Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - Trump’s Coalition Is Fracturing As Iran War Unravels + New Polling Is A Warning Sign For GOP

Transcript

Chuck’s Commentary - Trump’s Coalition Is Fracturing As Iran War Unravels + New Polling Is A Warning Sign For GOP · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: as well. All right, hello there, welcome to the Wednesday
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: episode of the Chuck Podcast. And as we like to
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: say in electioneers, if it's Wednesday, it means somebody voted
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: somewhere on Tuesday. Obviously, the big Tuesday story was Illinois. Uh,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: and I appreciate those that followed look that to me,
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  Speaker 1: the story of Illinois is something I'm going to get
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: into further actually on Tomorrow's on the on the Thursday
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: episode of the podcast, which is I think we are
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: going to look at Illinois as the as the as
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  Speaker 1: the shining example of what's wrong with politics today and
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: how money has become too influential on this because what's
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: sort of distressing about what happened in Illinois on Tuesday
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: night is the fact that the story is about the
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: super PACs and the interest groups and which interest groups
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  Speaker 1: went are lost, not anything about like the candidates were secondary.
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  Speaker 1: And this is a it's one of those we have
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: we have We've somehow crossed some threshold that has made
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: candidates themselves a secondary feature of a political campaign, which
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: tells you something is way out of whack. And the
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: fact that we sort of deal with this in a
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  Speaker 1: such normalizing way is very distressing. So uh, look, there's
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: and and and as important as that story is, I
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  Speaker 1: do want to spend a lot more time on it
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  Speaker 1: in tomorrow's episode. But let me give you a quick
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  Speaker 1: rundown of what we got for today, obviously, because I'm
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: not going to overdo the election results business with Illinois,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: because I hope many of you tuned into the live
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: stream and Crystal is and I earlier on Wednesday broke
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: it down on his podcast, and normally we tape on Mondays.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: But this week because of my travels, Yes, I went
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: to the wbc UH second semi final and that was amazing.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Actually I want to share share that experience with you
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: in a few minutes as well. But let me do
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: the quick rundown of what I got going on today.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: We've got to look we the There's there's one story
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: that matters in American altics right now. It's the war
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: with we'ron. It is in some ways dictating everything, and
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: it is you can already actually see some political impacts
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: in ways that people haven't noticed yet, and I will
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: point those out to you. But you know, welcome to
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the well. I called it quicksand he's in quicksand, And
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: he's in quicksand and he's in a Chinese finger trap.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: And the more he tries to pull away, the more
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: he's getting He's getting sucked into both traps. On that one,
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  Speaker 1: I've got it. Yesterday was the Illinois primary. So what
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: do I have for you in my top five list,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: my top five all timers? And let me tell you,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Illinois is, shall we say, extraordinarily rich with content when
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: it comes to interesting, crazy, controversial campaigns, whether for the Senate,
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  Speaker 1: for governor. This is a state that has given us
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: to presidents and foreigm prison governors, right like, so it
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: is it is. It is to say it could be
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the wild West at times in Illinois an understatement. And
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: there's also crazy stuff about Chicago politics and all sorts
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: of things, so that you will enjoy. We'll have some
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  Speaker 1: Q and A. But we got to begin with what's
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: happening with the Iran war and the danger of Mission creep.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: And I know I continue to make this, but I
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  Speaker 1: think something We're in the middle of something here that
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: is really disturbing, which is we are watching in real
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: time the unraveling of America's place as leader of the
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: free world. And I know that sounds a bit, you know,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: apocalyptic that I'm saying this, but it's happening in real time.
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  Speaker 1: His attack on NATO. Where's NATO? NATO? I asked for
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  Speaker 1: their help with the straight of horn moves, the President said,
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  Speaker 1: and there's no NATO to be found. And you know,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: the the this war is going to be known for
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  Speaker 1: military precision. And so there's you know that this is
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: you know the plaints that are coming from those that
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  Speaker 1: support this war, well, the media is not focused. They
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  Speaker 1: are only focused on all the stuff that's not going well.
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  Speaker 1: But the military campaign itself is going, yes it is.
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  Speaker 1: But the soft power side, the diplomatic side, the getting selling,
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  Speaker 1: making sure the American people know what we're doing, Preparing
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  Speaker 1: the American people for something that may be unpopular, that
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  Speaker 1: may be a bit of a hit to the economy,
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  Speaker 1: lining up our allies in advance planning for these things.
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  Speaker 1: Gutting of the State Department of its soft power agencies
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  Speaker 1: like USAID and the US Information Agency only made it
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  Speaker 1: that much harder for you to have diplomatic success following
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  Speaker 1: military success. And so this is the classic He has
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: opened a Pandora's box, and we now know all the
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  Speaker 1: reasons why a bunch of previous presidents who would have
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  Speaker 1: loved to have eradicated the world of this Iranian theocracy
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  Speaker 1: didn't do it, because there were certain things they could
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  Speaker 1: do to make this an incredibly costly war. And we're
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  Speaker 1: now seeing what it is that kept Bush from doing this,
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  Speaker 1: that kept Obama from doing this, that kept Biden from
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  Speaker 1: doing this, that kept Trump the first time from doing this.
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  Speaker 1: But we've got a situation now with this president where
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  Speaker 1: there's a few things we have to be concerned about.
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  Speaker 1: Concern Number one is he is not being told the
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  Speaker 1: truth this resignation by a very controversial figure in his
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  Speaker 1: own right, Joe Kent as head of the National counter
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  Speaker 1: Terrorism Center. This is an extraordinarily important agency and it
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: became much more important following nine to eleven. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: there was a lot of concern when the decision was
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  Speaker 1: made to put him in this job. This was somebody
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  Speaker 1: who has spoused some extremist views on the right, questionable
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: views about Jewish people, a lot of flirting with the
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  Speaker 1: white supremacist alt right, and he was being put in
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  Speaker 1: charge of this and yet so whatever, So that's who
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  Speaker 1: he is. But he was a Senate confirmed appointment that
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  Speaker 1: in some ways should be in the room in theory
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: when presidents make these decisions. And what's been interesting is
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: that when he announced his resignation over the war and
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: basically blaming the Israel lobby, which is a frustrating anti
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Semitic trope. But I will set that, I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: put a pin in that here for a minute. What
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  Speaker 1: we learned here is that in some ways, you know,
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  Speaker 1: with the statement by Telsea Gabbert, Joe Kent's boss, who
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  Speaker 1: I'm surprised is still there and hasn't resigned. Remember, her
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  Speaker 1: whole rationale for supporting Trump over Harris and Biden was
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: all due to it was Harris and Biden that we're
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  Speaker 1: going to take America into it into a war with Iran.
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  Speaker 1: It turns out she is now the head of the
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  Speaker 1: she's the director of national Intelligence for the presidential administration
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  Speaker 1: that made the choice to go to war with Iran.
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  Speaker 1: And this is a war of choice and war of choices,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: just as Vladimir Putin how a war of choice is
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  Speaker 1: going for him. You may be able to decide when
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  Speaker 1: to start a war, but who you're going to war
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  Speaker 1: against gets a say in the matter as well. And
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: we're learning a little bit more. And I think that
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  Speaker 1: it's important to note Tulsea Gabbert's statement sort of in
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  Speaker 1: reaction to the resignation of Joe Kent, and how she's
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  Speaker 1: walking a line here, and I think it gets it
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  Speaker 1: to the concern we all should have that our president,
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  Speaker 1: the commander in chief and everybody's president at the moment,
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  Speaker 1: he is representing the United States of America and he's
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  Speaker 1: making these decisions. You may not like it, but he
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  Speaker 1: is our president. Is either not being told the truth
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  Speaker 1: or people are afraid to tell him things that he
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  Speaker 1: doesn't want to hear. But I want to read this
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  Speaker 1: statement from Tulsa Gabbard in full from Tuesday, and a
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  Speaker 1: post she put on X first of all that starts
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  Speaker 1: this way. Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American
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  Speaker 1: people to be our president and commander in chief. Well,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: already we are starting off with a bullshit line overwhelming.
