Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary -The Blue Wave Is Building… But How Big Will It Be? + The Five-Alarm Fire At The Pentagon

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Chuck’s Commentary -The Blue Wave Is Building… But How Big Will It Be? + The Five-Alarm Fire At The Pentagon · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
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  Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
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  Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now
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  Speaker 1: over exactly this. Companies that branded themselves as unbiased while
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  Speaker 1: to distrust everyone in this space, honestly, I get it.
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  Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
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  Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
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  Speaker 1: Medicare advisors whose entire model is that their advisors are
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  Speaker 1: it's across the board is what they're trying to do.
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  Speaker 1: even after you've done this. So look, I get it.
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  Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
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  Speaker 1: What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time
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  Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is
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  Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
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  Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4255. Hello there and
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: welcome to the Thursday edition of the Chuck Toddcast. The
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: first September edition. We are coming to you by the
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  Speaker 1: time you're listening to this. We'll be somewhere either right
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  Speaker 1: at 60 days until the midterms or 59, depending if
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: you delayed a day. And I got a packed episode
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: for you. We're going to hit a lot of big themes, including...
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Some new midterm analysis and a couple of deep dives
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  Speaker 1: that I've gone into that I think help gave me
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  Speaker 1: a clearer picture of the battle for the Senate in particular.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I want to share with that. We had another primary
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  Speaker 1: night on Tuesday, got a few takeaways from that, but
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  Speaker 1: we also have more specific data on overall turnout during
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  Speaker 1: the primaries. It's an incredibly important tea leaf to read.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I've been sharing that with you as well. We've got
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  Speaker 1: a crisis, a five-alarm fire at the Pentagon. I want
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  Speaker 1: to get into that. And we've got a broken house,
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  Speaker 1: and I'll explain that. I'll have a new top five list,
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  Speaker 1: hot off the presses on where things stand in the Senate.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: As I said, I have a pretty clear picture now.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: And then, of course, week one, the trek, the University
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: of Miami's campaign to prove to the world they are
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the best team in college football, the best program in
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: college football, that we are building something that is sustainable
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and bigger and better than those two overrated conferences called
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: the Big Ten and the SEC. So I'll give you
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: a little bit of my exclusive Miami preview. Who else
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: is going to give you Chuck Todd's preview of the
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: University of Miami football season? And then I have a
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: couple of words about the Angels and Steve Ballmer and
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Kawhi Leonard and the Clippers. But look, I know why
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: you tune in. Let's start with the midterms. Because I
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  Speaker 1: think we now have what may be the most important
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  Speaker 1: political tea leaf we've gotten all year. Bottom line is this,
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  Speaker 1: a democratic wave is building. What we don't know is
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  Speaker 1: how big it's going to be. And that's why I'm
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  Speaker 1: using the word building. I'm not telling you there's going
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  Speaker 1: to be a democratic wave or a tsunami in November.
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  Speaker 1: We're still two months away. There's still things that can happen.
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  Speaker 1: Campaigns matter. Debates matter. Candidates matter. Those things matter. But
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  Speaker 1: if you're looking for actual evidence that a wave is forming,
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  Speaker 1: You know, we just don't know. This is this is
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: going to be a hurricane. But is it a category
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  Speaker 1: one or a category five? The best piece of evidence
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  Speaker 1: we have right now is overall primary turnout. And it's
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  Speaker 1: not simply the comparison of and this is the total number. Basically,
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  Speaker 1: the Democrats won the midterm primaries. Hard stop. What do
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  Speaker 1: I mean by that? More Democrats showed up to vote
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  Speaker 1: in Democratic primaries. Then Republicans showed up to vote in
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  Speaker 1: Republican primaries. It is about the most important stat you
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  Speaker 1: can have in your in your pocket to try to
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  Speaker 1: project what's going to have in November. And it's not
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  Speaker 1: just what happened this cycle. It's how it compares to 2022,
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  Speaker 1: 2018 and 2014. So stick with me here. John Kovulian,
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  Speaker 1: a Republican data analytics guy and sort of one of
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  Speaker 1: the best modelers out there on the Republican side of
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  Speaker 1: the aisle. He's a frequent contributor to our election night
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: live streams that I do with DDHQ and Chris Eliza.
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  Speaker 1: He was on again on Tuesday night, but he's a
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  Speaker 1: must follow on X if you're a political junkie. He is,
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  Speaker 1: you know, yes, he works on one side of the aisle.
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  Speaker 1: His X feed is not just part, isn't about just
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  Speaker 1: promoting stuff. He's just a data guy and you learn
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  Speaker 1: so much of it. Well, he's been tracking this very closely,
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  Speaker 1: the partisan primary turnout across the country, state by state.
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  Speaker 1: He updated his numbers through the Massachusetts primary from Tuesday night.
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  Speaker 1: And Democratic turnout overall is running about, according to John,
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  Speaker 1: about 35% higher than it was for Democrats in 2022.
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  Speaker 1: As for Republican turnout, it's down about 4% from 2022.
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  Speaker 1: Overall primary turnout is up 14%, but all of that
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  Speaker 1: rise in turnout is due to Democrats showing up in
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  Speaker 1: the primaries. That alone should get your attention. But then
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  Speaker 1: you compare it with 2018, right? Remember, 2022 was the
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  Speaker 1: red mirage, right? The red wave that didn't form. But
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  Speaker 1: it was still a Republican-leaning year, and primary turnout told
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  Speaker 1: us it was going to be a Republican-leaning year. But
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  Speaker 1: let's compare it to 2018. 2018 was a pretty decent
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  Speaker 1: Democratic wave. I say decent. It got 40%. seats for Democrats,
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  Speaker 1: but they did lose two Senate seats. And Democratic primary
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  Speaker 1: turnout this year is running 25% higher than it ran
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  Speaker 1: in 2018. And Republican turnout this year is also above
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  Speaker 1: 2018 for what it's worth, 14%. So we have greater
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  Speaker 1: engagement overall in both parties for this midterm than before,
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  Speaker 1: but it is supercharged on the Democratic side. And overall
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  Speaker 1: turnout is 20% higher compared from 2026 through to 2018.
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  Speaker 1: But here's one more number I'm going to come back to.
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  Speaker 1: Of the people voting in one of the two major
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  Speaker 1: party primaries so far this year, Democrats are accounting for
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  Speaker 1: about 56% of all voters. In 2022, they were 40%
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  Speaker 1: of all voters. In the blue wave 2018 election, Democrats
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  Speaker 1: were 54%. And then if you go back to 2014,
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  Speaker 1: Republicans were 55%. So you see It is a foreshadowing mechanism.
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  Speaker 1: Whichever party is more enthusiastic during the primary season is
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  Speaker 1: usually the party that comes out ahead in November. What
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  Speaker 1: we don't know is how much do they come out ahead.
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  Speaker 1: But that pattern, you go back to 2014, Republicans won
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  Speaker 1: the primary turnout game. They picked up seats. It was
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  Speaker 1: a reddish wave. 2018, the Democrats won the primary. turnout game,
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  Speaker 1: they gained seats. 2022, Republicans won the turnout narrowly, but
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  Speaker 1: they won the turnout. They narrowly were able to get
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  Speaker 1: control of the House. So it's that trend line that
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  Speaker 1: should really get your attention. Now, look, somebody may clip
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  Speaker 1: this and say, Chuck Todd's already declared blue wave is here. Look,
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  Speaker 1: there are plenty of ways that this could both be
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  Speaker 1: correct and still be a tropical storm rather than a
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  Speaker 1: category three hurricane, right? And I think that's a fair thing.
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  Speaker 1: It is a tea leaf. That's what it is. But
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  Speaker 1: it is better than any poll that's out there because
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  Speaker 1: this is measuring actual people who showed up to the polls.
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  Speaker 1: And if you show up in a primary, you're definitely
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  Speaker 1: showing up in a general, right? And that's why this matters.
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  Speaker 1: So it's already Democrats are ahead of the Republicans when
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  Speaker 1: it comes to general election turnout. But look, I'm a
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  Speaker 1: huge believer in looking for election indicators that don't ask
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  Speaker 1: voters what they're going to do, but instead just you
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: get to observe what they actually did, right? That's special elections,
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  Speaker 1: that's fundraising, that's voter registration, and that's turnout because it's
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  Speaker 1: the behavior that matters. People will tell a pollster anything,
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  Speaker 1: but voting is voting. And so when you compare 2026
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  Speaker 1: to 2022 and then 2018 and 2014, um, I just
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  Speaker 1: think it absolutely crystallizes that, oh, a blue wave is building.
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  Speaker 1: What we don't know is how big this sucker is
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  Speaker 1: going to get. But look, the ingredients for one are
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  Speaker 1: clearly there, right? Republicans have to worry about the next
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  Speaker 1: two months. And they're going to be playing a lot
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  Speaker 1: of defense. And I'm going to get more to that
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  Speaker 1: in a minute. Now, let's talk about mass voted this week.
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  Speaker 1: Next week, we've got New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Delaware.
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  Speaker 1: And then mercifully, we're basically done with primary season. What
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  Speaker 1: did we quickly learn in, you know, Massachusetts? I would
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: just say it's look, the old guards in trouble, but
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  Speaker 1: they hung on. You know, Massachusetts in some ways is a–
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  Speaker 1: it almost behaves– its politics behaves kind of machinish-like. And
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  Speaker 1: it's still kind of an old– you know, it's been
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  Speaker 1: chipped away at. And I think the Massachusetts Democratic Party
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  Speaker 1: is in the middle of being remade, but it's not
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  Speaker 1: completely there yet, right? That's why Richie Neal survived. That's
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  Speaker 1: why Stephen Lynch survived. Ed Markey is sort of– you know,
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  Speaker 1: he's really good at sort of moving where things are.
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  Speaker 1: But Seth Moulton, I think Markey could have lost another
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  Speaker 1: type of candidate, another type of campaign. Seth Moulton just
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  Speaker 1: didn't run that campaign and he was the wrong candidate. Look,
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  Speaker 1: there are two significant things to watch in next week's primaries,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire and Delaware. We got the Senate primaries, both
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  Speaker 1: on the Democratic side, Republican side. This is the seat
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  Speaker 1: Jeannie Shaheen is vacating. Chris Pappas, the likely Democratic nominee,
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  Speaker 1: is suddenly looking over his left shoulder. There is a
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  Speaker 1: progressive challenger that is gotten a little bit of traction
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  Speaker 1: in at least one poll we've seen. But I always
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: want to be careful. The University of New Hampshire polling
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: has been a mess, right? They've been a mess all over.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: And so I don't, I would be, let's not overrate
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  Speaker 1: it completely. You also have two senators running against each other,
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  Speaker 1: two former senators, John Sununu and Scott Brown. By the way,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: this is like the 18th time I think Republicans have
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: had multiple former U.S. senators running in primaries in New Hampshire.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Bob Smith and John Sununu, I think, ran once again.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I think Bob Smith and Scott Brown ran against each
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: other once or whatever. But Sununu is likely to come
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: out on top. The Sununu name is still gold in
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  Speaker 1: that state, particularly in a Republican primary. And we'll see.
