Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - Can American Politics Self-Correct & Avoid Civil War? + Will NATO Survive Trump’s Presidency?

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Chuck’s Commentary - Can American Politics Self-Correct & Avoid Civil War? + Will NATO Survive Trump’s Presidency? · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: I'm constantly working on this for years myself, and here's
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  Speaker 1: an opportunity for you to take matters into your own
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  Speaker 1: hands as well. Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome to
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: another episode of the Chuck Podcast. So I'll be honest
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: with you, I'm coming on literally, I'm taping right now,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: probably about thirty minutes after that incredible finish of Yukon
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: over Duke, just sort of out of nowhere. Just an
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: incredible back to back years for Duke with these choke jobs,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: blowing the double digit lead against Houston in the final
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: four last year, blowing this nineteen point lead against u
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Khon and the Elite eight, somebody's going to start getting
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: a reputation. But here's what I would say to mister Shier,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Coach Duke, go look at coach K's record in Elite
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: eights and final fours in the eighties, because they was
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: in the eighties, he was making all sorts of progress,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: but he didn't break through the wall. Right. It wasn't
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: until the nineties that he broke through. And then of
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: course once he broke through, then it seemed like when
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: he'd get there, he'd be a winner. There's something about
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Yukon though, right they are. They are a tough dragon
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: to slay, whether they're loaded with talent, whether they're missing
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: a few pieces that they seem off, you're not one
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: hundred percent sure. Well, one thing you know about these
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Danny Hurley coach teams is they don't quit. But anyway,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: what I mean, let's just be honest, that's why we
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: love this tournament. Right, you got to have one game.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: These final these Ellegue eight games were all kind of blowout. Ye.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, Iowa Illinois before this, before we got this,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: and this one looked like it was going to be
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the big blowout, and before we got this like Illinois
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Iowa was about the best we got and that was
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: a game with about five minutes left and then Illinois
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: started pulling away. But this means I only got two
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: of the final four. Correct. I thought I was about
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: to have three of the final four. I went way
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: out on a limb and took three number one seeds
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: in my final four Duke Michigan in Arizona. So I
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: whipped on that had Houston, had Houston winning the whole thing,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: So that was out. But I will tell you this,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I've met coach Underwood at Illinois, spent a little time
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: with him, spend a little time with that program. It is.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: It is one of the schools that I've had some
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: family attend. So of the four schools Michigan, Arizona, Yukon,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: and Illinois, my large extended family has the closest ties
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: to the Allian eye. So we will be despite the
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: fact that they have those horrible, that horrible pairing of
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: colors blue and orange, which you know, if you run
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: the state of Florida, it's really one of the tougher
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: color matches to deal with, right that blue and orange
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: is just a terrible color match. And again people in
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the state of Florida. Understand that, especially blinding when you
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: have to go through Gainesville. It's terrible. But despite Illinois
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: sharing similar similar colors, I guess you could argue it's
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: a darker orange and a slightly darker blue. The toodcast
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: will be slightly pulling for the for Ellinois and they're
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: going to be technically the underdogs, right They're the Cinderella
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: story of the three seeds. So we did get the
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: chalky end of the tournament as we thought, But wow,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: what a finish there. Before I get to my more
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: serious stuff here, I do want to gloat. I had
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: one wish for the start of the baseball season for
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: my beloved Washington Nationals. I really wanted Tom to win
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Game one so I could guarantee that they would have
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: a winning record at some point this season. And what
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: do you know, they're two in one at the end
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: of the first weekend. They've won their first series against
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: a team that's supposed to be a contender for the playoffs.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: I'll take it. And you know, apparently the most unhittable
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: player in baseball's Joey Weimer. And I'm not gonna tell
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: you I'd never heard of them. But I'm not going
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: to pretend to tell you I knew everything about this
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: guy when the Nats signed him in January off of
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: a waiver wires, So we'll take it. The Nats are
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: two and one. It feels good. If I were a
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Cubs fan, I'm a little concerned to drop two of
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: three at home. The good news is they're arguably their
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: best young pitcher, Kate Horton pitched their best game on Saturday.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: But you're going to be a little bit concerned. But hey,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: it's baseball. It's early in the year. We know that.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: So I'm just happy the Nats have a winning record
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: now they have put it this way. They've gone the
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: season is four days old and they have yet to
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: have a losing record. They were tied for first after
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: the game on Thursday, So look, these are the tiny,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: tiniest little baby steps. We Nats fans. It's the only
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: thing we have to cling to. So we have that.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: And I think I teased that I was this was
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: a big fantasy baseball draft weekend for me. I Am
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: not going to be that annoying guy and tell you
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: everything about my fantasy baseball team, because you know who
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: cares about my fantasy baseball team, not you guys. I'm
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: aware of that, and I'm not interested in having you
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: fast forward all the way through other than I one
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: was an auction and one was a snake draft. If
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: any of you care that much about it, you're welcome
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: to throw some questions at the back and maybe at
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the end of some podcast. I'm happy to talk about it.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: But it is. Here's what I always find out for
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: the fantasy draft. Every year, I find out, Oh my god,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: I didn't do my homework. I didn't do enough. I
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: knew enough. Guy, I was running out of pitchers, especially
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: when you're in one league that has twenty four teams
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and eighteen roster spots. Let me repeat twenty four teams
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: eighteen roster spots. All right, enough of that side of
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: my sports ledger. We will have my podcast time machine,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: and we are going back to the year nineteen forty nine,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: and let's just say it's the start of an organization
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: that is still very much in the news today. That
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: will be my big hint for you. But I want
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: to begin essentially with what look we ended the week.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I think when I last talked with you were it
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: was clear and I said, I said, well, they're going
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: to get something done with d HS. Well it was
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: not done the way I thought it was going to
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: get done. But we have TSA workers being paid, president
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: doing an executive order sort of finding finding other ways
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: to meet some payrolls temporarily. We had the Senate pass
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: a compromise and then the House Republicans completely rejected. And
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: I think it's a you know, this is a piece
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: of where I want to go with the larger point
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I want to make with today's episode. It really is
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: about answering our question. I get a lot, and I
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: want to give you a fuller answer to when I
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: get this question a lot, which is you know when,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: when when is this going to end? And when I when?