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  Speaker 1: He did not get fifty percent. It's funny to me
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  Speaker 1: to watch all these people, and I saw Politico did
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  Speaker 1: this the other day. Dude called twenty twenty four landslide.
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  Speaker 1: It's not a landslide if you can't win a majority
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  Speaker 1: of the popular vote. It's not a landslide if you
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: don't get the four hundred electoral votes. Folks, Okay, no
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  Speaker 1: president has won a landslide in the twenty first century. No,
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  Speaker 1: not Barack Obama in twenty oh eight, and he had
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: the largest victory of anybody in the twenty first century.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: But I digress, because but this gas lighting of the
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  Speaker 1: American people I saw, Like I said, I saw a
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  Speaker 1: straightforward newsletter in Politico that knowing in the wake of
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's twenty twenty four landslide. I'm like, what does
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: anybody understand the definition of political landslide anymore? Please? All right?
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  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan won a landslide in eighty four, George H. W.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Bush won a landslide in eighty eight. Richard Nixon won
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: one in seventy two. LBJ one one in sixty four.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton never won a landslide, George W. Bush never
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: won a landslide, and certainly a guy who's never won
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  Speaker 1: fifty percent of the vote, Donald Trump has never won
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: a landslide. Okay, but I'm going to continue more from
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  Speaker 1: Tulsea Gabbert. As our commander in chief, he is responsible
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: for determining what is and what is not an imminent threat. Interesting,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: so it is not experts in the field. It is
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: the president and solely the president, who decides what's an
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: imminent threat that's according to this and whether or not
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: to take action he deems necessary to protect the safety
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: and security of our troops, the American people in our country.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is responsible
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: President and commander in chief with the best information available
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: to inform his decisions. After carefully reviewing all the information
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamic regime
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  Speaker 1: in Iran posed an mmintent threat, and he took action
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: based on that conclusion. I have to tell you, man,
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  Speaker 1: this statement's amazing for everything it is trying to do. Right,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Tulsa Gabbert is desperately trying to signal that she does
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: not believe in this war without saying she does not
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: believe in the rationale for this war. She wants to
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: keep her job. She's clearly made that decision, and she
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: knows that there's an audience of one that she's got
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: to do. But the fact that she is straining so hard, right,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: it took three paragraphs for her to explain that it's
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: the president who decides what's an aminent thread or not.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: So it sounds like she would not believe. If she
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: thought it was an eminent threat, she would have said so.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: But she did not make the choice to say it, now,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: did she. So she is clearly trying to have her
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: cake and eat it too. She's no doubt when she
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: leaves office she's going to say I never stood by
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: that thing. I never viewed it as an in a
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: minute threat, but he did. So we all see where,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: by the way, where it's pretty early to be in
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: the CYA stages of war planning, But we are in
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: the CYA stage, not necessarily cee Ia, but CYA. And
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: if you need help knowing what that is, just you know,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: that's urban dictionary stuff, go figure that out. But we
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: are in the CYA. And this is a clear CYA
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: material because it sounds like Tulsea Gabbard respects the decision
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  Speaker 1: Joe Kent make. But what's clear? And I remember during
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: the run up to the war itself and the decision
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: that was made, a lot of people were asking, well,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: what where what does Tulsa Gabbard thing? Is she in
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the room? Right? This is somebody who essentially staked her
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: entire political reputation on being convinced it was the Democrats
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: that were going to start a war with Iran, not
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: the Republicans, and so just the heir, she was trying
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: to justify her bizarre flip flop and you know, to
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: pay no attention to her potentially being you know, compromised
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: by other international entities. Then instead she was just concerned
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: about a president that might start an open ended war. Well,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: welcome to the open ended war. And she now works
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: for the president that she claimed wasn't going to do that.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: But here we are. And there's a few things about
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: this Joe Kent resignation, right, This is look, this is
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: somebody who was not qualified for the position anyway. Trump
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: gave it to him, almost as a thumb in your
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: eye of the intelligence community. This was a pope right,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: putting Telsea gabbartt and Joe Kent. There was done to
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: send a message to the to the sort of the
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: non partisan intelligence community, that I have no respect for
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: what you do, and we're going to put a couple
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: of incredibly semi crazy skeptics in charge of you. And
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: yet the president had no intention of ever having these
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: people in a room. And so I look at the
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Kent resignation through the following there's a variety of ways.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: First of all, he's a fascinating Rose test, right. You
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: can read his statement and if you know nothing about it,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: and you know whatever your personal views are, you can
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: apply it to your feelings about him. If you're frustrated
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: by all the you know, the the anti Semites that
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: are trying to use Israel as an excuse to say
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: they're not anti semitic, and and how they're phrasing some
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: of these things. You can do that if you want
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: to say, see even Joe Kent thinks there was no
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: rationale for war, you can do that right. Whatever it
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: is he can provide in some ways, I think people's
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: reaction to Kent and the resignation, particularly in the political space,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: will tell you more about the point of view that
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: person has not necessarily anything to do with Kent, but
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: it is going to be I think everybody's going to
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: be curious the first time he does an interview and
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: talks about what evidence did you see and what was
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: out there? What are the terrorist threats and so on
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: and so forth. But like Marjorie Taylor Great, you know,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: there were some members of the Trump coalition that believed
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: what he said. There were some people like Joe Kent,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: who aligned himself with the with the far right, sort
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: of xenophobic wing of the Republican Party and saw a
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: fellow traveler in Donald Trump. You know, Marjorie Taylor Green
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: has said you know that, you know she heard what
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Trump said and really and felt like, oh, he's thinking
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: what I'm thinking. He's saying what I believe, and then
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: when he doesn't practice what he says, right, And this
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: is Donald Trump's been doing this forever. It's what many
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: of us tried to tell a lot of people over
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: the last ten years, said, Donald Trump just tells anybody
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: what they want to hear in the moment in order
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: to make his sale or in order to get him
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: to vote for you, or whatever it is. And he's
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: done it, and he put together a unique coalition, right,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: It's been an uncomfortable coalition. And we're starting to see
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: what happens when you make decisions, right. You see little
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: We've seen little pieces of evidence when he made the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: decision to be bought off by the tech companies and
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: not do not actually go after big big tech in
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: ways that he promised, or certainly it was implied through
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the bann and wing of that MAGA movement right, who
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: was just as focused at getting going after big tech
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: as the left was. And he's protecting the AI industry
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: with trying to prevent any regulation. That has cost him
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: some support among some in his magabase. Starting this war
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: has cost him more support there. So this is I
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: look at Ken in one way as he might just
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: simply be a true believer. You don't have to agree
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: with him. You may find his political views vile, you
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: may find his views about Israel and Jews and race
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: in America to be terrible, but he believed them and
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: he aligned with a movement that he thought and he
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: also didn't believe in more military adventurism. And suddenly he
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: feels let down. And that's what you do in a
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: presidential administration. Right. We had a pretty high profile State
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Department official during the Biden administration who resigned over the
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: over Joe Biden's gossip policy. And it was a big
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: deal then, And it's the right thing to do if
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: you can't, if you can't serve a president on a
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: specific issue, and you're kind of charged to do it.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: And in this case, the head of the counter Center
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: and counter terrorism, right he's now got to monitor the
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: incoming and there is an increased amount of incoming threats
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: potential threats thanks to this decentralized network by the IRGC
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: that is basically declared open season on Western ASSA and
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: there's a lot more concern. This is the thing that
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: I think the president, among the many things the President
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: has not done for the public is prepare the public
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: for the fact that we are now less secure today
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: than when this Iran war started. We know that his
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: goal is to He thinks eradicating this regime and preventing
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: them from getting nuclear weapons will make us safer. And
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: maybe he's right, but it's not making us safer right now.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: We are now less safe. And oh, by the way,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: everything costs more because of this war, and ultimately that