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  Speaker 1: I think John Sununu in any other year would be
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  Speaker 1: a formidable general election opponent. It's an uphill battle in
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: this environment because of the national wins. But I do
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: want to do a little bit of a dive here.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: in the Senate and give you a little taste of
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: what I wrote about this week, both for my column
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: that appears both in New Sphere and in Substack. I
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: spent a lot of time essentially trying to look at
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: some different ways that the battle for the Senate could
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: get impacted. And I'll be honest, I have one idea
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: of where I think the Senate's going. And then I
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: did this deep dive on gubernatorial races and their impact
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: on Senate races over the last 20 years, over the
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: 21st century. And I ended up coming to a different
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: conclusion about which seats I think are more likely to
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  Speaker 1: flip and which ones aren't. So I want to make
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: an argument that's going to sound that it's incorrect at first.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: But I believe this. Control of the United States Senate
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  Speaker 1: may ultimately be decided not by any Senate races, but
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: by three governor's races, Michigan, Texas, and Iowa. So stick
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: with me here. Because what I went and did is
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: did a bunch of sort of data analysis on this.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: And by the time I finished, I changed my mind
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: about which state I think might be the Democrats' last
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: legitimate path to a Senate majority if the wheels fall
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: off in Michigan. But let me establish the map here.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: For Democrats to have any conversation about Senate control, they
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: already have to have a really good night on the
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: East Coast, right? So for the purposes of this exercise,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I'm going to assume that they're gonna find a way
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: to win under this environment, North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, and Alaska. Now,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: I don't want folks to sit here and assume I've
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: already predicted this, but I'm gonna, because those four are
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: a heck of a lot easier for Democrats to win
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: in this environment than the next couple of Senate seats
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: that they would need if for some reason they didn't
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: get one of those four. So, and I know particularly
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Ohio and Alaska and Maine, we're not gonna say they're gimmies.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I think North Carolina, that definitely feels like that's, that's
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: going to flip to the Democrats. I'm pretty bullish about
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Democrats in Ohio because I think the anti-tech atmosphere that's there,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I think Vivek Ramaswamy being so closely associated with tech,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: let alone Elon Musk, let alone Donald Trump, I think
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: that's a negative threefer. I think he is going to
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: be a huge drag on the ticket, not a small
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: drag on the ticket. And I think that's going to
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: be the... I can't believe I'm saying this. I think
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: there's going to be a Democratic sweep in Ohio because
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: of this unusual combination of just anger at tech and
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: literally Ramaswamy being the exact wrong avatar Republicans could have
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: at this moment, right? This is somebody who is just
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: embedded in the tech community. And I don't know how
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: he punches his way out of this, but we'll see.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: But look, we're not even talking about Senate control if
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: they can't flip those four. So we're gonna start there.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And if they flip all four of those, Then of
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: my three states, Michigan, Texas, and Iowa, then Michigan is
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: sort of the first big challenge, right? Because Michigan is
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: now the firewall for the Democrats. They flip those four,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: North Carolina, Ohio, Maine, and Alaska, and they hold Michigan.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Texas and Iowa don't matter. They've got their Senate control.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: But if they lose Michigan, then they have to find
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: another Republican seat. And it is that next category of
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: targets that Democrats have in the Republican Senate, Texas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: That's just another level of difficulty. A lot of those states,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: you can see a path to 47 percent for Democrats.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: It gets really hard to go find those last three
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: points in those states. A lot harder to find them
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: there than in, say, Alaska, where Mary Patello in the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: first round of voting already got to forty nine. Or
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: a place like Maine that has elected plenty of Democrats,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: a state Kamala Harris carried. Or a place like Ohio
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: where Sherrod Brown has recently won. Or a place like
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: North Carolina where Roy Cooper has won plenty. But Michigan
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: becomes a firewall situation, which means Democrats would have to
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: win it if they lose Michigan. They'd have to win
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: a Senate seat in a state they haven't carried for
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: president since Barack Obama or one that they haven't carried
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: for president since Jimmy Carter. OK, that's the map they're
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: staring at here. But before I get to those three states,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: there's one of the Senate race that I don't think
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Republican leaders expected to be spending September thinking about, and
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: that's South Carolina. Darlene Graham survived a Republican runoff against
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Ralph Norman last week. Barely, right? 52-48. And remember what
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: it took for Republicans to drag her across the finish line.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump had to personally intervene. He went to South Carolina.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Maggie Hink had to spend heavily. President put his political
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: capital behind Graham in a way that he hadn't done
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: for anybody else on the ballot this year. And she survived, narrowly.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: So you would think, all right, South Carolina, Republican state,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: all's good, right? Nope. Because Ralph Norman, who lost that runoff,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: is still pretty bitter. He got up and said, we
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: fought hard, the voters have spoken, and now let's go
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: beat the Democrats. Nope, that isn't what he did. Ralph
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Norman hasn't done that yet. He was asked this week
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: what he would tell South Carolina voters who haven't made
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: up their mind in November. And you know what his
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: answer was? This is what he told the Greenville News.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Vote for Ralph Norman. Now, technically, Norman is not announcing
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: some organized write-in candidacy. There are South Carolina election law
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: issues actually involved here. They have sore loser laws. But politically,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: that's almost besides the point, right? The Republican nominee just
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: won 52-48, and the guy who got 48% is not
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: telling his voters to, quote, come home to the Republican.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: He's telling them, vote for him. Basically, sit the race out.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Write in somebody else. Don't vote for either Graham or
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Annie Andrews, the Democratic nominee. And then Norman continues to
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: criticize Trump's intervention in the primary. He called it shocking. Look,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: we all get why Norman intervened, why Norman's upset, because
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: if Trump doesn't intervene, Norman is the Republican nominee. But
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Ralph Norman had to know that at some point Donald
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Trump was going to exact revenge on him because Ralph
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Norman endorsed Nikki Haley in the presidential race in 2024,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: not Donald Trump. That said, Norman claims he's still really
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: supportive of Trump, but he's still upset. He goes, I
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: just don't understand why the president decided to get involved.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, you really don't know how personal he
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: takes everything? There's both a personal in the positive with
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the grams and a personal in the negative with you, Mr. Norman,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: who chose to support opponent. Now, good on you for
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: doing it, right? You didn't back down. You weren't afraid.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: But we know how Donald Trump operates. But if you've
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: got him going out there and you're the Democrats, do
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: you decide to try to take advantage of this? Do
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: you start to maybe run some ads in the most
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: conservative parts of the state, sort of amplifying Ralph Norman's comments,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: questioning why, you know, because there's already a bunch of
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: conservatives in South Carolina who were never big Lindsey Graham fans.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Annie Andrews isn't going to be able to convince those
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: folks to vote for Annie Andrews, but she might be
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: able to convince those folks not to vote in the
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Senate race. And Ralph Norman basically just offered up a...
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: It's almost like a book blurb, right? He gave you
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: the blurb to use in paid advertising to give Republican
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: voters the permission slip to not vote for Darlene Graham.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: It's a pretty potentially powerful thing to use there. Now,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: so we'll see. But I have a feeling, I think, look,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Lindsey Graham hasn't, you know, he didn't clear, he hasn't
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: cleared 55%. I think he cleared 55% in two of
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: his last three elections. So, and Darlene Graham's not Lindsey Graham.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying, but it's certainly another place where I
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: think Republicans are going to have to spend a little
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: bit more money and a little bit more time. I
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: don't know if the Democrats have excess money. I don't
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: know if they would bother to spend it in South
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Carolina rather than in, say, Mississippi or rather than, say, Kansas.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: But boy, Ralph Norman has just handed them an engraved
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: invitation to start playing around here, because if you just
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: get 10 percent of the Norman vote to vote for
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: a third party candidate or write in Norman's name or
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: skip the Senate race. That's a much more realistic path
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: for Annie Andrews to win. Hey, this episode of the
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• 22:23
  Speaker 1: rating was as of August of 2026. Now, it brings
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: me back to the three governor's races, though. I wanted
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: to give you that a little update because I just,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Norman did this on Monday. It's just astonishing. This is
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: in the Greenville News, which is the paper of record
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: for the part of the state that has been the
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: most skeptical of the Grahams, both Lindsey and Darlene. So
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: we'll see. It's a very Republican part of the state.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Annie Andrews is not going to do well there. But again,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: it's about splitting voters off. But I want to bring
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: up the governor's races here a little bit because there's
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: also another reminder here. Washington consistently gets one thing wrong
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: when it comes to the midterms. at least the Washington ecosystem,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: and I say this as somebody who has spent my
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: entire career inside the ecosystem, we obsess over Senate races.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: We obsess over the control of House races, who's up,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: who's down, which seats are going to flip. And in
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of these states, that's not necessarily what voters
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: are talking about, right? Usually, if a race has a
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: high profile Senate race and a governor's race, no matter,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: even if the Senate race is super high profile, most
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: of the time, voters are more concerned and interested in
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: the governor's race, especially when it's an open seat. The
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: governor's races in general usually are what I say, they
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: make the weather in the state, right? And part of
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: that is mechanics, right? The gubernatorial campaign, first of all,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: the governor's race is usually at the top of the
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: ticket in these midterm years, in most of these ballots.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: And the gubernatorial nominee is usually running the statewide political operation, right?
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: They're usually either in charge of the state party, appointed
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: the party chair, sort of get control of it. It is,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: you know, in many ways, they're sort of the linchpin
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: of the entire turnout operation and field program and things
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: like that. And it's also a reminder that voters treat
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: governor's races where they care about the two candidates. Senate
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: races are usually treated as jersey. You know, am I
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: voting for the red jersey or the blue jersey? It's
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: usually less about the person. There's exceptions. I think Texas
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: and Michigan are exceptions in this case. But governor's races
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: are much more personal. But what matters here are in
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: states where there's both a governor's race and a Senate race,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: where the governor's race can impact turnout, but more importantly,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: especially in places where you know the gubernatorial nominee is
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: going to outrun the Senate nominee, how much padding do
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: they need? How much Can they drag them over the
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: finish line? So here's a few facts that we already
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: know going in. Ken Paxton is going to run behind
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Greg Abbott in Texas. Abdul El-Sayed is probably going to
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: run behind Jocelyn Benson in Michigan. And Josh Turek is
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: going to run behind Rob Sand in Iowa. So the
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: question then is, what kind of number does Abbott need
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: for Paxton to survive? What kind of number does Benson
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: need for Abdul Al-Sayed to survive? And what kind of
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: number does Rob Sand need to suddenly get Turek from
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the dreaded 47% zone over into the 48, 49, or
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: 50 territory that might just be enough to pull it off, right?
