
Speaker 1: just think that that, you know, if he loses, that
46:47
Speaker 1: will be the moment that is pointed to is sort
46:50
Speaker 1: of you know, this is why you don't pick nominees
46:54
Speaker 1: based on resumes. You actually wait and see how they
46:58
Speaker 1: perform as candidates. And speaking of that, have you seen
47:02
Speaker 1: what's going on in main lately? There's another pole out
47:05
Speaker 1: again you univer see of New Hampshire that has Graham Platner,
47:10
Speaker 1: the oyster farmer, up nearly forty points over Janet Mills,
47:19
Speaker 1: the sitting incumbent governor. It's interesting, so Chuck Schumer was
47:26
Speaker 1: asked about this, about this pole that should platter continue
47:31
Speaker 1: to be ahead double digits over Janet Mills even after
47:35
Speaker 1: the so called Nazi tattoo and all of that controversy.
47:39
Speaker 1: None of it seemed to hurt him, and none of
47:42
Speaker 1: it seemed to accrue to the benefit of Mills. And
47:44
Speaker 1: if anything, the fact that she just is not getting
47:47
Speaker 1: traction yet has to make you wonder if this is
47:51
Speaker 1: if this is something the is this the age issue? Right?
47:55
Speaker 1: They were thinking, Look, the best way to knock off
47:57
Speaker 1: an incumbent that's been there forever is not somebody who
48:01
Speaker 1: looks like she's older than Susan Collins. But what's interesting
48:06
Speaker 1: is Schumer was asked about this race and whether he
48:11
Speaker 1: wants to admit if he backed the wrong candidate. And
48:13
Speaker 1: by the way, you know, Schumer's track record here is
48:16
Speaker 1: terrible so far the cycle. I'm going to get to
48:17
Speaker 1: it in a minute. And he says, polls come and go,
48:19
Speaker 1: We're going to win in Maine, and frankly, Mills is
48:21
Speaker 1: the only Democrat who won statewide in twenty years. Well,
48:25
Speaker 1: an extraordinarily defensive statement. It is technically true, but full
48:29
Speaker 1: of shit what Schumer just said there. He said Mills
48:32
Speaker 1: is the only Democrat who's won statewide in twenty years. Okay,
48:35
Speaker 1: Angus King has won a bunch, but Angus King has
48:38
Speaker 1: been an independent coxing with the Democrats. So it's interesting
48:41
Speaker 1: win Schumer claims Angus King, and when he doesn't claim
48:44
Speaker 1: Angus King. And by the way, when Angus King ring
48:46
Speaker 1: for the Senate, you know who endorsed his candidacy and
48:49
Speaker 1: funded his candidacy, the d SC. So it's kind of
48:53
Speaker 1: a misleading statement there, but it was a you could
48:55
Speaker 1: tell it's a bit stubborn. But what's interesting, right Taala
48:58
Speaker 1: Rico was a Schumer recruit. He looks like right now,
49:01
Speaker 1: polls show them losing to Crockett in Iowa. Josh Truick
49:05
Speaker 1: was the Schumer recruit. Zach Walls put out his own poll.
49:09
Speaker 1: Republics have put out a poll. Multiple poles have shown
49:11
Speaker 1: him up double digits. Janet Mills was his recruit. Graham
49:15
Speaker 1: Platner's winning in the primary. Look, I know it sounds
49:18
Speaker 1: like I'm picking on Chuck Schumer because he is in
49:21
Speaker 1: charge of this. Roy Cooper is a great get and
49:23
Speaker 1: there's no primary. He's got to worry about North Carolina
49:26
Speaker 1: and Mary Potzalo is a great get in Alaska. So
49:28
Speaker 1: you know, if i'm if you're if we're going to
49:31
Speaker 1: ding Schumer here for making for getting too involved in
49:34
Speaker 1: these primaries in Texas, Maine, in Iowa, that gets one
49:37
Speaker 1: of those cases he had to let the candidates perform
49:40
Speaker 1: and then decide who's the best candidate, you know, instead
49:43
Speaker 1: of just looking at resumes once you'll let this play out,
49:46
Speaker 1: then decide right, let the candidates and the voters play
49:49
Speaker 1: the game, if you will, before you come in and
49:52
Speaker 1: decide who should what the results should be. You know,
49:57
Speaker 1: this is with you know with Iowa. This is not
49:59
Speaker 1: the first time he is back the wrong candidate in
50:01
Speaker 1: Iowa multiple times now, which is why Democrats have fallen
50:04
Speaker 1: further behind in that state. Look, part of this is
50:12
Speaker 1: in defense of Schumer. Here they're the establishment and we're
50:16
Speaker 1: in a campaign here where the establishment is not popular
50:20
Speaker 1: hard stop. So there is an argument to be made
50:23
Speaker 1: if there are certain candidates he wants to see when
50:26
Speaker 1: the best thing he can do is not endorsed them, right,
50:30
Speaker 1: I mean, his candidate in Michigan might be the weakest
50:33
Speaker 1: of the three primary candidates at the moment, Haley Stevens.
50:36
Speaker 1: So the good news for Schumer and the Democrats is
50:40
Speaker 1: they seem to have some pretty good campaigners that may
50:44
Speaker 1: knock off his recruits Platner in Maine, Walls in Iowa,
50:50
Speaker 1: Crockett in Texas. And it's also possibly true that the
50:57
Speaker 1: more public the party is on who its preferences are,
51:00
Speaker 1: that it sends the exact opposite message to where Democratic
51:04
Speaker 1: primary voters are right now. All right, So with that,
51:08
Speaker 1: I know that's my long wind up there. I had
51:10
Speaker 1: a lot to say. Hey, it's a long weekend. You've
51:13
Speaker 1: got a few extra days to listen to this. Let's
51:15
Speaker 1: stink in a break and a fun conversation with the
51:18
Speaker 1: editor in chief of the magazine of the libertarian movements,
51:22
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Speaker 1: think about it, especially if you've got a growing family. Well,
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Speaker 1: joining me now is somebody I've actually multiple iterations of
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Speaker 1: my podcast over the years, but I think it's the
54:35
Speaker 1: first time since I left NBC that I've had her on.
54:38
Speaker 1: It's Katherine Mango Ward. She's the editor in chief of
54:41
Speaker 1: the Reason magazine, essentially the magazine of the libertarian movement.
54:47
Speaker 1: I would say, and I'll let her describe how closely
54:50
Speaker 1: aligned they are with the party itself. But what triggered
54:54
Speaker 1: the invite, and frankly it was more of like, why
54:57
Speaker 1: haven't I had Catherine on sooner? Was this op ed?
55:00
Speaker 1: She wrote a couple of weeks ago the New York
55:01
Speaker 1: Times that was so helpfully headlined libertarians tried to warn
55:05
Speaker 1: you about Trump, but maybe we got lost in an
55:09
Speaker 1: lit Aleppo rabbit hole. But I'm sorry for that, Sorry
55:12
Speaker 1: for that, that little poke in joke there. Going back
55:15
Speaker 1: to Gary Johnson, but Catherine joins me now, and Catherine,
55:19
Speaker 1: it's good to see you. Sorry it's taken so long.
55:21
Speaker 2: Of course, thanks for having me on.
55:23
Speaker 1: So you know, I I use this all the time
55:26
Speaker 1: whenever I'm asked to do talks. I said, you know,
55:28
Speaker 1: we all find out how libertarian we are when we
55:30
Speaker 1: don't like the party that's in charge of our politics
55:34
Speaker 1: in any given moment, which is why when you see
55:36
Speaker 1: people from a majority party still behaving as libertarians before
55:41
Speaker 1: they're before they're partisans, it gives you a little bit
55:44
Speaker 1: of hope. But there's not many of those folks that
55:45
Speaker 1: behave this way. But you know, I think fundamentally that's
55:50
Speaker 1: what this Supreme Court ruling last week in some ways
55:55
Speaker 1: was as a reminder that that that there is structure
55:59
Speaker 1: that should you know, the whole goal of the founders
56:02
Speaker 1: was not to let any body become a king and
56:06
Speaker 1: let unilateral control of government arguably a libertarian point of view.
56:12
Speaker 1: So tell me your motivation for writing the outbed was
56:17
Speaker 1: it I told you so?
56:18
Speaker 2: You know, I actually have said in public. In fact,
56:22
Speaker 2: that I told you so doesn't usually win arguments. But
56:26
Speaker 2: what I discovered is that there is an exception here,
56:28
Speaker 2: which is when I told you so is also kind
56:33
Speaker 2: of validating in the readers, in this case, the readers
56:36
Speaker 2: of the New York Times, something they had been telling
56:38
Speaker 2: themselves too. So part of what this piece is about is,
56:42
Speaker 2: you know, libertarians have been making this sort of thorough going,
56:46
Speaker 2: consistent case against the rise of executive power and kind
56:50
Speaker 2: of the imbalance that that's creating. But a lot of
56:55
Speaker 2: folks who identify as kind of mainstream democrats or the
56:58
Speaker 2: kind of imagined reader of the Times are skeptical about
57:02
Speaker 2: those things when it comes to a bunch of the
57:05
Speaker 2: places where Trump has suddenly started pushing hard. So we're
57:08
Speaker 2: talking here about trade, we're talking here about immigration, that
57:11
Speaker 2: kind of thing. There was already a lot of commonality there,
57:15
Speaker 2: so in some ways it was more of a remember
57:18
Speaker 2: how you're a little bit libertarian to my friends and readers.
57:23
Speaker 1: No, it's it's I like to remind people that this,
57:25
Speaker 1: and I think it's probably explains why it's been so
57:28
Speaker 1: difficult for the libertarian movement to fully unify, because there
57:33
Speaker 1: is a libertarian wing of the Democratic Party. It's you know,
57:37
Speaker 1: I feel like Jared Poulos in Colorado is sort of
57:39
Speaker 1: the poster child that most repress. He would say, he goes,
57:42
Speaker 1: we're for freedoms, freedom, so here, freedom on your body,
57:45
Speaker 1: freedom of autonomy, things like that. And then of course
57:48
Speaker 1: we've we've known there's a libertarian wing of the Republican
57:50
Speaker 1: Party for some time, but it went dormant for a
57:53
Speaker 1: little while, but it was what's interesting, it's mostly been
57:57
Speaker 1: a phenomenon geographically out west, right. When you look at
58:01
Speaker 1: the old Republican coalition pre Trump, it was the Western
58:06
Speaker 1: Republicans who were the Conservatives who would surprise quote unquote
58:10
Speaker 1: surprise people by votes sometimes because there was a libertarian
58:15
Speaker 1: streak in them. Alan Simpson is probably the best example
58:18
Speaker 1: of this in the previous era, and maybe Lisa Markowski
58:22
Speaker 1: is the best example of this today.
58:24
Speaker 4: Well.
58:24
Speaker 2: And you do see this in some unexpected places as well,
58:28
Speaker 2: like in Utah, where of course the politics are often
58:31
Speaker 2: quite dominated by Mormons, but where they do actually quite
58:33
Speaker 2: a good job of protecting minority rights, probably because of
58:37
Speaker 2: the backstory of Mormons, among other things. Right, so they're
58:41
Speaker 2: riff for a Laws that protect religious freedoms, for example,
58:44
Speaker 2: are surprisingly libertarian. You see a lot of school choice
58:48
Speaker 2: out west for similar reasons, sometimes with bipartisan or kind
58:51
Speaker 2: of mixed support. In terms of who's sending libertarians to
58:56
Speaker 2: the hill right now though, Kentucky, you know, we.
58:59
Speaker 1: Have both of all places, primus.
59:01
Speaker 2: Massey, who are neither I would say, are you know,
59:06
Speaker 2: as libertarian as I would like them to be every day,
59:08
Speaker 2: all the time, but pretty clearly deserve the title of
59:13
Speaker 2: most libertarian on the hill.
59:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think they're culturally. You know, it's always culture
59:19
Speaker 1: where that I think gets somebody on either side of
59:23
Speaker 1: the spectrum tripped up on libertarianism, right, whether it's on
59:29
Speaker 1: racial or social justice on the left or on call
59:33
Speaker 1: it wokeness on the right.
59:35
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I think that's true. I also think, you know,
59:39
Speaker 2: there's a version of this piece. We can get into
59:41
Speaker 2: the details a little bit more. But as I say that,
59:43
Speaker 2: the piece for the Times the last you know, a
59:45
Speaker 2: couple of weeks ago, I focused on immigration and trade
59:48
Speaker 2: and speech where you know, Trump is kind of being
59:53
Speaker 2: the least libertarian, although quite unlibertarian in so many ways.
59:57
Speaker 2: There's a version of this piece I could have written
59:59
Speaker 2: under the administration on the other side of the equation, where.
1:00:03
Speaker 1: We well, was that tell me, tell it, express it
1:00:05
Speaker 1: so that we're not just saying absolutely yeah.
1:00:07
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the version of this piece here is,
1:00:10
Speaker 2: you know, libertarians have been warning you about the dangers
1:00:14
Speaker 2: of debt and deficit. We've been warned, and that actually, frankly,
1:00:17
Speaker 2: you can make that argument just as well under any administration.
1:00:20
Speaker 2: But you know, libertarians have been warning you about the
1:00:24
Speaker 2: dangers of an entitlement programs that are totally out of control,
1:00:30
Speaker 2: and we've been warning about the dangers of overregulation. And
1:00:34
Speaker 2: this would be places where people on the right would
1:00:36
Speaker 2: be in that moment when they are out of power
1:00:38
Speaker 2: and predisposed to be friendly to libertarians saying like, oh yeah,
1:00:41
Speaker 2: that is something libertarians have been saying, and it is
1:00:43
Speaker 2: something that you know, kind of Reaganite conservative maybe once said,
1:00:47
Speaker 2: but we might have lost sight of.
1:00:50
Speaker 1: I think the one place where and this is where
1:00:52
Speaker 1: I want to because you know, there are some sort
1:00:55
Speaker 1: of sixty thousand foot point of views of libertarianism where
1:01:00
Speaker 1: it's easy to get sixty or seventy percent in agreement
1:01:04
Speaker 1: of where government shouldn't be. And arguably, you know, if
1:01:07
Speaker 1: you read the Bill of Rights, you could argue that's
1:01:09
Speaker 1: the libertarian that it's almost like we built in right,
1:01:13
Speaker 1: the sons of liberty for a reason. Right, libertarian is
1:01:16
Speaker 1: built off of liberty for a reason. Right. The first
1:01:19
Speaker 1: ten Amendments are those amendments that regardless of your personal
1:01:23
Speaker 1: ideology and these and they were designed to protect minority rights. Right,
1:01:28
Speaker 1: people always forget the entire Constitution is premised to minority rights,
1:01:33
Speaker 1: and it's always something that I think the majority always
1:01:35
Speaker 1: seems to forget.