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: may be how he gets punished politically, not over the inconsistency,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: not over the hypocrisy of more wars, but simply that
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: he's presiding over an economy that is now in worse
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: shape because of his decision to launch the Iran war.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: But this resignation is not a small deal. It's a
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: big deal because it's yet I mean, how many more
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: little you know? This is his coalition has been fracturing
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: now for a good six months, and we've watched it.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: And one of the things I like to tell people is,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: you know, everybody's got a line on Trump. And I
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: think you've heard me say this, but not every Trump
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: doesn't cross the line. At the same time for everybody,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: your line on when you walked away from Trump may
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: have been a lit lot sooner than the line that
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: I did, or the line that somebody else did, or
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: the line that Liz Cheney did, the line that air
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Adam Kingsinger, Right, we know the line for John Bolton,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the line for Mike Pence, the line for John Kelly.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: You know, one of the things you learn about Trump
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: over the years is that eventually he alienates everybody around him,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: every single person not related to him, and maybe he
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: alienates those related to him too. But I'm you know,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: family dynamics. Everybody's got weird family drama, So don't I
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Actually what I'm going to kind of minimize that a
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: little bit, but I will go more in the profession.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: He has done it his entire I went through this
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: every six day years. He has to get a new
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: set of advisors because he's literally alienated everybody around him.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: This is what he does. Just look at the how
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: few people from term one came over with term two? Yes,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: a few did, But I think we have one of
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: the more underreported stories about Trump two point zero is
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: how few Trump one point zero staffers who they chose
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: not to go. He would have taken them. Don't think
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: he wouldn't. There was something he didn't want I get that,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: but there were plenty that he would have loved to
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: have come back, and they're like, I ain't riding that
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: roller coaster again, and so they have chosen not to
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: do it. It says a lot, and I think that
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: this is what we're seeing, is that we continue to
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: see a slow erosion, and I describe it. I've always
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: described it as a river bed. Every day you look
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: at it and maybe it doesn't look like it's eroded
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: that much, and then you're going to wake up in
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: November and go, what happened to Republican turn out? That's
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the potential situation he's in. This episode of The Chuck
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Toddcast is brought to you by Quints. A thoughtfully built
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• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Quins dot com slash chuck. Now let's go to the
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: wards and this issue at a straight of hormones. So
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: we've got a granting president, very upset. He's like begging,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: now China to come help. This would be interesting. So
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: he wants NATO to He wanted NATO to get involved
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: in basically secured to straight of horm moves. Now he's
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: asking for other countries help. Maybe he gets help from
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: China to do this. And his argument is, hey, China
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: needs this oil as much as anybody needs it. In fact,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: is the whole world needs a say, the straight of
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: horm moves to be a place for safe passage for
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: shipping period. It doesn't matter whether you're a country that's
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: allied with the United States, that you are the United States,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: or that you're an adversary of the United States. Everybody
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: needs this shipping lane open. Now. One thing about the
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: United States has been and this is where we this
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: is where and I want America to be the world's
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: beat cop, particularly in the oceans. Okay, and that's what
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: I do. Expect this to help keep shipping lanes open.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: That that's what we do. It doesn't sound but it
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: sounds like the President was so dismissive of the warnings
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: about the straight of horror moves and this was always
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: the geographic advantage, and so many analysts about Iran, I've
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: pointed this out. This was always their sort of I
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: don't want to call it a get out of jail
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: free card, but this is what has prevented an attempt
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: to decapitate this regime by previous presidents. It's the fact
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: that they can. And now Trump's learning this himself. It
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: doesn't take much for them to louse it up. Right.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: By the way, loos is a word we don't use enough.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: It's nice to bring it back. If Trump wants to
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: bring back the East word, God bless them. That's less
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: things though, And that's the point, right And now you've
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: got a regime headed up by the son of the
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: former Supreme leader who has no incentive to cut a
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: deal with the United States. And what deal with the
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: United States, Israel, or anybody in the region. What deal
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: could you cut with this regime that kept the regime
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: in place and made you feel safe and secure. So
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know how he walks away from this, and
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: I was unseeing it earlier on Tuesday on Casey Hunt
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Show and Casey Hunt had Liam Pennan, a former Defense secretary,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: former head of the CIA, and she was just asking
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: him tactically what would it take to secure the straight
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: and he basically said, look, we can do this, but
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: it's probably going to take boots on the ground. I mean,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: you can't just do this with airpower power. You're going
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: to have to clear the coastlines. Right. And this is
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: what's so I think scary about the decision to start
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: this war is how easily this mission you're going to
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: get mission create. And this was always the concern about
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: trying to do this. And here we are no intent
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: of ever sending ground troops, but now you have to
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: secure the straight of hormones. And now Trump's in a
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: situation where he's alienated a big chunk of the America's allies,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: right a normal president, what we've already we've seen examples
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: of this. Bush one and Bush two went out of
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: their way to get allies bought in in advance, not
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: after the fact, but you do it in advance. H
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Bush one had had more success than Bush two did
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: in keeping allies on board. But you know what Bush
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: two didn't do. He didn't go out of his way
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: to alienate NATO or alien eight countries that didn't get
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: on board. He just gave more love to the countries
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: that we're on board. One of my favorite you know,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: don't forget you forgot Poland a response one time in
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: an interview he did when somebody was questioning the lack
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: of sort of of an alliance in the Iraq War,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: and he says, hey, you forgot Poland. But the point
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: was there was an effort, right, and you have to
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: do these things. And now what Panetta was explaining is
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: that we may we did not leave ourselves the flexibility
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: to put together the forces we need immediately to keep
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: this straight open. And so now we've got you know,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: we've got to move things. This is why it may
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: be that he's begging for outside help because we don't
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: have the resources in place in the moment to do this,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: not unless you're going to do ground troops, and even
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: if it's a limited number of ground troops, it is
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: what's probably going to be necessary. So now he's in this,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: he's boxed himself in and this and you're going to
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: get a version of Vietnam syndrome here potentially, which is well,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: if you walk away, now the regime stays in place.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: The strait is weaponized by this regime. They know that
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: their days are you know that they're never going to
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: be accepted into the community of the Middle East. So
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: there's always going to be a threat of terrorism or
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: a threat of this. So there's going to be constant
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: concern and it will gradually raise the price of everything.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: If you pull out, you kind of weirdly, even though
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: you may had a massive tactical victory, it'll look like
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: retreat and defeat. If the regime stays in place and
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: you cut some uncomfortable deal and just hoping that they'll
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: keep the straight open because you've somehow agreed to keep
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the regime in place after you have made this big
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: effort to try to topple the regime, and then say,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: oh no, this wasn't about regime change. You know, or
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: you're in or you have the mindset that you're in
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: for a diamond for a dollar, right, which is what
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: happened early in the parts of Vietnam. And that's the
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: concern here, right, And this is the you know, this
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: is why Chinese finger trap. There's no good answer here,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: and he's boxed America in. It is there is every outcome,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: every potential idea can lead to a bad outcome for
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: the United States, either short term or long term. But
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: what we've really done, and the biggest sort of development
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: over the last seventy two hours, is a confirmation that
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: we we are we are alone. We are alone in
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: this one. And it's because of everything he did over
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the last particularly over the last year and a half
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: in alienating our allies, alienating NATO, alienating the EU, I mean,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: the whole thing with Greenland and now here we are
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: and now he's got the uncomfortable decision. What does he do.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: He's got to get out of this thing. But he
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: can't just walk. You know, he's the one that like
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: created the situation that's put the straight orfom moves into
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: this into a critical situation where we are stuck and