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: So that's what I wanted to figure out. So in order,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I want to give you a little taste of the
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: research I did. So I kind of went backwards. I
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: pulled every midterm Senate race going back to 2002, where
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: there was also a governor's race on the ballot. Then
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: I narrowed it down to the genuinely competitive Senate races.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: And I ended up with 46 races total going back
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: to 2002 of competitive Senate races that were running simultaneously
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: with governor's races in that state. And I know 46
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: is not bulletproof statistically, et cetera. But there were some
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: interesting patterns here, right? The first one is a pattern
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: that tells you a lot about how our politics have
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: changed over 25 years. When you go back to 2002
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: and 2006, roughly half the states that were holding competitive
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Senate races and governor's races, they actually split between the
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: two parties, meaning There were 22 states in 02 that
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: had both a governor's race and a Senate race. And
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: literally in 11 of them, I think it was 11
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: of them where they split. Right. A Democrat won one
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the statewides while the Republican won the other. Frankly, it
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: was something that used to happen all the time. And
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: 02 and 06 saw a flurry of them. But since 2010,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: basically since the Obama era, the start of the Obama era,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Only about 25% of these midterm races in 2010, 2014, 2018,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: and 2022, only about one in four of the states
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: that held both a governor's race and a Senate race
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: did we see a split decision. Ticket splitting hasn't disappeared.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: It's just become less common, right? We know that the
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: polarization of America has really sort of bounded people to
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: almost voting straight I think 75% of partisans now vote
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: straight ticket all the time, right? We can't come up
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: with that figure exactly yet, but I think after this election,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: we'll be able to have a little bit more way
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: of doing that. So that's why I think these governor's
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: races could end up becoming in some ways incredibly impactful
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: on whether they are strong enough campaigns to essentially improve
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: the weather for their ticket mates in Senate race. So
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: the other part that I wanted to look at is this,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: how much can the Senate candidate underperform a governor before
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: the party coalition breaks and that Senate candidate loses? And
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: so I went back to, I used three, I had
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: three recent candidates to try to help me figure out
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: what is the penalty for various sins that voters may
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: have for a candidate, right? Mandela Barnes, Wisconsin 2022, right?
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Tony Evers gets 51, just over 51% of the vote.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Barnes got just over 49% of the vote, which means
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: there was a two-point penalty for being seen as sort
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: of ideologically too far out of the mainstream. That's what
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Ron Johnson ran against him and all this stuff. Evers,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: there was a two-point penalty, right? There was some small
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: slice of Evers voters decided to cross over and vote
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: for Johnson or they skipped the Senate race. And it
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: It was obviously Evers wasn't strong enough. Had he gotten 53%
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: of the vote, Mandela Barnes probably comes across the finish line.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: So I looked at that and thought ideological penalty to
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: voters is approximately two points. Jay Jones in Virginia in 2025.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Do you remember Jay Jones, the scandal? He had those
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: text messages where he fantasized about his political opponents getting
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: killed by gunfire. It was terrible. A lot of people
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: denounced it. Well, there was a voter penalty. Voters didn't
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: like it, right? Abigail Spanberger got nearly 58% of the
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: vote statewide. Jones got 53% of the vote. So Jones
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: got hit with about a four and a half point penalty,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: but he won. OK, so this was scandal plagued guy.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: There's a four and a half point penalty from the
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: top of the ticket to him. Now, let's go to
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Herschel Walker, Georgia, 2022. Brian Kemp gets 53 percent of
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: the vote. Walker gets about 48.5 percent of the vote.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: So call it a five point penalty. And Herschel Walker. Right.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: It wasn't one scandal. It was a lot of scandals. Right.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: It was like it was like a lot of little things.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: If you notice there, four and a half for Jones,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: five points. So scandal, right? That was about a five-point
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: penalty in Virginia, and it was a five-point penalty in Georgia.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: But in this case, Walker lost. Why? Well, Jones didn't
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: survive because voters forgave him. They didn't. They penalized him.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: And it was the same size penalty that Walker got.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: But Jones survived because Spanberger gave him an enormous cushion.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Walker takes the same hit. And Kemp wins fairly comfortably
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: for a swing state, but he didn't have enough room to,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: you know, he didn't win by enough to drag a
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: flawed candidate like Herschel Walker over the finish line. So
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: keep that, keep those two numbers in mind, right? Four
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: to five point penalty there, both in Virginia and Georgia, 2022, 2025.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: That takes me to Texas, right? That's my three examples here.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: He's the scandal plate candidate. So what's the Abbott number
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: got to be to save Paxton? So if Paxton is
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: penalized by voters like Jones and Walker by about four
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: to five points, he's going to need Greg Abbott to
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: win by a big number. Now, look at Abbott's last
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: three elections. 2014, he got 59% of the vote. 2018,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: he got 56% of the vote. And in 2022, he
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: got just under 55% of the vote. So if you're Paxton,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: you look at the electoral history of Greg Abbott and
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: you say, hmm, all right, good news is he's hit
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: the cushion. If I'm going to get the five-point penalty,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: all right, you know, he's hit it before so that
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: it's possible. But there's something else those Abbott numbers show you.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Abbott's never, Abbott has, his trajectory is going in one direction, down,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: not up, right? So is Abbott going to get another 55%?
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Or is Abbott going to get 54%, 53%, 52%? Look,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: three months ago, I might have told you that the
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: possibility of Abbott getting to 54%, 55% was realistic. He
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: had a ton of money. He still has an enormous
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: amount of money. Gina Inouye is a very good candidate,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: a bit underfunded. Arguably from the, I could argue she's
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: from the wrong part of the state if she wants
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: to win statewide, Austin, right? The most liberal enclave. But
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you, I'm much less certain now. She's been
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: running a terrific race. Abbott has been running scared. You know,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: you don't flip on data centers because your polling is
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: so good, right? And obviously now we know Senate Republicans
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: aren't entirely comfortable with the situation either. I mean, John
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Thune's posture toward Paxton is telling you something, right? Republican
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: leaders don't need to... don't need to believe Texas has
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: suddenly become a blue state. They simply understand the math
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: problem they have. They realize that four to five point
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: candidate penalty when your governor is probably sitting at 54%
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: on his best day these days, maybe it's survivable, maybe
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: it isn't. But what happens if the governor gets 52%?
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: You got a huge problem. And guess what? I think
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Abbott's more likely to get 52%, not 54%. It is
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: this analysis and this deep dive into here That is
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: suddenly making me a lot more bullish on Tallarico. I mean,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: I've been watching all these Texas polls. Tallarico's number rarely moves.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: It sits at 47, you know, in a lot of
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: these polls. It's the Paxson number that fluctuates a lot.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: But ultimately, you know, I'm going to stick with what
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: has been a tried and true way to look at this.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: When you look at these past results, you look at
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: sort of trend lines, you know, it's still Abbott's race
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: to lose. I'm not predicting that Abbott's going to lose here,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: but this is going to be a much closer race.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: He is running scared. He's got to use all his
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: money for himself. He can't be bailing out the entire
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Republican ticket. And again, there's a trend line happening here, right?
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Abbott's numbers have gone down, even though the fluctuation, right?
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: He did worse in 22 than he did in 2018.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: The Democrats had a better year in Texas in 2018
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: than they did in 2022. But Abbott keeps sliding ever
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: so slightly. One more wrinkle here in Texas, the libertarian line.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Go back to– there's one other candidate I looked at
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: very closely to try to understand how much voter penalty
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: there is for a scandal-plagued candidate. Do you remember Todd Akin?
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: It's a Senate candidate, Missouri 2012. He's the guy that
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: claimed there was– not all rape was the same, legitimate rape.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Go Google it. The Republican Party walked away from him,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: totally abandoned him. Mitt Romney was the– this was a
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: presidential year. Mitt Romney walked away. So the entire party
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: had to walk away. Akin collapsed. But not every Republican
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: voter in Missouri who abandoned Aiken went to Claire McCaskill.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: A bunch of them parked with the Libertarian candidate. The
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Libertarian party line got a bigger number in 2012 in
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Missouri than they'd gotten in a long time. And it's
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: an important thing to think about here because a Texas
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Republican who cannot bring themselves to vote for Ken Paxton
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily have to become a James Tallarico voter. There
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: is another place to go. Texas Libertarians normally get something
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: like 1% to 3% in these Senate races. What if
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: it's five? What if it's six? Shoot, what if it's
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: just four? They're not Democratic votes. Those are votes Paxton
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: doesn't have. So there you go. So use this Abbott scale.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: 54 or 55, maybe Paxton can survive. Do we see
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: any evidence that Abbott's going to get 54 or 55
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: this time? Or is all this evidence pointing to Abbott
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: somewhere between losing re-electionarily or winning by less than five
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: points with something like 52% of the vote. I have
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: a very hard time seeing how Paxton survives under those circumstances.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: At 53%, I have a feeling we could be in
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: recount territory. Now let's go to Michigan. It's a slightly
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: different problem, right? Abdul El-Sayed, he doesn't have a Paxton
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: problem or an Aiken problem. His potential penalty is ideological.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: That's why I looked at the Mandela-Barnes race here. And
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: that's why I think that's the better comparison. Barnes ran
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: about two points behind Evers. So we're going to call
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: El-Sayed's potential penalty two points. Maybe it's three. So if
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Jocelyn Benson gets 54%, then I think El-Sayed is probably okay.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: If Benson gets 52%, we are in total coin flip
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: territory now, aren't we? Right? And that's why I think
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Michigan is now basically the firewall. And some may think
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: it could decide the Senate if you don't believe in Texas.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: But I think I've just made the case that Texas
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: is much more, Texas looks more like Ohio to me
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: now than I ever thought it did. And that's on me.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: This is why sometimes you got to go back and
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: do your homework, right? I did my homework. I got
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: a different attitude about Texas and I'll get to Iowa
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: here in a minute. I got a different attitude about Iowa.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: So Democrats don't merely need Jocelyn Benson to win. They
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: need her to create enough room underneath her for El-Sayed.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: By the way, I just want to do a quick aside.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: I think the single best campaign of the cycle is
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: being run by Jocelyn Benson. And she's not going to
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: get the credit for it. And she hasn't won yet.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: And she, you know, stranger things have happened. So I
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: don't want to, you know, I don't want to presume anything.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: But boy, when she got in first, she was, you know,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: she looked like it was going to be a crowded primary.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: She cleared the primary field. Then Mike Duggan, the popular
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: mayor of Detroit, chooses not to run primary, but starts
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: running as the third party candidate. And she's like, Jesus, right?
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Then all of a sudden you're like, could he get traction? Look,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: I was a huge, I was definitely Duggan curious because
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: I'm obviously very down on the duopoly these days, as
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: many of you know. But, you know, she put her
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: nose to the grindstone and, you know, just never gave
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Duggan an inch. Now, whether that was poor, you know,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Duggan didn't know how to run a statewide campaign and
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: just was running a Metro Detroit race, whatever. Benson didn't.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: You know, she's been everywhere. And she's also not somebody
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: who's feeling as if she's got to win the attention
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: economy either. You know, it's interesting. A lot of people
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: look at Gretchen Whitmer. Jocelyn Benson wins this race and
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: is the next governor of Michigan. People need to spend
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: a little more time getting to know her. Her origin
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: story is fascinating. Yeah. Look, Republicans are going to hit her.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: She spent a little bit of time working at the
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Southern Poverty Law Center and obviously the Trump administration is
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: trying to make that– I think what they've done to
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: them feels a little bit suspicious too. I think there's
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of murkiness there. But I think Benson is–
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: when you see that it's– sometimes campaigns don't get credit
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: because there's not enough drama. She somehow has dealt with
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: all these hurdles. And there's been very little drama. And
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: she could end up being the candidate that saves that
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: wins the Senate and saves Abdul Al-Sayed. Now, let me
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: move to Iowa. Iowa's where you could say my theory
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: kind of fell apart. I'll explain. But it made the
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: exercise useful because it really helped me understand Texas better. Look,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: I started out thinking Rob Sand might be a tow rope,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: if you will, for Josh Turek, right? Sand wins the
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: governor's race and pulls Turek across with him. Except Iowa
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: has its own interesting history of producing enormous differences between
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: candidates of the same party without splitting the ticket, right?
