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Interview Only w/ Dana Bash - The Elections That Changed The World · 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
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  Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
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  Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
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  Speaker 1: own plan for 20 minutes. It's free. There's no pressure.
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  Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4200. three, nine, eight, five. Well,
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  Speaker 1: my next guest has a fascinating book that when I
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  Speaker 1: first saw the title, I was thinking, I can't wait
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  Speaker 1: to see what elections she picked. And then you get
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  Speaker 1: the book and you're like, Well, this is even more interesting.
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  Speaker 1: But now a lot harder for me to debate her on.
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  Speaker 1: It's my guest is Dana Bash, and she's got a
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  Speaker 1: terrific new book called Fifteen Elections That Changed the World.
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  Speaker 1: And I will not to give it away here, but
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  Speaker 1: the most recent election is 1994. which is basically the
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  Speaker 1: beginning of our collective adulthood. So let's start there. Look,
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  Speaker 1: everybody knows you from CNN, chief political correspondent, State of
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  Speaker 1: the Union, all of those things. So what got you
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  Speaker 1: into this? What got you into this topic? And then
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  Speaker 1: I want to talk about your criteria for picking your
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  Speaker 1: 15 Elections to Change the World. And I'll just give it,
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  Speaker 1: your first one is Julius Caesar and your last one
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  Speaker 1: is Nelson Mandela. And in between, we have 13 other
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  Speaker 1: ones that you included in here. So explain the premise.
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  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, thank you for having me on.
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  Speaker 3: This is a huge thrill, honestly, because, no, it's true,
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  Speaker 3: because only till recently did you and I have the
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  Speaker 3: ability to go on with each other on public platforms
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  Speaker 3: and not just talk behind the scenes as friends.
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  Speaker 1: Or be at GW together since we're GW's favorite media
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  Speaker 1: people out after, because Frank says no, didn't go to GW. Sorry, Frank.
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  Speaker 1: I know you're watching.
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  Speaker 2: No, he did not. But he just, he's a mockery there,
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  Speaker 2: as they say.
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  Speaker 1: He's a middleberry guy.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, so the answer is, first of all, this is
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  Speaker 3: obviously very subjective. And I, before this is over, I'm
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  Speaker 3: dying to get Chuck Todd's elections that might not be
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  Speaker 3: included in this.
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  Speaker 2: Recent ones excluded.
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  Speaker 1: My wheels have been turning. I've been trying to get there.
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  Speaker 1: I do have one country I'm going to single out
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  Speaker 1: and I'm curious where you went there, but we'll wait.
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  Speaker 2: We'll wait till we get there. Okay. So the answer is.
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  Speaker 3: The criteria were that they had to have a real impact,
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  Speaker 3: not just in the current events and current times, modern times,
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  Speaker 3: but also that rippled even at the time beyond the borders,
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  Speaker 3: but also through generations in some way, shape or form.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that was really the sort of the
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  Speaker 2: bottom line.
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  Speaker 3: We had lots of ideas, talked to actual real historians,
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  Speaker 3: And we just decided 15 is a good number.
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  Speaker 2: And we and we did this.
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  Speaker 3: But we say right at the beginning of the book,
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  Speaker 3: very clearly, this is obviously not exhaustive. And we're hoping
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  Speaker 3: that David Fisher, who I say we my amazing co-author
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  Speaker 3: and I are hoping that this does stir some discussion
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  Speaker 3: and conversation from those who think about it to come
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  Speaker 3: up with other ideas.
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  Speaker 1: Well, look, let's also start with the year. You're expansive
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  Speaker 1: with the definition of the word election.
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  Speaker 2: Precisely.
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  Speaker 3: So election doesn't just mean a president, a prime minister,
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  Speaker 3: a senator, but it's also.
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  Speaker 1: Or democracy itself, right?
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  Speaker 2: Right. I mean, democracy... Well, democracy....
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  Speaker 3: Democracy itself matters for elections, but sometimes elections and democracy
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  Speaker 3: are the people who are elected and democracy. And that
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  Speaker 3: certainly is the case in several of these elections. But
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  Speaker 3: one of the examples that we give is the good Pope,
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  Speaker 3: Pope John XXIII, his election in the conclave. And we
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  Speaker 3: can talk about that if you want. And another is
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  Speaker 3: Martin Luther King.
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  Speaker 1: Second.
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  Speaker 2: He was never elected to office.
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  Speaker 3: No, he was never elected to government office, but he
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  Speaker 3: was elected to lead the bus boycott in Montgomery when
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  Speaker 3: they needed somebody who was new and fresh and.
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  Speaker 2: Who could inspire people. And they found him.
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  Speaker 3: He was a relatively new pastor at the Dexter Avenue
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  Speaker 3: Church in Montgomery. And by a show of hands in
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  Speaker 3: a church basement, they said, oh, sure, we'll pick this guy.
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  Speaker 1: That's probably my most favorite in here because it's the
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  Speaker 1: it is there is a Forrest Gump like quality to
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  Speaker 1: it a little bit.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And it actually and it's just one of the important.
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  Speaker 3: which is elections big and small. You don't always know
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  Speaker 3: how critical your vote is going to be. nevermind for
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  Speaker 3: that election, but for future generations and for movements beyond
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  Speaker 3: what that vote carries. And that was true in Montgomery, Alabama,
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  Speaker 3: when they said, yeah, we like this guy, Martin Luther
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  Speaker 3: King Jr., who's in his twenties and doesn't know, have
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  Speaker 3: experience in any of this, who obviously went on to
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  Speaker 3: help change America and really the world. And definitely for bad,
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  Speaker 3: Because we have Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party in
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  Speaker 3: this book.
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  Speaker 2: Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, really.
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  Speaker 3: Hitler used the tools of and the structure of democracy
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  Speaker 3: to take over an entire country and then almost an
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  Speaker 3: entire continent.
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  Speaker 1: So let's go through this. I assume you start with
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  Speaker 1: Caesar just sort of as the idea of just giving
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  Speaker 1: others a choice.
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 3: Well, Caesar because the Greeks and the Romans were really
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  Speaker 3: the Greeks. That's really the birthplace of the democratic system
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  Speaker 3: and some form of democracy.
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  Speaker 2: But Julius Caesar is Julius Caesar.
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  Speaker 3: And there's so many learning about him and his election
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  Speaker 3: the way I did with this book. There's so many
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  Speaker 3: cautionary tales. There are so many what's old is new
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  Speaker 3: again characteristics and dynamics. For example, number one, Julius Caesar
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  Speaker 3: ran for the office that he ran for ultimately, the
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  Speaker 3: biggest office, because he didn't want to be prosecuted.
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  Speaker 2: He was in debt because he was.
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  Speaker 3: The lower offices, the lower sort of ranks that he
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  Speaker 3: ran for, he had to borrow a lot of money
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  Speaker 3: and he was in a lot of debt. And he said,
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  Speaker 3: I'm either going to go to jail or I'm gonna
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  Speaker 3: be exiled or I.