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: our economy is potentially the global economy is stock dealing
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: with this choke point. And it's his. It was you know,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: it's his fault. You know, he started it, so he's
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: got to finish it. It's a it is This is
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: more than just his personal legacy. His personal legacy is
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: toast right, this is other than you know, the the
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: kindest thing you're being able to say about his presidency,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: I said it was consequential. That word's going to be
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: doing a lot of work for a lot of people
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: who are going to try to sound not trying to
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: make a judgment of whether this was a good or
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: a bad presidency. It was a consequential one. It's been
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: an MRI, that's for sure, for a lot of people
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: and a lot of entities and a lot of things.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: But this is, this is this has the potential to
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: be as epically bad for America's reputation, America's ability to
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: execute both soft and hard power and build alliances. This
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: is going to be as damaging, if not more damaging
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: if we're not careful than Vietnam in the Second rap
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: War and this situation. He's in nothing but bad options.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: But you know, I think he is stuck with the
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: pottery barn roll here. He broke it and he's going
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: to have to fix it. He broke the straight he's
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: going to have to fix it, and we're now stuck
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: having to do this alone. Now if we commit to it,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: my guess is other countries eventually will help. Perhaps the
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Gulf States will help pay for it at least, But
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: we need some real diplomacy here. We haven't had any
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: we've had very we've had the lack of diplomacy, right,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: the gutting of USAI D. The gutting of these things
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: put us in this terrible situation. And I don't know,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: you know, I think other countries will help us out
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: because they have their own economic interest to protect, and
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: in some ways Trump's counting on this, but ultimately, we've
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: got to go first, and we're going to have to
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: do this. And I have a and you know, I
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying he should. I'm just not sure what
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: other choice he's going to have because he's so alienated
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the rest of the world with this. And if the oh,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: and I don't know how we should feel if the
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: outcome is the US and China doing this in a
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: joint operation together, which is weirdly kind of looks like
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: what he's sort of kind of trying to propose. So this,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: you know, everything else is small potatoes at the moment
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: in our political world. This is going, this is this
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: is going to this is defining the political weather for
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: the campaigns, This is everything at the moment, And there's
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: no doubt in my mind he's trying to find a
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: way out of this. And the fact in the matter
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: is he may have boxed himself in and now he's
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: got more political problems with this resignation, which only opens
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: up more wounds on his populist right. It's not great
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: for Jews in America because you're going to continue to
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: have this sort of this this caricature painted of support
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: for Israel. That's you know, you can be pro America
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: and critical of Trump. You can be pro Israel and
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: critical of Yahoo. And I just encourage everybody to realize
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: this and please keep that in mind before we go.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: There's a few things that I think are the first
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: signs that were still darting to see. I think that
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: we're starting to see some impact, at least right now,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: short term softening of support for Republicans in general. There's
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: a couple of new polls coming out of South Carolina
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: that showed Lindsey Graham's personal approver ratings not doing very well.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: This Annie Andrews, who you've heard on this podcast, much
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: more competitive in these head to heads than anybody's expecting. Now, look,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: we've been here before with Amy Harrison's campaign back during COVID,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: and I think in hindsight it turned out that was
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: probably that polling. But in this I might be more
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: skeptical of if I didn't see some numbers out of
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Ohio where we see in that governor's race, Vivia Ramaswami.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Now I've seen multiple poles in a row that show
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: him trailing doctor Amy Actin. And remember who she is.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: She was essentially the Governor Mike Dewin's chief medical advisor
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: during COVID, became sort of a famous face Ohio. And
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: certainly you know, I I and i've I've spent some
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: time with her. I'm i'm i've I've found her to
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: be as good of any public health official we dealt
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: with and during the COVID pandemic, and just straightforward honest,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: I was shocked she got into politics. She didn't strike
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: me as a political person, but I think the experience
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: dealing with COVID sort of got her frustrated and made
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: her decide to jump into politics. But we've now seen
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: a couple of polls in a row that you Ramaswami
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: trailing her, And again you know it's it's it's anecdotal.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: It's also you know, it's a data point, and you
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: know sometimes data points are scattery, scatter shot. So We'll
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: continue to wait for more, but I'm certainly've yet to
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: see any evidence that this is helping unite Republicans. If anything,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: it is dividing the country in ways that is not
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: good I think for any incumbent Republican on the ballot.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: There So just a few things there, and then finally
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: it's worth noting what's happening in the main Senate race
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: and the decision by Janet Mills, the governor there, to
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: go to go hard negative on her primary opponent, Graham
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Plattner and talk about the controversial tech Nazi inspired or
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: themed tattoos and some of his shall we say, uncouth
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: tweets and things like that. This is what primaries are for.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: And all I would say is is if you are
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: in the national party, you know sometimes I kind of
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: think nasty primaries only strengthened the potential primary winner and
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: it actually takes the wind out of the sales of
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: the party on the other side, Like I mean, Donald
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Trump became a little bit more immune by the general
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: election in sixteen to some of Clinton's attacks because everybody
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: in the Republican primary tried the same attacks, whether it
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: was Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Chris Christy, John Kaysik, you
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: name it right, Ted Cruz, and they didn't work with
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: the in the primary, and they kind of weirdly immunize it,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: almost like for voters immunize them. And I would say this, so,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: whether you're on the Grand Platiner side of things, the
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins side of things, or the Janet Mills, the
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: person most disappointed by this should be actually Susan Collins,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: because you don't want your opponents inoculating themselves on their
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: negatives during the primary. You want you're hoping that they
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: don't get litigated during a primary, so it looks like
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: new information in a general election. So you know, for
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: those on the Platiner side who are mad at the
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Mills folks, you should be glad, Hey, get it out
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: of the way. Litigate this now, find out if you've
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: got immunities to this. If you're on the Mills side
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: of things, look, the only way you were going to
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: win is you had to make the case that he's unelectable.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: That's what primaries are for. And if you're Collins, you're
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: probably a little disappointed that Mills has chosen to do this,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: But in some ways you get to find out just
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: how just what could work or what doesn't work, etc.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: But I also think it shows you you know, so
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: this you know, I happen to think it's healthy. This
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: is why clearing primary fields can sometimes give you false
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: sense of security because you don't end up vetting your
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: primary candidate, right your potential nominee. That it's better to
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: have it vetted. You know, for instance, I don't we
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: didn't you know, the taller Eico negatives that I think
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Republicans are going to drop on his head weren't really
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: used in the Democratic primary. So this is going to
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: come across this new information of people and could be
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: more effective in the case. And that I think that's
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: one way to I think at least look at what
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: the main decision is. But it's you know, this is
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: there's going to be a lot of hand ringing over
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: this decision by Mills, but at the end of the day,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: it's it's probably the rip the band aid off moment
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: that if you're over there among Senate Democrats, you may
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: not like any of this, but better to have it
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: litigated with primary voters then somehow have a non aggression pack.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: You don't do it. It becomes a whisper campaign, but
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: you don't quite test it through, and then you have
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: an unvetted nominee right where the voters didn't get a
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: chance to make that decision on their own. All right,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: let me take a break. When we come back my
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: conversation on the investigation into who should be blamed for
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: killing Roe? Let's thinking a break. We'll see on the
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: other side. Having good life insurance is incredibly important. I
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: know from personal experience. I was sixteen when my father
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: passed away. We didn't have any money. He didn't leave
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: us in the best shape. My mother single mother, now widow.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Myself sixteen trying to figure out how am I going
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: to pay for college and lo and behold, my dad
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: had one life insurance policy that we found. It wasn't
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: a lot, but it was important at the time, and
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: it's why I was able to go to college. Little
• 39:58