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: In 2010, Chuck Grassley ran about 11 points ahead of
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Terry Branstad's winning campaign for governor. In 2014, Branstad runs
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: seven points ahead of Joni Ernst, but they both win, right?
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Two Republicans. The gap can go in either direction. I mean,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: part of that is a Grassley phenomenon there, right? But
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: the party result seems to hold. In fact, Iowa hasn't
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: split a governor in a Senate race since 1998. It
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: was Vilsack and Grassley. Yeah. So, you know, I think
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: there is something here, but I don't know what the
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: actual number is. I do think the Sand number... Look,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: I think Sand's going to win the governor's race. The
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: question is, you know, what's the realistic ceiling he could hit?
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Is it 53? Is it 55? Is it 57? Okay?
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Those are serious questions. I do think he's sort of
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: a thermometer here. And Turek, right, Turek doesn't have any,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: you know, and I'll get to this in a minute.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: So if Sand... wins the governor's race with 51 or 52.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: It just means Sand ran a great campaign. And it
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: tells me Iowa has not moved back towards the center
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: enough from its shift to the right in the Trump era.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: And it's probably 51 or 52 won't be enough for
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Turek to win. But if Sand's getting 55%, then maybe
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: something is happening here. Now, here's something to think about.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: No Democrat has won an Iowa governor's race with 55%
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: since Harold Hughes in 1966. Put that in your trivia column, right?
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: So if Sand is sitting there on election night at 55,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: that's not simply a candidate having a good night. That
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: is that he might be changing the weather. And even
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: with that, I don't know if it's enough to get
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Turek over 50, right? Now, there is a Libertarian candidate
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: on the line in Iowa. Maybe he could pull off
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: something akin to what Jon Tester has done, right? Two
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: of his three races in Montana, he won with less
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: than 50% of the vote because enough Republicans parked in
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: the libertarian category. But I looked at libertarian performance in Iowa. Historically,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Iowa libertarians have maybe gotten 1%. Montana libertarians consistently get
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: over 2%. So there's not a big habit. of Republicans
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: splitting off to vote Libertarian the way there is a
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: little bit of it in Montana. So it brings me
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: back to where I started. You know, when I began
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: this exercise, I assumed Iowa was probably the Democrats' fifth seat, right?
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: If they need to, right now they need to flip
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: four and hold everything. But if they lose Michigan, they
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: need to find a fifth. And I, you know, part
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: of that is my own habit, my own personal bias.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of time in Iowa. I grew
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: up with Iowa as a swing state, right? Iowa's been
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: a be-all end-all for politics. And I just assumed, oh,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Iowa is finally course correcting. It's going to be back
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: to its normal sort of Midwestern swingy self. You know?
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I really did. I thought, boy, if Michigan,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: you know, if Abdul El-Sayed comes up short, then the
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: emergency pickup, surely Iowa is going to be more plausible
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: than Texas. Except looking at this, I'm not sure that's true.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: I think Texas has something Iowa doesn't. It has, one,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: a potentially significant candidate penalty that you can identify. It
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: has a Republican governor who remains strong, but who is
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: vulnerable for the first time in any time. He's running
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: for a fourth term, unprecedented. And there is a third
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: party line where unhappy Republicans can park without having to
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: vote Democratic, but it sort of lowers the winning number
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: for the Democrats. So these are the three numbers I'm
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: going to put on my election night cheat sheet, right? Benson, 54.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: If she's there, Abdul El-Sayed has the cushion he needs. Abbott, 53.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Above it, Paxton has a chance. Below it, it's over.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Paxton loses. And then Sand is 55. Not because Sand
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: getting 55 automatically elects Turek, but it does tell me
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: something has shifted. It probably means if Sand's at 55,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: they've picked up three House seats. And then we'll see. Look,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Ashley Hinson is a really good candidate for the Republicans.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: She's from actually a Democratic part of the state. So,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: you know, I think it's going to be awfully tough
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: for Turek to overcome Hinson unless Sand really changes the weather.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: The Republican candidate for governor is very weak. The guy,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: the guy is, he's going to be painted as a
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: carpetbagger from Kansas. And there's just way too much, you know,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: the fact that he currently flies back and forth from Kansas,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: it feels like he's a, Sand is, has the resources
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: to be able to paint them as a part-time Iowa resident.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Iowans care about that. Being Iowan's more important than being
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: a partisan. Just trust me. And Iowans know this. So
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: like I said, I started this exercise thinking Iowa's probably
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: the Democrats' third path to the Senate majority. I finished
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: it wondering whether Texas actually might be just part of
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: the same group of four that we've been talking about before. And,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: you know, wasn't where I expected to be. All right.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Let me move on here. I want to spend a
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: little bit of time on something that I genuinely cannot
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: understand why Washington isn't treating as a five alarm fire.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: We are at war. Our military is stretched. Senior commanders
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: are warning that the strain from the Iran war is
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: degrading our ability to respond to threats in other parts
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: of the world. And simultaneously, we have a secretary of
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: defense conducting an extraordinary purge in the middle of a
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: war of the senior leadership of the United States military.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: And nowhere is the damage more obvious right now than
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: in the United States Army. Frankly, I'm starting to wonder
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: whether his anger at the Army is personal for Hegseth. Remember,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: Hegseth was in the Army National Guard. He was an
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: infantry officer. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He eventually
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: made major. And he has spoken and written for years
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: about his own anger at what he believes the military became, right?
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: He clearly blames whatever promotion he didn't get or whatever
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: in the army on somebody else. And he seems to
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: be taking it out on that single branch. He titled
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: his book, The War on Warriors. So this was not
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: somebody who believed in the military when he went in,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: which makes him, I do not understand how Hegseth got
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: this far, but I have a theory. I'll tell you
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: in a little bit. Look, But Hegseth has talked about
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: an army that he believes became too politically correct, too bureaucratic,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: too obsessed with diversity and not obsessed enough with fighting. Okay. Clearly,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: it's personal for him, right? He didn't get some promotion
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: he wished he got, but that's beside the point. Now,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: there's a legitimate argument to have about whether the Pentagon
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: has become too bureaucratic. That's a fair argument. And there's
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: a legitimate argument about whether there are too many generals,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: all right? And there's a legitimate argument about whether the
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: military was preparing... for the wars it wanted to fight,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: rather than the wars it actually has to fight. But
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: that's not what Hegseth has been focused on. Look what
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: he's actually done. He fired General Randy George, the chief
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: of staff of the army. No public explanation. He forced
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: out General Chris Donahue, nicknamed Captain America, commander of the U.S.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Army in Europe and Africa. No meaningful public explanation. General
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: David Hodney, who was overseeing the army's transformation effort, gone.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Other senior officers associated with George and Donahue have all
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: had their promotions blocked. Seven more officers selected for the
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: two-star rank were just targeted. And now Dan Driscoll, the
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Secretary of the Army, has resigned after repeatedly warning the
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: White House about what Hegseth was doing. This isn't about reform, folks.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: This is an intentional gutting of the United States Army
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: by the Secretary of Defense. And here's what makes it
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: almost incomprehensible. These are some of the people who were
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: trying to change the army in exactly the ways everybody
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: agrees it needed to change. It needed to get smarter
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: use of drones, artificial intelligence, counter drone warfare, learning from
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: what happened in Ukraine, learning from Iran, figuring out how
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: a relatively inexpensive technology can destroy enormously expensive American weapon systems.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Randy George and Dan Driscoll, We're actually trying to accelerate
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: the transformation. Chris Donahue's command was applying lessons learned from Ukraine.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: And now we're learning that the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Europe,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: a unit that had been experimenting with drone warfare and
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: developing some of the very capabilities to do this better ourselves,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: is being told to go back toward a more traditional
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: airborne infantry role. Now, there are members of Congress from
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: both parties asking, what the hell are you doing? and
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: they should, but I don't think they've done it loud
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: enough personally, because this is no longer theoretical, folks. Iran
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: has been firing drones and missiles at American forces. Russia
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: has transformed warfare with drones in Ukraine. China is watching
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: every lesson being learned in both places. If there's one
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: institution on earth that should be racing toward understanding this technology,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: it's the United States Army. And somehow, this lug nut, Hegseth,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: is just firing some of the people who are leading
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: this transformation in the middle of a war. That's the
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: part that gets me. We're doing this during a war.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: A war, it turns out, we were not prepared for.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: We don't have the munitions for. There was no planning for.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: The army is being asked to defend American bases from
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Iranian missiles. We're drawing down our munitions. We're extending deployments.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness the guys on the USS Lincoln, they get
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: 24 hours in Bangkok. Good luck with that, gentlemen. We're
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: borrowing assets from Europe and Asia. And the army itself
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: doesn't even have a Senate-confirmed chief. And it just lost
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: its secretary. doesn't have a confirmed commander for army forces
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: in Europe, where we know Putin is thinking about testing
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: the resolve of NATO. The senior leadership of the army
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: has been hollowed out intentionally by Hegseth. And the guy
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: presiding over this seems increasingly interested in turning the Pentagon
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: into some sort of personal reality show about himself. And look,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: you know, I struggle sort of being, you know, a
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: name caller. I don't like you know, that that's supposedly
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: what gets you to, you know, go viral or whatever.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: But at some point, this image making for Hegseth becomes
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: relevant to the management question, right? He's more concerned about
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: influencers and about what the press could say. You know,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: he's got his wife out there planning a campaign for president.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: He's campaigning in Iowa, you know, and he gets away
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: with this because Trump is, you know, I keep, I've
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: asked folks who are also bewildered by have some access
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: to this White House. And they said that, you know,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: I can't believe, you won't believe what I'm, you actually
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: will believe what I'm about to repeat. Apparently, they just
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: say that Trump's obsessed with Hegseth's look and his looks,
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: that he's, I guess, got a crush on him, right?