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: When I say this this sort of this moment of
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: polarization where everything is a knockdown, drag out fight. Everything
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: has to be a battle, you know, of the ages,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: just to you know, decide how's TSA going to get
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: funded right and everything, And then you have these battles
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: inside the party between half the party that wants to
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: govern and half the party that wants to fight. And
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: you're starting to see this almost look like mirror images
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: of each other in each side. Right, you had those
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: that were getting exhausted and the Democratic side feeling as
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: if this shutdown they had gotten everything they could get
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: out of it. It was time to find a way
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: to land the plane. Pun intended on that one. But
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: then you saw a sort of similarity on the right
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: right where you saw plenty of center Republicans going, yeah,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: let's land the plane, let's throw them a bone on this,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: this and this, and then the President not enthusiastic about it,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: and certainly Speaker Johnson and House Republicans going, you know what,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: we're not playing ball with that. So you start to
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: see you've got and in many cases right the House
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: is home of the hardliners, the hardliners on the left
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: these days, hardliners on the right. And the Senate is
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: home of the compromisers, if I guess the Founders would
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: be happy to see that. But even within the Senate,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the compromisers are barely able to pull off compromises, and
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure how enthusiastic they all are. So it
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: gets it to this larger question than I want to
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: come back to, and it's the one I think that
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: matters more right now than any individual election result or
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: any poll number or any piece of legislation, and it's
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: simply this is the country ready to move on. It's
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: not just turning the page on Trump specifically, this is
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: not just about Trump or even trump Ism, Right, But
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: are we It's not about ready to move on from
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: one politician or a party, but are we ready to
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: move on from this? Right, this era of permanent, polarized
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: warfare politics that has defined arguably American life for the
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: better part of most of the century, right, two decades now.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, in some ways it's fitting that this deck
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: that this century began with the two thousand election, where
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: we took the Supreme Court to decide when to stop
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: the count. Right, we're living in an era where the
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: other side isn't just wrong, they're it's existential, where every
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: election is the most important of our lifetime. Right, I've
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: never covered an election that wasn't the most important in
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: my lifetime. Apparently compromise is not only not a virtue
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: right now, it can be seen as a character flaw.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: So let's go back to the question are we ready
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: to move on from this? Because I've been doing this
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: long enough to know that ready is an automatic. Societies
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: don't heal on a schedule, they heal, and the cost
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: of staying sick finally exceeds the cost of the cure.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: And let's just say, I'm not sure we're there yet.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: You know that doesn't you know? That doesn't mean we
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: may not have I And what I mean is, I
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: think we're a few more elections away from the electorate
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: demanding resolution to this. And I don't think the electorate
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: is just there. So here's the case I want to
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: make today, and I'm going to use some history to
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: do it, because I think the closest parallel to what
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: we're living through is a period most America know mostly
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: as a blur, and I think it's the most understudied
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: period in American history and one that all of us
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: should spend a little bit more time on. And I
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: think it can teach us a lot about the moment
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: we're in right now. And it's the twenty eight years
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: between two term president Andrew Jackson and twice elected he
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: obviously didn't serve his full second term, Abraham Lincoln. We
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: had seven presidents, actually we had eight presidents because one
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: took over via death, but seven president elected presidents. Okay,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: in twenty eight years. It's just remarkable back and forth,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: if you will, seven men who each saw the divide coming,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: each reached for a tool to manage it, and each
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: watched that tool break in their hands. Right, we haven't
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: gone through seven of these presidencies yet, right, we got
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: push Obama Trump Biden Trump were at five. One could argue,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: we've probably got a couple more to go. And that's
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: my thesis here, But let me keep it going. So
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: let's go back and let me walk you through that
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: period of history here a little bit. By the time
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson left office in eighteen thirty seven, the American
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: political system was already cracking along a fault line that
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: everyone could feel and almost nobody wanted to name directly.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Slavery was the wound, right, we know it, essentially, it's
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: the it's our original sin of this country. But westward
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: expansion was the pressure, and the political class on both
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: sides of this argument had developed an almost institution dutional
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: allergy to have an honest reckoning with either one. So
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: what followed was twenty eight years of presidents trying everything
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: except the thing that needed to be done. Let's start
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: with Martin Van Buren. He was Jackson's hand picked successor,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: the original political operator, the man who basically invented the
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: modern party machine, and his theory the case was, don't
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: touch it. Slavery is a matter for the states. Keep
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: the coalition together by refusing to let the coalition fight.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Keep your head down, keep your mouth shut, and hold
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: the line. And then the Panic of eighteen thirty seven hit.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: It was the worst economic collapse the country had seen
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: up until that point, and Van Buren discovered that avoidance
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: isn't a strategy. It's just a slower form of collapse.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: When you refuse to lead on the defining issue of
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: your era, you don't protect yourself from it. You just
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: guarantee that when it catches up to you, you're already weakened.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: The next president elected was William Henry Harrison, quickly succeeded
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: by John Tyler. Right, Harrison is the one who died
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: thirty one days after taking office, shortest presidency in American history.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: So John Tyler ended up president, and he was a
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Virginia States rights man. He was placed on this Whig
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: ticket purely for geographical balance. They never actually wanted him
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: to serve as president. The theory of course was that
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: you could paper over the fundamental divide in the country
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: with a clever lineup card right, put a Northerner at
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: the top and a Southerner underneath, call it a coalition,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: and hope nobody looks too closely. Well Tyler when he
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: became president after thirty one days, he vetoed virtually everything
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: that the Whig control Congress sent him. He got expelled
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: from his own party. He spent four years proving that
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: ticket balancing is not coalition building. It's just a delayed reckoning.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: The divide didn't go away because you dressed it up.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: It just simply waited. Next came James Polk. Now it's
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: an underrated presidency. Might be the best one term presidency
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: we've ever had, George H. W. Bush, And we would
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: like a little say in that. But in a sense
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: that Pope actually did some things. He was decisive, he
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: was disciplined, and he had a theory of how to
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: avoid the issue expansion. If we just got more land,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: there's enough for everybody, and then we don't have to
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: fight about it. The promise of the West would ease
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: the tension, he thought between the North and the South,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: because there'd be room to grow in every direction. The
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Mexican American War gave in California and the Southwest, and
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: all it did was reopen the slavery question with a
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: ferocity that nobody could contain, because now there was new territory,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: and the question of where slavery would expand became the
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: question that consumed everything. The Wilmot Proviso, the attempt at
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: bann slavery in any territory acquired by Mexico acquired from Mexico,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: was born in his presidency and nearly tore his own
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: party apart. So expansion did not relieve the pressure. It
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: multiplied it. I'm solving a symptom to make the disease worse.