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  Speaker 1: life insurance is something you should really think about it,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: especially if you've got a growing family. Well, many of
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: you had actually asked been asking me questions about abortion
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: and the midterms, and so guess what it turned out,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: I think to be a good conversation to have on
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: this issue. And you know, as I think I said
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: during the interview itself, I'm a believer that you know,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: these issues, you know, they may ebb and flow in
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: significance to the voter and a given election cycle, but
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: issues like abortion rise back up when people are particularly
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: when people feel a bit more satisfied about their economic situation.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: And right now that may explain why we are seeing
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: less about reproductive rights and a lot more about the economy.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: All right, well, it is that time. It is our
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Wednesday pot cast, and we just you know, I know
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: you guys, some of you enjoyed our livestream coverage of
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: the Illinois primary night. Well, in the spirit of Illinois,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: that's what my top five list. As you know, I've
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: been excitedly, frankly, using some old research that I've been doing,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: frankly for decades about the all time great campaigns, not
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: necessarily presidential campaigns, but statewide campaigns of all time. And
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: so I thought this year, you know, instead of letting
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: that continue to gather dust in this unwritten book that
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: at some point I'm going to write that, instead, I
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: share this fine research with you, my fellow political junkies.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: And you know what, I think I enjoyed doing this
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: and this is sort of what originally got me into politics.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: I enjoyed a good campaign, yarn. So in the spirit
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: of that, my top five, my top five all time
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Illinois races in history, top top consequential, ones that had
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: huge impact, ones that were just fascinating, all sorts of things.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: And I'll tell Illinois, let's just say, it was really
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: hard to narrow things down to five. I could have
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: included a mayor's race or two in Chicago that I
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: think would have been worthy of an all time top five.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: I didn't, but Harold Washington certainly deserves honorable mention the
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: eighty three Chicago mayor's race there, but I didn't do that.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: This is a tough one. Hey, when you're the state
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: of Illinois, right, Illinois might be the only state where reformers,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: future presidents, and convicted governors have all come out of
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: the same political ecosystem. So it makes Illinois so rich. Now, look,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna gotta lie to you. I don't expect
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: any of the Illinois races this cycle to crack our
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: top five in all time, but hey, it's a state
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: that has produced two presidents, Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: And has sent four governors to federal prison. Every single
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: campaign has a shadow on it in this state. So
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: if Texas is the home of some high stake soap
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: operas over the years, from Monpa the Monpa Governors, if
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: you will, to LBJ to what could be an all
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: timer this year with that Senate race, Illinois is home
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: to the gritty political thriller and it's got quite a
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: few all time races to it. Today we're looking my
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: five most consequential statewide campaigns in Illinois history. So look,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: I want to make because the corruptive, the corrupt governors
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: are not really going to be a feature of the
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: old time top five campaigns because in many cases we
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: didn't know they were corrupt during the campaign itself. He
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: found out later, But you know, we should note four
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: governors have gone to prison. Otto Kerner was a bribery
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: scandal tied to a racetrack stock deal. Dan Walker was
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: a reformer who turned felon after leaving office. George Ryan
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: was the guy who essentially sold state licenses in exchange
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: for bribes, and then of course Rob Lgoyevitch, who famously
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: tried to sell Barack Obama Senate seat and it's Blagoyevitch
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: that gave us one of those all time great lines
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: that get used today. I've got this thing and it
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: is efing golden, except he didn't say efing. That thing,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: of course, was the Obama Senate seat, since he controlled
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: the appointment process. So do keep in mind as we
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: go through my top five races here that Illinois ambition
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: and scandal. Let's just say they tend to travel together. Look,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: number one on the list is pretty easy, and to me,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: it's not even a close calls. It's Barack Obama's two
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: thousand and four campaign, a campaign that may never maybe
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: never should have happened or never should have been successful,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: but he benefited from not one but two candidate collapses
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: in order to secure a victory for the United States
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Senate that would ultimately lead him to the presidency. This
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: might be when we I ultimately will put together my
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: five all time US Senate races, and I will say
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: this one is going to be I don't want to
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: say it's guaranteed, but LBJ and this one right when
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: you involve a future president in your in your Senate campaign,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: is this controversial or unique? It may qualify for an
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: all time top five in the nation's history. So but
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: let's let me tell you the story a little bit.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: And look, I'm not going to give you all the
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: details that I'll say for the much longer version of
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: the story, but it starts with the primary that most
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: people forget, the Democratic primary. The early front runner wasn't
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama. Was a well funded stock trader and guy
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: who helped game the system on blackjack, sort of basically
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: an old card counter named Blair Hall, and at the
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: time he was spending twenty five million dollars of his
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: own money. In two thousand and four, back when twenty
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: five million dollars with a lot of money, Hall was
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: leading until his divorce records were unsealed, revealing allegations of
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: domestic abuse. His campaign collapsed almost immediately. It cleared the
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: lane for Barack Obama. At the time still fairly wasn't
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: that well known of an Illinois state senator, was not
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: getting huge donations, was doing well at these campaign forms
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: next to Blair Hall. But Blair Hall had all the
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: money and Illinois's an extraordinarily expensive state to campaign, but
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: that had collapses. Obama wins the Democratic primary with just
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: over fifty percent of the vote, and it appeared to
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: set up what was going to be an all time
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Senate race. We were going to a couple of them
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: that year. Dashelthuone was happening in South Dakota and we
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: were in of Obama. Jack Ryan, No, not Jack Ryan
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: from the Tom Clancy novels, but this Jack Ryan had
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: sort of the Hollywood good looks, if you will, and
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: he was himself a former investment banker. His then former
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: wife was a fairly well known actress at the time
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: named Jerry Ryan. She was known for her character she
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: played on one of the Star Trek spinoffs called Voyager. Well,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: their divorce records were unsealed and they included allegations that
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Ryan had pressured her to go to sex clubs in
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: two thousand and four. Obviously, today's politics, this might have
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: actually helped him in a primary these days, but it
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: did not help him at the time. It was one
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: of them. More I remember one of the punchlines I
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: used to use in public speaking gigs. I said, Jack
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: Ryan was the first Republican first candidate for office whose
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: political career came to an end because he wanted to
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: have sex with his wife. Now he wanted to have
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: sex with his wife in a public place, at a
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: sex club. But it was unique in that you had
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: a guy lose his political career, not because he wanted
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: to have sex with somebody else's wife, but with his own.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Still the part of Republican Party panicked. Ryan withdrew and
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: then the Republican Party went on a basically their own
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: version of American idol, Illinois idol, desperately looking for a
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: replacement candidate. Mike Ditka was seriously considering it at one point,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: the former Chicago Bears coach. He ended up saying no.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: And who did in Illinois settle on? But Alan Keyes,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: a conservative commentator from Maryland who of course had pretty
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: much no ties to the state of Illinois, in fact,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: had run for I believe the Senate in Maryland at
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: one time ran in Illinois. But they were desperate for
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: a candidate, and in you know, a Senate residency rules
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: are pretty loose and lax. It's not like the governor's race.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: So he becomes the replacement candidate. Obama wins, But it
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: is worth noting that the more important race for Obama
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: was the primary. Because he wins the primary, he becomes
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: this sort of gee whiz winner if you will, meaning
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: everybody's like, who is this guy? Check out? This guy's
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: name is Barack Hussein Obama. He just won a Senate primary.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: All of the candidates around him are collapsing. The guy's
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: going to win a Senate seat, let's you know. And
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: he was getting enough traction and interest among donors that
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: somebody suggested to John Kerrey at his political at his
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: nominating convention in Boston, that he had to tap Barack
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Obama to be the keynote speaker. Well, probably the single
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: most important speech that Barack Obama had ever given. So
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: if he doesn't accidentally win that Democratic primary, he doesn't
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: get picked to give that speech. There's not a red
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: America of blue America. It's a red, white, and blue,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: et cetera. We may not have a president Barack Obama.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: This Senate race, it has it all sex scandals, card counting,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. And what was weird about it?