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: You know, it's sort of the same way he gets a,
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: you know, because these people have the look and he's
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: just been obsessed with Hegseth since Hegseth was on TV
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: at Fox. And whatever it is, he just he's like
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: he's like mesmerized by Hegseth's square jaw or whatever. And
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: I guess Hegseth has taken advantage of it and he
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: knows it. I mean, you know, Dan Driscoll's no Biden holdover. OK,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Dan Driscoll goes in the Oval to basically say this
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: guy's a moron and he's gutting the United States Army.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: And it's like, oh, but he's so dreamy. I mean,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: I don't get it. And I can't believe that's the
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: explanation I got. And yet I can't. Right. It's Trump.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: I can't. So, look, I just, this whole thing, we're
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: removing generals with decades of combat and command experience. We're
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: blocking the promotion of officers selected through the Army's professional process.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: We're dismantling parts of the leadership team, trying to actually
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: figure out drone warfare that clearly have us on our
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: back feet. And we've apparently got time to bring in
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: social media influencers into the Pentagon Because Mr. Self-esteem peg
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: seth problem. I mean, look, the guy clearly, clearly has
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: poser complex, right? His whole workout that he's got to
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: show me. I mean, anybody that's obsessed himself with looks
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: and all this, I think they tell you about who
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: they are. What are we doing here? This is not
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: a fricking cable TV show. This is not boot camp cosplay.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: Guy can't even do a proper pull up, by the way.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: And heading up the Pentagon shouldn't be a branding exercise.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: It's the United States military. It's the last institution Americans trust.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: And this guy is blowing it up. The Iran war
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: is entering its seventh month. The Navy is warning about
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: its ability to sustain the current pace. Commanders responsible for Europe,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: the Pacific, Latin America have formally objected to continuing some
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: of the forced commitments they're being ordered to make to
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: the Middle East. Assets that we may need to deter
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: China are being moved. China's happy about that. Assets we
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: need in Europe are being moved. Putin is happy about that.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: Important munitions are being depleted. And we're doing something else
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: that deserves a hell of a lot more scrutiny. The
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: United States has spent the last year blowing up suspected
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Hundreds of people have been reportedly killed. The administration claims
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: they're narco-terrorists. Okay, well show us, who are these people?
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: What's the evidence? What was on the boats? What intelligence
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: established that these people were members of organizations against which
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: the United States can lawfully use military force? Why are
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: we killing them instead of doing what the United States
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: had traditionally done with suspected drug smugglers in basically boarding
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: the vessel, seizing the drugs, arresting the suspects and getting
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: the higher ups? Pentagon Inspector General is now examining the
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: targeting process, so we'll get a report in the next
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: two years. Obviously, there is no way any of this
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: is constitutional. Congress did not authorize a war against every
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: suspected narcotics trafficker traveling by boat in the Caribbean. And
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: yet we've normalized the U.S. military blowing up boats and
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: killing people on board based largely on assurances from the
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: same Pentagon leadership that refuses to show the public the evidence.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: What are we doing? So let's put all this together
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: because these stories aren't separate. We're at war with Iran.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: the depletion of our military capacity, the boat strikes, the
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: army purge, block promotions, this leadership vacuum, dismantling of modernization efforts,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: obsession with ideological conformity. And they all lead to an
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: enormous question. Who inside the Pentagon is willing to tell
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth he's wrong? And even a more important question,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: what happens to them when they do? It's what Bill
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: McRaven warned about months ago, former head of special forces.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: guy that commanded, you know, basically was in charge of
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: SEAL Team 6 that got bin Laden. Senior military officers
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: have to be able to walk into the Secretary of
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: Defense's office and say, no. Not, no, I won't follow
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: your order. That's not how civilian control works. But they
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: have to be able to say, no, sir, I don't
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: recommend this. This deployment creates too much risk. We don't
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: have enough interceptors or the Navy can't sustain this tempo.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: Moving that carrier will create a vulnerability in the Pacific.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: Firing that officer damages the morale of that institution. Stopping
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: Program X makes us less prepared for the next war.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: And then you let the civilian leadership decide. That's the system.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: But it only works if the people giving the advice
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: believe that telling the truth won't destroy their careers. And
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: right now, I don't know how any senior officer at
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: the Pentagon could look at what's happening and not wonder
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: about that. More than 80 generals and admirals have been
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: fired or blocked from promotion. Randy George, Chris Donahue, C.Q. Brown,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Lisa Franchetti, Jim Slife, David Hodney, J.P. McGee, Joe Berger,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: Jamie Sands, many more. But I'm naming them for a reason,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to get to that. Some of these
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: people spent three or four decades preparing for precisely the
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: moment we're in now. Many of them have left quietly,
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: and I understand why. In fact, I respect it, okay?
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: The American military has always had this culture. You don't
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: whine about civilian leadership. You don't go on television and
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: settle scores. You don't make yourself the story. You don't
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: politicize the uniform. When the president relieves you, you salute
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: and you leave. I understand it. But I'm speaking to
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: those officers right now, just as a citizen. I think
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: the country needs you again. And I'm not asking you
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: to become political. I'm not asking you to endorse anything.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Democrats or any opponents to crazy Hegseth. I'm not asking
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: you to attack Donald Trump. I'm not even asking you
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: to attack Pete Hegseth. You need to be witnesses. Tell
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: us what's happening. General George, tell us what happened. General Donahue,
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: get in front of Congress and tell us what happened.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: Admiral Franchetti, General Brown, General Hodney, General Slife, all of
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: you owe the American people an explanation to what the
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: hell is happening in the Pentagon. Guess what? If we're
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: all wrong about what's happening inside the Pentagon, then testify
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: to that and tell us we're wrong. If Hegseth's reforms
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: are making the military stronger, then please explain to us
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: how they are. If these officers were removed for legitimate
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: performance reasons that simply haven't been made public, tell us that.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: But if you believe the United States military is being weakened,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: if you believe experienced officers are being removed because of
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: ideology and personal grievance, If you believe people are becoming
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: afraid to give candid military advice, if you believe the
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: army's ability to fight a war is now damaged while
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: we're fighting the one we're in, you have an obligation
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: to warn the country. The president's not listening. He's apparently,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: you know, can't stop staring at Hegsa. I get it.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: It's asking a lot. Nobody wants to become a public
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: figure if they don't want to be one. I get it.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: Some of you spent your entire adult lives believing the
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: most patriotic thing you can do is to keep your
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: mouth shut afterwards. command. 95% of the time, that is
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: the correct. That's correct. These are not normal circumstances, generals.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: You don't have to come on my podcast and tell
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: me what happens, though you're more than welcome. Open invitation
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: to any of you. Go anywhere. Go before Congress. Go
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: to a newspaper. Go to Fox. Go to CBS. Go
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: to CNN. Write an op-ed. Tell us what happened. Congress
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: is clearly not doing enough. Maybe they'll do a little
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: bit more. The Pentagon is refusing to explain itself. The
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: American public has no way to see inside this institution.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: But you do. You were there. And this is what
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: frightens me. We already know this is bad. We already
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: know certain things. The leadership vacuum at the army is
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: staring us in the face. We've seen the firings. We
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: know about the black promotions. We know about all these
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: readiness warnings. The strain from Iran is real. We know
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: about the munitions problems. God knows what we don't know.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: So to the people who do know, the country needs you.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: You served America for 30 years, 40 years. America has
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: served you well too. You've got a nice retirement. You've
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: had a nice, and you know, the military does a
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: good job of taking care of families. We need you
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: to serve one more time. This is one more tour
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: of duty you've got. Tell us what's happening inside the
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth Pentagon. Because right now, silence is not protecting
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: the institution. I'm afraid silence may be helping destroy it.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: You must speak up. All right, I'm going to end
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: today with what I increasingly believe is the central institutional
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: problem in American democracy. I'm going to give you one
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: of our subscribers called a Todd Talk. So I'm going
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: to give you a little bit of a Todd Talk.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: because it's crystal clear to me now what the most
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: damaged part of our democracy is. It's not the presidency,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: the Senate, the Supreme Court. It is the House of Representatives.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: The House is the cancer in our political system. And
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: I use that word intentionally because the damage isn't confined
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: to the House anymore. It's spreading. But the cancer was
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: first showed itself in the House. The presidency is sick
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: in part because the House doesn't function properly. The Senate
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: is sick in part because the House doesn't function. In fact,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: trust me, when you worry that the Senate's becoming like
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: the House, that's not a compliment. The judiciary has become
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: too powerful and too political in part because the House
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: doesn't function. Our political parties are sick in part because
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: the House doesn't function. And our presidential elections have become
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: these quadrennial existential crises in part because the institution that
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: was designed to process the country's political disagreements has stopped
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: doing its job. It turns out the House is the
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: single most important organ of the body politic. Think about
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: the constitutional design. The House was supposed to be where
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: the country's political energy went, the good and the bad.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: The anger, the movements, the regional differences, the ideological differences,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: the crazy stuff, all of it. You elect representatives closest
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: to the people. You send them to Washington. They fight
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: about it. They negotiate. They build coalitions. They compromise. And eventually, hopefully,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: they'll turn some of those disagreements into laws. But it's
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: a pressure release file. And what happens when the pressure
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: release file stops working, the pressure doesn't disappear. It just
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: goes somewhere else. Went to the presidency. Went to the Senate.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: With presidents, they start governing through executive action. Then the
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: next president comes in and reverses those executive actions of
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: the last president. So policy itself is unstable, thanks to
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: the House being dysfunctional. Then the pressure goes to the courts.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: Congress doesn't settle abortion or immigration or trade or war
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: powers or anything. Pick an issue. So eventually, judges are
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: being asked to settle questions that the elected branches should
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: have settled. Now, control of the courts has become enormously important,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: but it shouldn't be if the House were doing its job.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: Senate confirmations become existential because the House can't do its job.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: So it makes Senate control more existential than it should be.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: And because so much power is migrated to the presidency,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: control of the presidency is existential. Every four years, we
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: win or democracy dies. We win or America dies, right?
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: We win or everything you care about disappears. And then
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: we wonder why the country is so polarized. The House
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: was supposed to be the organ that absorbed the conflict. Instead,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: it's exporting political conflict to every other institution in the country.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: And that's what a cancer does. It spreads. And this week,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: Jared Golden and Marie Glusenkamp-Perez gave us almost a perfect
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: x-ray of the disease in the House. Here's what happened.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: Jared Golden, Democrat from Maine's second congressional district, the more
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: rural district in Maine. It's one of the most important
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: industries in his district and in Maine overall is lobster fishing.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: This isn't some interest group that gave him a campaign check.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: This is actual communities, families, generational businesses. And Golden has
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: been working for years on the fight over federal regulations
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: designed to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale. And
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: there is a legitimate environmental argument here. There are legitimate
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: concerns about the survival of these whales, and there are
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: legitimate concerns about the survival of Maine's lobster fishing communities.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: And that's what legislating is supposed to be about, right?