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  Speaker 2: Can run for office. Sound familiar, Chuck?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know who you could be referring to,
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  Speaker 1: but anyway.
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  Speaker 3: That's A. B, when he was running, he was a
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  Speaker 3: huge populist. The masses loved him, even though the kind
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  Speaker 3: of masses didn't really vote. It was mostly people in
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  Speaker 3: and around Rome.
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  Speaker 2: And C, money mattered.
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  Speaker 3: And money helped to buy votes, not officially, but effectively.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: And then he, another cautionary tale is that he was
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  Speaker 3: this great democratic leader who said, Nope, I'm not going
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  Speaker 3: to let anybody else run for this. I'm going to
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  Speaker 3: take it as my own. And he became a dictator,
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  Speaker 3: maybe a benevolent dictator, depending on who you liked, but
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  Speaker 3: he became a dictator.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, how much is wealth a through line in all
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  Speaker 1: of your elections?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a good question. I didn't think about that.
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  Speaker 2: Wealth is a big deal. Wealth is a big deal.
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  Speaker 2: I think more.
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  Speaker 3: So the money in and around whatever democratic system process
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  Speaker 3: that we're talking about.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: But but it's it's always been.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that's one of the things that I
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  Speaker 3: learned since the beginning of democracy in Julius Caesar's time,
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  Speaker 3: money in politics was a thing.
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  Speaker 1: Was this human nature, do we think? I mean, you know,
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  Speaker 1: this the human being assumes that if somebody has a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of money, then they must be They must
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  Speaker 1: do something. They must know something. They must be better
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  Speaker 1: at something. And so therefore, is that what it is?
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  Speaker 1: What do we think it is?
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  Speaker 2: Is it more basic than that?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's that if you have money, you
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  Speaker 3: want to keep the money and you want to put
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  Speaker 3: somebody in power who will help you keep that money.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, let's just fast forward.
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  Speaker 3: Now that I'm thinking about that, this is a really
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  Speaker 3: good sort of through line that.
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  Speaker 2: I'm now exploring in my head. Let's fast forward to
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  Speaker 2: the Magna Carta. Mm-hmm.
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  Speaker 3: Because the only reason the Magna Carta was written and
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  Speaker 3: drawn up and approved of is because the barons and
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  Speaker 3: the earls, they wanted to keep their money in their land.
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  Speaker 3: And they were pissed off that the king kept taking
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  Speaker 3: it from them to.
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  Speaker 2: Fight his wars.
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  Speaker 3: And so they said, hold on a second, we need
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  Speaker 3: some kind of system where we have more of a
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  Speaker 3: say here. So that's an example of money in politics,
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  Speaker 3: but in a different way.
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  Speaker 1: It is, you know, when you look at all of these,
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  Speaker 1: it feels like a lot of it is about, a
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  Speaker 1: lot of it is about power, right? Obviously, it's about
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  Speaker 1: getting power, but it just feels like in each case
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  Speaker 1: that money mattered quite a bit.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, money matters quite a bit. And in some of
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  Speaker 3: these cases, people didn't, the sort of concept of a
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  Speaker 3: democracy and being included. And for most of human existence,
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  Speaker 3: when we're talking about people, we're talking about men and
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  Speaker 3: white men. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Well, we don't know if they were all white back
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  Speaker 1: in the Julius Caesar day, but.
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  Speaker 2: Okay. Fair. When men and mostly wealthy men. Wealthy men. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Depending on where they live.
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  Speaker 1: Status, whatever.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly. And, and, and so.
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  Speaker 3: Part of the sort of exploration also is when democracies
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  Speaker 3: were born, trying to engage the people who were eligible
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  Speaker 3: to vote on how to do it, come up with
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  Speaker 3: the systems that allowed it to be as free and
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  Speaker 3: fair as possible. And so the education there, the Mayflower
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  Speaker 3: Compact is the third that we talk about. And I mean,
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  Speaker 3: they came to, they thought they were.
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  Speaker 1: It blows them north.
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  Speaker 3: They got blown north, ended up at Plymouth, you know,
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  Speaker 3: Thanksgiving time back in the 1600s.
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  Speaker 1: People from Boston are still pissed off about it, right?
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  Speaker 1: They hate their weather. They're still angry that they ended
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  Speaker 1: up in New England. But anyway, go ahead.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly.
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  Speaker 3: But because they got there and they realized, wait, we
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  Speaker 3: don't have to... abide by the laws that were set
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  Speaker 3: up for Jamestown. We can come up with our own.
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  Speaker 3: They were like, oh, okay, we can do this. And
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  Speaker 3: they sat on the ship and they came up with
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  Speaker 3: this compact.
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  Speaker 1: Who did they model it off of? Is it, you know,
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  Speaker 1: obviously there was, there had to be some inspiration for
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  Speaker 1: the Mayflower Compact. What was it?
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  Speaker 2: It's a great question.
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  Speaker 3: Some of it was sort of church elections back home.
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  Speaker 3: Some of the sort of leaders were very well read and,
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  Speaker 3: you know, kind of gentlemen who did a lot of
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  Speaker 3: sort of thinking and studying and learning.
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  Speaker 2: And They also knew that there was.
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  Speaker 3: A form of it in Jamestown, but Jamestown was much
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  Speaker 3: more dictatorial because Jamestown was settled by businesses. And the
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  Speaker 3: people on the Mayflower were kind of a combination of
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  Speaker 3: effectively religious refugees and others who were working for a business.
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  Speaker 3: But I think for the most part, it came through.
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  Speaker 2: basic rudimentary church elections.
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  Speaker 1: Um, I want to go back to the Roman empire
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  Speaker 1: here a little bit before I get to, um, and
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  Speaker 1: it is, and I'm curious, and I guess the Magna
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  Speaker 1: Carta is your transition here between sort of the, the
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  Speaker 1: idea of lords, barons, whatever we wanted to call it,
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  Speaker 1: you know, these, you know, Basically, the Roman generals who
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  Speaker 1: went unpaid and then became kings, I guess, you know,
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  Speaker 1: is sort of, you know, I remember when I finally realized, oh,
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  Speaker 1: all these kings were just unpaid generals who decided to
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: hold their people hostage and make them pay money for
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  Speaker 1: them to get protection. Right. They were just a bunch
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  Speaker 1: of protection rackets. Yeah. Is I was surprised if I
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  Speaker 1: were to say this in hindsight, I'm surprised there's so
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  Speaker 1: few people elections on the continent of Europe that you chose.
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  Speaker 2: That's fair. That's fair.
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  Speaker 1: And France was, would be the one that.
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  Speaker 2: Which one? Okay. Tell me which one.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I don't have, look, you're, you're, it's a fair point.