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  Speaker 1: off and yes, I too am a customer. Zachary Taylor.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: He was a Southern slave owner. He owned more than
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: one hundred enslaved people, who nonetheless told the South to
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: back off on secession threats over California statehood. And he
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: was willing to call their bluff and he said, essentially,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: if you want to leave, try it, and he didn't
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: think they would, and he might have been right, but
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: we never found out. He died in office, supposedly eating
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: poisoned cherries, but most people assume it was a cute
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: gastrio enteritis. But there've always been a little bit If
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: you want, you want to talk about a few conspiracy
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: theories that are still unresolved about that death, you can
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: go down some rabbit holes, because his death was a
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: little bit murky, and it was happening an incredibly important time.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: He was a Southerner pushing back on the South. So
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: we don't know if his bluff was if the bluff
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: was real that he was willing to do. History will
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: never know if his toughness was actually the path forward,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: if he was the Nixon to China guy, or if
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: it was going to just lead to another dead end.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: He was willing to force the crisis, unlike previous presidents.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Whether forcing it would have resolved it in that moment, we're
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: never know. But he was gone before the answer arrived.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Millard Fillmore takes over and he inherits Taylor stand off,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: and he resolved it, so he thought he did. With
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: the compromise of eighteen fifty package deal, California comes in
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: as a free state slave trade though not slavery itself,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: ends in Washington, d c. And in return, the South
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: gets the Fugitive Slave Act, a federal law requiring northern
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: states to actively return escaped in slave people to their owners,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: so called owners. Fillmore signed it genuinely believing he had
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: saved the Republic. He called it the final settlement of
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: the slavery question, the final settlement, basically agreeing that half
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: the country would have slaves and half would find it abhorrent.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: But anyway, that's what he thought. Obviously, he was catastrophically wrong.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: What the Fugitive Slave Act actually did was make the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: North personally complicit in slavery's enforcement for the first time.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Ordinary Northern nurse people in Ohio and Pennsylvania and Massachusetts
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: who never thought much about slavery. One way or another,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: were being deputy eyes to participate in it, and a
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: galvanized the abolitionist movement like nothing before it. Harriet Beecherstow
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin in direct response to this, became
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: the best selling novel of the nineteenth century. Sometimes the
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: compromise is the crisis. Sometimes the thing you do to
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: lower the temperature is the thing that lights the fire.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Franklin Pierce came in. The Democrats had a theory for
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: his presidency. Nominate a northern man. He was from New Hampshire,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: with southern sympathies what they called a dough face, and
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: you split the difference, you get a candidate who can
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: win in the North without alienating the South. Pierce was
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: from New Hampshire, charming, he was handsome, and he was
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: completely spineless in the question that mattered the most. He
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: signed the Kansas Nebraska Act, which repeated the Missouri Compromise.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Repealed the Missouri Compromise, an agreement that had for three
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: decades kept slavery out of the northern territories, and he
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: replaced it with popular sovereignty, i e. Let the settlers
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: decide the slavery question sounds democratic, but what it actually
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: produced was a race between pro slavery and anti slavery
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: settlers to flood into Kansas and determine its future by force.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: The result was bleeding Kansas, a preview of the Civil War.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Years before the actual Civil War. Towns burned, people died.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: The federal government just stood by that strategy. The dough
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: face strategy did not bridge the divide, it detonated it. Finally,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: there was James Muckinn, a former Secretary of State, right,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: a former senator, a former ambassador of Britain, the most
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: experienced man to assume the presidency and a generation, and
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: he was catastrophically wrong about almost everything. He is regularly
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: seen as the guy who's last on any list of presidents,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: simply because if you lose, and if you lose the Union,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: you're probably dead last. Now, if you can't and privately
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: lobby the Supreme Court justices on the dred Scott case,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: pushed them to issue a sweeping ruling that would, he believed,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: finally settle the slavery question legally well. The Court obliged
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: no black person could ever be a US citizen. The
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: court claimed Congress had no authority to ban slavery anywhere.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: You Canon celebrated this decision. He thought it was over. Instead,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: it finished off what was left of his of the
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: political center. The Republican Party, young anti slavery organized around
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: opposition to exactly this. Won the next election, guy named
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln. First time a third party won the presidency,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: and when Southern states began to secede, Buchanan concluded he
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: had no constitutional authority to stop them. He was in
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: a narrow technical sense correct, but he was morally disastrous.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: He handed Abraham Lincoln a country already on fire with
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: the kindling stacked by every president who came before him.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: But here's the through line, and I think this is
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: what should echo today and whyatt continues to ring in
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: my ear, and why it's a place I go. Every
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: one of these men saw divide. They weren't oblivious, just
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: like we've seen here. Everybody knows the divide that we
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: live in at the moment. All of these elected senators
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: understand this is a shit show and it's got to stop,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: right just like those men did. They wrote about it,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: they worried about it, they tried to manage it, and
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: each one reached for a tool, avoidance, ticket balancing, expansion, compromise,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: legal resolution, geographic splitting of the difference, and every tool
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: broke in their hands. And it was a simple reason
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: the country wasn't ready. The cost of resolution, which turned
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: out to be a war that killed seven hundred thousand Americans,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: was still in the political calculus of each of those moments,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: higher than the cost of one more delay, one more patch,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: one more clever maneuver. It took the thing nobody wanted
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: before the country finally moved through it. So are we
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: there yet? No, I'm not at vacating civil war here, guys. Okay,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: so I do want to be careful there, But I
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: want to show you what this week past weekend looked like,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: because I think it does tell you almost everything you
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: need to know about where we are in the moment.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Big split screen, right, two countries, same weekend. On one side.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Did the third round of the No Kings rallies? Organizers
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: say eight eight million people turned turned out nationally, might
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: be the largest ever. Last time. They estimated seven million
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: turned out for the last No Kings March a couple
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: months ago. They are grassroots organized, they've got real professional
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: money behind it. Let's not pretend that this is totally organic,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: but it's progressive driven demonstrations against the Trump agenda. And
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: this weekend, the two animating issues were immigration enforcement in
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: the I Ran War now officially a month in month old.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: The biggest hub was Minnesota. That's where Bruce Springsteen performed
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: at Saint Paul months after the two American citizens were
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: killed by Ice agents. And these rallies reached beyond the
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: expected cities. We saw places like Shelbyville, Kentucky, Midland, Texas
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: hold some of these No King's rallies. It wasn't just
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the big cities, the big blue cities, if you will.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: That isn't nothing. There's no doubt the opposition to Trump
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: is growing, and the opposition to Trump is in some
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: ways very focused and very mission driven here and I
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: think we're probably going to see the result of that
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: in the midterms. Now on the other side, yet another
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: gathering of partisans seapack down in Texas. They were closing
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: out a four day conference in Grapevine, Texas. The marquis
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: speaker wasn't a sitting American official. It was Iran's exiled
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: crown Prince Reza pau Lavi, the oldest son of the
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: late of the last Shaw of Iran, drew standing room
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: only crowd, positioning himself as Iran's future leader, his supporters
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: waving Iranian flags through the convention hall. Steve Bannon was there.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: RFK Junior was their former Border Patrol commander. Greg Rovino
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: was there. He ran the Minnesota enforcement surge and of
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: course was forced out after the disasters that he oversaw.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: And here's what I want you to notice about both
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: of these gatherings. While they were each internally coherent, and
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: they were also mutually incomprehensible to the other side. And
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: that's probably the tee that we're in Democratic energy. It's
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: very real. Trump's approval ratings are second term lows. This
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: is all time lows for him thirty six percent and
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Rip Borders IPSOS thirty eight percent, AP forty one percent.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: In Fox News, I probably, if you want to know
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: the truth, I probably feel the best about the Fox
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: News poll, meaning I just you know, they have to
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: bipartisan team that does it. They always have registered voters.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: They just have a you know, IPSOS and AP NORC
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: just their samples. I don't think are as strong. Is
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: what the Fox News folks do. Each pole shows tanking numbers,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: though I mean there's some consistency to all these polls
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: tanking numbers on the economy and the Iran War. There's
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: genuine grassroots mobilization and for the first time in a while,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: we're seeing younger voters fired up about voting in the midterms.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: There is no doubt there is a movement to throw
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: out the party in power. But just remember and Democrats.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: I've been repeating this before, and I think I understand
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: the feeling of glossing over this in the moment. Just
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: because there's lower approval for Trump doesn't mean that there's
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: automatically now higher trust with the Democrats. In fact, we've
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: seen plenty of polling indicating, my goodness, I told you
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: about that poll last week where the Democrats have the
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: worst party brand, worse than the Republicans and worse than
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: MAGA by a point or two even though they're winning.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Right there is not It is once again, we know
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: what we don't want, and I want to go back
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: to those That's that's what we knew in the twenty
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: eight years in between Jackson and Lincoln. We knew, Oh
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: we didn't want. That's why we kept kicking out those presidents.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: We kept getting trying a new president. We kept looking
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: for a different answer. We couldn't figure out. We knew
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: what we didn't want, we didn't want a civil war,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: but we didn't find any way around it. And I
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: fear we don't have the leaders to meet the moment
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: we need right now to avoid this getting worse. And
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: that's what's the head scratcher here in the moment that
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: we're living in. So people see the problem, but they're
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: not ready. We're not ready for a full resolution to