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: Trying to deal with the competing interests, trade-offs, et cetera.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: Figuring out how do you do the most good while
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: doing the least harm? Golden believes the regulations as currently
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: envisioned could devastate the industry and the communities he represents.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: And so... He was doing an interview after this whole
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: kerfuffle was taking place. And he explained to the journalist,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Natalie Fertig, what the stakes were. And listen to the
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: language he used. He said, look, I literally had fishermen
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: telling me that they were contemplating suicide. And then he
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: described what losing the lobster industry would mean. He said,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: the town is decimated, no property tax base, schools closed,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: everybody moves away. It's just devastating. And he compared it
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: to losing a mill. And he talked about what happens next.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: The working waterfront disappears. Outside investors come in. Property gets
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: bought up. A fishing town becomes a vacation town. And
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: the people whose families have lived there for generations can't
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: afford to live there anymore. So that's what Jared Golden
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: said he was representing. It's not a national Democratic constituency,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: and it's maybe not what the DCCC worries about. And
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: certainly they don't have a caucus in Washington. Those towns, people.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: So Golden made him a promise and wrote a bill.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: And what it would do is... extend the existing pause
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: on new regulations, and give researchers more time to figure
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: out whether there's a technological solution that both protects the
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: whales without destroying the lobster fishing industry in Maine. Look,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: you can agree with this bill. You can disagree with
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: this bill. That's not the point of this exercise. I
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: just wanted to give you a little bit of backstory there.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: My point is that Jared Golden is a representative from
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: the state of Maine. He happens to be a Democrat,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: but ultimately, he's one of the two members of Congress
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: from the state of Maine. He decided this was important
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: enough to the people he represents that he was going
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: to fight for it. And he promised it. So Tuesday night,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: his legislation is sitting in a package of bills that
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: needs what's called a rule before the House can debate it.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: This is one of those procedural votes that normal people
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: have absolutely no reason to understand. And frankly, that's part
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: of the problem. Republicans currently control the House. Normally, Republicans
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: provide the votes for these rules. Democrats vote no. Everybody
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: knows their role, right? except Republicans have been having a
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: lot of defections on their rules committee, right? Chip Roy
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: is no fan of leadership, right? So suddenly the rule
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: to get Jared Golden's bill on the floor was in trouble.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: And if this rule goes down, Jared Golden's lobster bill
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: never gets a vote. So Golden, being one of the
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: Democrats on the rules committee, has a choice. He can
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: vote the way Democratic leadership wants him to vote and
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: kill the Republican rule, handing Mike Johnson as speaker an
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: embarrassing defeat. He might have to send Congress home and
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: they don't vote on anything, right? And it would allow
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: Democrats to avoid an uncomfortable vote that Republicans had included
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: in the package of bills condemning socialism. But in order
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: to do that, he would have to kill his own
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: legislation in the process. Or he can vote for the rule,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: give the legislation he wrote for the people he represents
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: a chance to pass. So Golden voted for the rule,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: and Marie Glucincamp Perez voted with him. They work with
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: each other. They are They're kind of ideological soulmates, sort
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: of the true blue dogs that have sort of been
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: abandoned by the rest of the Democratic Party. And the
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: rule passed. And then Golden's lobster bill passed the House. Now,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: listen to Golden explain what the alternative would have required
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: him to do. Here's what he said to Natalie Furtick.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: In an era of ever-heightening partisanship and disillusionment, I think
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: people would be shocked if I introduced a bill to
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: help my core constituency and then voted against a rule
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: that would have advanced that bill. He's right. Right? By
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: the logic of Washington, he's made this promise that he's
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: going to do this bill, and then he would have
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: to go back and explain, well, I couldn't do it
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: because I had to vote against a rule that would
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: have brought the bill to the floor because my leadership
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: wants to embarrass the Speaker of the House and doesn't
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: want to vote on a bill condemning socialism. It's crazy, right?
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: This is why they hate Congress. This is why we
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: all hate them. And Golden described the explanation Washington apparently
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: expects him to give his constituents. Constituents. Well, I wanted
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: to help you, but party leadership wouldn't let me vote
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: for the rule. Right? He goes, that just doesn't fly
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: in real life. Of course it doesn't. Try explaining it
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: to the lobstermen. Sorry, I wrote a bill to protect
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: your livelihood. I fought for it. I had a chance
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: to get it on the House floor, but my political
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: party wanted to embarrass the other political party, so I
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: voted to prevent my own bill from getting a vote.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: Don't worry, though. I maintain good standing with the House
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: Democratic Caucus. It's insane. And the idea that there are
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of Democrats wanting to punish Golden and
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: Marie Glucicab Perez for doing this is is just as insane.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: Why did you get into politics? To help people or
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: to punish another political party? As Golden put it, let
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: me quote Golden, I know who I work for. I
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: work for the people that I represent, whether they voted
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: for me or not. That should be the most boring
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: sentence a member of Congress could possibly utter. And yet, right?
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: Apparently it's brave these days. It sounds revolutionary, doesn't it?
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: Golden said something else that I think is worth listening to.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: He said, we believe in localism and being rooted in
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: the place that you live in and represent. We're Democrats,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: but we have a strong loyalty to the people we represent.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: That's what Golden thought being a Democrat meant. A strong
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: loyalty to the people you represent. Imagine that. And Golden's
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: larger diagnosis of his own party is pretty brutal. He
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: says some Democrats need to, quote, adjust our thinking about
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: certain things and certain tradeoffs instead of asking voters to
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: change their thinking. And when asked about the people attacking
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: him for doing this procedural vote, Golden said, I think
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: those people are living in a bubble of partisanship and
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: are totally detached from reality on the street. And it's nuts.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's right. What happened next doesn't exactly disprove
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: his point. Democratic leadership accused Golden and MGP, Maria Glucicamp Perez, MGP,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: because none of us want to write it out so hard,
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: of a significant breach of trust and promised a serious response.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: Are you telling me they broke trust by representing voters
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: first over and above partisanship? That's a breach of trust?
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: If that's what the leadership thinks is a breach of trust,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: get the hell out of politics. In fact, House Democrats
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: are discussing changing their caucus rules to define what it
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: means to be a member in good standing. So maybe
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: good standing means you can't vote with Republicans on procedural motions.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: Maybe DCCC dues become part of it. OK, but think
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: about what we're talking about. The House Democratic caucus may
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: respond to two members who decided to put constituents ahead
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: of their party on a procedural vote by writing new
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: rules designed to make it harder for members to put
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: their constituencies ahead of party. What the fuck are we
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: doing here? And then Democrats wonder why they have a
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: problem with working class voters. And you wonder why the
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: Democratic brand is in the gutter. And the only reason
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: why this isn't a blue tsunami is because the Democratic
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: brand is in the gutter. The Republicans are already not
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: representing normal everyday people. Good job, Democrats. Everybody in Washington
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: says Democrats need more Jared Goldens and Marie Glucenkamp Perez.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: Win rural voters, win working class voters, compete in Trump districts.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: Stop talking like everybody who lives in Brooklyn and Bethesda. Great. Well,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: here they are. And they did just that. Golden represents
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: a district Trump carried. Glusenkamp-Perez represents a district Trump carried.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: They built their identities around convincing voters that they're going
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: to represent the district before they represent a party. And
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: then when they actually behave the way they promised, their
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: party considers punishing them. Folks, that's the disease. And again,
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: before Republicans enjoy my tirade too much, spare me. Your
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: party's been doing the same version of this shit for years.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: Ask Republicans who crossed Donald Trump. Ask the Republicans who
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: voted for impeachment. Ask Republicans who try to negotiate bipartisan
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: immigration legislation. as the members who decided their constitutional responsibility
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: mattered more than whatever party wanted that afternoon. So this
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: is not a Democratic disease. This is a partisanship disease
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: that is concentrated in the House of Representatives first and foremost.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: And there's some convenient historical amnesia here, too. We're being
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: told Democrats simply don't help Republicans pass rules. Please, they have.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: When Nancy Pelosi was minority leader, there were occasions when
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: dozens of Democrats voted for Republican rules she opposed. 2006,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: and again later that year, 2015, when Barack Obama was
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: working with Paul Ryan on trade, Democrats helped Republicans adopt
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: a rule despite Pelosi's opposition. Democratic Party seemed to survive,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: didn't it? Congress survived because that's what legislatures occasionally do.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: They legislate. I say occasionally, right? But here's why I
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: think this week's episode matters beyond Jared Golden. There's a
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: very real possibility Democrats are going to control the House
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: next year. And if the turnout numbers I talked about
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: earlier really are signaling the beginnings of a huge wave.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: Perhaps a pretty good possibility, but everybody celebrating a potential
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: Democratic House ought to think about what happens the morning
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: after the election. Because Democrats aren't going to inherit a
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: functioning House. They're going to inherit the cancer. And they're
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: probably not going to have some gigantic majority where leadership
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: can lose 20 votes and shrug. They're going to have factions, right?
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: They're going to have members from deep blue urban districts.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: They're going to have members from districts Trump carries. Members
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: elected because they promised to fight Trump every waking minute.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: And members elected because they convinced cultural conservatives and working
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: class voters that they're not like the National Party. And
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: they're all going to be in the same caucus. What
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: happens when five of them say no? What happens when
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: progressives won't support something unless leadership moves left? What happens
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: when blue dogs won't support something because leadership moved left?
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: What happens when swing district Democrats are told to take
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: a vote that could end their careers because the caucus
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: needs unanimity? Sigh, right? We've watched years of watching Republicans
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: do this. Five members here, seven there. Faction holds the
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: speaker hostage. Procedural votes become loyally test. Eventually, business doesn't happen.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: So perhaps next year, we'll spend our time saying, why
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: can't Democrats govern? And two years later, why can't Republicans govern?
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: Because changing the party, controlling a broken institution does not
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: fix the institution. The institution is broken. It's sick. And
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: here's where I think we need to go deeper. Why
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: has the House become this? Well, you know part of
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: my answer. The House is too damn small. The districts
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: are too damn big. The two parties aren't enough to
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: represent a country this complicated. All of that, I'm not
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: going to go through all of my diatribe on this.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: You've heard me time and again in my other Todd Talks, right,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: about the size of the House, about the two-party system
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: is a mess. But it's just, you know, the whole
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: thing is broken. And it has forced this partisan polarizations.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: And if we increase the size of that, what we
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: need is a relief valve again. Jared Golden and Alexandria
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: Ocasio-Cortez have to function as members of the same political team.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: Marie Glussenkamp-Perez and some of the most progressive members from
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: the safest urban districts are going to have to function
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: on the same team next cycle. Look, Republicans have the
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: same problem and we've seen it because they're not parties, right?