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  Speaker 1: I don't have a good, I don't have a good
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  Speaker 1: way of doing it. Whether is it, is it, you know,
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  Speaker 1: after the French revolution, is it, I don't know. You could,
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  Speaker 1: there is, whether it's the French revolution period, the failed
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  Speaker 1: one or the successful one, I don't know. But I,
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  Speaker 1: That would look, I think, you know.
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  Speaker 3: That actually that actually would be a good one, because
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  Speaker 3: I think that the first one is such a glaring
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: example of how revolutions sometimes eat their revolutionaries with Robespierre.
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  Speaker 2: And that would be that would be a good one.
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  Speaker 1: Look, you could actually your sequel could be about revolutions.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that.
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  Speaker 1: And you could sort of do the frame as revolutions,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: you know, and then you have the Russian Revolution, French Revolution,
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  Speaker 1: different versions of it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Which sort of gets you on the same, you know,
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  Speaker 1: in some cases, like, you know, was 1932 in Germany,
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  Speaker 1: was that an election or a revolution? Revolution. It really
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  Speaker 1: probably depends on your perspective.
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  Speaker 3: It was a very clever revolution using the democratic system
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  Speaker 3: put in place after World War I, the parliamentary system,
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  Speaker 3: to taking advantage.
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  Speaker 2: Of that to revolution, coup, whatever you want, but they
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  Speaker 2: did it with the will of the people. They did
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  Speaker 2: it with the democratic system.
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  Speaker 3: You know, there are some kind of, it depends on
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  Speaker 3: what you consider revolution, right? there's a Chinese election in here,
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  Speaker 3: Sun Yat-sen.
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  Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting. Did you feel, what I
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  Speaker 1: liked about is how global the book was, right? You're like, okay,
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  Speaker 1: you got the biggest country in Asia, the biggest country
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  Speaker 1: in Eurasia, the British, you sort of a nod to
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  Speaker 1: the British empire a little bit, I guess, with the
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  Speaker 1: Magna Carta, certainly a little, you know, One in Africa.
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  Speaker 1: You know, you sort of cover your bases. I guess
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  Speaker 1: you could say, hey, where's South America? And I'm sure
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  Speaker 1: you had some cutting room floor stuff. But tell me
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  Speaker 1: about the president of China.
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  Speaker 2: I loved this one.
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  Speaker 1: And how successful did somebody have to be to qualify
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  Speaker 1: for the list?
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  Speaker 3: I think it's... it's not so much the success of
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  Speaker 3: the individual in the individual's election.
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  Speaker 2: It's the impact of that election. And to me, this
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  Speaker 2: is one of the most impactful elections that I knew
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  Speaker 2: I'm embarrassed to say like zero about.
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  Speaker 1: This is why I wanted to single it out too.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't know anything about it.
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  Speaker 1: You know, my, my, look, I feel this way about
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Chinese history in general. It's like, I, I constantly, when
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I need a new history book to read.
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  Speaker 1: I always now defer something Chinese because I feel, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: you probably had a similar education as I did.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: You're just not, you know, we sort of gloss over.
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  Speaker 1: We do a few dynasties here or there in your
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  Speaker 1: high school history or even college history. But you move
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  Speaker 1: pretty quickly to Mao, you know?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
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  Speaker 3: So this is in between imperial and Mao, and frankly,
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  Speaker 3: how China got to Mao with this individual, Sun Yat-sen.
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  Speaker 3: And he, so there was like 500 years or more
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: of imperial dynasties, right? And Fast forward to 1911 and
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: this guy, Sun Yat-sen, who's 13 years old, goes with
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: his father who has a job in Hawaii, the kingdom
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: of Hawaii back then. And he starts to learn and
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: starts to kind of get wind that there's something other
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: than imperial rule.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: And he starts to....
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: Find other people who feel that way. And he pushes, pushes, pushes,
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: mostly from the outside. He travels around really the whole world,
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: but especially in the United States to get money, to
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: get attention.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Well, it's important to point out, like the world is
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: on fire during these two decades.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: And the world is on fire.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: You know, this is very similar, frankly, to the world
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: we're living in right now, where there is uprising political
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: activity Uprisings everywhere. It is a global phenomenon.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: Anyway.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Yep. That's exactly right. It's a global phenomenon.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: And I'm glad you said that because up until just
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: a few years before this time period, China was still
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: kind of walled off from the world.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: So have these influence.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: What was happening in Europe or North America didn't really
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: have any impact on China.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: It didn't have any impact because they literally refused to
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: have any kind of trade or. Well, they had some trade,
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: but it was slow, slow, slow. And the opium wars
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: that China was involved with. Which several of them, they
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: ended up losing. The result of the losses to those
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: wars meant that the treaties were such that they had
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: to open up the country more and more to the West.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: And the more they were open to the West, the
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: more the economy changed, the more information got in there
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: and so forth. Right. So this guy, Sun Yat-sen, he
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: pushes and he gets to the point with the people
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: around him that.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: He is able to get a democratic.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: Election going because the imperial family, the Qing dynasty became
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: so weak that they had to agree to a democratic election.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: So he's elected.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: He actually vows that he's not going to served more than,
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: I think, six months and ended up being true that
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: he didn't serve one term. Maybe that goes to your
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: question about how significant of a player did they have
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: to be. And he wasn't in the actual job of
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: the president of China. But because the democracy didn't go
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: so well and things started getting really even worse economically,
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: particularly for the villagers and the, frankly, the peasants, that
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: They and he and the people who succeeded him said,
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: make a deal. They made a deal with the Soviets
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: that they could come in and help.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: And then Mao.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: Comes in and China and the CCP is born and
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: China has not been the same since.
• 22:55
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  Speaker 1: I too am a customer. Is this butterfly effect? Or
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: do you think it really like one thing led to
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: the other? But if this election doesn't happen, we don't
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: get Mao? Or if this election doesn't happen, you don't
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: get the pact with Russia? Is that what you feel
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: like this is?
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Look, it's always hard to know. It's always hard to know.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Is it possible that.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: The imperial family was so weak that Mao and the
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: Soviets could have come in without.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Sun Yat-sen, maybe?