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: this yet. So on the Republican side, SEAPEC was a
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: snapshot of something a bit more complicated than it appears.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: And yes there were USA chants, Yes there were some enthusiasm,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: but attendees were whispering on the sidelines that this year's
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: gathering felt smaller, felt more subdued than recent ones, because
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: it was this is a divided party, and underneath the
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: service there were real fractures, particularly among young men, over
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: the Iran war and the still unresolve. Jeffrey Epstein questions.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: One thirty year old attendee said it this way, a
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: lot of the young generation feels that there's not a
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: lot of hope for the economy. This economy is a mess,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: and it is all Donald Trump's economy, right from the
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: tariffs to this war, to the spike and gas prices.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is turning into his eye. And I
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: think I said this before. I think he is going
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: to I think he's probably at the point of no return.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: You get to a point in a second term where
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: you don't really get a second shot at recovering barring
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: some outside event that allows you to sort of be
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: a hero in the moment. And it's just hard to
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: envision some event like that. And then there's also the
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: fact that they and this is something that's true on
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: both sides, both parties right now, there is a divide
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: about how to tackle this moment. Right you know, in
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Seapack we saw and the results of the straw Pole
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: jd Vance ad fifty three percent of who they wanted
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: to see. In twenty twenty eight, Mark Ruby was at
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: thirty five percent. So the MAGA base is not united
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: yet on what kind of success do they want to say,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: And we haven't even had the midterms yet. What happens
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: if the midterms are a disaster for the right, So
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: it's a party that hasn't finished its own internal reckoning. Right.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: You know, Trump's in charge of this coalition. But as
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Trump truly changed the party for good, you still feel
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the tension inside this party, right, They're still not sure
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: where they're going to go post Trump. Meanwhile, back in Washington,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: the government shutdown continued. We're not a record length, you know,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: with the House just sort of dumping on the Senate plan.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Obviously there's going to be at least some resolution to
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: temporary pay with this weird executive order, but it only
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: can last for a small period of time. But here
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: we are. Senate won't pass the House US's plan. The
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: House won't pass the Senate's plan. Nobody has the votes,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: and then nobody has the will, and nobody has the
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: face saving exit. It really is James Buchanan level institutional
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: paralysis that we're in right now. Technically everyone has a
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: constitutional argument and practically nothing is working. So are we
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: ready to move on? Are we ready to get out
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: of this moment? My honest answer, and I say this
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: not with despair but with it, but frankly with the
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: historian's cold I patience, We're just not ready yet. Here's why.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: In the pre Civil War era, every tool broke because
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: the underlying condition, the question of whether slavery would expand
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: or contract, whether the country future was slave or free,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: hadn't been resolved at the level of public consensus. The
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: political class kept reaching for procedural solutions to a moral question,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: and procedural solutions to moral questions never hold. They just
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: delay the inevitable. They patch. They may be able to
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: put it off for a year or two, but they
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: eventually break, and usually in weighs much worse than if
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: you'd address the thing directly. Right works this way in life. Now,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: what we have now is not slavery. And this is
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: what I want us to be careful about. Not to
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: over analogize this. And I get it, I'm the one
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: doing it, but I'm you know, And this is a
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: reminder it just there is a familiarity here. We have
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: a version of the same core problem. We have two
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: fundamentally different visions of what America is, who it's four?
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Who is an American? Right? It's the same questions, And
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: we haven't yet reached the moment where the cost of
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: not deciding exceeds the cost of deciding. So you look
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: at the split screen again. The no King's rallies are real,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: eight million people is real. Energy is real, But energy
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't automatically become a coalition. The pre Civil War era
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: had plenty of energy. The abolitionist movement was vibrant, passionate,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: and morally clear. And it took decades more before that
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: energy converted into the political realignment that produced Lincoln. But
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: remember Lincoln was a third party solution. Just keep that
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: in mind. The fractures at Seapack are real. Young men
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: worried about the economy, worried about Iran, quietly whispering that
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: something feels off. But fractures don't automatically produce alternatives. The
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Whig Party fractured badly multiple times before it finally collapsed
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: and the Republican Party emerged from the wreckage. What I
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: think we're missing, and what I'd argue both parties are
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: still missing, is the exhaustion from these maximalist positions that
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: each side wants to take care. Each side still believes,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: or at least its base beliefs, that one more election,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: one more mobilization, one more wave gets them to dominance
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: and and they can get this done. Democrats look at Trump
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: at thirty six percent and think this is it's this
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: is the moment. Republicans look at those twenty twenty four
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: results and think, we have the mandate. We just have
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: to hold the line. Neither side is fully reckoned with
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: the possibility that they can't win this way, that the
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: country is too evenly divided, the structural incentives are too
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: deeply entrenched for either maximalist project to fully succeed. And
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: here's the uncomfortable question I keep coming back to, does
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: each party need to exhaust its own version of the
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: maximalist fantasy before we find something more durable? Now Republicans
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: have had basically are having their maximalist moment. It's Donald Trump, right,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: they're living it right now. They have a shutdown that's
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: breaking records. They have an Iran war that's generating real
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: division within their own coalition, approval numbers that suggest the
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: public is increasingly uncomfortable where this goes. But they're trying
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: to deport millions of people, right, They're trying to do
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: everything they can. But if Democrats had their equivalent, have
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: they found the thing that forces a genuine reckoning with
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: why they keep losing ground on the economy, immigration, and crime,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: even when the other side is collapsing, or do they
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: win the midterms, feel vindicated and defer the reckoning. Again,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not asking rhetorically. I think it's the actual question
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: that determines whether twenty twenty eight is a stabilizing election
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: or another pendulum swing that sets up the next cycle
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: of backlash. Bottom line is, I think we're still a
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: couple of more elections away, all right. I am, like
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I say, I'm a long term optimist, short term pessimist.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: But in some ways I think each side and I think,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: you know, the base of the Democratic Party hasn't gotten
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: its presidency yet, the Republican base has gotten its presidency,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: and it may be we need to see that play
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: itself out. Maybe it succeeds, maybe it's the answer, maybe
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: it's maybe it is maybe it's an FDR like figure,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: but we don't know that yet. The point is, I
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: don't think this is played out now. Lincoln understood something
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: that the eight men before him didn't or wouldn't. He
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: understood that you couldn't solve the divide by managing it.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: You could only solve it by going through it. And
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: going through it meant naming the thing directly, taking the
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: political risk, and accepting that the short term cost of
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: honesty was lower than the long term cost of another delay.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: His second inaugural one of the most extraordinary speeches in
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: American history, frankly in world history. It didn't pretend the
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: war hadn't happened, or that reconciliation would be easy. He
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: just simply said, with malice toward none, with charity for all.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: But he said it after four years of war, after
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: the cost had been paid, after the country had finally
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: brutally decided where are we going and who are we
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: So we're not there yet. We're probably somewhere in the
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Franklin peers to James Buchanan range of this story. We're
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: probably past the early avoidance face. We're into the phase
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: where the tools are breaking faster and more visibly. Right,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Congress couldn't get every six months, it gets more functional, dysfunctional.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Jiujudiciary seems to get a tad more dysfunctional with it
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: as well. But we're not yet at the moment where
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: the country decides the cost of delay is finally too high,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: where we finally have a leader who meets the moment
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: that we may be really fully looking for It might
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: sound grim. I actually think it's useful because if you
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: know where you are in the story, you can stop
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: being surprised by the chaos and you can start paying
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: attention to the signal underneath it. The signal isn't the rallies,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: It isn't the straw poles, It isn't the shutdown. The
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: signal is whether either party or some new force we
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: can't fully see yet. Right there was the Republican Party
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: was not really that's that much in the front and
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: center of things in the eighteen thirties, forties, and even
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: in the early eighteen fifties. The signal is whether either
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: party is developing the thing that comes after this maximalism
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: that we're all that we're all in in the moment
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: politics of the country as it actually is, rather than
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: the country. Each base imagines it can force everybody else
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: to exist it. So that's what I'm watching for. That's
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: what twenty twenty six will start to tell us. That's
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: why I'm obsessed with what's happening in Michigan. Governor Are
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: they going to go independent or not? Right? We're going
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: to see, well, some of these independents win. Are we
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: going to see a punishment of both parties or are
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: we going to see just sort of this continued, sort
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: of windshield wiper approach to things, or we just go
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: back and forth one more time. So we're not there yet.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: But do know this, just like with bankruptcy, all this
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: stuff takes takes forever until it happens almost overnight. All right.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: So with that, and again, let me just emphasize, I
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: just realized I need empathy. I'm not saying it's going
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: to take a hot civil war for us to decide
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: this political divide that we're in, but we are sitting
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: here basically right. At some point there's going to be
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: an attempt to break this. Maybe it's from the center,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: maybe it's from inside one of the two parties, maybe
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: it's from a third party. The point is, I don't
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: think we're there yet, or we're probably at least one,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: if not two presidential elections away from that. This episode
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you by Wild Grain.