1:01:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, when you're in the majority, you are tempted,
1:01:41
Speaker 2: understandably so to think, you know, this is where we
1:01:44
Speaker 2: The word mandate always gets thrown around, right, Oh, we
1:01:46
Speaker 2: have a mandate for first of all, American elections in
1:01:51
Speaker 2: recent memory haven't given anyone to mandate anywhere as far
1:01:54
Speaker 2: as I'm concerned. They're often very close. There's low participation.
1:01:57
Speaker 1: To me, sixty percent of mandate and we have had
1:02:00
Speaker 1: a sixty percent president even in job approval ratings. You know,
1:02:03
Speaker 1: you've had it briefly for Bush at after nine to eleven,
1:02:07
Speaker 1: and Bill Clinton only got it after they came after
1:02:10
Speaker 1: him to impeach him for sex. Like Soda was like,
1:02:12
Speaker 1: well wait a minute, we you know, we liked the job.
1:02:14
Speaker 1: This guy's do it, but it was only when it
1:02:16
Speaker 1: was threatened to take away. Right. You really haven't seen
1:02:19
Speaker 1: us with a with a sixty percent mindset as an
1:02:22
Speaker 1: electorate since the Cold War.
1:02:24
Speaker 2: Right, So there's this temptation to say, like, we won
1:02:26
Speaker 2: the election, we do what we want, and I think
1:02:28
Speaker 2: not only is that poisonously bad politics, and especially not
1:02:34
Speaker 2: just we won the election, but we hold the presidency
1:02:38
Speaker 2: and we do what we want, because increasingly that is
1:02:41
Speaker 2: what it means to do things in politics in any way,
1:02:43
Speaker 2: shape or form. Is emergency orders, executive orders. It's all
1:02:47
Speaker 2: coming out of the executive Congress.
1:02:50
Speaker 1: You know.
1:02:51
Speaker 2: The Supreme Court in in their ruling this week begged
1:02:54
Speaker 2: Congress to do their jobs again.
1:02:57
Speaker 1: Gorsic, the Gorst job ed was something it was so good.
1:03:02
Speaker 1: Excuse me, I call it a beed because it really was.
1:03:05
Speaker 2: You were right the first time it is it o ed.
1:03:07
Speaker 1: He basically was like I got to get something off
1:03:09
Speaker 1: my chest here. Yeah.
1:03:11
Speaker 2: It was juicy and you know, I have had my
1:03:13
Speaker 2: disagreements with some of course, such as rulings, but I
1:03:15
Speaker 2: think the way that he hit the nail on the
1:03:18
Speaker 2: head there is just you know, it's undeniable.
1:03:21
Speaker 1: By the way, a Western conservative conservative. I mean, I'm
1:03:25
Speaker 1: just not saying I'm just saying Colorado true.
1:03:28
Speaker 2: So I think, you know, this, this kind of this
1:03:32
Speaker 2: idea that we hold power whoever we are and whatever
1:03:36
Speaker 2: power is, and so therefore full speed ahead. When as
1:03:41
Speaker 2: you say, you know, our founding documents do not endorse
1:03:44
Speaker 2: that perspective on the presidency or the executive branch. And
1:03:50
Speaker 2: the American public doesn't actually think that either. They don't,
1:03:53
Speaker 2: you know, when you look at the polling, especially about
1:03:57
Speaker 2: you know about the ice enforcement action in major cities,
1:04:02
Speaker 2: they don't like it. They see it and they don't
1:04:04
Speaker 2: like it. When you look at the you know, how
1:04:06
Speaker 2: the markets are responding to tariffs, They're seeing it and
1:04:09
Speaker 2: they don't like it. And then you know, additionally, now
1:04:12
Speaker 2: we have how the court responds. They see it and
1:04:14
Speaker 2: they don't like it. And all of those signals are
1:04:16
Speaker 2: really meaningful, and the founders meant them to be meaningful.
1:04:19
Speaker 1: You know, you brought up in the in the times
1:04:21
Speaker 1: up at about you know, the warrantless searches, when it
1:04:24
Speaker 1: comes to the ice agents and what we're seeing there.
1:04:27
Speaker 1: Where are all the conservatives who are up in arms
1:04:29
Speaker 1: about giving Obama you know this power, you know, supposedly
1:04:33
Speaker 1: eavesdropping power. Back when we were fighting the so called
1:04:36
Speaker 1: warrant terror, we're quite a few conservatives. It wasn't a majority,
1:04:39
Speaker 1: but it was a healthy minority of conservatives and a
1:04:43
Speaker 1: smaller but a healthy minority of liberals who did raise
1:04:48
Speaker 1: some civil liberties issues at the time on that issue.
1:04:51
Speaker 1: Where are those folks today?
1:04:54
Speaker 2: I wish I knew I would find them. I would,
1:04:58
Speaker 2: you know, bring them into safe shelter here at the
1:05:01
Speaker 2: Reason Offices. I would. I would give them a hot
1:05:04
Speaker 2: meal and a blanket, because surely they have been out
1:05:07
Speaker 2: in the cold for so long I think, I mean
1:05:09
Speaker 2: the So the actual answer, right is that over the
1:05:13
Speaker 2: over the years, the presence of Trump in particular and
1:05:17
Speaker 2: also just in general, the kind of will to power
1:05:19
Speaker 2: conservatism that has risen in the GOP, this kind of
1:05:23
Speaker 2: this idea that it is we are no longer we
1:05:25
Speaker 2: no longer have to play fair. The other side has
1:05:27
Speaker 2: already cheated, so we simply have to seize power and
1:05:30
Speaker 2: use it justifies, justifies, the means that attitude has sort
1:05:35
Speaker 2: of become a sendant on the left and the right.
1:05:38
Speaker 2: But conservatives or Republicans, I should say, have had more
1:05:42
Speaker 2: chance to put that into action, and that has slowly
1:05:46
Speaker 2: pushed out a whole bunch of sub types of Republicans
1:05:50
Speaker 2: and Conservatives who were a little more on the libertarian side.
1:05:54
Speaker 2: So they've been primaried out. They've been bullied out by Trump.
1:05:57
Speaker 2: You know, he does, he is not afraid to use
1:05:59
Speaker 2: his his you know, true social account to just say,
1:06:03
Speaker 2: you know, Thomas Massey's on the outscrew this guy. And
1:06:09
Speaker 2: and some of them I think just left in despair.
1:06:11
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of people who I Johnson the
1:06:14
Speaker 2: World right, a lot of people who I admired in
1:06:16
Speaker 2: politics and who were sort of maybe slightly quirky figures
1:06:20
Speaker 2: just said I can't do this anymore. Basically anyone from
1:06:23
Speaker 2: Arizona ever.
1:06:25
Speaker 1: Uh, you know Matt Salmon, right, what happened?
1:06:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, good old Matt Salmon, who I profiled when I
1:06:31
Speaker 2: was an Internet reason twenty five years ago, and who
1:06:36
Speaker 2: was you know, a like quite libertarian in many ways,
1:06:40
Speaker 2: and just you know in that case. Actually I think
1:06:43
Speaker 2: he was part of the term limited crew, the voluntarily
1:06:46
Speaker 2: self term limited crew who all went out at the
1:06:48
Speaker 2: and that kind of end stage of the Gingra t Revolution.
1:06:51
Speaker 1: But here's where I think, you know, if I were
1:06:55
Speaker 1: to say, boy, this should be a moment for libertarianism,
1:06:57
Speaker 1: and there's we can and I think you're uped sort
1:06:59
Speaker 1: of showed it little bit. But if there's one giant
1:07:02
Speaker 1: area where I have my doubts, it's in how to
1:07:08
Speaker 1: deal with big tech m because right there's and to me,
1:07:13
Speaker 1: this is and and I'd love for you to get
1:07:14
Speaker 1: at this tension, right, don't know if I love the
1:07:18
Speaker 1: government forcing, you know, sort of you know, picking winners
1:07:23
Speaker 1: and losers here overly regulating. At the same time, these
1:07:28
Speaker 1: cats don't deserve an open runway without some restraint, and
1:07:33
Speaker 1: the market is not mature enough to restrain them at
1:07:36
Speaker 1: this moment. Right, market restraint hasn't worked the way it
1:07:39
Speaker 1: should work. There's been too much consolidation. So let me
1:07:43
Speaker 1: start it this way. It's Teddy Roosevelt a libertarian.
1:07:49
Speaker 2: For reasons if my own safety, among other things, I
1:07:52
Speaker 2: wouldn't presume to put a label on that man. Even
1:07:55
Speaker 2: this many years later. You know, I think that thing
1:08:00
Speaker 2: about big tech is that almost always when people describe
1:08:04
Speaker 2: the thing they fear from big tech, what is the
1:08:07
Speaker 2: what is the consequence that we're looking to to prevent?
1:08:12
Speaker 2: When we talk about, you know, our worries with big tech,
1:08:15
Speaker 2: actually it is almost always a fear about the state.
1:08:18
Speaker 2: And so when I say that, I mean, well, okay,
1:08:22
Speaker 2: maybe I don't want you know, one company having all
1:08:25
Speaker 2: my data. Well, okay, why is it because you're worried
1:08:29
Speaker 2: that they're going to sell you stuff? No, that's not
1:08:31
Speaker 2: Why is it because you're worried that they might aggregate
1:08:37
Speaker 2: that data and you know, paint a portrait of the
1:08:42
Speaker 2: the market, or or even of the electorate. Okay, maybe,
1:08:46
Speaker 2: But what we actually are worried about is, well, what
1:08:48
Speaker 2: happens when the government gets its hands on that data
1:08:53
Speaker 2: and uses it to punish in prison, censor or otherwise
1:08:59
Speaker 2: you know, in enjoying your rights. And what we've seen,
1:09:01
Speaker 2: what we saw, for example in the Twitter files was
1:09:04
Speaker 2: sometimes big tech gladly cooperates with the state, and I
1:09:08
Speaker 2: think that is gross and bad. But I'm not sure
1:09:12
Speaker 2: that the entity at fault or kind of the place
1:09:15
Speaker 2: that I want to lay the blame there fully is
1:09:16
Speaker 2: with big tech because of course they understand that, you know,
1:09:21
Speaker 2: in that instance, the Biden administration, but all presidential administrations.
1:09:26
Speaker 2: They hold a huge amount of power in that relationship.
1:09:29
Speaker 2: You know, it's a nice it's a nice big tech company.
1:09:30
Speaker 2: You have, there be a shame if something happened to it.
1:09:32
Speaker 2: Is kind of the energy that a lot of these
1:09:34
Speaker 2: interactions have. I, for one, don't mind Mark Zuckerberg selling,
1:09:40
Speaker 2: trying to sell me, or put in front of my
1:09:43
Speaker 2: eyeballs whatever videos of AI puppies and you know, Chinese
1:09:48
Speaker 2: toys he wants to try to sell me. I just
1:09:50
Speaker 2: don't want to have consequences to my personal freedom. And
1:09:55
Speaker 2: I think the fear there is that the state acts,
1:09:57
Speaker 2: not that the tech companies act.
1:09:59
Speaker 1: Well, so, I mean this is where I think that
1:10:02
Speaker 1: this is another But this is the tension that I
1:10:05
Speaker 1: I'm detecting, which is I think most libertarians agree they
1:10:09
Speaker 1: distrust anybody who's consolidating power.
1:10:12
Speaker 2: Right, well, there are lots of types of libertarians, right
1:10:16
Speaker 2: so I actually think, you know, I hate to be
1:10:21
Speaker 2: that guy. But it depends what you mean by power.
1:10:23
Speaker 2: If you mean market power, not necessarily, if you mean
1:10:28
Speaker 2: monopoly on violence in the anody, I think.
1:10:30
Speaker 1: It's I think, I know, maybe it's like pornography, you know,
1:10:34
Speaker 1: when you see it, it's the it's sort of you know,
1:10:37
Speaker 1: it's monopolistic power, where like Amazon may be a monopoly,
1:10:43
Speaker 1: but they kind of earned it, right, they just outworked
1:10:46
Speaker 1: everybody perhaps, And you can make that case. Yeah, you
1:10:51
Speaker 1: know the fact that they get deliveries at my house,
1:10:53
Speaker 1: but the US Postal Service still isn't reliable since that
1:10:56
Speaker 1: first snowstorm, right, It like it tells you you're like, look,
1:10:59
Speaker 1: whatever you think of them, right, they are customer first.
1:11:03
Speaker 1: I mean, I kind of wish Jeff Bezos thought about
1:11:05
Speaker 1: that in the way he owns News a newspaper. But
1:11:09
Speaker 1: that's okay, But I digress. So they may be a monopoly,
1:11:13
Speaker 1: but one could argue they earned it. But if you
1:11:16
Speaker 1: look at when government helps a company, when government is
1:11:19
Speaker 1: involved and the inner So I guess the question is
1:11:22
Speaker 1: how do you prevent what Trump is doing right now
1:11:24
Speaker 1: with the tech industry? Right, that has to come with
1:11:28
Speaker 1: some government Like you're going to have to have government
1:11:30
Speaker 1: regulation intervened to stop government from doing what it's doing.
1:11:33
Speaker 2: Right, And so this is where you get into a
1:11:36
Speaker 2: horrible circumstance, because any of the solutions that I might
1:11:39
Speaker 2: propose now, at best are a balance of power solution
1:11:43
Speaker 2: where one part of government might constrain another part of government,
1:11:47
Speaker 2: but sometimes are just kind of like a cultural sea
1:11:52
Speaker 2: change type solution where we would just all agree in
1:11:56
Speaker 2: some way that this has gone too far and people
1:11:58
Speaker 2: would win.
1:11:58
Speaker 1: Our founders would say, well, Congress should rerain this. It
1:12:01
Speaker 1: to rein it is right their job.
1:12:02
Speaker 2: So I think this is, you know, what what Trump
1:12:04
Speaker 2: has done. The place is where Trump has really pushed
1:12:06
Speaker 2: the envelope in terms of corporate governance, and this is
1:12:08
Speaker 2: often with respect to big tech, although not always is.
1:12:11
Speaker 2: He's really moved into like full fledged economic nationalism in
1:12:14
Speaker 2: ways that his predecessors were not always refusing to do,
1:12:18
Speaker 2: but a little more hesitant. So this is the Golden Shares.
1:12:21
Speaker 2: This is you know, with Intel and other This is
1:12:24
Speaker 2: approval of the TikTok deal, just arbitrarily kind of coming
1:12:29
Speaker 2: from the from this the federal government a bunch of
1:12:32
Speaker 2: other things like that, where it's a much more direct
1:12:35
Speaker 2: intervention in the market. And then when you pair that
1:12:37
Speaker 2: with the tariffs, where I think Trump just likes tariffs
1:12:42
Speaker 2: and he does tariffs because he just likes tariffs. And
1:12:44
Speaker 2: that's a bizarre thing that I can't fully understand. But
1:12:46
Speaker 2: what it does do is it creates infinite opportunities for cronyism.