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: But also maybe not, because the other dynamic here is
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: that the... successor to sung yet sen in in his
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: party was chang hai shek right and he is uh
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: the one who said i'm out of here went to
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: taiwan and started pushing for taiwan and this is the
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: father of taiwan chang hai shek is the father of
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: taiwan so this this guy sun yet sen is in
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: especially given what we know about the the differences between
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: China and Taiwan, Sun Yat-sen is a hero for the
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: CCP because they consider him as the person who allowed
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: for communism. And he's a hero for the Taiwanese because
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: without him, there would not be Chiang Kai-shek.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: That is fascinating. And that is a terrific story. Before
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: we get to the American elections that you include in here,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: I want to touch on a couple others. Let's talk
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: about the Pope and you in this one. It's John
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: the 23rd, who's arguably the first television televised Pope, I guess,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: meaning like it's, you know, the Pope that showed up
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: to Yankee Stadium was John the 23rd. Right.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Like it's it's.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: And I assume you view his election and just how
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: we modernize the Catholic Church. Is that exactly. Yeah.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Well, and that it's that. But then there's another theme that. Hmm.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: Is true in several of these elections that this illustrates,
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: which is the cardinals who elected him in the conclave
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: thought because he was older, he would just be a
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: caretaker and he wouldn't do anything to change the Catholic
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: church very much. And then he certainly did because he
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: called an ecumenical council and which happened like 10 or
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: 12 times in the history of the entire Catholic church.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: And what that means is that you want to make
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: some serious changes. And among the changes he made was
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: saying that masses are allowed to be held in the
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: local language because until then they were all in Latin.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: which made Catholicism so much more accessible to people and
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: the dogma and the prayer so much more accessible to
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: people who were Catholics around the world. And then it's
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: also that he's known as the good Pope, what you
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: were just referring to. He, People knew him because of television,
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: because of radio.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: He went out.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: I think he was the first pope to ride a
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: train and see people that way. He went to prisons,
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: famously saying, you can't come see me, so I'll come
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: see you. He was a pope for very long, but
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: he was not what the cardinals who elected him apparently
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: were bargaining for. But he became a saint, so they
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: clearly liked him.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: If I'm wrong about this, I know my listeners and
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: viewers will let me know. But I believe John the
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: 23rd is the only pope in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Is that right?
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: I think because he he was the first pope at
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Yankee Stadium. I think there's been other popes since. And
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: they used to have I know at one time in
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Monument Park, they had a there, you know, that, you know.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: next to Gehrig and Ruth and all of that stuff
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: is a homage there to, I believe, to John XXIII.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: He also, I just want to say one more thing
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: about this pope, which I think is cool. What he
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: did for the Jewish community is also historic. Just going
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: back to World War II, when he was a cardinal,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: he helped make.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: make available baptismal certificates for churches in, in Hitler's wake.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Go ahead.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, no. Go keep going. Cause he was
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: also a father of the Catholic charities too, right? Oh,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: actually I didn't know that. Or was he a big player?
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Cause I, you know, it's funny. My, my grandmother, my
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: grandfather was in World War II, you know, to this
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: day it was like the Catholic charities were the best
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Jewish charity there was back then.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's interesting. Well, yeah.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, and so, so he, he's saved, untold lives, um,
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: of Jewish children in Europe because Catholic local Catholic churches
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: got these baptismal certificates from this Cardinal in Italy. Uh,
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: and they were able to use them to say, no, no, no,
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: this isn't a Jewish baby. This is a Catholic baby.
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: And that's that was not nothing. And he also, as
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: part of that ecumenical council, when he changed the rule
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: about Latin, he also explicitly said that Jews were not
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: responsible for killing Jesus, which was not nothing.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: It's a it was an important thing because that is
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: still that is still something used all the time.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: And when when when anti-Semitism started. shows up and rises.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: You know, when I saw the title of the book,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I went, oh, there's got to, I know Indira Gandhi
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: and Golda Meir are going to be. Of course.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: You did it as one chapter. Why is that?
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: Because I think that they're, obviously their personalities are so different,
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: but they were around the same time. They, again, they
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: were put in place by the men who led their
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: parties in the parliamentary system's.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: In which they served.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: And they were largely put in place by the men
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: because they thought they would be malleable. Right.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: And guess what? They weren't malleable. Right.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Well, it's just like how the first women became governors, right?
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: It would be the spouse. And it's like, man.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Precisely.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: It didn't turn out the way these men thought it would.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: It didn't at all. And in one of the cases
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: in Dhiragandi, I mean, that's another example of somebody who,
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: she came from a family like one of the founding
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: families of indian democracy you know gandhi is not gandhi
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: is her husband's name uh and now and it's no
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: relation to mahatma gandhi no i.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Mean there was like maybe like it's her husband a
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: distant or something like.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah distant but but she's not like you know his daughter.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: I'm sure the name didn't hurt yeah it didn't hurt.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: Uh But so she grew up literally working to create
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: democracy in.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: India.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, if she were a man, we write in here,
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: if she were a man, she would have been groomed
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: to be one of the first leaders of India. And
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: she only ended up there by happenstance, again, because she
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: was in the party structure and somebody died. And so
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: they put her in there.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: But she's a.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: Another example of somebody who, when shit started getting real
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: and hard, she didn't do some great things.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: She took some of the democratic principles and powers away
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: from the people.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: In a not so great way. She then came back
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: and she was reelected and she sort of changed her ways. But,
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: you know, she went off the.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Off the road, off the Democratic road for a little while.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Well, she's not the only Indian president that has done that.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: They go back and they they they're mostly Democratic. Sometimes
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: you emphasize the word mostly.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then she did not have the greatest end.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: She was she was murdered.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: Apparently by somebody in her own security team.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Golda Meir. Why? Why do you feel like her election
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: changed the world?
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: Well, I think for both of them, it showed that
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: in major.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Countries... power then probably not yet.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: Probably not yet not yet but it was a major
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: it is a major country in the world there was
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: a already a woman elected in uh what became Sri
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: Lanka but these were sort of the first majors and
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: again they were around the same time but they changed
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: the world because they showed what was what was possible
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: that it actually is possible for a woman to be
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: a leader Even and especially when the men who say, OK, fine,
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: you can be the you can be.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: The prime minister.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: Don't really expect them to to amount to much more than, again, caretakers.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: And they did so much more. So it's if you
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: can see it, be it. And you can see them and.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: People said, oh, wait.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: Them and then for golda meyer it's not just that
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: i mean she she was a an international sensation well
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: before she became a prime minister because she was born
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: well born in ukraine and then grew up in america
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: and so she used her and then she moved to
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: what was then um the British controlled Palestine with her husband.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: And she used her knowledge of America and her.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: Passion for creating a state of Israel to really help
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: build them. And she was, there were founding fathers and
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: then there was the founding mother.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Well, and you could argue she did, she probably, you know,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: when you think about, and look, this is, this is
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: a relationship that is more fractured than ever, but the,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: the American Israeli relationship in some ways she was, She
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: helped create it. She helped really create that bond.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: That was different. It wasn't necessarily, you know, the relationship
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: in the United States and Israel was always close, obviously.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: You know, we played an important part in recognizing all that.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: But I think you could make the case that she
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: really cemented this partnership that right now is under stress. Yeah.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: One of my favorite quotes, and you'll love this, is
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: when she was on the phone with Henry Kissinger.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: Apparently Nixon loved Golda Meir, by the way.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: She's on the phone with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: And she said, you know, come on, we need to
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: get whatever weapons she was asking for. And Kissinger said,
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: I am a, I think he said, I'm an American first,
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: a patriot second, and I'm a Jew third. And she said, well,
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: you know, Henry and Israel, we read backwards.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Well, it's funny today. What is that's funny. I see.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Now I see. Now I got the punchline. Took me
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: a second. I got you now.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: That is a good one.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: The what is it? What did Mike Pence used to say?