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: We know we need to do this. So It was
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: unbelievable that everything comes down to party first. And leadership
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: so dominates how the house runs that I don't know
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: why we bother with 435 members. Just elect Akeem Jeffries
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: and Mike Johnson, give them each a weighted vote based
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: on how many seats their party won. We're getting dangerously
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: close to that anyway. Because if a procedural vote becomes
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: on whose team you were on, it's everything, right? Committee
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: assignments become leverage, all this stuff. This is sick. This
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: is terrible, right? If your job is not to work
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: for your constituents, but your job is to protect the majority,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: defeat the other team, don't give the other side a win,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: don't give them a vote, don't let them embarrass us,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: that's how you end up in this completely upside-down situation
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: where Jared Golden successfully passes legislation for the people who
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: elected him that he promised he would do, and his
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: party considers punishing him for the vote that allowed him
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: to pass it. It's not a weird congressional sideshow. That's
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: a pathology. So if the House is a cancer, what's
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: the treatment? Well, as you know, make it bigger, make
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: districts smaller, make politics local again. And maybe we need
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: to talk about this whole political party mess. It's just
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: a mess. This is why you need a third or
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: fourth entity inside that is able to allow the Jared
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: Goldens of the world, the Don Bacons of the world,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: the Jared Moskowitz's of the world, the Marie Glucencamp Perez,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: people that have promised to sort of represent all the
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: people in their districts, not just one faction of one
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: political party. And we don't have the ability. The House
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: was supposed to be this. Go read Madison. Go read
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: Federalist 10. Jared Golden has the most important part of
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: this right. He says, I know who I work for.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: I work for the people that I represent, whether they
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: voted for him or not. The House doesn't work that
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: way anymore. He doesn't want to work for Akeem Jeffries,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: but apparently Jeffries thinks Golden works for him. Marie Glucicamp-Perez
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: doesn't want to work for the DCCC, but apparently they
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: think she should work with them. Republicans don't work with
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: Mike Johnson, and they don't work for Donald Trump, but
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: apparently Donald Trump and Johnson think they do. I tell you,
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: thank you, Jared Golden. You gave a great x-ray of
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: the disease. The House is a mess. It doesn't work.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: It is the single... It is the cancer we have
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: to cure before we can reform anything else. That's what's
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: so frustrating about this. And it's sort of this moment
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: with Golden crystallized it. And I know, you know what?
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: It ain't the sexiest reform. But if we don't get
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: the House right, we're not going to get anything else. Everything,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: nothing else gets fixed until we fix the disease that
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: is impacting the House of Representatives. Todd, talk over. All right,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: as I promised, all that energy I put into researching
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: the midterms for the entire 21st century and the impact
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: of governor's races means I have updated my top five list.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: And I will tell you this, I've got five slots,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: I've got six races, and there is no number seven,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: meaning I think there is now a huge gap between
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: the six races that made my top five list, because
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: I have one tie, and then the next level of races.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: So number one, North Carolina, it is still there. Roy
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: Cooper has got the luxury of being able to start
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: running attack ads that really are about inoculating his weaknesses.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: As I saw in the college football games that we
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: saw in week zero, the North Carolina and North Carolina
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: State games both featured quite a bit of anti-Michael Watley stuff.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: anti-Michael Whatley TV ads. And there's an enormous financial gap.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: And given how much resources Republicans now need, potentially for Texas,
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: but also with an opportunity in Michigan, Ohio's still winnable.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: I think Mr. Whatley's in deep, deep trouble. And so
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: North Carolina is still number one with a bullet. Number
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: two on my list now is Alaska. I'm sorry, the
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: first round on Alaska, her getting up to 49 and Sullivan,
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: the incumbent, not able to crack 45, let alone 43.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: I don't see it. I mean, you know, she is in,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: you know, when you start to compare Alaska to Maine,
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: to Ohio, to Michigan, to Texas, and suddenly you're like,
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, Alaska's now the second most likely flip.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: And I think it is. When you look at things,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: so Alaska and Mary Patella in the number two slot.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: Number three for me, believe it or not, I'm going
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: to say Texas. I think the can't, I think when I,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: when you sort of put numbers to all this and
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: you see the scandal penalty that does exist with whether
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: it's Todd Aiken, whether it's Herschel Walker, whether it's Jay Jones,
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: you know, it is a minimum of four points and
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: it is, and it could be as high as eight
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: or nine, uh, Missouri got as high as eight on
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: the sort of, uh, sort of underperforming the top of
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: the ticket. Um, toss in the fact that John Thune
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: has basically said, we don't want Paxton in our caucus.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: If somebody else wants him, Donald Trump can go spend
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: the money to do it. Um, I think you throw
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: all those factors in. I think I'm suddenly, I'm suddenly
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: a Tallarico truther. And I was, I was, uh, I
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: was a skeptic. I've made it clear. I was a skeptic,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: but you start looking at these numbers. You start looking
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: at the Abbott situation. I think now Texas, I, I, I,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: My friend Quinn McCord, who does a lot of this analysis,
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: he was my Senate editor back at the hotline in 2006,
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: I think, if I'm not mistaken, before I left for NBC.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: And he kind of compared Texas to Virginia in 2006.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: In 2006, the idea of Democrats flipping Virginia seemed like
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: a long shot. Well, they could get close. I don't know.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: Virginia hasn't done that. It's kind of a Republican-leaning state, yada, yada, yada.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: And now what does Virginia look like 20 years later, right?
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: It's light blue. It's not even purple anymore, let alone
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: red or light red. It may be what I'm thinking
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: on Texas now. Number four on my list, Ohio. Look,
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: I think it's going to be a coin flip race.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: I really do believe that Ramaswamy is now a huge
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: problem for the Republican Party in Ohio. And it's, you know,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: what I thought was a problem before is sort of
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: he's kind of polarizing and the Doge thing didn't go well,
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: connection to Elon Musk. But I think that him being
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: such a cheerleader for the tech industry and the anger
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: that voters have right now at data centers, tech industry
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: in general, he can't run. I don't think he can
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: run away from it. I think it's impossible to run
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: away from. He's trying to, which actually I think could
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: make things worse. I think this is going to screw
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: up the entire Republican ticket. I think Ramaswamy could be could,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: could end up being a gigantic anvil, you know, that
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: just sort of drags down everybody. And it's simply because
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: he's just an avatar for the tech industry. And, you know,
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: it's inevitable to me that it's almost a, it's a fairly,
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: when you see this environment and this sort of rage
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: and tech in general data center specifically I, I think
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: it's a, I think this, you know, you're not going
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: to contain this to the governor's race. I think this
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: whole thing's, you know, so I'm, I am– I think
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: that is the– it's sort of like Sherrod Brown needs
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: one more little extra bit of help there. And I think,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: oddly enough, the Ramaswamy problem for Republicans in general is
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: going to be that. And then at five, I have
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: a tie for Maine and Michigan. One other thing I
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: left out of my Michigan analysis in the opening that
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: I'll save for here. So if Benson gets 54 percent,
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: it's the best– that was– Gretchen Whitmer's two victories, the
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: first time she ran, she got 53. The second time
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: she got 54. And she only got that 54 against
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: a Republican that the party kind of abandoned in the state.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: Point is, is that there's a pretty hard ceiling for
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: statewide Democrats. It's in that 54, 55 range. So, you know,
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: I made it clear Benson needs 54 to probably drag
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: Abdul El-Sayed for sure. When you get to 52 or 53,
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: which is probably the most likely range she ends up in.
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: It really does put it at coin flip. And I'm
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: putting Maine there. I'm more bullish for Democrats on Maine,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: but I respect the fact that, boy, Collins always overperforms
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: the polling and all of that. But I'll tell you,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: her conversation with my pal Jay Mart this week, the
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: fact that she went down going after Troy Jackson for
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: having kids with his second cousin just felt like a
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: little beneath Susan Collins. And I say this because It
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: tells me it's sort of like a tell at a
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: poker game. She's kind of showing you she's out of
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: juice here. She doesn't have an affirmative case for reelection.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: All she can do is try to disqualify Troy Jackson.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: That's a tough place for a 30-year incumbent to be in.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: So I certainly think it's uphill for her. But I'm
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: going to put it at fifth because we do know
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: she overperforms. There certainly was enough problems earlier in the summer.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: But I put Maine and Michigan tied for the fifth slot.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: And I put it there. And then I think there's
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: a huge jump. I actually think I would actually put
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: an empty slot. And then you get to New Hampshire, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: South Carolina, Mississippi. All of these will be places the
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: winner doesn't break 55. The question is whether any of
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: them slip into accidental pickup territory. Most of those are
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: Democratic seats. New Hampshire is a Republican seat. We'll learn
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: a lot more about New Hampshire next week. And with that,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: that's my top five list for the week. Let's do
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: some questions. The Toddcast Top 5 list is brought to
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• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: call 1-877-770-7867 if you're in Louisiana. All right, let's do
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: some questions. Ah, Kelly X, Aubrey, Texas. Yes, yes. Member
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: of the Five-Timer Club, Texas 26th Congressional District. Here's the question.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: Poll is showing the statewide race is virtually tied. Do
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: you think some version of the Bradley effect could be
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: in play? Republicans telling pollsters they'll support the GOP because
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: they don't want to be seen as backing Democrats, but
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: ultimately voting differently or staying home. Thanks for your insightful analysis.
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: And Finn's up. We'll see. Nine-win season in 2026. Wow.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: You are smoking the hopium on the Miami Dolphins. I
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: do think they're going to be weirdly like the triple
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: option NFL team, like like a pain in the ass
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: to play because Malik Willis and A-Chain are just going
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: to run all over teams. But I don't know if
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: they have a defense to prevent other teams from scoring.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: That's an interesting thought. I thought you were going to
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: actually go the other way. Are some Republicans saying they're
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: not going to vote for Paxton, but quietly will, and
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: they're kind of embarrassed, right? That is to me more
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: where I was thinking of the Bradley effect. But All
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: I will say is, Kelly, can I point you back
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: to my top five list and back to the intro
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: of this episode? I'm pretty bullish on Tallarico now. I
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: think Paxton is, especially now that the NRSC, the Senate
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: Republicans don't want to help him. I think they've decided.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: I think there's enough anger there. I think they don't
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: want to help him. They know that Paxton himself is
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: sort of a cancer on politics in general. He's not
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: just unqualified to be a senator. He's unqualified to be
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: an elected official. Arguably, he's done enough. He deserves some
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: sort of legal scrutiny, whether it's criminal or not is
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: up to somebody else. But I know where he doesn't
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: belong in a position of trust from the public. I mean,
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: he really... And he seems to also just be lazy.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: He's not trying very hard. He really just seems to
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: sort of think that he's got away with it like
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: this for so long. He just assumes it's going to happen.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: And that's usually... Anyway, when you first did Bradley Effect,
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: I thought, you know, because that would be what I'd
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: worry about, that people are saying they're going to vote
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: for Tallarico, but they don't want to tell their friends that, yeah,
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: they cared about the Jersey color enough that they even
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: voted for that crook Ken Paxton. That would be, I'd
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: be more concerned about that. All right, Heather from Georgia's
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: 5th District here, longtime listener, and I love hearing you
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: with more freedom on this platform. Thank you for saying that.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: I would tell you that I used, I used, uh,
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: softer words, but I would argue I was saying the
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: same thing, but I take your point. Given the recent
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: postal service whistleblower news, shouldn't Congress be doing more to
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: protect the mail-in ballot process, especially since there's no clear
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: evidence the mail voting inherently benefits one party or the other?
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: Am I being too optimistic and expecting bipartisan pushback against
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: executive actions that could undermine the process? Thanks for being
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: a voice of reason in this polarized world. Heather, well,
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: you probably sadly are too optimistic on that. Congress should
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: be doing this. You know, on our live stream on
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: Tuesday night, Nathaniel Rakich, he runs an organization called Vote Beat,
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: and I would encourage you to take a look at it.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: This is all they focus on, which is the administration
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: side of elections. And, you know, you're asking a question
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: that Mrs. Todd keeps asking me and keeps trying to
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: find more answers herself, which is how concerned should we
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: be about this? And I put that question to Nathaniel,
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: and he's like, look, The concern is real. It's not
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: clear it helps or hurts one part or the other.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: In fact, evidence suggests that if all of these rules
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: were implemented, it probably hurts Republicans more than it hurts Democrats.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: And he explained, for instance, if you have to suddenly
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: drive 50 miles to drop off a ballot, well, who's
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: more likely to be 50 miles from a ballot drop location?