1:12:50
Speaker 2: And that's what you're talking about, right, You're talking about
1:12:53
Speaker 2: where the prize of buying influence is worth the cost.
1:12:59
Speaker 2: And so if we have a tariff, but if you
1:13:02
Speaker 2: know the right guy, you can get an exception from
1:13:04
Speaker 2: the tariff. And if that guy is always Donald Trump,
1:13:08
Speaker 2: are one of his children, then that, you know, that
1:13:12
Speaker 2: creates all these opportunities for the kind of cronyism that,
1:13:16
Speaker 2: for whatever reason so often does seem to make Americans
1:13:19
Speaker 2: hate the corporations and not the government. And I would
1:13:24
Speaker 2: just say, like, hate the government. Hate the government for
1:13:26
Speaker 2: creating all these opportunities to buy influence. And the solution is,
1:13:31
Speaker 2: you know, if tariffs are low and simple and implemented
1:13:35
Speaker 2: equally across the board, there's no influence to buy. If
1:13:39
Speaker 2: the FCC is disempowered, there's no threats that can be
1:13:43
Speaker 2: made by the White House to you know, revoke your
1:13:48
Speaker 2: broadcast license. And that kind of move is just like
1:13:52
Speaker 2: a very classic libertarian move, Like this is what libertarians
1:13:55
Speaker 2: have been saying all along is if there is no FCC,
1:14:00
Speaker 2: you don't have cronyism in that area. If there is
1:14:03
Speaker 2: no elaborate new tariff scheme every time that someone comes
1:14:08
Speaker 2: into office, that reduces those opportunities.
1:14:10
Speaker 1: So this is what you're basically saying is look is
1:14:16
Speaker 1: regulatory capture can be just as damaging then no regulation itself.
1:14:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And I well, I mean, I guess I
1:14:29
Speaker 2: think the the fact.
1:14:32
Speaker 1: That's what the cronyism leads to, right, which is what
1:14:35
Speaker 1: the AI guys want. The AI companies are afraid of
1:14:38
Speaker 1: the states getting involved in regulation, so they want federal
1:14:42
Speaker 1: right and they're just because they want to, you know,
1:14:46
Speaker 1: once they get market share, then they want to, Wow,
1:14:49
Speaker 1: we've got Now we can fix the market because it'll
1:14:51
Speaker 1: be designed around our piece of the pie. I mean,
1:14:56
Speaker 1: this is a totally non sequitor, but it drives me crazy,
1:14:59
Speaker 1: like I do not I want to hear from Nick
1:15:01
Speaker 1: Saban on fixing college football because Nick Saban just wants
1:15:04
Speaker 1: to restore the dominance he once had and Alabama once had.
1:15:09
Speaker 1: So he says, boy, college football is a mess because
1:15:12
Speaker 1: there's no because the way the order that we previously
1:15:16
Speaker 1: had is no longer operable. Well, from his point of view,
1:15:20
Speaker 1: it's a mess, and maybe it is a mess, but
1:15:23
Speaker 1: you don't want somebody who was the previous beneficiary to
1:15:26
Speaker 1: be the fixer of.
1:15:26
Speaker 2: It, right, And so this is you know, as you say,
1:15:29
Speaker 2: regulatory capture is a huge issue here, rent seeking. I
1:15:33
Speaker 2: do think though, you know, my perspective is that is
1:15:37
Speaker 2: all the more reason to have few or simple and
1:15:42
Speaker 2: very egalitarian regulations. And I think you know, you see this,
1:15:46
Speaker 2: you see this temptation showing up all kinds of places.
1:15:50
Speaker 2: I mean, you remember the period whatever it was, maybe
1:15:54
Speaker 2: like seven or eight years ago, when they kept bringing
1:15:56
Speaker 2: in the big tech CEOs and founders to sort of testify,
1:16:00
Speaker 2: and they did. They have hearings and they'd say, like,
1:16:03
Speaker 2: my iPhone's not working, and then it would be like, sir,
1:16:07
Speaker 2: I work for Google. Like that whole interaction that was
1:16:09
Speaker 2: happening regularly, and some of that was about the big
1:16:14
Speaker 2: tech companies that had become dominant trying to lock in
1:16:18
Speaker 2: their place. And I think you're quite right that there
1:16:21
Speaker 2: is and will be more of a similar phenomenon with
1:16:23
Speaker 2: some of the bigger AI players. But at the same time,
1:16:26
Speaker 2: what we've seen is there's actually a lot of churn
1:16:29
Speaker 2: in big tech. Like one of the reasons that debate
1:16:33
Speaker 2: was happening around Facebook at that time where we were
1:16:35
Speaker 2: saying should we treat Facebook as a public utility, is
1:16:38
Speaker 2: because it seemed like they were the biggest game in
1:16:40
Speaker 2: town and no one would ever break Facebook's hold. And
1:16:43
Speaker 2: Facebook is certainly still big and certainly still around, but
1:16:45
Speaker 2: there are several major competitors, and if you look at
1:16:51
Speaker 2: the market cap or the market you know, the share
1:16:52
Speaker 2: of users that these different companies have, it changes rapidly.
1:16:55
Speaker 2: So that does seem to me like market discipline is
1:16:57
Speaker 2: working to some extent there, like they're not monopolies.
1:17:10
Speaker 1: Well, I could you know, this is what makes the
1:17:12
Speaker 1: FCC community, the whole FCC such a weird place now
1:17:16
Speaker 1: because you know, the monopoly of broadcast television has been
1:17:20
Speaker 1: broken up by YouTube, right, and the FCC has no
1:17:24
Speaker 1: oversight over YouTube at all, and on YouTube you can
1:17:27
Speaker 1: use say whatever word you want, and on YouTube you're
1:17:29
Speaker 1: going to do whatever. You know, there isn't the same
1:17:31
Speaker 1: FCC sort of you know, So I now it arguably
1:17:36
Speaker 1: took fifty years for a competitor to come up to
1:17:38
Speaker 1: break that monopoly or maybe had they not had the
1:17:41
Speaker 1: FCC in the first place, there would have been more
1:17:43
Speaker 1: TV networks popping up on the spectrum than the three
1:17:47
Speaker 1: that we had.
1:17:48
Speaker 2: So you know, well, that actually for sure is my argument.
1:17:51
Speaker 2: I think that is the argument of kind of dynamists
1:17:53
Speaker 2: or pro market folks, especially in media and communications, is
1:17:57
Speaker 2: you will you can almost always tell a story and
1:18:00
Speaker 2: it's a pretty plausible one about how any amount of
1:18:03
Speaker 2: regulation is in a in a market where there's where,
1:18:07
Speaker 2: there will be competitors, where there's where, and it's an
1:18:10
Speaker 2: attractive market, it's so likely to serve to lock in
1:18:14
Speaker 2: existing players and then they will capitalize on that.
1:18:19
Speaker 1: So this is how it's like, we're in its purest form. Right.
1:18:23
Speaker 1: The Libertarians sometimes get tossed aside by saying, well, they
1:18:27
Speaker 1: don't even believe in driver's licenses, right, Like, and this
1:18:30
Speaker 1: is where, you know, where where do you draw the
1:18:33
Speaker 1: line where is some government regulation acceptable?
1:18:36
Speaker 2: I mean, for me, libertarianism is directional, right, So I
1:18:40
Speaker 2: would like if we get to a place where you
1:18:44
Speaker 2: and I have to come back on the check podcast
1:18:46
Speaker 2: and earnestly debate, like the Driver's license Removal Bill of
1:18:51
Speaker 2: twenty thirty seven is you're like.
1:18:53
Speaker 1: We're winning. I don't care, right, I'll leave this, Sue.
1:18:57
Speaker 2: I am delighted if we get to that place. But
1:18:59
Speaker 2: we are so far from there right now.
1:19:02
Speaker 1: No, in fact, just the opposite. I'm going to need
1:19:04
Speaker 1: a BURS certipicate just to like go to the grocery store.
1:19:09
Speaker 2: You have a real ID for this. You know.
1:19:13
Speaker 1: I paid for ticket, so.
1:19:15
Speaker 2: I think you know, I totally understand. You know that
1:19:19
Speaker 2: people would say I'm interested in knowing where where you
1:19:22
Speaker 2: think the limits are, and that's a perfectly legitimate conversation
1:19:25
Speaker 2: to have. But at this point, and this is sort
1:19:27
Speaker 2: of what the Times editorial was meant to highlight, like,
1:19:30
Speaker 2: there are a bunch of places where it's just very
1:19:34
Speaker 2: very clear that from a libertarian perspective, the critique is
1:19:37
Speaker 2: broadly shared. Like I think trade actually is the most straightforward.
1:19:42
Speaker 2: The way that Trump has conducted trade policy in his
1:19:45
Speaker 2: second term is wildly unmoored both from good economic sense
1:19:52
Speaker 2: and from legality, like from any kind of constitutional understanding
1:19:58
Speaker 2: of who holds these powers why, And that just doesn't
1:20:02
Speaker 2: seem like a hard one to me.
1:20:04
Speaker 1: That one seems and in fact, you know who knew
1:20:07
Speaker 1: that this is how the free trade argument would end
1:20:09
Speaker 1: because I actually think in someone you know Trump is
1:20:12
Speaker 1: going to be it has been a useful MRI on
1:20:16
Speaker 1: so many people, entities and ideas. Trade is a big one, right,
1:20:23
Speaker 1: I mean you've got an entire Democratic Party expressing free
1:20:27
Speaker 1: trade rhetoric in ways they never would have done even
1:20:31
Speaker 1: five years ago. Yeah, I mean you know, I'm I'll
1:20:35
Speaker 1: know for sure that this is over when Shared Brown
1:20:38
Speaker 1: starts advocating for free trade in his center race, I'm
1:20:42
Speaker 1: very curious how that plays out, because he's sort of
1:20:45
Speaker 1: like he is a a bridge to the to the
1:20:49
Speaker 1: older Democratic Party, the one that used to have all
1:20:53
Speaker 1: the union workers, and now that it's the it's Trump's
1:20:55
Speaker 1: party that does so I'm curious there. But it does
1:20:58
Speaker 1: feel as if this has been a useful lesson in Oh,
1:21:02
Speaker 1: free trade is why I can get an avocado anytime,
1:21:05
Speaker 1: maybe you're at the grocery store. Yes, I just that,
1:21:08
Speaker 1: And that was always the dream and here we are
1:21:10
Speaker 1: right like, Hey, you don't understand if you start getting
1:21:13
Speaker 1: rid of this stuff, then then free trade is going
1:21:16
Speaker 1: to benefit you in ways you haven't thought of. And
1:21:18
Speaker 1: to me, the produce section is the number one way
1:21:20
Speaker 1: to show people how free tradeer the last twenty years.
1:21:24
Speaker 1: I mean, I forgot how seasonal the produce section used
1:21:29
Speaker 1: to be in a grocery store. I worked in one
1:21:30
Speaker 1: was in the eighties and before when I was in
1:21:32
Speaker 1: night school in college. And now you're like, oh, right,
1:21:36
Speaker 1: we've gotten rid of seasonality basically in the twenty first
1:21:38
Speaker 1: century due to lowering trade barriers.
1:21:41
Speaker 2: I was talking with my son, who had heard about,
1:21:47
Speaker 2: but never consumed a red Delicious apple, and he was like,
1:21:53
Speaker 2: what was the deal with those? Because they were bad?
1:21:56
Speaker 1: Right?
1:21:57
Speaker 2: And I was like, well, okay, And we got into
1:22:01
Speaker 2: it right, and we're talking about how the supply chain
1:22:03
Speaker 2: used to be so different for grocery stores, and our
1:22:05
Speaker 2: transportation technology used to be so different. Consumers used to
1:22:08
Speaker 2: be so much less discerning. You know, we were prioritizing
1:22:12
Speaker 2: an apple the wooden bruise and would still look shiny
1:22:14
Speaker 2: and like who cares so much about the inside? And
1:22:16
Speaker 2: last long time. And we had this whole conversation about
1:22:20
Speaker 2: how that thing made sense in that moment, and he
1:22:24
Speaker 2: has lived his entire life in a radically different moment
1:22:27
Speaker 2: that's totally marked by by free trade and by all
1:22:31
Speaker 2: of the technologies that support it. I do think though,
1:22:34
Speaker 2: the thing you're describing where a bunch of people on
1:22:36
Speaker 2: the left are suddenly like, ooh, free movement of people
1:22:39
Speaker 2: and goods across borders. That sounds great. The flip side, though,
1:22:44
Speaker 2: the other side of the horseshoe, where we have people
1:22:47
Speaker 2: on the left and the right agreeing deeply confusingly for
1:22:53
Speaker 2: me on we should all live simpler lives with only
1:22:58
Speaker 2: one kind of deodorant and do the manufacturing here. And
1:23:02
Speaker 2: you know the kind of Tucker Carlson meets Elizabeth Warren. Uh,
1:23:08
Speaker 2: you know, it's a form of nationalism, right isomic policy again,
1:23:13
Speaker 2: That's that's where we end up. And I think the
1:23:15
Speaker 2: shared rhetoric at that side of things is more reactionary,
1:23:19
Speaker 2: both from the left and the right. And you are
1:23:21
Speaker 2: right that what's happening is this kind of ever fatter
1:23:25
Speaker 2: middle that remembers that we like grapes. But but we
1:23:31
Speaker 2: had that a little at the end of Trump's first
1:23:33
Speaker 2: term and then it sort of faded away. So I'm
1:23:37
Speaker 2: a little concerned that what looks like maybe a popular
1:23:41
Speaker 2: movement or some kind of agreement or god forbid, we
1:23:43
Speaker 2: call it again the libertarian moment. I'm concerned about how
1:23:47
Speaker 2: to lock that in.
1:23:49
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, here's I'll give you another challenge for
1:23:52
Speaker 1: my subject. This week, I wrote off of a survey
1:23:55
Speaker 1: that my friend Dante Cheni did with what he calls
1:23:58
Speaker 1: the what he works on. It's called the American Communities Project,
1:24:01
Speaker 1: and it put it divides the electorate up by county
1:24:04
Speaker 1: type and it's like fifteen different types. And it's so
1:24:07
Speaker 1: it's less ideological. It's more like, you know, here's what
1:24:09
Speaker 1: folks that live in the rural south versus the evangelical
1:24:13
Speaker 1: hubs things in this various And one of the he
1:24:17
Speaker 1: was writing about, where do where are their large agreements
1:24:20
Speaker 1: even between the most rural parts of this country and
1:24:23
Speaker 1: the most urban parts of this country. It's on the
1:24:27
Speaker 1: belief in the social safety net. So when I think
1:24:30
Speaker 1: about the quote libertarian moment, how do you have a
1:24:34
Speaker 1: libertarian moment and be supportive of the social safety net?