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: It was never the campaign was never about Barack Obama.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: It was always about somebody else. Blair Hall, Jack Ryan Allen, Keys,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Mike Getka, it was it was just one wild and
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: weird race. And it delivered one of the most consequential
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: figures in modern America. So number two on my list
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: is one that was a bit historic in nature, but
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: it was accidentally historic. It was the election of Karrol
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: Moseley Brown, the first black woman to the United States Senate.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: On the race itself is often remembered for the result
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: and the historic result, the campaign was something else entirely.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: The real fight was between the incumbent Senator Alan Dixon
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: and a wealthy primary challenger, a self funder named Al Hoefel.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Hoefeld spent millions attacking Dixon. Dixon was weakened by one
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: key vote nineteen ninety two. It was triggering in this
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: and it was this early Illinois primary that triggered the
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: idea that this was going to become the year of
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: the Woman in nineteen ninety two, at least in Senate races.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Because Dixon had supported Clarence Thomas during the Anita Hill hearings.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: The Democratic primary turned into a bitter two way war,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: very expensive between Dixon and Hoefeld. But there was a
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: third candidate in the race, a lesser known office holder
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: from Cook County. The Cook County Recorder of Deeds was
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: her office title at the time, woman by the name
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: of Carol Molseley Braun. And look, she was considered kind
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: of an afterthought in this race because she didn't have
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: the financial resources of Hoefeld or of the sitting senator.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: But as Dixon and Hoefeld tore each other apart, suddenly
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: Braun benefited from sort of not being the one either
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: slinging mud or being hit by the mud, and she
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: was able to consolidate an interesting group, an interesting group
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: of voters, Black voters, reform minded voters, and voters that
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: were angry about Thomas Sure. The vendor diagrams overlapped, but
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: it got her thirty eight percent of the vote, which
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: was enough to win. She knocks off a sitting senator
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: and a primary Alan Dixon. Hollfeld loses, ends up finishing third.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: She wins the general election by a fairly comfortable margin.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: In ninety two. Illinois was still considered a swing state
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: back then, but everything was moving left Bill Clinton's victory
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: and she wins fifty three forty six. But for me,
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: it was a reminder of the dynamics, and a reminder
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: was an early lesson for me, because we'd get one
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: literally a month later in Wisconsin, very similar situation where
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: you had that Russ Finegeld ended up win a Senate seat.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: He was the third candidate in what appeared to be
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: a two way brutal primary that got so nasty voters
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: decided not to support either of the top two candidates
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: and supported the candidate that wasn't engaging in the mud fight,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: just like with caramel Ley braun. So, it was really
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: a reminder of the dynamics of three way elections and
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: they're very difficult. We're seeing We saw that again, right
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: third party groups attack one candidate in a crowded primary,
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: they're able to get rid of that candidate. We saw
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: that in a couple house races in these Illinois primaries,
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: and yet they still didn't get the candidate they wanted
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: to win because the dynamic ended up benefiting. You know,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: in CANADAA attacks Candida B. It was candidacy that benefits
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: and that to me was what that campaign also taught us.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: My third one on this list and this is something
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: I'm rarely going to do, but it's so impactful you
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: have to include it, and that is the nineteen sixty
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: presidential campaign of Kennedy Nixon in the state of Illinois
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: because it created a myth or a legend that still
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: sort of percolates in our politics today. Right, Kennedy won
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: the state of Illinois by just under nine thousand votes,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: less than two tenths of one percent, and of course,
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: the legendary Richard J. Daily, mayor of Chicago and head
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: of the Democratic machine, he is credited with delivering these
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: enormous margins Cook County. Nixon of course dominated downstate. Really
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: that's always been the case. It's more conservative downstate the
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: further you know, you southern Illinois is in more southern
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: than Illinois. That is one of the jokes you'll get.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: But it is in this race that the legend was
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: created that in some ways still still popularizes right wing
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: conspiracy theories to this day. For decades, Republicans have claimed
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: that Chicago turnout was suspicious, some precincts reported near total voting,
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: and that the results may have been manipulated. There's never
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: been any definitive proof that fraud changed the outcome, but
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: the perception mattered, and it's stuck, stuck forever. Right. Nixon
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: really popularized a lot of a lot of conspiracy theories
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: for the right that Donald Trump still carries out today
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: and this is one of them. Nineteen sixty helped cement
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: a belief inside the Republican Party that urban political machines,
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: especially in big democratic cities, could manipulate outcomes. It just
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: you know, and because in many cases, because there's so
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: many votes to count, they take longer to report. Right
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: our Illinois, you know, our coverage of the Illinois primaries.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: You know, we were waiting for Cook County because they
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: count in one big center and so you know, Republicans think,
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: oh my god, we're winning, and then Cook County comes in,
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: we're losing. Well, if Cook County came in first, you
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: never would be winning, you know. It just you know,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: it's the order that votes get counted is different in
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: every state, but it can create the appearance of confusion
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: and corruption, especially if you want to weaponize it and
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: exploit it. So that's what sort of you know, the
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: suspicion didn't start in nineteen sixty, but it really gave.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: It became the modern example, and it got tied to
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: a presidential election, and the belief has echoed ever since
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: in debates over city vote counts, skepticism about large urban
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: turnout arguments about election integrity that continue today. But there's
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: an important reality that gets lost when talking about Kennedy,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: Nixon and Illinois in nineteen sixty. Let's say Nixon had
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: one Illinois Kennedy, what is snow on the presidency? It
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: wasn't the decisive state. Illinois was dramatic, it was close,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: it was controversial, but it was not decisive. But the
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: mythology mattered more than the math. Nixon, of course, chose
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: not to challenge the result because flipping Illinois wouldn't have mattered.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: He still would have lost the presidency, but it entered
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: political folklore. This is the state where the machine may
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: have helped pick a president, and it gave the right
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: a grievance that they still mythologized today and tried to
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: create legislation to deal with, even though it is simply
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: a symptom of where the people live. Number four on
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: my list is Paul Simon v. Charles Percy nineteen eighty four.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Percy actually gets an honorable mention for a previous race,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: and I'll talk about it here. This one was just
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: great political drama. Paul Simon was the Democrat most famous
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: for his bow tie, and he was the challenger the incumbent,
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: Republican incumbent Charles Percy, was moderate, nationally respected, and arguably
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: was beginning started to Percy's loss in this election was
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the end of the moderate Republican in Illinois.
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: Still a few more would get elected governor in the nineties,
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: but it was when it was starting to come to
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: an end because conservative started to get frustrated with moderate
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: Republicans and this race. Paul Simon benefited the most from this,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: because you don't win a Senate race in nineteen eighty
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: four against a Republican incumbent if you don't have some
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: Reagan voters on your side, and Simon had Reagan voters
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: on his side. Here. Percy himself, a lot of people
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: were shocked that he ran again in eighty four because
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: he almost lost in seventy eight. And during that campaign
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: he ran one of the most famous ads in political
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: history because he was the first time an incumbent basically
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: admitted to misdeeds. It was the I'm sorry ad worked
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: the ad he's candidate to camera and in this case
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: incumbent to Cameron. He said, I have made mistakes, I've
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: disappointed some of you. For that, I'm sorry. Well it worked,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: he survived, but six years later the environment had changed completely.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: The fact that Percy loses in a Reagan landslide year,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Simon gets fifty, Percy forty eight. Simon beat him by
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: focusing that Percy had basically gone Washington, too distant from
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: the voters, and he was a bit too much of
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: an elitist. And it worked. But what really helped Simon
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: the most is that you actually had super conservatives, just
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: like we had that example in Texas for John Tower,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: when the conservative when the liberal Democrats decided not to
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: help out the conservative Democrats and actually go elect a Republican.