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  Speaker 1: This is a sponsor I absolutely embrace, so use that code. Well,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: I have to tell you I'm obsessed with all things
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: California governor right now. I'm really curious to see how
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: these democrats are going to shake out. Will somebody catch
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: up to Katie Porter, Eric Swalwell and Tom Steyer. I
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: will tell you this, I think the weakest candidacy is
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: actually Tom Styers when you think about the amount of
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: money he has spent and how little support he has.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: If any other Democrat has spent, had the same amount
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: of money spent on their behalf, Katie Porter, Eric Swalwell,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Matt Man, Antonio Viaregoso, you name it, anybody else with
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: the amount of money that Styer spent, I promise you
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: they'd be doing They'd be higher in the polls in Styre.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: So I do think that we know with no matter
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: how much money he spends, he's got a hard ceiling,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: and I just can't imagine he's going to find his
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: way in the top two. I know he's trying to
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: buy it. He may he may destroy Swallwell in the process,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: but my guess is he will help candidates see somewhere
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: on the Democratic side breakthrough. Whoever candidates see ends up being.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Is it Katie Porter, I'm skeptical. Is it Matt Man
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: hasn't gotten traction yet. Is it be a Regosa. I'm
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: not going to rule it out, but I'm skeptical as well.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: But we'll see. But something's going to break here, somebody
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: will start rallying. It'll and the person that's going to
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: It's going to be interesting to watch Kevin Newsoman all
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: this because it would be really embarrassing if his party
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: can't get a Democrat in the top two. But he
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: doesn't really have an air parent and frankly, many of
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: these Democrats are kind of criticizing him in this, so
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: it is kind of a mess there. And let's just
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: say I think there's a lot of Democrats in California.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Glad that there's a couple more months to work this out.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: All right, it is time machine time, as you know.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: I like to take an anniversary of this week that
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: we're living in, so March thirtieth through April fifth, historical
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: events that have taken place within this seven day period.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: There were a lot this week to choose from to
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: one assassination attempt Ronald Reagan, one historic assassination tragic in
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Junior. That is not the direction we're
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: going today. We're going to go to nineteen forty nine.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: April fourth, nineteen forty nine, inside Washington, d C. Representatives
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: from twelve countries signed a treaty creating something that was
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: brand new in American history, a permanent military alliance, the
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO. Now it doesn't sound radical today,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: but for the United States in nineteen forty nine, this
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: was radical because for most of its history, America avoided
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: permanent alliances. George Washington himself warned against permanent alliances, and
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: in fact, there was a belief that so many wars
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: in Europe took place because of these alliances between monarchies
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: that forced countries to take part in wars that maybe
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: they had no issue with and no business being. And
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: in fact, after World War One, the United States refused
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: to even join the League of Nations, which was an
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: idea by an American. So the real question is not
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: just what NATO is. The real question is why did
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: it take two World wars for the United States to
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: decide it needed one. After War One, there was an
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: attempt at collective security the League of Nations. The idea
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: was similar countries would cooperate to prevent future wars. But
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: there were two fatal flaws. First, the United States never joined.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: That was a big one. The Senate rejected the membership
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: in the League of Nations. Americans were very wary of
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: foreign entanglement. Second, the League had no enforcement mechanism, no
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: binding military commitment, so when aggression came in the nineteen thirties,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: the League couldn't condemn it, but it couldn't stop it.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: That failure shaped everything that came next. After World War II,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: the calculation changed. The United States wasn't withdrawing, it was staying,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: and the threat wasn't theoretical. It was The Soviet Union.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Between nineteen forty five and nineteen forty nine, Eastern Europe
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: fell under Soviet control, the Communists coup, and then Czechoslovakia
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: the Berlin Blockade. In fact, Churchill's famous Iron Curtain wasn't
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: just rhetoric, It was actually a map that he was
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: trying to show and visualized. Western Europe could not defend
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: itself alone, and for the first time, the United States
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: accepted something new. Security couldn't be temporary, it had to
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: be permanent, but that idea still had to pass the
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: skeptical United States Senate. The breakthrough came with the Van
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: den Berg Resolution in nineteen forty eight, one year before
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: NATO was born. Senator Arthur Vandenberg helped shift American foreign
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: policy towards internationalism, but he did it very carefully. The
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: key condition he came up with was that any alliance
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: that the United States got into must preserve Congress's authority
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: over war. That constraint would end up shaping the NATO
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: Treaty itself. The North Atlantic Treaty did not pass automatically.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: The Senate debated it for ten days because the central
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: issue was would NATO automatically commit the United States to
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: war or would Congress still be the decider on that
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: I know what you're thinking at the moment here, you're like, well,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: in a minute, Congress is not the decider. Even now
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: we're in a war and they didn't do a thing
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: about it. I know, but let me finish this. So
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Article five was written the way it was in order
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: to navigate this question. Each country would take quote such
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: action as it deems necessary. So what an automatic war?