1:24:37
Speaker 2: Like?
1:24:37
Speaker 1: Where do you draw the line? And I know you
1:24:39
Speaker 1: talked about it directionally, but I think this is when
1:24:42
Speaker 1: I've thought about ways that where generally what the libertarians
1:24:47
Speaker 1: are advocating are very agreeable. When you start to get
1:24:51
Speaker 1: to specifics, that's where people fall off right and the
1:24:55
Speaker 1: social safety net is a big one.
1:24:57
Speaker 2: And arguably the last libertarian moment was sometime around the
1:25:00
Speaker 2: Tea Party, which you remember, and you know, that was
1:25:05
Speaker 2: about in its original form, was about fiscal responsibility and
1:25:09
Speaker 2: government spending. But it also gave us the immortal and
1:25:13
Speaker 2: frankly maybe apocryphal. I'm not sure if how real it
1:25:16
Speaker 2: was or how widespread, but the government hands off my
1:25:19
Speaker 2: medicare protest sign?
1:25:21
Speaker 1: Right? Oh? That was that was when like, uh oh,
1:25:23
Speaker 1: we really have a civics education problem?
1:25:25
Speaker 2: I see, My uh oh? Wasn't we have a civics
1:25:29
Speaker 2: education problem? Though we do?
1:25:30
Speaker 1: My uh oh was.
1:25:34
Speaker 2: We found that we found the edge of people's willingness
1:25:36
Speaker 2: to cut things, and it is well south of what
1:25:40
Speaker 2: we're going to need to cut to solve this problem. Right.
1:25:43
Speaker 2: So I would say, again, there are plenty of folks
1:25:48
Speaker 2: who identify as libertarians and support some form of social
1:25:51
Speaker 2: safety net, but I think that that is a radically
1:25:53
Speaker 2: different thing than what we have right now. So what
1:25:56
Speaker 2: we have right now is, you know, for older people,
1:26:00
Speaker 2: we have a universal entitlement. Right. It is a it
1:26:03
Speaker 2: is a transfer to the It.
1:26:06
Speaker 1: Was originally pitched as poverty prevention, right, and it's.
1:26:08
Speaker 2: Not if they transfer to one of the wealthiest demographics.
1:26:11
Speaker 2: It goes to everyone without much regard to their income.
1:26:15
Speaker 2: We've been extremely reluctant to push up the age limit
1:26:18
Speaker 2: more than just a couple of years, despite people living
1:26:22
Speaker 2: longer and being healthier. There's all these places where a
1:26:26
Speaker 2: thing that has that was pitched as a social safety
1:26:29
Speaker 2: net is is operating totally unlike you would expect a
1:26:33
Speaker 2: reasonable social safety net to operate. And I think you
1:26:36
Speaker 2: can see that with Social Security, you can see it
1:26:38
Speaker 2: with our health care entitlements, especially Medicare, and you know,
1:26:42
Speaker 2: we can also see.
1:26:43
Speaker 1: It in.
1:26:45
Speaker 2: All kinds of other places where I think you can
1:26:48
Speaker 2: get even more controversial, like education entitlements. Right, I'm not
1:26:52
Speaker 2: saying cut public schools.
1:26:54
Speaker 1: Tomorrow, but I am saying, what about loans?
1:26:57
Speaker 2: Student loans is a great example of you know, we
1:27:00
Speaker 2: like the amount of student loan debt that is held
1:27:03
Speaker 2: by people in possession of master's degrees. Just that, like,
1:27:08
Speaker 2: just that simple fact really puts paid to me to
1:27:12
Speaker 2: the idea that that is a poverty alleviation program, right,
1:27:16
Speaker 2: And in fact, we've built it to encourage the acquisition
1:27:19
Speaker 2: of that kind of debt. In particular, you know, people
1:27:22
Speaker 2: who will carry one hundred thousand dollars of student loan
1:27:24
Speaker 2: debt are people who are better off than most people.
1:27:28
Speaker 1: And these idea is, why does a creditor agree to
1:27:30
Speaker 1: do that if you're trying to because they assume you're
1:27:32
Speaker 1: actually going to have better earning power, You're going to
1:27:34
Speaker 1: use that degree to go get better earning power and
1:27:36
Speaker 1: therefore actually be a pretty safe credit risk.
1:27:39
Speaker 2: Well, and the fact that of course you can't dislarge
1:27:41
Speaker 2: dislodge student discharged student loan debt unlike other types of
1:27:46
Speaker 2: debts makes it a safer bad as well. So I think,
1:27:50
Speaker 2: you know, again, that's that's another program, this hugely expensive
1:27:54
Speaker 2: that is sort of sold to some kind of you know,
1:27:59
Speaker 2: equity enhancing program and is in fact functioning nothing like that.
1:28:04
Speaker 2: If we had any appetite for talking about any of
1:28:07
Speaker 2: those things and cutting back benefits to the already wealthy
1:28:11
Speaker 2: and really building a real safety net, lots of libertarians
1:28:14
Speaker 2: would say, like, fine, let's get there. And then again,
1:28:17
Speaker 2: if we want to talk about really intense, you know,
1:28:20
Speaker 2: minimal government stuff down the line, we can do it.
1:28:24
Speaker 2: But we're so far.
1:28:29
Speaker 1: No, I mean, and that's the I mean, it's sort
1:28:31
Speaker 1: of like while there's glimmers of hope for the movement
1:28:35
Speaker 1: when you look at trade in other ways. Right, I mean,
1:28:39
Speaker 1: the amount of people who think government should have an
1:28:44
Speaker 1: act a more active roles pretty pretty large now because
1:28:47
Speaker 1: it is although you know, you did see it in debt.
1:28:50
Speaker 1: Most of all of our lives, government's been a big
1:28:51
Speaker 1: part of them.
1:28:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, you did see on the student loan debt question.
1:28:54
Speaker 2: There was some pushback, right, and not just from the courts,
1:28:57
Speaker 2: who rightly noted that Biden's plans were all totally unconstitutional.
1:29:01
Speaker 1: I never understood why that, because there was an easy
1:29:03
Speaker 1: way to sell that, which is, if you if they
1:29:06
Speaker 1: if you ask people to do something to get the
1:29:08
Speaker 1: debt retired, i e. Service to the country in some
1:29:11
Speaker 1: form six months here, worked there, whatever it is, you'd
1:29:15
Speaker 1: add support for it, right Like there is sort of
1:29:18
Speaker 1: a the public would have been more supportive of the
1:29:22
Speaker 1: student debt relief if there had been something that said
1:29:27
Speaker 1: student had to get back to the country.
1:29:29
Speaker 2: I think that's true, But I also think there were
1:29:31
Speaker 2: just a lot of people who said, listen, I didn't
1:29:34
Speaker 2: go to college at all because I couldn't afford it,
1:29:37
Speaker 2: or I took out some debt and then I paid
1:29:39
Speaker 2: it back, and I don't know why we would be
1:29:42
Speaker 2: forgiving debt for people who are clearly not the neediest
1:29:45
Speaker 2: or least twelve off in our country. And so I
1:29:47
Speaker 2: do think that argument has some purchase. But you are
1:29:51
Speaker 2: quite right that the political coalition for cutting Medicare and
1:29:58
Speaker 2: Medicaid social security, which in the you know, in the
1:30:01
Speaker 2: late nineties early aughts, there was like this little moment
1:30:04
Speaker 2: when it was like, could we do it? Are we
1:30:06
Speaker 2: going to do it? And then absolutely not. We did
1:30:09
Speaker 2: not do it. The Tea Party tried again, absolutely not.
1:30:12
Speaker 2: So it's an idea that hasn't really risen into any
1:30:17
Speaker 2: kind of political reality in a long time.
1:30:28
Speaker 1: Could you sell a libertarian on this thought, because as
1:30:30
Speaker 1: I've been look, I'm in an entrepreneurial stage, like a
1:30:35
Speaker 1: lot of people that leave a big company, big corporation
1:30:39
Speaker 1: after a period of time, and I've in the middle
1:30:41
Speaker 1: of starting a couple of different small businesses, and the
1:30:44
Speaker 1: biggest impediment in trying to get employees or something is
1:30:49
Speaker 1: the cost of benefits. They're just it's is there a
1:30:55
Speaker 1: libertarian argument for national healthcare? Oh?
1:30:58
Speaker 2: No, We're going to go the other way on that one.
1:31:00
Speaker 1: My friend, all right, so hear me out, which is,
1:31:03
Speaker 1: it is a lot easier to start a small business
1:31:06
Speaker 1: if I don't have to also worry about trying to
1:31:09
Speaker 1: figure out how to get a health care plan to
1:31:12
Speaker 1: pay for every everybody here care and get some people
1:31:16
Speaker 1: a childcare benefit. If the government took both of those
1:31:20
Speaker 1: things off my plate, I'd have an easier time starting
1:31:24
Speaker 1: up a business.
1:31:25
Speaker 2: So I have good news for you. Uh, the government
1:31:28
Speaker 2: put both of those things on your plate, and it
1:31:32
Speaker 2: could take them off by changing some of our underlying
1:31:36
Speaker 2: tax and legal requirements. So I'm sure you know this.
1:31:40
Speaker 2: The fact that employers provide healthcare insurance as a matter
1:31:44
Speaker 2: of course in the United States is entirely an artifact
1:31:47
Speaker 2: of the post World War two kind of leftover price
1:31:52
Speaker 2: controls and kind of regularly regulatory controls around conversation increases.
1:31:58
Speaker 2: So there were you know, caps and how much you
1:32:01
Speaker 2: could pay people. Employers wanted to attract good employees. They
1:32:03
Speaker 2: realized they could offer these benefits and they didn't count
1:32:06
Speaker 2: against those caps. So the tax benefit that you know
1:32:12
Speaker 2: accrues to you if you provide these benefits is kind
1:32:15
Speaker 2: of an extra little cherry. We could undo that whole
1:32:19
Speaker 2: system and we could have a provision of healthcare that
1:32:22
Speaker 2: is done like we provide all kinds of other absolutely
1:32:26
Speaker 2: necessary to life goods, which is in the private market.
1:32:30
Speaker 2: So I agree it's a huge cost to people who
1:32:32
Speaker 2: want to start a business to have to figure out
1:32:34
Speaker 2: how to provide these services. But you know, you don't
1:32:37
Speaker 2: have to provide food to your employees, right right, even
1:32:41
Speaker 2: though that's totally they have to have food to live
1:32:43
Speaker 2: and work.
1:32:44
Speaker 1: That's the rest thing, right they So.
1:32:47
Speaker 2: The kind of libertarianism one oh one argument is there
1:32:50
Speaker 2: is no reason why we can't have a market in
1:32:52
Speaker 2: healthcare and or a market in health insurance, which of
1:32:54
Speaker 2: course are two different things. And similarly, you know, childcare
1:32:59
Speaker 2: is you know, absolutely choked with regulation right now, and
1:33:04
Speaker 2: that's getting worse. We're actually more aggressively regulating childcare providers
1:33:08
Speaker 2: than we ever have in the past, and it's creating
1:33:11
Speaker 2: a totally unsurprising set of shortages and price increases. So
1:33:15
Speaker 2: I think these are places where, of course you're right
1:33:18
Speaker 2: that those are barriers to entrepreneurship, but it's not. It's
1:33:22
Speaker 2: the solution, isn't What if the government just gave.
1:33:23
Speaker 1: Everyone every no, And I hear you, this is one
1:33:26
Speaker 1: of those where you're like, well, boy, I'd love to
1:33:29
Speaker 1: rewind the tape seventy years, but that's tough to do.
1:33:32
Speaker 2: I mean I think that there's there are First of all,
1:33:37
Speaker 2: I am close personal friends with plenty of wonks that
1:33:39
Speaker 2: would be happy to sit here and talk for forty
1:33:41
Speaker 2: five minutes about exactly how we could do this stuff.
1:33:44
Speaker 2: You've been at parties with those guys and they are fun.
1:33:47
Speaker 2: But you know, I do think there are ways to
1:33:50
Speaker 2: unwind it, and we've tried over the years. In some
1:33:52
Speaker 2: perverse ways. Obamacare contained the seeds of some of that.
1:33:57
Speaker 1: No, it did. I mean, it was trying to take
1:34:00
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact is there are people that stay
1:34:01
Speaker 1: in jobs simply because they can't afford healthcare. I mean,
1:34:05
Speaker 1: you know it is, you know. I it was interesting
1:34:10
Speaker 1: to experience what is clearly a fraudulent market. And I'll
1:34:13
Speaker 1: tell you what that fraudulent market is here in a second.
1:34:16
Speaker 1: When I was in the midst of changing insurance providers
1:34:20
Speaker 1: and there was a there was tech. I thought I
1:34:23
Speaker 1: followed all the rules so that there'd be no gap,
1:34:25
Speaker 1: but there was a one day gap and thanks to
1:34:27
Speaker 1: the friendly pharmacy benefit managers, they say well, we only
1:34:30
Speaker 1: update our files once a week. And you're like, oh great,
1:34:32
Speaker 1: So I basically had a week where I couldn't get
1:34:36
Speaker 1: the prescriptions covered by insurance until this paper the computer
1:34:41
Speaker 1: caught up. And if I wanted to get the prescription
1:34:44
Speaker 1: in that moment and I've gotten reimbursed instead of costing
1:34:47
Speaker 1: thirty dollars, it was going to cost six hundred and
1:34:49
Speaker 1: fifty dollars. And you're sitting there going six hundred and
1:34:54
Speaker 1: fifty dollars. But if I have this insurance, it's thirty dollars.
1:34:57
Speaker 1: What am I missing here? Right? This is thing where
1:35:00
Speaker 1: neither price is accurate, right, and this prices are phony,
1:35:05
Speaker 1: and yet this is the system we are. So it's like, well, geez,
1:35:08
Speaker 1: I got to have this benefits. But you're like, I
1:35:11
Speaker 1: have a feeling if everybody were staring at a six
1:35:14
Speaker 1: hundred dollars cost, by the way, for blood pressure medication,
1:35:18
Speaker 1: this is like mainstream medication. I wasn't talking about some
1:35:21
Speaker 1: boutique cancer drug or even a nozempic. I mean just
1:35:25
Speaker 1: your basic sort of you know, to keep your blood
1:35:27
Speaker 1: pressure in check. And it was this false essentially, you know,
1:35:34
Speaker 1: it's either thirty dollars or it's six hundred dollars. You're
1:35:36
Speaker 1: like this, something's missing here, the market's not involved.