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: He had a line like that. I'm a conservative. I'm
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: a Christian and I'm a Republican Republican in that order.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: A Christian, a conservative and a Republican, I think, in
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: that order was.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: I think he said American. American was in there somewhere. OK.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: May not have even said Republican was a conservative American
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: and Christian.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: Maybe.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe. Well, definitely his party was third.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, that was his religion and his and his his
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: faith and his beliefs. Exactly. Came ahead of the club
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: that he was a member.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: Boy, there's that point. Yeah. He lived up to that.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he did. He really did. Look, Mandela, obvious on
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: that one. Was there another African election you thought about
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: at all? I mean, look, that's that's it. I'm just curious.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: And maybe it's maybe it's it's sort of a weird thing.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: you know, form of confirmation bias and that it's, it's,
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: we were, we were alive. We were just graduating from
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: college and, you know, he.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Went to college. There were still protests. You didn't drink
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Coors beer at any party in college that I went to.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: If you were caught with.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Coors, why you drank in college.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, you didn't know that liquor store didn't
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: card around the corner from Riverside at GW?
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: I can't believe you drank underage.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: That liquor store never carded.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: How dare you, Judge Todd.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: But, you know, we had Mr.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: Beer.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Remember Meisterbrow?
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: Mr.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: Beer.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, so gross. $ 7 cases at that.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it tasted like it.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Like a $ 7 case.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: But, yeah, I mean, of course, you got to do Mandela. Also,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: the story is. It's remarkable.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: It is remarkable. And again, just.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: Learning more about it in hindsight, I can't imagine being
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: in prison for 30 years without the internet, without modern
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: technology and becoming an international symbol.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Of the plight for freedom like he was.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, there is a, I guess you could
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: say Navalny is the closest heir apparent we've had in
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: the modern era. Yeah, that's a good point. But unlike Mandela,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Navalny didn't get to get out.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: And he, right.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: And, and what I learned, and I guess, again, shame
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: on me, because I should have known more of the details,
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: particularly since it was happening when we were kind of
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: alive and conscious, conscious. But the fact that he rejected
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: so many offers for his freedom.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: Because he would not do anything that was not absolute
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: blanket freedom. of the systemic racial segregation and everything that
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: went along with it. And it also is a reminder
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: that you can push, push, push, but until you get
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: a person in power who is, to quote one of
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: the people we covered for a long time, John McCain,
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: who's willing to put country and and and humanity ahead
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: of your own political it's not going to happen and
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: the clerk was the guy because he said all right
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: like we're done let's talk.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: About it's interesting like the clerk and that's the clerk
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: and Gorbachev it sort of was happening right around right
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: that's right shop happens first where and then the clerk
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: right after but it was I wonder I've always wondered
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: how much Gorbachev and what happened there had some impact
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: on the clerk. I don't know. Because it was all
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: happening right around the same time.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: I bet it did.
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: Because Gorbachev, once he was out, he did go around
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: and talk about other countries and he became, you know,
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: he had a big platform and people listened to him
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: and he did talk about Mandela.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: So I bet he did.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Hey, this episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought
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• 41:23
  Speaker 1: August of 2026. So you stop in 94 and you
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: say you don't do it any sooner. Because look, there's
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: two presidential elections that I think 50 years from now,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: we'll be looked back as it's consequential, right? One is
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: 2000 and the other is 2016. No, I don't know.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: I know. Look, and I'm going to get there. But
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: that's what's interesting. And this is what gets to why.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: And I'm saying, what about Obama?
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: Just so everybody understands, not because he's a Democrat, because
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: he was the first black president. Right.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: And I think there's, you know, look, I wrote a
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: book on Obama and I remember writing and I said,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: he will always be America's first black president. you know,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: for no matter what his presidency, how his presidency ages,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: the good, the bad, the indifferent, he's always going to
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: be historically a bit more, a matter more because of
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: the country's history with race and because he was the
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: first Black president, right? So that's always going to be there.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: The question is how much, you know, what, you know,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: the fallout from his presidency, in some ways, that's the
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: verdict that history hasn't rendered yet, right?
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: Or the backlash, right?
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: And the backlash to it and Trump's relationship to it
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: and the election in 2000. By the way, do you
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: have do you get Obama without the election in 2000?
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: You get Obama without the Iraq war. I mean, there's
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: all sorts of right. You know, what if in there?
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: The point being is as much as is I think
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: that the first thing people will do is do what
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: I did. Well, boy, you know, we these we have
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: two incredibly consequential elections, I think history will say. But
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: guess what? 10 years ago, 08 would have been, no, no,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: we had two, and I would have said 2000 and 2008.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: And now 2016 keeps growing, right? Just like 2000 did.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: You know, I always say this about the 2000 election.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: It was the most important election that people didn't realize
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: was important until after it happened.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: That's the whole point of this book. I'm so happy
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: you said that. You don't realize it always in the moment.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: And that was a classic one because the campaign itself,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, you and I were both younger covering that
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: campaign and having, and the joke about that campaign is
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: how little difference there was between the two of them.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: You know, I mean, it was sort of like, you know,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Bush was basically saying, hey, if you, if, don't vote change,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: vote for me. You know, it was just sort of like,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to, I'm not going to change the
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: way things are. You know, I'm just going to restore
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: honor and integrity into the White House.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: It was like, I'm just running against his character. That's it. And, and,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: and I always thought.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: But he was, but he was running on conservative principles.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: No doubt.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: You know, but the distinction.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: The distinction between these two were so small. And I
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: think it's why turnout was so blah. I think it's all,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: I always said the reason that election ended at a
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: tie is neither one of them made the case to win, right?
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Because they were both sort of just running to replace.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: They weren't, they didn't necessarily, neither one of them knew
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: exactly what their presidency was going to look like. And obviously,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: you know, a certain day changes everything for George W.
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: Bush.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: But, you know, boy, in hindsight, 2000 becomes this incredibly
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: consequential period. election.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: And I totally agree with you.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: You know, it will. All right.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: So now that you're saying that, I understand why you
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: said 2000 and 2016.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: That makes more sense.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Right. No, it's sort of like it's the fallout from it.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: And and and I think that this is why I
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: think you picked your correct elections and you left off
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: some correctly because it's too early. A, it's too early
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: or B, sometimes consequential people getting elected are didn't necessarily,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: it wasn't a necessarily, you know, it was sort of
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: like the change had already happened and that's why they
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: got elected, you know, type of mindset or whatever it is. So, um,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: you know, so I, I sort of, I sort of get, um,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: I get that, but I, I, I look at these
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: three elections, right?
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: 2000, 2008, 2016.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: Um, I think in 20 years, you know, who we
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: may say 2016 is the most consequential of the first quarter.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: of this century, right? Like we still don't know fully yet.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: And by the way, 2028.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: Maybe or maybe.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: Not. How is that going to be the reaction?