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: It did allow for some constitutional discretion. That language made
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: ratification possible. So in July twenty first, nineteen forty nine,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: the Senate approved that April fourth Treaty eighty two to thirteen.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: Strong support, but it took real debate and some compromise.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: At the center of NATO is Article five. You've heard
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: it before. An attack on one is considered an attack
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: on all. For the United States, that was a big
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: lead a permanent security commitment to Europe. Now there were
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: twelve original members, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, and Portugal. That
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: was a North Atlantic alliance, was not global, and it
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: was not open ended. It specifically was focused on Europe
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: and North America. Now NATO would expand, first in nineteen
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: fifty two and then again in nineteen fifty five. In
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: fifty two, Greece and Turkey would join, But the most
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: consequential decision was nineteen fifty five when West Germany joined.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Only ten years after World War iiO, the West integrated
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: a re armed Germany into its defense system. Not everybody
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: was thrilled with that idea. For countries like France, that
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: was deeply uncomfortable, but the logic was clear. Germany would
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: be safer inside the system than outside it, and the
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: payoff was real. Germany became a stable democracy and eventually
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: would become Europe's largest economy and really the political anchor
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: of the continent. So for decades, NATO had a simple
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: purpose contained the Soviet Union, and it worked not by
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: fighting a war, but by making one too costly to
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: start determance. Then the Soviet Union collapsed and NATO lost
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: its original purpose. The question became does NATO still exist? Well,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: the answer was yes, but the reason changed. NATO expanded
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: eastward in nineteen ninety nine, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Republic one half of Czechoslovakia would join in two thousand
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: and four. The Baltic States, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia they
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: all would join, and later Albania, which borders on the Adriatic,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: which we all learned if you watched enough Cheers episodes. Sorry,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: I could not help myself. There's always a little coach
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: in me. It's an easter egg for some of you.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Later though, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and of course,
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: most recently, the two that the Russias war with Ukraine
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: triggered Finland and Sweden. For new members NATO mense security.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: For Russia, it meant encroachment. Both perceptions have shaped modern geopolitics.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Then there's Ukraine. Ukraine sits at the center of this
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: tension and it always has. In two thousand and eight,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: NATO decided said that Ukraine would eventually join, but it
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: didn't provide immediate protection, created a gray zone. This turned
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: out to be a catastrophic decision by the way, by
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: NATO in two thousand and eight. In hindsight, easy to
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: say now understandably why they didn't do it then, but
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: it had enough promise to matter politically, but not enough
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: commitment to deter a conflict. Ukraine became the most dangerous
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: space between alliance and non alliance. And obviously we now
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: know we didn't do enough. Biggest what biggest what if
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: is if we'd let Ukraine join, would rush it ever invaded.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: But here's another part that many people miss about NATO.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: Article five has only been invoked once after the September
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: eleventh attacks by the United States. It's not just a
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: historical detail. It's a reminder that alliances become real in
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: both directions, and once alliance has become real, they also
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: become testable, which brings us to today. For decades, the
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: primary pressure on NATO came from the outside. Now there's
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: pressure from within. In the United States, skepticism about NATO's
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: resurfaced in the form of one Donald Trump. He has
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: repeatedly questioned the value of the alliance, particularly where the
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: United States should guarantee the defense of countries that do
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: not meet defense spending expectations. Frankly, he doesn't think we
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: should be warring it be brought into a conflict by
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: a country that's below us, whatever that means to him.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: And obviously he's he believes if NATO doesn't do whatever
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: he wants them to do, like secure the Strait of
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Ormuz because he stumbled into a war with Iron without
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: a plan. He gets angry that NATO won't bail him out.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: Now he hasn't withdrawn from NATO, but he has introduced
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: something pretty new for this alliance, the idea that American
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: commitment is simply conditional. And this idea that American alliances
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: are conditional, America's relationship is conditional. This is a huge problem.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: America used to be a reliable partner because it didn't
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: matter if we had a democratic president or republican president.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: They were always there for Europe. They were always there
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: for NATO because NATO isn't just a military structure, it's
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: a psychological one. Deterrence depends on belief, and up until
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, there was full belief in NATO left and
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: right in this country, democratic Republican president Elif. The same time,
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Europe's begun asking its own question, how dependent should it
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: be in the United States. Germany is shifting to its
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: post Ukraine shift towards a major defense investments. It's part
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: of the answer. So it's the broader conversation about European
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: strategic autonomy, but it raises some tensions. Is Europe strengthening
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: NATO or preparing for a world where it may need
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: to operate without it. So NATO's identity crisis has evolved.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: It's no longer just what is NATO for after the
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: Cold War? It's now how permanent is the American commitment?
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: How independent should Europe become? And can an alliance built
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: uncertainty function in an era of political uncertainty? I might
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: also argue should it just be about North America and
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: Europe or should we should this umbrella of deterrence include
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: continence like South America, Asia Africa, at least for countries
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: that would like that kind of protection. But all of
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: it brings us back to April fourth, nineteen forty nine.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: It was a moment when the United States made a
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: decision it had resisted for more than a century to
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: tie its security to others, not temporarily but permanently, because
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: it had learned twice as standing apart actually carried greater risk.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: We thought we were protected being surrounded by two oceans
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: and not involved in that and not living on that
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: content that not to be true. So NATO wasn't born
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: out of idealism. It was born out of failure and
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: ironically that's why it's lasted. But how it evolves after
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: this and what happens to Ukraine after this war ends
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: is probably going to tell us a lot about whether
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: NATO has the ability to survive ptuity. So there you go.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: There's your history lesson for the week, Ask Chuck. All right,
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: let's take some questions. First one comes from Ira Shulman,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: and Ira writes longtime listener and fan. During the last election,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: women's rights were at the top of every news story.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: We were told by almost every new outlet that inflation
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: was transitory and that regular people did not know how
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: great the economy was. You talked about the price of chicken.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Now it's about affordability. How come no candidates talk about
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: job creation. Aren't good paying jobs that protect the social
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: safety net? You know, it's interesting, it's not just job creation,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: and I think that's an issue that I think, frankly,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: it's because there's no politicians. They don't know where the
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: next jobs are coming from. We're not, we don't. The
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: scary part about the transition we're in right now is
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: we know we're in. We're transitioning rapidly to an economy
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: that's going to be powered in some form by our
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: official intelligence, and that this is going to be a
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: massive transformation. And in history says when we have these
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: massive technological transitions like we did with the Industrial Revolution,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: that there are a bunch of jobs that go away,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: and there's a bunch of new jobs that come up,
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: but we don't know what they all look like yet.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: And you're right that we're not in so, you know,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: even five years ago, I think the Democratic answer to
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: what the new jobs looked like was all things, you know,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: it was really only a clean energy world that they
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: were focused on. I think the Trump answer has been
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: if if we get rid of illegal immigration, there'll be
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: a lot more jobs that they're ready for people in
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: the United States. Well, I don't think that's not to
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: be true, and it is, you know, clearly when when
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: the political winds shift, these clean energy jobs just totally disappear.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: So I think the answer your first question come Noean's
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: talk about job creation at the moment. I don't think
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: they know where the jobs are coming from. You know,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: you hear some of it on the left having to
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: do with, you know, some sort of energy transition jobs.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: You certainly we talk about these, you know, chip manufacturing
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: and the and the buildouts that are necessary in order
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: to support artificial intelligence and sort of a temporary you know.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: And you're hearing more and more commentators going, hey, there,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: great new jobs are going to be things like being
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: a plumber and being an electrician, And you're like, okay,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: that's the answer for some people, but that's not you know,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: what's the next job revolution going to look like? Or
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: are we going to have to start debating a larger
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: social safety net, universal basic income, expanded childcare tax credit,
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: shorter work weeks? Right? Where is all that coming from?
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: So what's interesting? I is your question to me crystallizes
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: how why democratic messaging these days in particular feels more
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: reactionary rather than forward looking. Right, and the new ideas
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: are about job creation the way don't seem to have
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: the traction. I think because clean energy is not seen
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: as sort of embraced in that sixty to sixty five
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: percent larger core of the American lector, which I frankly
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: thought we were on our way to pre Trump. I
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: think that's been hard to visualize. Another issue I'd throw
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: out there, So when you don't have the good paying
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: job issue to push and talk about job creation, because
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: right now it feels like it's job replacement R. This
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: AI replacement of jobs. Then you should be talking about education.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: And that's another area where Democrats are just decided not
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: to put education as front and center as they once did.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: I would love to steer you back to my conversation
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: with Ram Emmanuel a couple probably about three or four
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: weeks ago, where he talked about this is all he's
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: been doing is going around the stump talking about education.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: And he noted with with me how much Democrats have
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: sort of let that drop off the national conversation. And
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: you know, I think there's a reason, and I particularly
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: with Latino voters. I think the reason Latino voters have
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: been more open to Republicans is the more they talk
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: about education a lot more. Some of it has to
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: do with school choice things like that, but they're talking
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: about the education issue. Democrats largely have not in the
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: way that they even used to just ten or fifteen
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: years ago. Next question comes from Jim. Jim writes, Hey,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: the Strait of Ormuz has such an international impact due
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: to a RAN disclosure of it as leverage. What else
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: is out there that is the equivalent of the Strait
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: of Ormus that other countries have potential leverage out there. Well,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: that's the Panama Canal, there's the Suez Canal. Right, you
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: know you've got I think what you would argue the
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: Strait of Taiwan is one of these things. So you know,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: some of these big choke points that could be the cause. Right,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: geography can have be a cause of war, simple geography.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: But it's it is. You know, we learned this in
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: science fiction if you follow Star Wars, right, what really
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: triggers the war between the between the Empire and the rebellion?