1:35:40
Speaker 2: Well, and I think the phrase like phony prices, like
1:35:43
Speaker 2: these fake prices, that's that is the key actually to
1:35:47
Speaker 2: almost all of the dysfunction in the way that healthcare
1:35:50
Speaker 2: is provided in this country. Because we no one can
1:35:55
Speaker 2: see prices anywhere in the system. Prices are very very
1:36:00
Speaker 2: to all parties. So the doctor actually doesn't know how
1:36:03
Speaker 2: much you're getting charged. You don't know how much you're
1:36:05
Speaker 2: getting charged to the insurance company on some level has
1:36:08
Speaker 2: this information, but they of course are also taking their
1:36:10
Speaker 2: cues from the government set prices that that come out
1:36:14
Speaker 2: of uh I was going to be crut They come
1:36:17
Speaker 2: out of someone's head in a in a government.
1:36:20
Speaker 1: Office, and and the people have their head up there
1:36:25
Speaker 1: as well.
1:36:26
Speaker 2: Yes, and all of the prices are fake. And I
1:36:30
Speaker 2: think one of the most important, like if you were
1:36:33
Speaker 2: to ask me, like one of the what is one
1:36:34
Speaker 2: of the core insights that has like shaped your personal
1:36:38
Speaker 2: political philosophy, It's that prices contain information and we are
1:36:42
Speaker 2: being you know, totally deprived of that information in the healthcare.
1:36:48
Speaker 1: Well, that's what we're being gas lit, stright and.
1:36:50
Speaker 2: We're being lied to, we're being we're being given sort
1:36:53
Speaker 2: of seemingly true information, none of which is really true,
1:36:57
Speaker 2: and so of course we all think we're losing our minds.
1:37:00
Speaker 2: So I think again, it's we don't have to stretch
1:37:04
Speaker 2: that hard to imagine a world where we know the
1:37:07
Speaker 2: prices of things and then make decisions about how to
1:37:09
Speaker 2: consume them based on those prices. That's all the other
1:37:13
Speaker 2: market like, That's what I do when I think about
1:37:15
Speaker 2: whether I'm going to buy books or food or even
1:37:18
Speaker 2: dental care, where we at least can sort of see
1:37:20
Speaker 2: those prices, right, I mean, that market has its flaws,
1:37:23
Speaker 2: but is much more efficient. And of course people are
1:37:26
Speaker 2: going to say, well, what about people who can't afford it?
1:37:28
Speaker 2: And that's what a safety net might look like. Is
1:37:31
Speaker 2: for the people who really can't pay for their blood
1:37:34
Speaker 2: presure medicine. What do we do? And we have as
1:37:36
Speaker 2: a society also a lot of answers to that.
1:37:40
Speaker 1: Well, let me get you one area where to go
1:37:43
Speaker 1: back to Obamacare, which actually was creating where some would
1:37:48
Speaker 1: argue this is why the market is just harder to
1:37:53
Speaker 1: make it competitive. Is if you tell an insurance company
1:37:58
Speaker 1: that cannot use a pre exit, they cannot use a
1:38:02
Speaker 1: pre existing condition two to price your insurance policy.
1:38:09
Speaker 4: And.
1:38:11
Speaker 1: That this you know. I well, instead of me saying
1:38:17
Speaker 1: where's their tension in the libertarian movement, to me, this
1:38:19
Speaker 1: is right there right Like you are who you are?
1:38:22
Speaker 1: Should you because of just how you were born, you
1:38:25
Speaker 1: were born with something, you automatically get charged more for
1:38:28
Speaker 1: something versus if you weren't born without it. You don't
1:38:31
Speaker 1: like that seems unfair?
1:38:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think there are a couple of things
1:38:36
Speaker 2: going on there. One is, you know, we do allow
1:38:40
Speaker 2: that in other markets. So just for example auto insurance,
1:38:45
Speaker 2: auto insurance rates are set to reflect a lot of
1:38:49
Speaker 2: things about you, including your demographics, including where you live.
1:38:54
Speaker 1: And you're trying to behavior it's that's still behavioral.
1:38:58
Speaker 2: It is behavioral, but behavioral is often closely connected to demographics,
1:39:02
Speaker 2: right like men pay more for car insurance and women,
1:39:04
Speaker 2: for example, across the board. So I think that there's
1:39:07
Speaker 2: not as much daylight between the way that auto insurance
1:39:11
Speaker 2: functions and the way that health insurance could function as
1:39:13
Speaker 2: some people would like to suggest. But also I think,
1:39:19
Speaker 2: you know, we live in a time of incredibly complex
1:39:24
Speaker 2: and interesting financial instruments to deal with risk, and none
1:39:29
Speaker 2: of those instruments have been allowed to blossom.
1:39:33
Speaker 4: Do experiments like exaction I do that on are in
1:39:39
Speaker 4: order to mitigate the high price of covering somebody with
1:39:43
Speaker 4: a pre existing condition.
1:39:45
Speaker 2: Right, So I mean, I think at the very very baseline,
1:39:48
Speaker 2: we have the fact that you know, what we used
1:39:52
Speaker 2: to call catastrophic plans are more or less illegal now
1:39:54
Speaker 2: it's not quite true. There's a bunch of short.
1:39:57
Speaker 1: Term My wife loves to hurt parents are both deceased,
1:40:02
Speaker 1: died of can't had cancer policies, which is no longer right,
1:40:06
Speaker 1: They just they bought them early and thank goodness, it
1:40:08
Speaker 1: saved their family a bunch of money. But you can't
1:40:11
Speaker 1: buy a cancer policy anymore. Right.
1:40:13
Speaker 2: So that's one example of just you know, there are
1:40:18
Speaker 2: all you know, long term care insurance functions this way
1:40:20
Speaker 2: as well, the younger you buy life insurance functions this way.
1:40:24
Speaker 2: There are so many tools you can imagine where people could,
1:40:30
Speaker 2: in anticipation of various risks that they might that they
1:40:33
Speaker 2: might have, get insurance against those risks that are the
1:40:37
Speaker 2: prices will still reflect the relative risk, but you can
1:40:41
Speaker 2: build a policy where the risk reward works for both
1:40:44
Speaker 2: the insurance company and the consumer. And I think the
1:40:47
Speaker 2: fact that we are asking health insurance to also be
1:40:50
Speaker 2: basically a pre pay system for basic health care further
1:40:54
Speaker 2: complicates things. Right, there's no reason why you and I
1:40:56
Speaker 2: shouldn't just be paying out of pocket for basic health care.
1:41:00
Speaker 2: You know, you get in your infection, you should go
1:41:02
Speaker 2: to the doctor and pay the full price of that
1:41:05
Speaker 2: visit and call it good. And your insurance company shouldn't
1:41:07
Speaker 2: be involved in all that stuff.
1:41:08
Speaker 1: But you're describing as homeowners insurance, right, a lot of
1:41:11
Speaker 1: insurance decisions, right, So.
1:41:12
Speaker 2: I think like just the fact that in this conversation
1:41:14
Speaker 2: you and I have just named like forty different kinds
1:41:17
Speaker 2: of insurance, and they all are different shapes and they're
1:41:19
Speaker 2: all different sizes. There's just no reason to think we
1:41:21
Speaker 2: can't do that with help.
1:41:22
Speaker 1: I guess I go back on health. The problem is
1:41:24
Speaker 1: that there's some people who are risks simply because they
1:41:26
Speaker 1: were born. And that does feel like if you're born
1:41:30
Speaker 1: with inalienable rights, right, you know that that where every
1:41:34
Speaker 1: every other type of insurance we've talked about is somewhat
1:41:37
Speaker 1: behavioral triggered.
1:41:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, and I think you know, there there are
1:41:40
Speaker 2: certainly people who are just born with disabilities or with
1:41:44
Speaker 2: extremely high risk for certain traits or conditions, and they're
1:41:48
Speaker 2: gonna they're gonna be really hard to ensure. I think
1:41:52
Speaker 2: I can give you the science fiction answer and I
1:41:54
Speaker 2: can give you the real life answer. So the science
1:41:55
Speaker 2: fiction answer is, let's say I'm a carrier for genetic illness.
1:42:01
Speaker 2: I should be able to buy insurance for my unborn
1:42:04
Speaker 2: children before they're born, when it's only a one and
1:42:07
Speaker 2: four odd that they'll have it, maybe instead of when
1:42:10
Speaker 2: they're already born. I don't know, I'm just making it up,
1:42:12
Speaker 2: but like insurance could be more complex and more and
1:42:17
Speaker 2: take into account even more of the probabilities of life
1:42:20
Speaker 2: if you could, if the market were truly open, I
1:42:23
Speaker 2: would bet you know, if I was a betting man,
1:42:25
Speaker 2: I might say, Okay, you're a carryerver disease. You're going
1:42:27
Speaker 2: to do various things to mitigate your risk, but ill sure,
1:42:29
Speaker 2: I'll take an internance policy out on your kid. On
1:42:32
Speaker 2: the flip side, I also think like this is again
1:42:35
Speaker 2: the role for charity or even potentially government subsidies if
1:42:39
Speaker 2: we can meaningfully circumscribe those people who you are talking about,
1:42:45
Speaker 2: those people who truly through you know, extreme circumstances and
1:42:49
Speaker 2: no fault of their own, simply are not eligible to
1:42:51
Speaker 2: be to participants in this market. Okay, charity exists, and
1:42:56
Speaker 2: you know, simple kind of straightforward block rants or cash
1:42:59
Speaker 2: shubsities do exist. I think most libertarians and most pro
1:43:03
Speaker 2: market types would say there's space for that in the world.
1:43:07
Speaker 2: There's no reason though, because of those people who we
1:43:11
Speaker 2: do want to protect that you and I should be
1:43:14
Speaker 2: part of any of this system, like us participating in
1:43:17
Speaker 2: this system to somehow protect those people is not working.
1:43:20
Speaker 2: Those people are not well protected, and it's making us miserable.
1:43:26
Speaker 1: Well, look, I guess there's a part of me that
1:43:29
Speaker 1: thinks that, you know, you could get a directionally libertarian
1:43:33
Speaker 1: person to represent eighty percent of what you believe in
1:43:36
Speaker 1: like and then telling you I ain't touch, ain't touch
1:43:39
Speaker 1: in healthcare. That's a different situation there.
1:43:42
Speaker 2: And there are a bunch of people who identify as
1:43:43
Speaker 2: libertarians who would probably say that, And you know what,
1:43:46
Speaker 2: I welcome them. They're welcome to use the word liberty.
1:43:48
Speaker 1: What you're saying is that your your eighty percent friend
1:43:51
Speaker 1: is not your one hundred percent enemy.
1:43:52
Speaker 2: It's so true, and that like tattoo it on our
1:43:56
Speaker 2: foreheads man.
1:43:58
Speaker 1: Like that means to be you know, the Bill of
1:44:02
Speaker 1: Rights was a compromise.
1:44:04
Speaker 2: And so is everything else.
1:44:06
Speaker 1: Right, let me get you out of here on this.
1:44:08
Speaker 1: The prediction markets, which is the ultimate in some ways, right,
1:44:13
Speaker 1: maybe this is the you know, a good way for
1:44:17
Speaker 1: some of these betheadging and sort of libertarian basically to
1:44:21
Speaker 1: play out some libertarian policy ideas. But prediction markets need
1:44:26
Speaker 1: to be trusted, right, and you need to know they're
1:44:29
Speaker 1: not being gained, or if they're going to be gained,
1:44:31
Speaker 1: that the bad actors are caught. That takes some regulation,
1:44:35
Speaker 1: like this is not a market that self regulates, and
1:44:38
Speaker 1: I don't think yet maybe it will. I just you know,
1:44:43
Speaker 1: right now, it feels my concern of the prediction markets
1:44:47
Speaker 1: are for the things where you know somebody has the
1:44:49
Speaker 1: answer and if it leaks at like you know, the
1:44:52
Speaker 1: Nobel Peace Prize is the perfect was the perfect example
1:44:55
Speaker 1: of that or what I know took place. I'm like
1:44:58
Speaker 1: ninety percent confident place when Peter Navarro gained the jobs
1:45:02
Speaker 1: report and then suddenly it was the exact opposite of
1:45:05
Speaker 1: what he said twenty four hours later, and you're like,
1:45:07
Speaker 1: somebody made a bunch of money on Calci and so
1:45:15
Speaker 1: give me how a libertarian would clean up the prediction markets.
1:45:20
Speaker 2: So I think there's a couple things. Many many years ago,
1:45:24
Speaker 2: Reason magazine did a cover story with Martha Stewart on it,
1:45:28
Speaker 2: and the cover line was something like, Saint Martha. You
1:45:31
Speaker 2: know she didn't do anything wrong. And while Martha Stewart's
1:45:35
Speaker 2: story is complicated, the piece was basically a defensive insider trading.
1:45:40
Speaker 2: So the I think the kind of most entertaining or
1:45:46
Speaker 2: most colorful case I can give you is all markets
1:45:49
Speaker 2: have insiders, they just have smarter and stupider insiders. And
1:45:55
Speaker 2: in fact that a market that incentivizes as many as
1:46:00
Speaker 2: possible to contribute is the most accurate market. Now that's
1:46:03
Speaker 2: like a little tendentist. It's got a bunch of you know,
1:46:05
Speaker 2: I understand why that's not going to like it's apt
1:46:09
Speaker 2: to find the cruct right and and in fact, like
1:46:12
Speaker 2: in a market where you have the understanding that this
1:46:15
Speaker 2: type of thing is occurring, you know, a little spike
1:46:18
Speaker 2: here looks different, a little fall here looks different if
1:46:20
Speaker 2: you understand, like, is that is that little spike? Peter
1:46:23
Speaker 2: tomorrow is like a question you could be asking yourself
1:46:26
Speaker 2: or his friends or his family whoever. I think we
1:46:30
Speaker 2: do already have an intuitive understanding that smaller markets are
1:46:34
Speaker 2: are more subject to gaming. Right, so the fewer participants
1:46:38
Speaker 2: in the market, the less the less resilient it will be,
1:46:40
Speaker 2: and the less likely we are too, you know, to
1:46:45
Speaker 2: uh to catch kind of anomalies before someone someone profits
1:46:49
Speaker 2: on them. You know, I think almost all libertarians, myself included,
1:46:55
Speaker 2: would say fraud is something one of the very few
1:47:00
Speaker 2: things that we agree the state should prevent. And so
1:47:03
Speaker 2: I think so often in cases where you know, what
1:47:06
Speaker 2: we see are kind of you know, inappropriate behavior in
1:47:10
Speaker 2: those type of markets, it's a violation of the terms
1:47:12
Speaker 2: of service, or someone has misrepresented themselves, or there is
1:47:15
Speaker 2: in fact fraud occurring, and fraud should be illegal. So
1:47:20
Speaker 2: I do also think there is there is a case for, like,
1:47:22
Speaker 2: some of this is going to be worked out through
1:47:25
Speaker 2: the courts, through tourts, through kind of it's going to
1:47:28
Speaker 2: take a while, and you're right that, you know, many
1:47:31
Speaker 2: people are impatient for that process to play out, And
1:47:34
Speaker 2: as in so many cases, people often want a short
1:47:36
Speaker 2: circuit kind of evolutionary processes with regulation. We already know
1:47:41
Speaker 2: what the rules should be. Let's just make them and
1:47:43
Speaker 2: announce them. That goes wrong so often, and I think,
1:47:46
Speaker 2: especially with fledgling markets that can have so much power
1:47:49
Speaker 2: to be useful tools, I'm hesitant to just slap a
1:47:51
Speaker 2: regulation on it and say good now, this market is stable.