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: A rural voter, not an urban voter. Well, that's somebody
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: that leans red, not somebody that leans blue, generally in
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: the way we're sort of segregated. I do think the
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: courts aren't going to let this get implemented this cycle.
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: We're going to see this litigated, I think, throughout 27,
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: and then we'll see what happens. But that's where I
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: think you're right. Congress needs to get more involved here.
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: And who knows, maybe this attempt to sort of hijack
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: the Postal Service, which is really what Trump's trying to do,
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: and it really is supposed to sort of not be
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: hijackable like this. This is where I think if there's a,
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: I do think Congress after this election will have a
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: little more guts to question things on this, and maybe
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: they'll have partisan motivation to this. But I imagine there's
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: a possibility. I mean, if I represent a rural district
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: in Utah or Oregon, two states that are all male voting,
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: or Arizona, I don't want these hurdles. I want to
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: make it easier for my constituents to vote. So the
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: opportunity I know there's bipartisan pain from these decisions that
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: Trump's making. So in theory, there should be bipartisan support
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: to to sort of some oversight over it. But I'm
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: I'm a bit skeptical. All right. Last question before I
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: get to my college. You know, this is really why
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: you're with me. It's for the big college football previews
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: that I do every week, starting with week one. Steve Frank,
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: a fellow to two first name Steve Frank, he calls himself.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: A fellow two-first-namer, and he's from California's 47th. Yes. Nothing
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: like having two first names, right? People love to talk
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: about it. You could argue that I have two last names, too.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: I have met people with the last name of Charles. Anyway.
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: If I really want five-timer status, he goes, I guess
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: I need to stop asking questions only in my head
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: and actually write in. He goes, I love the idea
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: of a podcast series on political reforms and recently heard
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: a proposal to add 12 at-large senators. I've heard this proposal.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: You've made me a strong proponent of expanding the House,
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: but what do you think of the idea of reforming
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: the Senate? Take care. So here's the thing. I go
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: back to the point I made earlier on the podcast,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: which is we got to fix the House first, and
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: then let's see how the other institutions naturally respond after
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: the House is functional again, right? After the House expands
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: and all this stuff. I do think if you're going
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: to create at-large senators, and I've heard this idea That
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: maybe you would do it by the 10 largest states.
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: Maybe they get some extra senators. But you need constitutional
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: amendments for that. Expanding the House, you don't. So that
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: would be my pushback. I just think that if you
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: have a more functioning House, you'll have a Senate that
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: behaves better. I think our 100 senators– look, it was
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: never meant to be a small-D democratic institution. And so
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I think you make
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: these reforms based on founders intent. Founders intended for the
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: House to be the more democratic institution. Well, let's make
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: it a more democratic institution and then figure out what
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: we need to do after that with the Senate. I
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: wouldn't simultaneously do all of this at once, right? I
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: think the House, you do on its own because it
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: does fix the Electoral College and it does sort of
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: fix a few things all at once if you do
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: that expansion correctly. I think it just triggers a better
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: functioning Senate if you have a house that's functioning that way. So, um,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: that's my only thing with adding the at-large senators. Um,
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It, it, you're again, constitutional amendment. And
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know if, I don't know how, I don't
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: know if it would pass because you're asking 38 state,
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: you need 38 state legislatures to approve it. And if
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: you're adding 12 at-large senators, it's really only going to
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: benefit maybe 10 states. Um, what's in it for the
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: other 28 States. So I, I just think you might
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: have a math problem adding that constitutional amendment, um, of that.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: All right. I am going to, uh, now rant and
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: rave for 10 minutes about sports. Cause this is why
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: some of you, what you want to do is first
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: my hurricanes, they play Friday night, um, at Stanford, uh,
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: if I didn't know it was our first game of
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: the season, I'd be petrified as hell about this game.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: Friday night, road game, across the country, all the makings
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: of a problem, except it's our first game of the season.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: So the schedule makers at the ACC did Miami a
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: huge favor by making this the first game, right? They
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: could leave earlier. They had time to acclimate. They've been,
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: you know, all they've been doing, you know, they had
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: the fall practices. So There's no excuse. And in fact,
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: Miami now has an advantage because Stanford played a game
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: last week and week zero against Hawaii. Looked pretty confident.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: But look, I have pretty high expectations for this team.
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: And I think we have the healthiest quarterback situation we've
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: had in three years. And that includes Cam Ward, right?
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, Cam Ward was a bit unknown. Carson Beck
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: clearly was hurt until the playoff. He certainly did a
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: good job playing. Trying to build his strength back. And
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: you could tell he became the quarterback everybody thought he
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: could be starting in the playoff. And I think we're
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: seeing already he's going to be the starter in Arizona
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: before the end of the season. I think that's for sure. But,
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: you know, Miami got better everywhere. The only question marks
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: about Miami is the youth of their offensive line and
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: the youth of their defensive line, particularly on the ends
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: on defense. But, you know, on paper, they're loaded. On paper,
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: I think they're the best team in the country. I
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: think this, you know, I know there's a lot of
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: skeptics about Miami still. A lot of my favorite gambling
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: podcasters have assumed Mario Cristobal is going to blow a
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: game that he shouldn't blow because he's, you know, every
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: season he seems to lose a game he shouldn't, whether
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: he was at Oregon, whether he was Miami, et cetera.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: There's just such competency in this coaching staff. And I
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: think that credit is not given enough to coach Cristobal for, frankly,
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: he's evolved as a coach. He's matured as a coach.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: He gets this team is tougher. It's more prepared. The
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: outside noise isn't there. And look, I think Malachi Toney
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: is the cheat code of college football. And if you're
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: looking to make a long shot Heisman bet, go grab
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: Malachi Toney now. Because I think by week five or six,
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: it won't be as easy to get. Miami's got a
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: couple of tough games this year. Big one is November
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: 7th at Notre Dame. Um, it is, I am stunned
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: at the benefit of the doubt Notre Dame is getting
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: in comparison to the lack of benefit of doubt that
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: Miami is getting. Notre Dame arguably lost a more important
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: player than Miami did. Uh, and Jeremiah Love and, uh,
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: what's the Prince? I think it's his name. I got
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: to get to know him because I may need to
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: draft him at my fantasy NFL league since he's the
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: starting running back for the defending Superbowl champion, Seattle price,
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: excuse me, price is his name, Seattle Seahawks. Um, So,
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: you know, look, I want both. I want Miami to
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: beat Notre Dame, and I want both Miami and Notre
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: Dame in the playoff, and I hope they get to
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: meet again in the playoff on this front. But I'm
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: really bullish, and maybe I'm making a mistake, but my
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: expectations are through the roof. But I have a lot of– look,
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: we're bringing back both our coordinators. I think Corey Heatherman
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: on defense and Shannon Dawson. You know, that guy is
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: a quarterback whisperer. He knows how to design an offense
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: around the strength of a quarterback. and he's done it
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: different ways for different, you know, we've got Mark Fletcher
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: might be the, the toughest running back in the country.
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: May not be the fastest running back, but he sure
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: might be the toughest. So I'm, I am full of
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: optimism and I think it's warranted, you know, look, Miami
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: is seen as sort of one of the realistic teams
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: that has the shot at winning the whole thing. But
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: the ACC appears to be weak this year. And so
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: they can't make many, they can't drop two games. You know,
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: if you're looking for a game that Miami two games
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: worry me the most on our schedule. One is November 14th.
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: It's the week after Notre Dame. It's a home game,
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: but it's we play Duke. I think Duke's going to
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: be pissed that we took their lunch money, their quarterback.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: They're starting, you know, and it's a former University of
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: Miami coach, Manny Diaz. Manny's a friend. I love Manny.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: Love coach Cristobal. it's going to be a little bit of,
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: there's a little bit of a rivalry there. Manny's cares
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: about this game a lot. That game, just that game.
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: And especially if Miami comes off beating Notre Dame at
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: Notre Dame, the entire college football world will say Miami
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: is the best team in the country. And then they go,
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: I could see them, you know, Duke doing trick play
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: after trick play. And somehow, um, we lose a stupid
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: game like that. So that game scares me. Um, And
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: then Clemson. We play at Clemson, and Dabo Sweeney's going
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: to be in desperation mode, right? And whenever you're playing
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: a team that's desperate. And, you know, maybe I'm a
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: little worried about our North Carolina game now, if Belichick
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: has finally figured out how to coach college football defense.
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: I have one other hot take about college football. Lane Kiffin.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: There's a new Vanity Fair piece. Not good. Nick Saban
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: saying that you had to keep him away from the
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: college girls. I have to tell you, Lane Kiffin is
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: now the bad– it's one thing to be the bad boy.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: Like Mike Leach was the bad boy of college football,
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: but a bad boy you kind of love, like a rogue.
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: Like Mike Leach was the rogue we all loved. I
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: loved Mike Leach. We all– he was just sort of–
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: he was countercultural. He was all the– he was kind of–
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: there was something weird about him. Sometimes you may think
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: he was kind of an a-hole, but he was sort
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: of a rogue, kind of a lovable rogue. Lane Kiffin's
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: not lovable. And now, you know, between this fight over
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: bringing in NFL players with literally the rest of the
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: college football world, including the normally acquiescing SEC is like, no,
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: we got to draw a line somewhere. Then you throw
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: this Pete out there. I have to say, here's a
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: hot take. Lane Kiffin doesn't finish the season as the
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: head ball coach of LSU. Realistically, do I think, is
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: it likely to happen? No. Is it impossible? No. This
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: is not going well so far. And here's what will happen. Look,
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: if he wins, LSU will accept anything. But if he
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: loses to Ole Miss, if he's suddenly 5-2, 4-3, and
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: then more stories come out and more crap comes out, Kiffin,
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: I think, is the most hated man in college football
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: right now. And I don't think it's a good thing
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: to be the most hated man in college football. Let
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: me leave you with this. If the Angels are worth
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: $ 4 billion, then please, Lerner family, put the team back
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: for sale. If Anaheim's team is worth $ 4 billion, Washington's
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: team is worth at least $ 4 billion. You apparently didn't
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: like the $ 2 billion valuation a couple of years ago. Great.
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: It's now doubled. Please sell the team before you trade
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: these young, good-looking players. And the fact that there is
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: a value that you can get $ 4 billion, great. Sell
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: the team. Please, let's go. I don't want to watch
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: an off-season where we suddenly trade CJ. Trade more of
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: our good all-stars in order for potential we may never see.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: All right. With that, enjoy your weekend. Enjoy week one
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: of college football. Hopefully, I'll be in a good mood
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: based on how Miami does on Friday, and I'll see
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: you Monday morning.