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: It was it was trade. Right, when you block trade,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: when you limit economic opportunity or growth and whatever way
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: you want to in trade is essentially one of those
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: things that is usually some sort of trigger, right, you
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: do an embargo, you do whatever you're doing there that
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: can easily trigger a violent response. And so I think
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's essentially the big shipping lanes are the
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: big ones. You have the Panama, the Suez, and the
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: Strait of Ormuz. So those those three, so Suez would
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: be up there by Egypt, Panama Canals, Panama. We know
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump was concerned that the Chinese were going to
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: get control of the Panama Canal. And then if you
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: have the trade of Taiwan, and there's an interview I'm
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: going to have pretty soon about sort of potential preparing
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: for a war with China over Taiwan, and just sort
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: of how you know how those shipping those those shipping
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: lanes and that part near Taiwan is a very contested space.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: So those would be the first the first that jump
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: out at me, Nick Radovich or Radovic, We'll see how
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: I did there, you'll tell me. I hope Nick, he goes, Hey,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: it never occurred to me that Trump conflated political asylum
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: with insane asilence. I think you're right. Thanks for the
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: laugh this morning. I wish I were making this up,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: but it's pretty clear to me he's doing it. I mean, look,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: we learned this right excursion incursion. I mean, you know,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: he's not the first we all I butcher, as I
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: just did with your last name. I butcher pronunciations all
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: the time. So I am not going to mock anybody
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: that Butcher's pronunciations or anything like this. You know, I
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: love somebody said this. Hey, never criticize somebody that mispronounces
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: something because it means they attempted to read, and I
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: thought I like that, But yeah, it's pretty it's pretty
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: clear that he doesn't quite understand the word asylums. And
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: I wish I were kidding, but I don't think I am.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: Robin San Francisco rights, Hey, your recent comments in democratic
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: leadership got me thinking. I grew up in the UK,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: where each party is a single leader who speaks for
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: it at all times. In the US, that voice is
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: perpetually split between the national committees, the Senate, and the House,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: with real unity only emerging briefly when a presidential nominee
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: has chosen. Since twenty fifteen, Republicans have had one dominant
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: voice in Trump. Is the Democrats problem less about individual
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: leaders and more about a structural inability to consolidate messaging?
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: And if so, is there any realistic fix? Robin San Francisco, Well,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: I'd argue anytime a party is out of power for
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: a period of time, or certainly when they lose a
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: well known leader, they struggle like I so take you know,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: Democrats were you know, there were sort of a series
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: of singular Republicans that spoke for the party at Nixon
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: then Nixon transitioned to Reagan. You had the Kennedy Kennedy
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: and Johnson in the sixties, and then you sort of
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: Carter never really grabbed that mantle, and so that there
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: was you know so, But you could argue who was
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: the leader of the Republican Party during the Obama era. Right,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: they were constantly searching for one. It really wasn't McCain.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: If it was, they would have had an immigration deal. Right,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: McCain was leading in somebody's leading the party down that road,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: but it got him nowhere. Right, Romney wasn't really a
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: leader of the party, ended up the nominee. So I
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: think in this case it's this is when you when
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: you when you get a presidency for two terms, a
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: lot of times you know you have that, and then
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: it's the other party that is constantly looking for a
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: back looking how having the presidency makes it look like
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: your party has a leader. When you don't have the presidency,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: it looks like everything is split into different factions because
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: everything is split into different factions. Right, Usually somebody that
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: successfully gets elected president means they've figured out how to
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: bring their party together, create a coalition that might be
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: slightly bigger than their party. Now, I would argue that
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: neither that. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris have
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: struggled to create a coalition that's bigger than their party.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama created a coalition that was bigger than his party.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton created a coalition that was slightly bigger than
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: his party. Ronald Reagan created a coalition as bigger as party.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: When you hit that point, I think that's when you
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: feel like you can put your party together. And that's why,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: you know, what direction does the party take in choosing
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: its next presidential nominee? And then when that person is chosen,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: how did they choose to lead? Right? Are they going
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: to try to be a sixty percent president or are
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: they going to try to be a fifty percent plus
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: one president. There's a difference. Right, If you're striving for
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: sixty percent approval, you're going to disappoint your base more
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: often than the base would like. If it's fifty percent
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: plus one, then you're going to lean more heavily on
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: your base, and you're essentially going to put the center
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: into a put them in a tough position to make
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: a choice between something that goes too far in one
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: direction versus something that goes too far in the other direction.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: But that's why we have elections, and that's what I
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: think we're going to learn a little bit in twenty
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: six and a lot of it in twenty eight. Next
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: question does not have a name on It looks like
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: it's from anonymous, but I'll read it anyway. I've been
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: thinking about whether there should be a constitutional amendment requiring
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: that any presidential pardon be approved by a two thirds
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as a simple check
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: on that power and to prevent potential abuse, especially in
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: cases involving family members are close associates. Do you think
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: a reform like that is realistic or constitutional? Is there
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: any serious discussion in legal or political circles about putting
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: limits on presidential pardon power? Well, I hope you checked
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: out the interview I had with Jolly Johnny Congressman Johnny Olicheski. God,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: I hope I got that right. Anyway, Johnny O Baltimore,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: congressman who introduced the has introduced a constitutional amendment to
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: see if you can get Congress to pass. It has
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: at least one Republican co sponsor, Don Bacon, and it
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: is a it's similar to what you're describing. It's essentially
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: the ability for Congress to nullify a presidential pardon. Now
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: it would take you know, two essentially two thirds. Essentially,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: this what it takes to overwrite a presidential veto is
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: what it would take to overwrite a presidential pardon. But
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: just putting that check in there, I think it's a
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, I kind of like where you're going.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: I think we should have a pardon board. I think
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: we should even just get rid of the singular power
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: that the president has to do this. I think it
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: should have been a board from the very beginning, and
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: it has always been one of these head scratches to me,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: like why did the founders, who were revolting against the
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: monarch give the president a power that only a monarch
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: used to have. So the point is is that you're
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: going to need a constitutional amendment in order to notify
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: a presidential pardon. So it does have to be a
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: constitutional amendment or else it wouldn't be constitutional. I know
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: that's redundant to say it that way, but basically, Congress
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: could pass no law without a constitutional amendment that would
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: have any impact on denying a presidential art Next question
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: another one here. I'm not one hundred percent sure we
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: have I don't think we have a name on this
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: one either. More anonymous question. I like it, Hey, I've
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: been a long time listener since your days that Meet
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: the Press. Appreciate it. Love your podcast. Always listen to
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: it during my walks or on long car trips. I know,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: and I keep getting longer for you, so you're gonna
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: need to do longer card trips. Two things. I think
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: you often call Michigan Senate hopeful Mallory McMorrow by the
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: wrong first name. I think you're right. I don't say Mallory.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: I call her Molly McMorrow. You are a hundred percent
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: right my error. Thank you for pointing that out. I
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: think she has a bright future in Michigan national politics.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: I do do. In fact, I think she's if she
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: wins the primary, she wins the Senate race. I think
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: i'd read it's interesting she seems to be the Goldilocks candidate.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: You know, you have three candidates. Don't mean to like
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: beat up that thing, right, you have one it appears
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: a bit too progressive, one of it appears a bit
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: too establishment. And I think Mallory I keep calling her Molly,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: and thank you for fixing that is doing a pretty