1:47:54
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I've look I look at the first
1:47:59
Speaker 1: of all, I don't understand why we call Calshie a
1:48:03
Speaker 1: prediction market, but FanDuel of sports book it's also a
1:48:06
Speaker 1: prediction market.
1:48:07
Speaker 2: But that's need it is.
1:48:09
Speaker 1: I don't think there is a difference between the two, which,
1:48:11
Speaker 1: of course, but everybody's trying to have one.
1:48:14
Speaker 2: But I.
1:48:17
Speaker 1: I have I think that the by adding more people
1:48:24
Speaker 1: to the system, we have found out who the people
1:48:26
Speaker 1: are that are cheating on the individual sports right the
1:48:30
Speaker 1: you know who's Now the question is whether and I
1:48:33
Speaker 1: think that this will be a market. This should be
1:48:36
Speaker 1: the If I were FanDuel, I might not want to
1:48:40
Speaker 1: do player props because they can get gained, because they
1:48:44
Speaker 1: can get manipulated. And so it to me, instead of
1:48:47
Speaker 1: being told to not do them, you know, you just
1:48:50
Speaker 1: would have. You know you're going to have better, You're
1:48:53
Speaker 1: going to be more trusted if you don't offer.
1:48:55
Speaker 2: Them reputational mechanisms right right, Yeah, yeah, And I think
1:48:59
Speaker 2: people would want people to trust your brand. And you
1:49:01
Speaker 2: know this is you know, previously in trade had you
1:49:06
Speaker 2: know a lot of these same questions and controversies around it.
1:49:11
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, easily gameable markets or bets
1:49:18
Speaker 2: or hurt your reputation as a company. And it doesn't
1:49:21
Speaker 2: happen instantly. People are going to lose money. People are
1:49:23
Speaker 2: going to make money for sure. So if your goal
1:49:26
Speaker 2: is that can't happen even once you know you're going
1:49:31
Speaker 2: to have a very heavy regulatory hand. But I think,
1:49:35
Speaker 2: I think that's not the way if we want again,
1:49:38
Speaker 2: you know, libertarians were very early and kind of pro
1:49:41
Speaker 2: market types in general. We're very early and saying we
1:49:44
Speaker 2: are underutilizing prediction markets in all areas of life, and
1:49:50
Speaker 2: that's turned out to be true. There there are tons
1:49:52
Speaker 2: of places in life where we are now using what
1:49:55
Speaker 2: are functionally little micro prediction markets or betting markets to
1:50:00
Speaker 2: help us figure out how to do things. And to
1:50:05
Speaker 2: cut that off because some of the markets are inappropriately
1:50:10
Speaker 2: structured or gamable, doesn't doesn't seem like the right trade
1:50:13
Speaker 2: off to me.
1:50:15
Speaker 1: What's the best place to judge whether libertarians are having
1:50:18
Speaker 1: a moment at the ballot box this year? What are
1:50:20
Speaker 1: the races that we should be following from a libertarian lens.
1:50:23
Speaker 3: I don't know.
1:50:24
Speaker 2: I can't It might be too sad to even think
1:50:27
Speaker 2: about this. No, I mean, obviously I would like to
1:50:29
Speaker 2: see some of the folks that I named in the
1:50:33
Speaker 2: Times article re elected at the very least. You know,
1:50:36
Speaker 2: we have a pretty short list. But you know, the
1:50:39
Speaker 2: gentleman from Kentucky I mentioned, Jared paul Is, You're quite
1:50:42
Speaker 2: right if he's up down.
1:50:44
Speaker 4: But the.
1:50:46
Speaker 2: You know, there are there are some folks that are
1:50:49
Speaker 2: already on the way out run Widen. You know we've
1:50:51
Speaker 2: got you know, the the already small numbers are even smaller.
1:50:57
Speaker 2: Like I say, I'm a little obsessed with Arizona because
1:51:01
Speaker 2: Arizona does seem to kick out.
1:51:03
Speaker 1: It's always been a liberty I mean, you know.
1:51:07
Speaker 2: I think is what I would say, like little well,
1:51:09
Speaker 2: you know it all.
1:51:10
Speaker 1: Like for me, my first taste of the crazy of
1:51:12
Speaker 1: Arizona was was Evan Meekham. I don't know if you
1:51:16
Speaker 1: know that story as a governor.
1:51:19
Speaker 2: Tell me the story of Mekham.
1:51:21
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, he was sort of this wack a
1:51:22
Speaker 1: doodle governor that got elected in a sort of a
1:51:24
Speaker 1: weird three way race, and they ended up having to
1:51:27
Speaker 1: impeach him. But the point was that he It was
1:51:30
Speaker 1: just Arizona has always been home to sort of a
1:51:33
Speaker 1: lot of different quirky politics and left right and center
1:51:37
Speaker 1: more on the right, and there's always been this, you know,
1:51:40
Speaker 1: it's almost been a coalition of conservatives with these weird
1:51:43
Speaker 1: strains to them. You know, there's been You've had some
1:51:46
Speaker 1: religious based strains, You've had some sort of libertarian based strains,
1:51:49
Speaker 1: You've had sort of whatever you would call McCaine, right,
1:51:52
Speaker 1: it was sort of he was his own ideology, right.
1:51:55
Speaker 2: That was just as I wouldn't dare put a label on.
1:51:58
Speaker 2: So you can't I chantily McCain either, But I.
1:52:01
Speaker 1: Can't either because I can. You know, there's some things
1:52:03
Speaker 1: he was a libertarian on. There were some things he
1:52:05
Speaker 1: was you know, pro governor, you know what I mean.
1:52:07
Speaker 1: So it on American national security, he couldn't have been
1:52:10
Speaker 1: less libertarian, right, So, but I think on domestic policy
1:52:15
Speaker 1: he would have been very at home.
1:52:16
Speaker 2: YEA with what I would say, my my, this is
1:52:20
Speaker 2: not my nit right to pick Arizona's level answer, but
1:52:24
Speaker 2: as a macro answer, if it's gonna if a new
1:52:28
Speaker 2: kind of libertarianism that could be electoral electorally successful is
1:52:32
Speaker 2: going to come from anywhere, It kind of seems like
1:52:35
Speaker 2: it has to come out of whatever has been thrown.
1:52:37
Speaker 2: And you know, your christon cinemas, You're like, there's a bunch.
1:52:39
Speaker 1: Of the West is filled with him. Yes, I feel it.
1:52:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am interested in and keeping an eye on.
1:52:46
Speaker 2: But I wouldn't I'm not sure i'd go so far
1:52:49
Speaker 2: as to use the word optimism.
1:52:50
Speaker 1: Yeah. I look at a guy like Dave Schweikert and
1:52:53
Speaker 1: Mark Kelly right from Arizona, who both sort of aren't
1:52:57
Speaker 1: conventional trumpy or inventional liberal who you know, and maybe,
1:53:04
Speaker 1: but I you're not wrong to look at Arizona. That
1:53:07
Speaker 1: feels like an interesting laboratory. I don't know what else
1:53:12
Speaker 1: to do. I mean, you know, I think it's because
1:53:14
Speaker 1: the sun fries people's brains there differently than it fries
1:53:17
Speaker 1: our brains to a delicious crisp if you know what
1:53:19
Speaker 1: I mean. I think I do. I think I think
1:53:24
Speaker 1: the biggest cryogenic labs are storage units are in Arizona. Right,
1:53:27
Speaker 1: isn't that where Ted Williams's head is at. I don't know.
1:53:30
Speaker 2: I think maybe things didn't work out for Ted Williams's
1:53:32
Speaker 2: head in the end, unfortunately. But yes, but that's the
1:53:36
Speaker 2: kind of thing that you do see out there, and
1:53:37
Speaker 2: that is it is also kind of adjacent to you know,
1:53:45
Speaker 2: it's it's the kind of futurism of those type of
1:53:49
Speaker 2: you know, it is both the sage sagebrush libertarians and
1:53:52
Speaker 2: the kind of future oft libertarians tend to meet right
1:53:54
Speaker 2: along that seam and and the folks that just kind
1:53:58
Speaker 2: of want to be left.
1:53:59
Speaker 1: The state the only the only state to defeat a
1:54:03
Speaker 1: ban on same sex marriage.
1:54:06
Speaker 2: I don't know, but that sounds true.
1:54:07
Speaker 1: I think that's right, if I'm not mistaken. The point
1:54:09
Speaker 1: is is that it it is pretty you know, there
1:54:13
Speaker 1: is there's some real evidence there that both on economic
1:54:16
Speaker 1: and social that they've you know, sort of there's been
1:54:19
Speaker 1: this unit. And that's the beauty of Arizona. If you
1:54:21
Speaker 1: really if you're really pushing the libertarian movement is you've
1:54:23
Speaker 1: got the ballot referendum process too. You know, you don't
1:54:27
Speaker 1: need a candidate to institute some libertarian ideas. Sometimes you
1:54:31
Speaker 1: just need a referendum at the ballot box.
1:54:34
Speaker 2: That's true. I'm going out in a couple of weeks.
1:54:35
Speaker 2: So I'll let you know if I see.
1:54:37
Speaker 1: Any reader, I'll be very.
1:54:41
Speaker 2: Lurking in the in the landscape.
1:54:44
Speaker 1: Catherine, this is awesome. I mean, look, I think there's
1:54:46
Speaker 1: a lot of Here's what's true. There's a growing plurality
1:54:51
Speaker 1: in America. The plurality of Americans are politically homeless. We
1:54:55
Speaker 1: see it every day. The numbers show it, right, We're
1:54:59
Speaker 1: not at a and a third and a third anymore.
1:55:01
Speaker 1: The Republicans have less than a third, the Democrats have
1:55:04
Speaker 1: less than a third. There's a whole bunch of people
1:55:06
Speaker 1: just sort of sitting there in search of something. So
1:55:12
Speaker 1: let's see what happens. Right, That's all we can do,
1:55:15
Speaker 1: all right, Catherine, grad to see you.
1:55:17
Speaker 2: Thanks having me on.
1:55:27
Speaker 1: All right, let me know when you guys are ready
1:55:30
Speaker 1: to sign up for a Libertarian primary electorate there right,
1:55:35
Speaker 1: all right, in all seriousness, would love to sort of
1:55:39
Speaker 1: hear some of your reactions and responses to our back
1:55:43
Speaker 1: and forth over what a libertarian would propose when it
1:55:47
Speaker 1: comes to national health care and whether you politically could
1:55:52
Speaker 1: sell something like that.
1:55:54
Speaker 2: All right.
1:55:55
Speaker 1: First question comes from Kelly X from Aubrey, Texas. Hey, Texas.
1:55:59
Speaker 1: Big theme this this episode, Kelly Wrights, I was surprised
1:56:03
Speaker 1: that Trump only briefly mentioned transgender issues in the State
1:56:05
Speaker 1: of the Union. I expected more culture war focus. Does
1:56:08
Speaker 1: this signal a shift for Republicans in twenty twenty six
1:56:10
Speaker 1: stwards emphasizing the economy instead, or do they still lean
1:56:12
Speaker 1: on issues like transgender rights and religion if race is
1:56:15
Speaker 1: titan with groups like American Principles Project pledging millions and
1:56:19
Speaker 1: influencers building their brands around anti trans rhetoric, and where
1:56:22
Speaker 1: these topics aren't going away. Thanks for all you do. Look,
1:56:25
Speaker 1: I think I think the trans issue is going to
1:56:30
Speaker 1: continue to be on the upper end of issues that
1:56:34
Speaker 1: Republicans use in these campaigns. Particularly I brought up main
1:56:38
Speaker 1: earlier in the In this episode, I think the I
1:56:43
Speaker 1: think that if it is Janet Mills and Susan Collins,
1:56:45
Speaker 1: and it may very well not be Janet Mills and
1:56:48
Speaker 1: Susan Collins, that you will see Republicans try to make
1:56:53
Speaker 1: Mills's back and forth with the President over trans issues
1:56:58
Speaker 1: a bigger issue. I do think you're right that it
1:57:02
Speaker 1: can be distracting from economic issues, these culture issues all
1:57:05
Speaker 1: depending on what it is. But you know this is
1:57:08
Speaker 1: what when you're behind, you know, when when the when
1:57:11
Speaker 1: the economic story is not a good one for your party,
1:57:14
Speaker 1: you look for a cultural issue to try to to
1:57:17
Speaker 1: try to sort of get in the way. So that's
1:57:20
Speaker 1: where I suspect this gets used and really more on
1:57:24
Speaker 1: the on the children, on the on the on the
1:57:28
Speaker 1: under eighteen side of this issue. Like I don't think
1:57:31
Speaker 1: I think it'll be less on the women's sports angle
1:57:34
Speaker 1: that we saw a lot of in twenty twenty four.
1:57:36
Speaker 1: I think it's more now that you've seen many of
1:57:38
Speaker 1: these medical groups start to back off and recommending any
1:57:42
Speaker 1: of these surgeries before before before folks turn eighteen. That's
1:57:49
Speaker 1: because when you pull that that that gets closer to
1:57:52
Speaker 1: being a sixty five to thirty five issue where there's
1:57:55
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of folks who I think would
1:57:58
Speaker 1: be pro per coection of trans rights for adults who
1:58:03
Speaker 1: are not ready to support using taxpayer dollars and for
1:58:10
Speaker 1: the idea of having these surgeries for minors. So I
1:58:14
Speaker 1: think that that's the line politically that I think Republicans
1:58:19
Speaker 1: believe that they can sort of win, get it to
1:58:22
Speaker 1: seventy thirty sixty five thirty five split on these issues.
1:58:25
Speaker 1: When you make it about that, when you make it
1:58:28
Speaker 1: about individual rights and libert that's where I think it's
1:58:32
Speaker 1: less where sort of the libertarian in the libertarian in
1:58:37
Speaker 1: both the right and the left feels like, hey live
1:58:40
Speaker 1: and let live when it comes to adults, right, So
1:58:43
Speaker 1: I suspect when it gets used it's going to be
1:58:45
Speaker 1: on the issue of minors. Next question comes from anonymous.