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: How is that going to be the action or reaction
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: to what started in 2016?
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Will it continue it or will it say, nope, we're done?
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think that that's the, and it does take,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm being a history junkie, and one of
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: the questions I ask historians all the time, what is
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: the ideal space before you think you can write about
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: an event and get the most accurate picture?
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Oh, what's their answer?
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Right. And it's, well, it's short enough where there are
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: people still alive who went through that event.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: But far enough away where there is no consequences for
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: them to tell their story, right? Like that's the sweet
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: spot you want. Is it 20 years? Is it 25 years?
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Like for instance, I think this was the first time
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: we've had a more honest conversation about 9-11 and about
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: the fallout from 9-11 without feeling like, I felt more
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: comfortable having certain conversations about the fallout of 9-11. just
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: like security, the debate, you know, should we have had
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: a Homeland Security Department? Should we, you know, there were
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: certain debates that we had, but you muted them a
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: little bit because you didn't want to offend anybody, right?
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: There was still, there was still a lot of people
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: that was raw for, and frankly, because we, you know,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: when you lived, when you lived, I always said that
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: New York and DC, because it happened to us, it
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: was more acute. And one thing I'll never know the
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: answer to is whether the rest of the country was
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: as obsessed with it as we were. And did it
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: wear away sooner than we allowed it to wear away
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: in the rest of the country? It's always a question
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: I've had in my head. I'm not, how do you,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: you know, you can't, you can't, you can't take yourself
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: out of having been a part of the story.
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: So. Yeah.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, I just so I don't there is
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: no perfect answer, but.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: I found this year harder on 9-11.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Did you? Well, it's just probably the last one. It's
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: probably the last big anniversary, you know, that I'm not
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: saying there won't be commemorations, you know, as long as
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: there are survivors that are alive in the same way.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: There's commemorations every year at D-Day. And about every five years,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: a president comes.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: You know, so I'm not you know, we will have
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: those things. But this is probably, you know, the last
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: time that we have the big conversation. And I you know, I'm.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: You know, there's plenty of young adults who weren't even born.
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: And I think that's why I think I found it
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: harder because for the first time I'm looking.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Around the office. You had to explain it.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, nevermind to our kids, which that's understandable, but
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: like to my colleagues and peers.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, wait a minute.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: I'll give you, here's a good reason why you need
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: time to truly understand why an event has a huge
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: consequence that you don't fully appreciate. Take what was happened
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: to us with data and the digital revolution.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: So 9-11 happens and suddenly the country is comfortable giving
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: up a little bit of its privacy and experience for security.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: And it's a habit that we develop out of necessity
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: because our government asks us to. And for the most part,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: we're scared and we agree to it collectively as a side.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: Not everybody was on board, but it was a 65.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: You go back to those polls, right? It was like 65%
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: were willing to give up some freedoms in exchange for security, right?
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: That was how acute the threat was. The 9-11 Commission
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: comes out and we basically decide to embed all of
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: these new surveillance systems and all of this stuff. And
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: we've got to find out more about everybody. And it
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: literally the month that the 9-11 Commission report comes out,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: there's this kid in a dorm room in Harvard that
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: that starts an entity called Facebook. Mm hmm.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: And.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: All of a sudden, we go from agreeing to give
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: up a little bit of our privacy in exchange for
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: security to then getting in the habit of giving up
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: a little bit of our privacy in exchange for using
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: a piece of software that we now.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Call an app. I think there's a book in here, Chuck. Oh, well,
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: I wrote a column about it.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: But the point being is.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: I think this is fascinating. I love this.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: Europe.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Never feels as comfortable giving up data to social media companies,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: to digital. To this day, Europe is, I always say,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: if you care about privacy in America, be thankful for
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: the Europeans because they're the ones pressuring these big tech
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: companies to have to play by a more stringent set
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: of rules when it comes to cookies and all this stuff.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: But guess what they didn't go through? They didn't go
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: through 9-11, right? We in America have gotten into this
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: habit of just handing over everything. And I think it's
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: one of the fallouts from 9-11. And if 9-11 doesn't happen,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: is our relationship with big tech completely different than what
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: it is today, where it feels like we've been, I
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: feel like we've collectively, we're held hostage by big tech.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Think about how do people see your show? How do
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: people read your book? If you don't make an algorithm,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: you don't, right? It's like, it is, it is, it is,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: And it's funny, it's like, this is not something I
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: felt like I could see until you're this far away
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: from the actual event that happens.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: I would totally read that book. Yeah, but that's- And
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: you can say it was born in this conversation.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Born in this conversation. All right, we're 47 minutes in
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: and I, look, one of my focuses when I bring
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: people on to talk about their book is I actually
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: like to talk about their book and what they wrote about.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: But there's a lot of people- Yeah. That say, Dana
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Bash is on. Can you please talk about the frickin
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: midterms and come on? And can you talk about.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: Washington from Chuck Todd? They don't need me. They do.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: But let's let me let me get your, you know,
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: give me your five favorite races that you're obsessed with
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: at the moment that you feel like are going to
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: tell the story of 2026. Because I know when I
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: was sitting in your shoes, you know, at the end
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: of the day, you want to cover everything. But you
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: you have to use. you know, when you're in this
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: national platforms, you have to use a handful of races
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: as avatars.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: Right. You know that, you know, because, you know, you
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: can't do it all no matter how much bandwidth.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: 24 hour news channel should have, but we all know
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: that way. We all know the way our business works.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: It isn't, it doesn't always work that way. So what
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: are your avatars for the story of, of 2026?
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: First of all, the Michigan Senate race. Yeah.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's, I know that's maybe obvious, but It
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: just is.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: I would have opened a bureau there if I could have.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, especially when, you know, when Mike Duggan was
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: running as an independent in that governor's race, you had
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: the crazy center race with the ideological fight on the left.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: And then you had this three-way dynamic as an independent.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: You know, you had either scenario at one point. I literally,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: I would have begged NBC to open a bureau. full-time
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: bureau in Michigan. I think it's that important this cycle,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: but even just with Abdul Al-Sayed, I mean, what happened?
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: The 2028 primary is being impacted right now in that race.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: 1000%.
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: And it's because the question is, can one of the
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: Bernie Sanders left candidates win beyond a blue state or
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: a blue district? And Michigan is as swingy as it
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: gets right now. So that's going to determine the answer
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: to that.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Well, there's no doubt. Michigan won. Totally agree. Totally see it. Absolutely.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: What else?
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: I also think that Mike Lawler's district in New York.
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: And the reason is because he is.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: He's running against a not a.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: Liberal, a moderate Democrat, who's kind of got the perfect resume,
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: the military background. And he is running, embracing Trump, where
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: he thinks it matters, but also pushing him away or at.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: Least separating himself. But I think that, I think that
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: if she wins. Yeah.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: He says yes to everything. Yeah.