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: That's what happened here. The conservative Republicans retired of the
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: moderate Republicans and they decided to screw it, let's get
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: him out and take over the party. And well it
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: got Simon that Senate seat, even in Reagan's landslide. Here
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: and the fifth one I put this is this one. Look,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: it's very debatable, and I'm fully I am fully prepared
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: for many of you to say, ah, this doesn't belong
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: in your top five. But is the nineteen eighty six
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: Democratic primary chaos and the takeover by the Larouchies. Lyndon
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: LaRouche is this crazy figure in American politics, has run
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: for president multiple times from prison, and he has his acolytes,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: and you know, all if you're of a certain age,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: you remember Larouchie setting up trying to recruit people to
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: their movement in front of post offices, and that used
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: to be their primary place of recruitment. You know, in
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: d C. You'd see him on the on the corners
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: near right there, near the old Executive Office building and
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: at Union Station you'd see them and it was always
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: you know, they had a huge conspiracy, you know, there
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: was they could tie liberal. It was sort of one
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: of these things that talked about, you know, the Queen
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth was a drug cartel and all sorts of weird stuff.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: But it had a real following there and probably its
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: peak following was in the eighties, and it was eighty
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: six that it had the peakest of followings. It's the
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: strangest election Illinois may have ever had because two Larouchies
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: entered Democratic primaries for state wide offices, not the top
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: of the ticket, but for other state wide offices. And
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: it was a low turnout, low information primary, and voters
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: picked names they didn't recognize, and two LaRouche candidates. One
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: the lieutenant governor nominee was a gentleman by the name
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: of Mark Fairchild of Larushi, and a woman named Janis
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: Hart won the nomination for Secretary of State. Well, the
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party was just stunned that essentially their party got
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: hijacked by the Larushies. The gubernatorial nominee was their failed
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: nominee from four years earlier, Adelete Stevenson, the third Yes,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: the son of the one time presidential nominee who would
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: lose twice to Dwight Eisenhower. Stevenson refused to run with
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: these Larushies, did not want to head the ticket right,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: so he dropped all of the Democratic ticket completely and
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: created a new party, the Illinois Solidarity Party. Because they
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: couldn't figure out how to get rid of the Leuracies
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: wouldn't leave, they couldn't, so essentially they abandoned the party,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: which in hindsight was probably the mistake. Obviously the election
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: descendant in Chaos, Republicans won landslide. It was one of
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: the biggest victories eighty six, a huge Democratic gear nationally
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: by the way, but not in Illinois. Because of this stupidity,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: and it was it really was a was a reminder
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: and actually was an early canary in the coal mine
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: about how much Democrats back then they were always so
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: focused on national politics and not not minding the store
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: at home, right, And when you think that six years
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: later Republicans would just would just sort of out maneuver
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: and out organize the Democratic Party and state legislatures all
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: over the country take over a redistricting process. When you realize,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: look at this mess that was taking place in a
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: you know, the ultimate machine state, Illinois, and the Democratic
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: primary was paying party was paying so little attention of
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: what was going on inside its own party. The two
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: Larouchies come in, I think, you know, in hindsight, it
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: turns out this was just another piece of evidence of
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: a party that was not was not sort of paying
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: attention to the little things. Every election matters, Every down
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: ballot election matters, every state legislative race matters. Republicans understood
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: that a lot sooner in the modern era than Democrats did,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: And that Larouchie race is one I think for the books,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: few that I didn't include but could have been worthy.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: And some of your some of you seventy two governor,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: guy named Dan Walker. He borrows. It became the thing
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: to do. He had walking with Lawton Chiles did it
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: in Florida. Lamar Alexander walked the state of Tennessee, and
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: Dan Walker walked the State of Illinois to quote defeat
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: the machine. The irony is that he would win the
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: governor's race and eventually himself be sent to prison. Rod
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Bolgoyevitch two thousand and two Governor. The irony to this
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: race is that he wins because of the George Ryan
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: corruption scandal. He actually he gets to run against a
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: guy named Jim Ryan, no relation to George Ryan, who
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: was the Jim Ryan was the ag. There was all
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: sorts of ryety of the Dan Ryan express away. There's
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: so many Ryan's in Chicago. That's why I think the
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Democratic primary they try to always have it. In Saint
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: Patty's day, right, it teaz but just having the last
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: name of Ryan was a penalty. In O two, Bogoyevitch
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: wins because of his scandal and of course becomes literally
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: the next governor. I mean, this was astounding. The governor
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: elected basically the two elected governors in a row ninety
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: eight George Ryan to Blagoyevitch both end up serving time,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: and like I said, Harold Washington nineteen eighty three, Chicago
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: mayor might be another one I'd put on there. So
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: there's my list of the most consequential Illinois center races.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: I could you could do it? You do a mini
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: series on Obama two thousand and four. There's so many
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: butterfly effects of that one. But as you can see, Illinois,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: one thing it has is a rich, rich history of
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: fascinating campaigns. So Netflix, if you're listening and you're ready
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: to greenlight this series, I could literally do an entire
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: season based on the state of Illinois and it's every
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: week Kok Ear and cook ear campaign. So move over,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: Ryan Murphy, have I got an American horror story for you?
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: Illinois politics? Ask Chuck. First question comes from Johnny from
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: New Orleans. He says, Chuck really appreciate your analysis and
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: wanted to ask about something that's been frustrating me. When reporters,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: often women, are publicly denigrated or have their motives questioned
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: by President Trump or members of his administration while they're
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: simply doing their jobs, why don't more journalists push back
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: forcefully in the moment While still remaining professional. It seems
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: like letting those comments go and challenge risks normalizing them
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: or making seemed incredible from your perspective as a journalist.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: What's the calculation in those situations. Well, I can tell
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: you what the calculation is now, John, which is like,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: do you want to become a story? Right? Every journalist,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: especially of a certain generation, and I'm of that generation
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: where you let the idea is you let your words
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: speak for themselves, you let the reporting speak for themselves.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: You don't feel like you should have to defend your work.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: I think that's the biggest mistake we've made collectively over
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: the last twenty five years. And I wrote a whole
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: long op ed about this in The Atlantic some fifteen
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: years ago, ten twelve years ago, about the mistake we
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: made not fighting back when Fox character assassinated so many
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: of us for a three or four year period there
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: and how just we didn't defend our work this specific situation.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: So I can tell you how I handled myself in
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: these situations. Now. We didn't have anybody like Trump, okay
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: to deal with. When I briefly covered Bush but covered
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: more Obama than anybody else in my days at the
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: White House. But when you're in that press pool situation,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: right when you when you and I put it this way,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: Robert Gibbs could be Robert might be listening. He's a friend.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: I consider him a friend. We've known each other way
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: too long. But we could have our battles publicly on air.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: You can go back and find some good YouTube clips
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: of our back and forth. And he could be a
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: little tough, and he could be a bit dismissive. And
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: what if he got dismissive or they got defensive and
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: they were trying to avoid a question in that press
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: room and it was and then it was my turn
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: to ask a question. You know, I get called on.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: Instead of asking my question, I'd simply I'd like to
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: get the answer to that follow up you didn't answer.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: Let me repeat the follow up that was set over there.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: To me, that is the professional way to respond. So
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: when he denigrates Caitlin Collins or something like that, ande
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: and then mister President, I'd like to repeat the question
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: you again, and then you literally repeat Caitlin's question in
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: that situation that he denigrates, but you make it clear
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: trying to get the question answered. So I think that's
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: the best way to do it, because ultimately you're you know,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: I always say, when you're asking questions of the president,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: you're a stand in for the public, so you know,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: and so get to get him answered. And when you're
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: working in a collective environment, even though you compete with
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: other news organizations, ultimately we're all trying to do the
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: same thing, which has surface more information out of this administration.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: And in that sense, you should have the back of
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: your colleagues. Now I can say today's calculation is there's
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: fear of retribution from Trump, there's fear of losing access,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: and then there's the pressure that comes from their bosses,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: particularly if you work for a more well known news
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: brand that where the corporate parent cares more about their
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: image than the journalist's integrity. Which again I'm gonna say something.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: All I'm looking I'm waiting for the three heads of
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: the corporations that own the three broadcast news divisions that
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: Brendan Carr has threatened to stand up for those journalists,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: and they have not publicly stood up for those journalists.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: Brian Roberts, Bob Eiger, David Ellison, speak up, speak up.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: If you don't, you're sending the message to your journalists
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: that you do not have their back. So what Brendan
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: Carr has said is operable if you do not speak
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: up and defend your journalists. So get your shit together, guys,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: and defend your journalists. You don't have to attack the president.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: You can defend your journalists without attacking anybody and making
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: it political. Defend their integrity. This is something you have
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: refused to do for years, and here we are. But
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: in this case, to your question, John, that's to me
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: the best way to do that. Next question goes from
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: Jason from Virginia. Hey, check. One thing I really enjoy
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: about the new format is a chance to ask questions
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: and interact with the show. I'm curious there are lessons
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: from sports fandom that could help reduce polarization and politics.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: For example, I might feel about Miami as a uf