1:58:51
Speaker 1: So I'm just going to presume it's a senior staffer
1:58:55
Speaker 1: at the White House. I have kid right, we never
1:59:00
Speaker 1: know anana's rights. I viewed the speech in three sections.
1:59:05
Speaker 1: One the me, me me part. I saved our country,
1:59:07
Speaker 1: I saved the world, et cetera, with a little Biden
1:59:09
Speaker 1: bashing to the Oprah section you get a medal, and
1:59:11
Speaker 1: you get a medal, and you get an uncle. And
1:59:14
Speaker 1: three and the baiten demean the dem section. He stayed
1:59:16
Speaker 1: on a well rehearsed script, kept a good kept a
1:59:18
Speaker 1: good news, slash, lies, exaggeration, distortions, didn't address Epstein, Ukraine
1:59:22
Speaker 1: or Ice, and he used the Dems like a prop
1:59:24
Speaker 1: I worry about him being under control until the midterms.
1:59:27
Speaker 1: Bring back crazy Trump. Thanks, that's an interesting, well, look,
1:59:31
Speaker 1: I think that that I you know, I think in
1:59:35
Speaker 1: this case, you know, he he is competitive and he
1:59:39
Speaker 1: doesn't want to lose. And I think if you know,
1:59:43
Speaker 1: Susie Wilds has a way of getting him into certain places.
1:59:47
Speaker 1: Jade Vance's also plays this role of trying to get
1:59:50
Speaker 1: the president in the right mindset because again we know
1:59:53
Speaker 1: we're dealing with arrested development here where his you know,
1:59:57
Speaker 1: he can crazy Trump can show up at any time,
2:00:00
Speaker 1: festivus Trump can sort up at any time. But if
2:00:04
Speaker 1: you frame it as competitive Trump, all right, this is
2:00:07
Speaker 1: what they're not going to expect of yous, sir, mister president,
2:00:10
Speaker 1: et cetera. You know, he can get quasi on message,
2:00:15
Speaker 1: like but look, Epstein's not going away. And the fact
2:00:20
Speaker 1: that you have very we now have details where the
2:00:23
Speaker 1: Justice Department had put out a statement. Yeah it's possible.
2:00:26
Speaker 1: There's some files that were still don't have We'll find them.
2:00:30
Speaker 1: And now it's sort of like when you know, when
2:00:33
Speaker 1: when you have a survivor saying, I know there is
2:00:36
Speaker 1: a missing FBI file about an allegation that I made
2:00:40
Speaker 1: against the president, then the minute it's found, it's going
2:00:45
Speaker 1: to get outside even more outsized attention. So I'm usually
2:00:51
Speaker 1: a skeptic on government conspiracies in general, because the bureaucracy
2:00:54
Speaker 1: works in such a way that it's really hard to
2:00:56
Speaker 1: keep make a conspiracy stick. But I will say if
2:01:01
Speaker 1: somebody thought, hey, they're better off see if they could
2:01:04
Speaker 1: avoid releasing some of the worst stuff that mentioned Trump.
2:01:07
Speaker 1: And remember, these are FBI three H two's that are
2:01:10
Speaker 1: just allegations. They're not necessarily proven allegations, which is what
2:01:15
Speaker 1: makes the entire release of these files so unprecedented and frankly,
2:01:19
Speaker 1: so uncomfortable for so many members of the Department of Justice.
2:01:22
Speaker 1: This is this is you know, many of you may think, hey,
2:01:25
Speaker 1: these all these men and women are involved in Epstein,
2:01:28
Speaker 1: deserve to be shamed. I hear you. But there is
2:01:30
Speaker 1: sort of there, there is a discomfort. I think with
2:01:34
Speaker 1: some of these projects. You're like, wait a minute, these
2:01:36
Speaker 1: are people that we don't have enough evidence to charge
2:01:40
Speaker 1: them with a crime, but we're we're gonna We're gonna
2:01:44
Speaker 1: go ahead and essentially flood the court of public opinion
2:01:50
Speaker 1: with evidence that people can cherry pick and choose. All
2:01:55
Speaker 1: that said, the fact that they if you thought you
2:02:00
Speaker 1: were doing Trump a favor by pulling it out only
2:02:03
Speaker 1: to get caught, now it's going to get extra attention.
2:02:05
Speaker 1: It's very likely it would have just been part of
2:02:08
Speaker 1: the three and a half million files, much harder for
2:02:10
Speaker 1: it to surface up. Of course, people are going to
2:02:12
Speaker 1: pay attention it's Trump. So I wouldn't assume that any
2:02:18
Speaker 1: of the stuff that put it this way, this state
2:02:20
Speaker 1: of the Union is almost already it's already sort of
2:02:25
Speaker 1: played itself out. I think we sort of know that
2:02:28
Speaker 1: it's already it is what it is. Next question comes
2:02:32
Speaker 1: from Marcus from Europe, and he says longtime listener from
2:02:35
Speaker 1: Switzerland and Germany. He says, I've always appreciated how you
2:02:39
Speaker 1: go beyond the surface to explain the inner workings of
2:02:41
Speaker 1: US politics. One thing I still struggle to understand is
2:02:43
Speaker 1: when you reference America as well. From my perspective, places
2:02:46
Speaker 1: like Louisiana don't seem richer than most European countries, and
2:02:49
Speaker 1: even Californians with high incomes often seem to struggle more
2:02:51
Speaker 1: than Europe's middle class. Does America's hire GDP really translate
2:02:55
Speaker 1: to a better standard or living or are the systems
2:02:57
Speaker 1: too different to compare meaningfully? Greetings from Europe. I think
2:03:01
Speaker 1: our cultures and somebody you know as aligned as we are.
2:03:05
Speaker 1: There are some things that were very different on right,
2:03:08
Speaker 1: Americans like their stuff, right, you know it Europeans the
2:03:15
Speaker 1: cities are smaller, people are more comfortable living with less things, right,
2:03:21
Speaker 1: So you know, I've always thought that that's that's actually
2:03:25
Speaker 1: a difference that we don't you know, we're we want
2:03:29
Speaker 1: more land because we have the room, right, we want
2:03:33
Speaker 1: more stuff because we have the room. In Europe and
2:03:37
Speaker 1: these tighter cities and these you know, people don't have
2:03:40
Speaker 1: the room. So it's sort of you might make less money,
2:03:43
Speaker 1: but you may spend less because you don't you just
2:03:47
Speaker 1: don't have the space to acquire more things. I know
2:03:50
Speaker 1: that seems like a but I think that's why sometimes
2:03:54
Speaker 1: there's a disconnect on wealth of the you know, sort
2:03:58
Speaker 1: of middle class European living in Frankfurt and the middle
2:04:03
Speaker 1: class American living in Sacramento or something like that. Right,
2:04:07
Speaker 1: So you know, I think that might have something to
2:04:10
Speaker 1: do with it. So a little bit is cultural. You know,
2:04:14
Speaker 1: we're just a culture of bigger houses. Now that may change, right,
2:04:17
Speaker 1: you may seem you know, it does feel like this
2:04:20
Speaker 1: gets you know, the boomers saved everything. My wife will say,
2:04:25
Speaker 1: I'm got hoarding tendencies when you look at all the
2:04:28
Speaker 1: sports cards that I have acquired. But I I'm you know,
2:04:30
Speaker 1: we've had dumpsters at the house and we like to
2:04:32
Speaker 1: get rid of stuff. But gen z and definitely doesn't
2:04:37
Speaker 1: want to save all this stuff the way our parents
2:04:41
Speaker 1: and grandparents love to save stuff. So there may be
2:04:46
Speaker 1: something akin to that as well. So that you know,
2:04:51
Speaker 1: I think we need an American to do what Detkville
2:04:54
Speaker 1: did for explaining America to Europeans. Maybe maybe you know
2:04:59
Speaker 1: my for somebody else needs to go and we need
2:05:01
Speaker 1: to explain how Europeans live to Americans today a little bit.
2:05:11
Speaker 1: But appreciate the question, Marcus, thank you, And if you
2:05:15
Speaker 1: don't like my answer, right back and tell me if
2:05:18
Speaker 1: I've whiffed on this and you think I got it wrong.
2:05:20
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Jason Any writes, Hey, thanks for
2:05:23
Speaker 1: reading my comments last month about the barn. I appreciate it.
2:05:26
Speaker 1: As I mentioned my prior email, I now live in
2:05:28
Speaker 1: the Commonwealth, but live for a long time in Florida.
2:05:30
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Welcome to the club of the Florida
2:05:33
Speaker 1: to Virginia pipeline. I continue to keep up with the
2:05:36
Speaker 1: goings on there and can you explain how local governments
2:05:38
Speaker 1: are supposed to function that they get rid of the
2:05:40
Speaker 1: property tax. Yes, Jason, I'm glad you brought this up.
2:05:43
Speaker 1: So there's this idea, and Ronda Santis wants to do it,
2:05:47
Speaker 1: trying to essentially and this gets it to Donald Trump
2:05:52
Speaker 1: briefly mentioned it in the State of the Union that
2:05:54
Speaker 1: he wants to go back to a system that where
2:05:56
Speaker 1: all of our taxation is tariffs and we stop taxing income. Now.
2:06:01
Speaker 1: I am happy to do a Toddcast time machine explaining
2:06:03
Speaker 1: why we ended up with the income tax because tariffs
2:06:06
Speaker 1: did nothing but put the tax essentially put the tax
2:06:09
Speaker 1: burden of funding the government on the working class more
2:06:12
Speaker 1: than it put it on the upper class. Well, Rondo
2:06:16
Speaker 1: Santis is kind of has the same vision. He says, hey, property,
2:06:19
Speaker 1: you know, you shouldn't have to pay taxes on it
2:06:21
Speaker 1: all the time. You should only have to pay taxes
2:06:23
Speaker 1: on it, you know, once or maybe twice, once when
2:06:26
Speaker 1: you buy, once when you sell, and that's it. The
2:06:30
Speaker 1: problem is in a state like Florida, which has no
2:06:32
Speaker 1: other income tax nor you know, there's only so many
2:06:36
Speaker 1: ways you can upcharge and add fees to tourists. You know,
2:06:40
Speaker 1: trust me, if you're not a resident of Florida and
2:06:43
Speaker 1: you check into a hotel and rent a car, you
2:06:46
Speaker 1: wouldn't believe all of the fees that you pay in
2:06:50
Speaker 1: order to subsidize residents that live in the state of
2:06:53
Speaker 1: Florida in order for them not to ever have a
2:06:56
Speaker 1: state income tax. I don't see how you pull it off,
2:07:01
Speaker 1: and you probably only increase income inequality and you will
2:07:05
Speaker 1: have you know, you take a look at some of
2:07:07
Speaker 1: these smaller counties. I spend a lot of time in
2:07:10
Speaker 1: northwest Florida. Scambia County, fairly large county, Santa Rosa County.
2:07:15
Speaker 1: The largest employers in these counties by the very red counties.
2:07:19
Speaker 1: The largest employers in these counties are usually the government
2:07:21
Speaker 1: school system, you know, other government agencies. Well you you know,
2:07:27
Speaker 1: you're you know, you start messing around with the property
2:07:31
Speaker 1: tax system and the funding system. Where are they going
2:07:33
Speaker 1: to get there? Where are they going to get their
2:07:35
Speaker 1: funds to run their government? And then all of a sudden,
2:07:37
Speaker 1: you're gonna have whole bunch of unemployed people. I don't
2:07:41
Speaker 1: think this is going to get as far as DeSantis
2:07:44
Speaker 1: dreams on this. When it comes to property taxes, he's
2:07:47
Speaker 1: got to have to put it on a ballot initiative,
2:07:50
Speaker 1: so it's and it needs to in all ballot initiais
2:07:53
Speaker 1: in Florida have to get sixty percent, which is a
2:07:55
Speaker 1: pretty tall order as we've learned. So I don't know
2:07:59
Speaker 1: how you do it. And I think you know, now,
2:08:03
Speaker 1: maybe that's the feature.
2:08:04
Speaker 2: You know.
2:08:05
Speaker 1: I think Governor DeSantis would say, great, starve the beast, right,
2:08:09
Speaker 1: this is the starve the beast mindset that is taken over.
2:08:13
Speaker 1: The thing is is that there's general consensus. As I
2:08:15
Speaker 1: shared with you in my last episode, seventy percent of
2:08:18
Speaker 1: the country does not think we should cut services to
2:08:20
Speaker 1: cut taxes. Right. There is a large majority in this
2:08:25
Speaker 1: country that believes that we should have a safety net
2:08:27
Speaker 1: and believes that there should be a well funded government. Okay,
2:08:31
Speaker 1: we can debate on what size of all that is,
2:08:35
Speaker 1: but there's general consensus. So the idea of starving the
2:08:37
Speaker 1: beast is only popular with about one in four voters.
2:08:41
Speaker 1: Three and four voters have something government does that they
2:08:44
Speaker 1: think should keep going. And I think that that's where
2:08:49
Speaker 1: you would have. And my guess is a referendum on
2:08:53
Speaker 1: this will actually get trounced. I don't think it would
2:08:56
Speaker 1: be that close. But maybe maybe I haven't. Maybe I'm
2:09:01
Speaker 1: not spending enough time in Florida these days. All right,
2:09:03
Speaker 1: last question for the episode comes from Adam and Davy, Florida.
2:09:08
Speaker 1: All Right, Florida man, he goes. I really enjoy your
2:09:11
Speaker 1: podcast format. It provides great entertainment useful information simultaneously. All Right,
2:09:16
Speaker 1: I'm being called entertaining. Take that those of you who
2:09:22
Speaker 1: think I drone on too long. Anyway, He's quickly become
2:09:25
Speaker 1: my daily political podcast of choice. Thank you. Particularly appreciate
2:09:28
Speaker 1: your passionate modern institutionalist viewpoint, which I share. Texas North
2:09:31
Speaker 1: Carolina both have March primaries. You know it, brother, After
2:09:34
Speaker 1: the votes locked in, do you think those House reps
2:09:37
Speaker 1: do begin to distance their self from Trump via their
2:09:40
Speaker 1: own House votes? Any one or two that you think
2:09:42
Speaker 1: already have a foot out the door on Trump? Is Well,
2:09:45
Speaker 1: this is exactly what I'm going to be curious about,
2:09:48
Speaker 1: is that once primary season is over, do you see
2:09:51
Speaker 1: a change? Now? Look, North Carolina, Texas earn't a lot
2:09:54
Speaker 1: of hugely competitive races there. Let me get on this
2:09:58
Speaker 1: primary calendar. I you know, I'm I'm in. I'm thinking
2:10:02
Speaker 1: it's going to be the Midwest is where I would
2:10:06
Speaker 1: be focused on this memo to any organization that claims
2:10:10
Speaker 1: to have a primary calendar, do not put it in
2:10:12
Speaker 1: alphabetical order. Please put it in chronological chronological order. We
2:10:16
Speaker 1: do not. You know, it just drives me nuts that
2:10:20
Speaker 1: when some institutions use alphabetical order on something where you
2:10:25
Speaker 1: were dates is the whole thing that you're looking for?