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: But if she wins there, if she beats him, then, um,
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: or let me, let me actually do the flip side.
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: If he loses. Mm-hmm.
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: I think it means that Democrats are going to do
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: really well, even though you would think, no, that that
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: should be one of the first to go because it's
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: a Harris one district, one of only three. But I
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: think because he frankly is running a very smart campaign
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: and she is running a very smart campaign. So I
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: think that that could be determinative of the mood.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: I heard that the personal relationship between Jeffries and Lawler
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: is awful. That if there is one race.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: I can tell you it's awful.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: I was told if there is one... Akeem Jeffries only cares...
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: Someone joked with me that, honestly, if they didn't win
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: the House but beat Lawler, he wouldn't consider it a failure.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: That's like however personal that's become between the two of them.
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: I didn't know it was that bad.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: It may explain why there was so much anger... at
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: this Jared Golden, Marie Glusenkamp-Perez rules committee vote.
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: Right, right, right.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: I think Lawler was a part of it. I think
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: Lawler was helping Jared Golden in there too. What's interesting
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: about Lawler, you're right about to single him out because
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: here's a guy who's got incredibly good relationships with people
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: like Jared Golden, Marie Glusenkamp, with the sort of the
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: blue dog Democrat crowd, and at the same time went
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: to the Trump convention. There's not many people sitting in
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: districts like his that are trying to do both. And
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: I think you and I both believe, I think that's
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: a trap for these Republicans, right? Can you, you know,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: when you look at that New York Times poll, it
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: might not be. And Lawler, Lawler's the only one trying
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: to do both. I can't think of somebody else trying to,
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, I look at Mike Rogers and I don't
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: understand why he's not pivoting more to the center. It's
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: just been surprising to me. He sort of stayed- You know,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: they're so.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: Concerned about base turnout.
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: Because the whole country is running against Al-Sayed and he's
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: actually running against Al-Sayed.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: So he might as well do it.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that could be.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: So Lawler and Michigan, those are two good avatars. Give
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: me give me two or three more that you feel
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: like will help.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: I think Iowa.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with you. And that's where I say. For me,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: the whole state of Iowa is the blue wave test, right?
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: If the wave is big, Iowa.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: Is a lot of blue.
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: Because I think in both the governor's race and the
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: Senate race, it's the blue wave and it's people are
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: so pissed and they're so hurting and they love Trump
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: and the tariffs and the Iran war and all that.
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: But the governor's race, the Democratic candidate is so strong.
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: And in the Senate race, the Republican candidate is strong.
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: is whether or not the Democrat at the top of
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: the ticket is going to pull over.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know how many coattails he's going to have.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: I know I've been obsessed with the coattail. Because I
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: think these governor's races, right? I mean, does Abbott have coattails?
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: And if so, what are they? And can Abbott get
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: over 54, 55? Right, I don't know. But let me
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: give you one more little fun little Iowa nugget because
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: you may want to use it. You may have seen this.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: And to me, it tells you everything. It sort of
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: reinforces your Iowa point. Zach Nunn and Miller Meeks.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: They just voted on Iran. Yeah, we just did that
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: in Inside Politics today.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: If that is not your canary in the coal mine.
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: I feel so vindicated right now and seen because on
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: Inside Politics, I just did something that Chuck Todd did.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: Blessed without knowing it. I feel like my job is done.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: I think that's a huge turning point.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: I agree. I agree because they're big Trump supporters and
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: vice versa.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: And not only that, it's the fact it just tells.
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: You how 100 percent how.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: Hard defending this Iran war is becoming 100 percent. These
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: are Zach Nunn. He's not. I mean, he is a look.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: He is a card carrying member of the Republican Party.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? And I mean that in
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: a he's a he's a good Republican. He is not.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: He is Bob Dole like right. If Trump's the nominee,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: he's with him. If he's with him, like he's just
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: a loyal party soldier. And when he moves that means
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: something's happening in his district on this issue.
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. So people are pissed. They don't want to spend
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: all the money that they're spending for fertilizer, for for diesel. Oh,
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: my God. Diesel. And that's directly from the Iran war.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Then there's Texas. We've been here so many times,
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: but I actually think this is the first time.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Where.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: We're getting close to October, and the Texas fantasy hasn't
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: gone away yet for Democrats.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: I try to remember, was that true for Beto? Was
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: it already going away at this point?
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: It wasn't quite going away. I actually think with Beto,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: nobody still believed it. Nobody was believing it still. Didn't
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: you feel that way? I don't remember.
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I have to go back. I don't remember.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: You have a better memory than I do. I think
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: what's interesting is that it's not.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: Just what I remember. It's pre-COVID.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: I think that in Texas that it's it is like Iowa.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: It's not just one race. It's not just the Senate
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: race because it's Ken Paxton, who's a very flawed candidate
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: against Tallarico, who's, you know, a different kind of Democrat
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: down there.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: It's Abbott. Who is Texas. I mean, he is Texas
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: and he's obviously worried.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: He completely changed his position on data centers, for example.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: Well, and then there's.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: South Texas where Republicans, I mean, this is talk about hubris.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: They just because you win Latino voters once doesn't mean
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: they're a permanent member of the coalition.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: Right. Because they're hurting economically.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: Oh, and maybe because people who are maybe even citizens
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: are getting picked up by ICE for no reason other
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: than the fact that they are Latino.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: They have a last name that ends in Z or something.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: Doesn't always stick.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Texas. I mean, so give me one more that
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: you think helps tell the story. I'm with you. I mean,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: because Texas also, I mean, look, you go.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: You're with me so far. You're with me.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: OK, all four. I think those are all.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: I am going to go with. I'm going to go
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: with Alaska.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's interesting.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: I know it's a little offbeat because it has its
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: own DNA in every way, shape or form.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: But a lot of Western, you know, in fairness to
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: other Western states like Montana. Right. Like, yeah, I feel like, yeah,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: they all have their own identity. That's not quite what
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: we East Coasters sometimes do with politics.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: OK, scratch that.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: I'm actually going to I'm actually going to put a
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: pin in Alaska. I'm obviously watching it and I'm going
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: to go to Ohio, the Ohio Senate race.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: Because the governor's race he could and the.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: Governor's race but the senate race in particular the the
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: fact that schumer convinced um our our senator we've been
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: covering since he was a house member sherrod brown who
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: went head-to-head with you in political trivia every time i
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: saw it happen i did not know who was going
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: to win.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: Um he is he's he also is good with uh
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: some baseball trivia. Oh, really? But it has to involve
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: the Indians or Guardians.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I get that, which is why he's on the
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: ballot again. So he, I mean, the fact that Schumer,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: I don't think it was probably very hard to convince
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: him to try to run again, but he's genuinely a populist.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: He always has been. And so Ohio, when we first
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: started covering it, it was politics.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Remember when we first started covering it?