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: alum the way you feel about Florida, but we could
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: still easily talk sports and laugh about it. Why does
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: politics feel so much harder? And how do we get
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: back to recognizing the things we actually agree on. I
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: think about this a lot when people attack kirk Herb Street,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: and I've probably taken a shot or two at Herb
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: Street over the years because I've been frustrated about something
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: ESPN has done and right, and there's this feeling that
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: he's the voice of college football and so and you know,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: people will say, well, he's in the tank for Clemson,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: or he's in the you know, because his kids are
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: on Clemson's team, or he's in the tank for Ohio State,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: or he's in the tank for the SEC. And then
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: I think about it when he does the ridiculous, which
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: I kind of think is ridiculous. He will he will
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: make predictions about every game except the ones he calls,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: and you're like, you know, I don't I think you
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: can sort of. I get it's sort of like a
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: phony attempt at integrity, and I just think that's silly.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: But I have empathy for him because I think this.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: You know, I can't tell you how many college sports
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: fans watch a game and are convinced the announcers are
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: against them. I have a relative. I'm not going to
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: single out their relationship to me, because I'll just let
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: them assume I'm talking about them, but not actually have
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: them know I'm talking about them in this case, But
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: I have a relative who always assumes that the announcers
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: are against Miami. And look, there has been era Parsigian
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: was against Miami when calling Notre Dame games. That was obvious.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: And we saw it in the famous eighty seven game
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: when Miami kicked Notre Dame's ass and our Eric cried
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: on television that how dare somebody run up the score
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: against Notre Dame when Notre Dame all they did was
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: run up the score when he was their co But
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: that neither here nor there. But the point is, nine
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: times out of ten, the announcers are just trying to
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: essentially go with the game, right. If the game is
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: going in one direction, you sound like you're in the
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: tank for one direction. You know, you just sort of
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: move at the game. And so I've long thought about
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: it that way, as so I put it this way.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: I don't take a tax personally. You know, I can't
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: tell you how often I would get a You know,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: you see your your tone changed when you interviewed a
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: Democrat versus when you interviewed a Republican. I don't think
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: my tone changed. I think you're listening with a different
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: ear because you're making a presumption about a bias that
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: you think is there but you don't have evidence of it,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: so you're now you're going to try to use facial
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: expressions in tone. Right, Like what I used to say
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: is all right, this is this is somebody who's already
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: a partisan. Right. I used to say, the worst people
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: to talk about whether somebody's being fair or not as
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: a partisan, because a partisan is looking for people that
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: agree with them. They're not looking for fairness, they're looking
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: for bias. That's the irony here. So the point is
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: is that I do think about the coverage of college
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: football and the passion that's behind it and how quickly
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: we assume someone's against our team or whatever, to be
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: a little more patient with critics when people want to
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: make assumptions about because what I have found is when
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: I have substantive conversations with a critic, they're pretty rational
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: and they sort of they get exactly what I'm saying,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: and they kind of, while without fully acknowledging that they
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: were looking at me through their own bias, not through
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: my bias, that you can have some rational discussion. So
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: I do in that sense. I do. But look, this
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: is why I'm a big fan of using sports in
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: my interviews with many politicians, because I do think it's
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: a way to remind people we have plenty in common
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: even when we disagree. And by the way, I'm sorry
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: you have to root for the Gators. Next question comes
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: from Matthew. Matthew from Bourbon, Indiana, big fan of the show.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: How much do you think Trump's gutting of the State
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: Department last year led to the failed planning to have
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: an effective evacuation plan in the Middle EAGs during the
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: Iranian War. As you mentioned in your previous episode, there
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: was a large military build up prior to the launch
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: of the war, but the State Department is the agency
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: that leads non combatant evacuation operations, not the military. Appreciates
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: your inside Matthew, Look, it's not just that. How about
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: dismanling USAID and failing to be a support mechanism for
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: the opposition inside of Iran and helping the opposition be
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: ready for a moment that we were trying to create
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: for them. You know, I think part of the both.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: You know, this is going to be this war is
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: going to be the definition of tactical success, but overall
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: failure because we blew this, you know, we blew up
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: our soft power capabilities over the last year and change,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: and those soft powder power capabilities were just not You know,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: you can have all the hard power you want, but
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: if you don't have those soft power capabilities, then you
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: don't have the ability to essentially use your tactical success
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: to cement a diplomatic achievement. And so I think, I
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: think there's a direct correlation here with our failure in Iran,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: and I say, look, we should be careful here. It's
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: it's not a lost cause yet, it's it's possible that
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: there's a the regime gets toppled and we can get
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: to a better place. But this was this was a
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: pretty poorly executed Well, we may have a tactical military
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: victory here, it's a pretty poorly executed strategy because we
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: don't know what the strategy is, what is the endgame,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: And now it's probably going to be filled with mission
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: creep because if if you leave now, it only keeps
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: it only keeps the regime in power, you've made things worse.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, you screwed up the global economy.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: So in order to make this, in order probably to
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: keep this mistake from being worse, we're going to have
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: to escalate in ways that the public's not going to
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: find very popular. But yes, I think dismantling usaid. I
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: think there's both indirect and direct impact. The gutting of
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: the State Department is a huge reason why we are
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: failing in the soft power part of this Iranian war.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: Last question for this episode, as comes from Dan and Fairfax. Hey,
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: did Governor Spamberger just tea up at GOP wave during
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: the next round of state legislative elections. A lot of
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: what she signed in the law, we'll get activists upset,
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: But the gun control measures might result in rural voters
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: turning out in droves. Northern Virginians, rich In residents and
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: those in the tidewater might support gun control. By I bett,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: it's an eighty twenty issue in the rest of the state.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: Thanks Dan and Fairfax. That's an interesting way of looking
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: at it. I just think in general, this has been
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: the most partisan start of any of any democratic governor
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: in the twenty first century that we've had, right Warner, Caine, mccauliffe,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: you go through, and yet she didn't run as a partisan,
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: and I don't think she is as partisan as the
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: legislature is now. It's sort of like what happened to
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: my friend Pat McCrory North Carolina. The legislature sort of
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: dragged him into these conservative causes that he never wanted
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: to be was running on and governing on. And I
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: have a feeling spam Burger's feeling the same way here.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: She's the governor, but she's being dragged into, dragged into
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: signing legislation that she may generally be supportive of but
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: not necessarily wanting to prioritize by a very very aggressive legislature.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: Right now, look, I think this is this is dangerous territory.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: But we'll see the numbers of the numbers. I mean,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: Northern Virginia, Richmond and Tidewater may may just be that
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: much bigger of entities. I mean, this is an interesting
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: if if guns alone or that, I think the vulnerability
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: guns might rally your rural voters, which which certainly can
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: matter a bit. I think the bigger thing is how
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: partisan and sort of the you know, slamming through. I mean,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: I just find this entire redistricting referendum and the messaging
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: campaign and the gas lighting, I just, oh, I hate this.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: I know. I'm a good government guy. I'm a pro
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: democracy person. So I hate every part of this redistricting
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: war left and right. Okay, this is this fight fire
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: with fire is only going to damage everybody. I mean.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: It reminds me of a joke that my an old
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: friend of mine named Matt Cooper, editor over at Washington Monthly,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: now great reporter at Newsweek, back when Newsweek was Newsweek,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: the twentieth century Newsweek, not twenty first century Newsweek. But
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: Matthew Cooper used to do some stand up comedy and
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: he was he's and he had this riff about you know,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: imagine if the beer companies behaved like political candidates do
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: in their TV ads, and you know, and bud Light
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: and Miller Light went after each other, and bud Light
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: ran an ad that's Miller like claims it's less filling.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: But what they don't tell you, and they just start
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: reading the ingredients of the beer that with the five
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: syllable words and all this stuff, you know, and then
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: you'd have a response ad going Miller going negative on
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: bud Light. They claim they're the king of beers, but
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: what they don't tell you is, you know, that sort
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: of thing that eventually it wouldn't be that. As he said,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: people wouldn't just stop drinking Budweiser, drinking Miller like they
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: just simply stopped drinking beer. And his point was, that's
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: what's happened to politics, right, Well, this is my concern
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: about what Democrats have done here with this basically deciding
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: the best way to unrig our democracy is to rig
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: the democracy. Right. You know, the best way to enfranchise
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: voters that have been disenfranchised in Texas is to disenfranchised
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: voters in Virginia or in California. It's just not going.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: It's just doesn't stand up to scrutiny, right, and it
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't pass the logic test. And all it does is
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: just fuel the cynicism of politics that ultimately they just
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: want power, and the parties will take any shortcut to power,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: and they'll use any rationale to grab power. And and that's
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: that's the and and that's the cynical response from the
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: voter that I fear is coming. If we're if, if
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: we're if we're all not careful there. All right, let
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: me get off the soapbox here, because guess what, I'll
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: be back in twenty four hours. And with that, thanks
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: for listening.