2:10:28
Speaker 1: Please chronological order? All right? So I think the first
2:10:33
Speaker 1: I think the first place that we might see some
2:10:36
Speaker 1: of this pushback. Ooh, I'm looking here. Look, obviously the
2:10:40
Speaker 1: main nineteenth primaries, which is a pretty busy night of primaries.
2:10:45
Speaker 1: You're going to have Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Oregon. In Pennsylvania,
2:10:48
Speaker 1: I think obviously that's the Thomas Massey primary. So that's
2:10:52
Speaker 1: that's going to be a big deal. Dan Crenshaw in
2:10:56
Speaker 1: Texas he would be a big one to watch if
2:10:59
Speaker 1: he gets through, If he's able to survive, maybe there's
2:11:02
Speaker 1: no runoff. He wins without the support of Trump. Does
2:11:08
Speaker 1: he show that there is a way to do this
2:11:10
Speaker 1: and that you don't have anything to fear with him.
2:11:15
Speaker 1: But I still think that the Republicans that are most
2:11:18
Speaker 1: likely going to be looking for a way to break
2:11:20
Speaker 1: from Trump, at least on the tariff issue. It's going
2:11:23
Speaker 1: to be those with with with important parts of the
2:11:27
Speaker 1: farm economy. So that's Iowa, perhaps that's Nebraska. Very curious
2:11:33
Speaker 1: how Pete Ricketts navigates this. Right, Don Bacon has been
2:11:37
Speaker 1: very you know, he's not running. It would have been
2:11:39
Speaker 1: more awkward if he had Bacon running for reelection and
2:11:42
Speaker 1: being critical of Trump on tariffs versus Pete Ricketts, who
2:11:47
Speaker 1: probably doesn't like the tariffs either, but is a you know,
2:11:52
Speaker 1: doesn't want to upset upset him. Does that change after
2:11:57
Speaker 1: they passed their primary? Because Trump's got involved in hours before,
2:12:01
Speaker 1: uh in Nebraska, so that would be But I just
2:12:04
Speaker 1: think the farm states generally are where I would expect
2:12:08
Speaker 1: the first folks to peel off because it's the tariffs
2:12:12
Speaker 1: that I think are the safest place to show some
2:12:16
Speaker 1: distance from Trump and not alienate the MAGA base. All Right,
2:12:34
Speaker 1: I've gone long. I know I've gone long, but I
2:12:37
Speaker 1: you know, I do have something to say about the
2:12:40
Speaker 1: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And first of all,
2:12:44
Speaker 1: one of my favorite things every year is sort of
2:12:47
Speaker 1: the is the induction ceremony where they have these where
2:12:50
Speaker 1: all the artists get up there and they start, you know,
2:12:52
Speaker 1: doing something great, and some of them do it. Sometimes
2:12:54
Speaker 1: there's there's other artists come in and and sing along
2:12:57
Speaker 1: with them. Some of them have been terrific live concerts.
2:13:00
Speaker 1: I think the twenty fifth anniversary one is is one
2:13:04
Speaker 1: of those CDs that I own and then uploaded to
2:13:09
Speaker 1: my Apple library. So I love the Rock and Roll
2:13:13
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. I've been there multiple times in Cleveland.
2:13:16
Speaker 1: I think it's fantastic. My only complaint about the museum
2:13:20
Speaker 1: itself is not enough music playing, Like when I go
2:13:23
Speaker 1: room to room, I want to, I want to I
2:13:25
Speaker 1: want the music curated for me. I don't want to
2:13:28
Speaker 1: have to go and you know, do these. But it's
2:13:29
Speaker 1: a museum, so I get that they've not quite figured
2:13:32
Speaker 1: that out. And of course the ceremony is never in Cleveland.
2:13:36
Speaker 1: It's always now in New York, which is this But
2:13:38
Speaker 1: here's my only beef, Like the Rock and Roll Hall
2:13:41
Speaker 1: of Fame that the nominees and we're seeing this this
2:13:46
Speaker 1: has increasingly been the case, right, our artists who you
2:13:51
Speaker 1: cannot find if you just search rock and roll on
2:13:55
Speaker 1: your favorite streaming music app right, Like all right, So
2:14:00
Speaker 1: Phil Collins as a solo artist. He's pop genesis. He
2:14:04
Speaker 1: had rock, Lauren Hill Wu, Tank Klang in excess. Are
2:14:10
Speaker 1: they rock? Melissa Etherrich, Luther Vandros that's R and B.
2:14:16
Speaker 1: That's not rock? Right, new edition Shakira is that rock?
2:14:22
Speaker 1: And I love me some Shakira, don't get me wrong.
2:14:24
Speaker 1: Now you have other nominees. Black Crows clearly rock, Iron Maiden,
2:14:29
Speaker 1: clearly rock. But Mariah Carey, you know it's interesting.
2:14:36
Speaker 3: I did.
2:14:36
Speaker 1: I did a little research with my friend mister Gemini,
2:14:40
Speaker 1: right just to just to see. I asked it. I said, hey,
2:14:45
Speaker 1: what genre are these artists in? You actually find them
2:14:48
Speaker 1: in the rock genre of Spotify or Apple Music. So,
2:14:52
Speaker 1: according to my friend mister Gemini, the true rockers, right,
2:14:57
Speaker 1: the safest, best for tradition, that you'd actually find in
2:15:00
Speaker 1: your if you were listening, if you're in if you're
2:15:03
Speaker 1: searching your genres of rock or metal, right, you'll get
2:15:07
Speaker 1: Iron Maiden, Oasis, the Black Crows. They put Melissa Etheridge
2:15:13
Speaker 1: in rock. Okay, you know I could be talked into that.
2:15:18
Speaker 1: I think she's more of a genre blender, if you will.
2:15:21
Speaker 1: Jeff Buckley, all right, then they and then mister Jim
2:15:25
Speaker 1: and I came up with what he called the genre blenders.
2:15:27
Speaker 1: They often have rock listed as a secondary genre or
2:15:31
Speaker 1: are also categorized as pop rock right, so more pop
2:15:34
Speaker 1: music depending on the album. Phil Collins is is pop
2:15:39
Speaker 1: rock in excess primarily new wave. But then they come
2:15:44
Speaker 1: up with dance rock. I've never seen a genre of
2:15:47
Speaker 1: dance rock. Am I ignorant? Am I missing this? This genre? Uh?
2:15:52
Speaker 1: If you will now punk, I would do that. Then
2:15:55
Speaker 1: there's you know, those that were with it that have
2:15:59
Speaker 1: no rock tag on their songs. Even in the secondary listing.
2:16:02
Speaker 1: According to mister Gemini, Wu Tang Clan, Lauren Hill, they're
2:16:06
Speaker 1: exclusively hip hop and rap, Mariah Carey, Pink Shakira primarily pop,
2:16:11
Speaker 1: though this notes that Pink occasionally gets a pop rock tag.
2:16:15
Speaker 1: For Early two thousand work obviously Luther Vandros a new
2:16:19
Speaker 1: edition R and B and soul and you have shot
2:16:23
Speaker 1: a usually tagged this soul or jazz. So look, it's
2:16:30
Speaker 1: interesting the first time nominees. We don't know who's going
2:16:33
Speaker 1: to get in. The First time nominees this year are
2:16:36
Speaker 1: Phil Collins, Lauryn Hill, Wu Tang Clan, Jeff Buckley in excess,
2:16:40
Speaker 1: Melissa Ethlerts, Lucier Vandros new edition, Pink Shakira. Phil Collins
2:16:45
Speaker 1: is going to get in. Genesis is already in. Phil
2:16:49
Speaker 1: Collins has health issues. I promise you, Phil Collins is
2:16:52
Speaker 1: going to get in. They're gonna won him at that
2:16:54
Speaker 1: ceremony there. Now, second time, haven't gotten in yet, Black Crows,
2:17:00
Speaker 1: Billy Idle not in yet. Shot Eh, Billy Idle, Come on,
2:17:06
Speaker 1: we gotta put him in. I think he belongs. And
2:17:10
Speaker 1: then the third time nominee who haven't gotten in. They've
2:17:12
Speaker 1: been nominated three times, still haven't gotten the call. Iron Maiden.
2:17:17
Speaker 1: I was kind of into metal. Iron Maiden was never
2:17:20
Speaker 1: at the top of my list. I respect, I respect
2:17:23
Speaker 1: their game. Don't get me wrong. Oasis. I gotta pull
2:17:28
Speaker 1: for Oasis. It's my son's favorite nineties band. He thinks Oasis,
2:17:32
Speaker 1: he goes. He thinks it's one of the best bands
2:17:35
Speaker 1: he's ever heard in the nineties. Don't judge him too
2:17:38
Speaker 1: harshly on that. Now I have kid. I think Oasis
2:17:41
Speaker 1: is touring again, and I think mom and son, we're
2:17:44
Speaker 1: going to go check that one out. New order in
2:17:47
Speaker 1: Mariah Carey also in the third time, But Mariah Carey
2:17:53
Speaker 1: I first of all, this is where Mariah Carey belongs
2:17:57
Speaker 1: in a Hall of fame of music hard stop? Right?
2:18:03
Speaker 1: Is it rock? Do we need to rename this hall
2:18:07
Speaker 1: of fame and just call it popular music Hall of Fame?
2:18:11
Speaker 1: Because that's essentially what we've done. And you know, Look,
2:18:15
Speaker 1: I'm a I don't want to call myself a rock purist,
2:18:17
Speaker 1: but I miss rock and roll. I don't think we
2:18:20
Speaker 1: have rock and roll anymore. Right, there are no rock
2:18:23
Speaker 1: bands anymore any I miss the electric guitar. The only
2:18:26
Speaker 1: place you can find good electric guitar riffs these days
2:18:29
Speaker 1: is in country music. And it's interesting. It's like what
2:18:33
Speaker 1: we used to call southern rock has almost all become
2:18:36
Speaker 1: country rock, if you will, and you see a lot
2:18:39
Speaker 1: more of it there. So I you know, and that
2:18:42
Speaker 1: would have been my way, but I'd love Look, we
2:18:45
Speaker 1: are all experts about our own music tastes, so I'm
2:18:49
Speaker 1: not going to sit here and claim I'm an expert.
2:18:51
Speaker 1: I have a very eclectic music taste. As a one
2:18:54
Speaker 1: time music major in college, I will put my my
2:18:59
Speaker 1: music knowledge up against anybody on that front. But I'd
2:19:04
Speaker 1: love to hear from you guys on this of what's
2:19:08
Speaker 1: your definition of rock. Have we had a great new
2:19:11
Speaker 1: rock band since the Killers? You know, part of me
2:19:14
Speaker 1: feels like that, you know, and are we done with
2:19:17
Speaker 1: rock the genre itself? Or is there a chance it
2:19:22
Speaker 1: comes back? Does Jen Alpha bring it back? For some reason? Now?
2:19:26
Speaker 1: I've heard other people argue that rock isn't necessarily a
2:19:29
Speaker 1: style of music. It is a it is are you
2:19:33
Speaker 1: do you have something to say it is? You know
2:19:36
Speaker 1: that the whole point of rock music was to make
2:19:39
Speaker 1: the older crowd and the establishment uncomfortable. And that's that's
2:19:43
Speaker 1: why hip hop qualifies as rock and roll because like
2:19:48
Speaker 1: rock and roll of the fifties and sixties, which was
2:19:50
Speaker 1: a disruptive music genre, so too has hip hop and
2:19:54
Speaker 1: rap been a disruptive music genre for the so called establishment.
2:20:00
Speaker 1: You know, that's a very expansive definition of rock and roll.
2:20:04
Speaker 1: But I still view it as an actual music genre,
2:20:08
Speaker 1: so in that sense, and I think the last rock
2:20:13
Speaker 1: band that I downloaded and was digging was Modest Mouse.
2:20:18
Speaker 1: All right, I would love some suggestions from you, guys,
2:20:22
Speaker 1: am I totally. You know. One of my frustrations with
2:20:26
Speaker 1: with algorithms and streaming services now is that even if
2:20:30
Speaker 1: you try to get new music, it feels like it's
2:20:32
Speaker 1: always trying to figure out what they think your taste is,
2:20:35
Speaker 1: and you get sort of curated new stuff that feels
2:20:39
Speaker 1: you're like, no, no, no, no, don't. I don't want that.
2:20:42
Speaker 1: So I used to have a lot of younger nieces
2:20:45
Speaker 1: and nephews and cousins who were pretty good about keeping
2:20:49
Speaker 1: me up to date. I wanted to know what was
2:20:51
Speaker 1: the interesting new music, and I missed that. You know,
2:20:57
Speaker 1: I got my son, he's not listening to new music.
2:20:59
Speaker 1: He's going back gold school and he's into the nineties.
2:21:04
Speaker 1: I got a swiftie that's a senior in college, and
2:21:07
Speaker 1: I'll just leave the you know, Taylor is who she is.
2:21:13
Speaker 1: But I don't know if my daughter is ready to
2:21:18
Speaker 1: leave the swifty Nation to keep pursuing other interesting new music.
2:21:21
Speaker 1: So I would love your thoughts on this. But yes,
2:21:25
Speaker 1: I think the big story out of this nomination is
2:21:29
Speaker 1: I suspect Phil Collins, who again Genesis is already in,
2:21:33
Speaker 1: so I don't know is he already in and now
2:21:36
Speaker 1: he'll be in as a solo artist, but I think
2:21:39
Speaker 1: that'll be a pretty poignant moment, assuming he does get
2:21:43
Speaker 1: the call, which I suspect he will. All right, so
2:21:46
Speaker 1: because I have a podcast, I can have random opinions
2:21:49
Speaker 1: about anything I feel like having, and I decided to
2:21:51
Speaker 1: have some random opinions about the Rock and Roll Hall
2:21:54
Speaker 1: of Fame. All Right, that Juria weekend. I'll see in
2:21:57
Speaker 1: seventy two hours, and guess what I see you next time.
2:22:00
Speaker 1: We are going to be on the eve of the
2:22:03
Speaker 1: start of campaign twenty twenty six. Officially. This is this
2:22:08
Speaker 1: is where I this is this is my sweet spot,
2:22:10
Speaker 1: this is what I love. This is why you tune in.
2:22:14
Speaker 1: I'll see after the weekend.