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: So goes Ohio, so goes the nation.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: But think about the shared brand that we governed in 06.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: The question was, is he too liberal for the state? Right.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: Should Democrats have found somebody? And now it feels like
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: his economic populism is liberal, sort of call it just
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: mainstream culturalism.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: You know, it's it's sort of like he fits the
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: state better now than he did in 06.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: It's really true.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: And so so the question is whether or not that
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: what what would if Sherrod Brown wins. You know, this
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: is the only part that tells me about.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Here's the only part that shocked me about why
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: he ran.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: That he ran.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: The reward for winning the Ohio Senate race in 2026.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: You have to be in. In the Senate.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: You got to run again. No, you got to run
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: again in two years.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: It's special.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, right.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: That's true. It's special.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: This is the rest of Vance's seat.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: It's J.D. Vance's term. Yeah.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: And, you know, Sherrod Brown, you know, he's going to
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: have to run in 28 with J.D. Vance at the
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: top of the ticket. It's just hard. It's just that
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: I always thought he was going to run for governor
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: because there were a bunch of Democrats trying to get
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: him to run for governor. And I don't know if
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: that would have meant Amy Acton would have moved to
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: the Senate race because she was in very early. And
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: it was there was a bunch of people that assumed
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: that because the Senate race was a two year gig,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: that he would pick the governor's race so that he
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have to turn right around. But that to me
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: is what gives it it's more of a Schumer recruiting
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: coup than he gets credit for, because he talked him
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: into doing something essentially. All right. And if you win,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: you're going to run again for me. Right. I assume
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: Schumer got that. Look, I think we now know that
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: Sherrod Brown would love to be a senator for life
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: if he could be. He's going to have to work
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: really hard to do it.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is definitely true. Thank you for having me.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: It's great to have you here. Let me have one
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: question that I get a lot from folks that I
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: don't have the same. How much would you say is
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: the Trump White House harder to work with now than
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: the first term? Is it still weirdly easier to work
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: with because they care about what's being on air, but
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: hard to work with because I like how do you care?
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: How do you how would you characterize the sort of
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: the relationship that, look, you have to have if you
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: run a Sunday show? You know, we can talk this
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: balance between access and non-access. It's just it is what
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: it is. Right. Now we say, look, if we want
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: to know what's happening, you've got to be able to
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: bring the Treasury secretary on at the same time. They
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: make demands that are sometimes very hard to deal. How
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: would you characterize the relationship these days?
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's great with the mainstream media, but
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: I think we always have to keep in mind, and
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: people may or may not realize this, that the.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: President, for all of his.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: Knowledge and use of modern media, of social media and
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: so forth, he's a creature of the 80s. So he
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: wants his people to be on our shows. He just does.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: He wants himself to be on our shows. Maybe not
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: my show, but your former show. And, um, and he, uh,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: and so that is, that does help in being able
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: to ask the tough questions of people who work for him. Yeah.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: What do you make of what a bunch of us
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: are doing out here in independent space?
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: Do you? You know, it's funny. Oh, my God, I
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: love it.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: Are you loving it? Are you having a good time?
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. And when I was seeing, when I was on
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: the other side, I remember going, I don't know. You know,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: and then you're over here and you're, look, there are
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of things I miss. Um, the collaboration is
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: the biggest thing, right? The hardest thing is the, the
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: hardest thing about independent is the eye and independent, because
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: there's not a lot of, we, you can build some,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: we don't get me wrong. And, and, you know, we've
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: all got you, you, you put in together, but, um,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: the collaboration is, the team, you know, those resources, they're
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: still really good resources. So as much as we like
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: to be, you know, us independent people like to be like,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: it is, there are trade-offs. I, you know, there are
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: certain things I can do and say in topics I
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: get to cover that I never would have been able
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: to do or say or cover before. And I think, frankly,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: there's a more honest relationship between sponsors and what I do.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: And yet the things I do with sponsors, I never
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: would have agreed to in my other life. And yet
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering if actually that would have been a better
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: way to handle it. It's just interesting. Like the lessons
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: you learn on this side, which is, you know, we
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: build this firewall. There was such a firewall built. And,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: you know, the thing that we overrate is what the
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: public thinks of that. Public doesn't care. And they don't,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: even if we tell them there's a firewall, they don't
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: believe it exists anyway.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: That's probably the one small aha I've had about that. But,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: you know, the resources are awesome. So having a polling outfit,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: you know, those are the things I miss.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: Well, so I look at you and our other....
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: Friends and colleagues, former colleagues who are doing what you're doing.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, God, that is so, I absolutely love it.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: I love reading your sub stacks and everybody's and watching
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: and all of your YouTube channels. Like it makes me
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: so happy.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: But there's too much stuff to go through sometimes.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: It also looks like so much work.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: Like I work hard, I work hard, but I think
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: that being an independent, because it's just you, like you
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: are working, you're soft.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: I will say this. It's, I've suddenly realized I'm doing
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: five shows a week. I was like, wait a minute.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: I thought I left. The whole point of walking away
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: was not that. to do five shows a week anymore.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: But there's something about if you feel like it is funny.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: If you have control of a situation, you'll end up
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: working more.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: Whatever it is. It's you know, perhaps it's the incentive of,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: you know, you have to sing for your own supper
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: and those sort of things. You eat what you kill. Yeah,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: it is. Here's the thing. I used to joke the
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: grass is always browner. You know, everybody that would leave,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: you know, people would leave NBC all grumpy and then
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: they go to one of brand X or brand Y
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: and they go, oh, wow, I missed this. The point is,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: is that, look, there is some green grass and then
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: there's brown grass too. And in both sides of the equation,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: what we don't want to see happen is we're is
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: it any of it going away, right? It all needs
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: to be reanimated. There's no, and refreshed all the time,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: but you don't want it to go away and you
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: just keep fighting for the independence because that's what you
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: don't want to lose.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: Yep. Amen. Amen.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: And that's what I feel like you guys are the
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: what you're one of the last ones standing on the
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: independence front.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: So we're trying.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: I know we are. I don't want to get into
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: the other part of it. It is what it is.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: There's not much you can do. You know, you're a journalist.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: The corporate boardroom is the corporate boardroom.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I will say and I really mean this. I
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: know you said people don't believe it. I don't care
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: because no one, no one, I don't, it has zero impact.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: I don't have any idea. It does. It does. There's
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: no pressure.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: When would you have time actually to like worry about
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: what's happening in corporate boardrooms? This story is too big
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: to ignore.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: No, but I mean, like people think, oh, they're doing
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: it because of, you know, the billionaires who run their company.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, no.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: Billionaires do run our companies, but there's no impact on
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: what I'm doing on the ground.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: I don't have time cues, but I bet you, you do.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: I need to let you know. Dana, it's always great.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: This was awesome.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: Chuck, so good to see you. I'm very grateful. Go revolutionaries.