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: good jobs putting the difference. Sometimes you just put the
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: difference and you can disappoint everybody. In this case, I
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: think it's going to work. Second, I love your interview
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: with Florida attorney John Morgan. Yes, mister Morgan and Morgan,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: you think Morgan will pull the trigger and run for
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: Florida governor's independent It seems like we are too close
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: to the election if he jumps in this slate. Mike Duggan,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: an independent former Democratic mayor of Detroit, has been running
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: for Michigan gov since he was still in the mayor's office.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: During your interview, Morgan seemed like he was all in
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: on the race for Florida governor. I think voters in
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: Florida are looking for something different, especially after two terms
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: of Ron DeSantis. Thanks for all you do. I look
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: forward to listening to every episode you drop. I appreciate
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: you asking. Look. I think it's pretty clear and I've
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: had I've had more conversations with him offline and with
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: people close to John Morgan that he's you know, he's
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: he's still open to doing it. The filing deadline hasn't passed,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: and he probably is one of the few with the
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: resources if he chooses to do it, could still do it.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: I think he's skeptical that the Democratic brand is strong
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: enough to win no matter even if they nominate a
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: former Republican. I you know, we now have a Democratic
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: primary between the mayor of Orlando, Jerry Demings, and the
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: it's Orange County mayor actually sorry, which is the county
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: that encompasses Orlando, and or Republican Congressman David Jolly. And
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: so we'll see how that goes. And you know, I'm
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: still waiting for the Republican primary to get more competitive
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: than people realize. I mean, Byron Donald's has a massive
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: amount of money, Trump's endorsement, it's all very strong. But
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: it's clear Governor DeSantis would like somebody else. And you know,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure, you know, I don't think Desantas is
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: alone in wanting somebody else. He's just the most vocal
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: about wanting something somebody else. But the candidates that have
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: popped up are not exactly don't look like winners, and
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine would do that. So but I'm I
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: think this is a more fluid state politically than than
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: folks realize. But I don't think the Democratic Party has
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: is putting in the resources to actually make the state
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: competitive on a state wide level. So then the question
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: is could I do think this is a case where
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: a third party candidate could really make a lot of noise,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: because I think there is kind of a hunger. Florida
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: is a I think a right leaning state, but more
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: in the libertarian sense, meaning that there's a you know
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: that when the when the Republicans get too sort of
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: you know, the conservative movement that Trump has led and
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: arguably DeSantis has led, has not been small government at all.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: It's been government involved in your lives almost too much, right.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: It's really pushed away the libertarian wing of the Republican Party,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: and that's why you're seeing so many I think the
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: libertarians be less comfortable with the right than they've been
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: in a long time because of this decision by some
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: of these Republican leaders to have government more involved in
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: your life, using government as a weapon to get involved
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: in America's culture and things like this. So I don't
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: disagree that the I think they I think the appetite
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: is there, and I certainly think it's a right I
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: Morgan is the right guy, but he might be a
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: few years too old. I mean, what you really need
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: is a reincarnation of Lotton Childs, who while it was
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: a Democrat then I think today would be sort of
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: an independent of some sort, you know, sort of more
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: probably closer. I mean John Morgan clearly is more of
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: a Clinton Democrat, more of a Loton Child's Democrat. I
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: think that's that could work, right, you know, sort of
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: somebody out of the somebody out of the head of
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: Carl Hyson, if you will, of how Carl Huson would
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: design an independent governor. Sorry, I'm a huge Hyasin fan
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: of his novels, have some strong feelings about Decker, and
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to get into him now because I
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: don't want to derail my conversation, uh and derail this answer.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: But you know, I'm you know, look, I've been I've
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: been dancing around this moment of looking for you know,
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: I do think voters are looking for or an alternative
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: to this, to this NonStop polarization that we're in. I
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: just don't know if there's credible third party or credible
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: independent actors yet that are ready to take the jump.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: I think Morgan has a lot of the tools. You
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: need a little bit of fame, a lot of bit
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: of money. But he's got to have the ambition. And
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: I actually don't know if he's got the ambition. I
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: think he'd I think he'd be just as just as happy, uh,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: getting getting everything legalized in Florida, if you know what
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, and focusing on that and enjoying a little
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: bit of retirement. But I do think there is You're
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: not wrong. He is probably somebody similar to him as
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: the type of person that can break through. He's got
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: a little bit of He got a little bit of
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: Jesse venturing him. And I say that as a compliment,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: and that's why he might just be just be quirky
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: enough good in that Florida man way to gain traction.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: But you got to have the ambition to do it.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: And I'm not one hundred percent sure he's all in
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: on that. I think if he was, he'd already be there.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: All right, I only got two more questions here, so
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: let's take them. Let's finish it up. Greg from Central
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: Illinois riots Hey. Last week, I was an election judge
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: in Central Illinois. I've been doing it for years, so
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: I was not surprised by the loan number. We only
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: had less than one hundred and fifty people vote, But
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: before the poll opened we were discussing if it was
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: going to be low since it happened, since it happened
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: to be Saint Patrick's day. My question would be if
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: we had open primaries where the top two vote getters
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: have to face off with each other, would that be
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: a solution. The other thing is I noticed on party
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: ballots only I had one candidate for multiple seats, and
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: the other party had many seats with no candidate. Thank
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: you Greig from Central Illinois. Look, I do think putting
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: everybody on the same ballot top too. Maybe it's the
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: top four and then there's a general election, and then
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: if nobody gets fifty percent, there's a runoff from there.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: But anything that engages more of the electorate I think
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: is healthier for the democracy. Anything that limits the number
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: of people who can participate in election is just not
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: fully democratic heart style. All right. I'm not saying a
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: republic a club called the Republican Party and a club
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: called the Democratic Party can't decide who their preferences are,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: can't say who they would like to see. But I
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: think them deciding who gets to participate in election, and
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: that you get to keep other people out, and especially
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: using the power of the state to keep other people
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: out just because they didn't choose to become members of
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: a private institution feels frankly unconstitutional and certainly feels undemocratic.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: So I am a huge advocate of this. I'm a
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: huge advocate of all party primaries, all open primaries. One look,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: I think the ideal situation is that we should be
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: registered voters heartstop. We should not have to pick a
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: political party and tell the government where any government, local, state,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: or federal, what party I choose to become a member of.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: I don't understand why that has to be part of
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: the deal in order to participate in a primary election.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: So it is I think if you want to if
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: we're trying to decide who gets to be in a
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: general election ballot, everybody should have access to that general
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: election ballot. You know, maybe it's just some signatures you
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: need to get on it, you know, but it is
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: it is. I think how we do it now is
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: more undemocratic than we want to admit, and it would
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: solve this problem of of what you're talking about. Certain
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: certain races not having any candidates in it. And this
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: is you know, this is what If we want to
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: refresh this democracy, we need to allow more people to
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: We need to make it some more people have skin
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: in the game, and more people participate. There's your Monday episode.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: This is a huge holiday week for many people of faith.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: We've got Passover later this week, Good Friday, Easter coming
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: up at the weekend. I know a lot of people
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: are gonna be spending time with family. I will try
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: not to overload your feed this week. I want to
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: be mindful of all the time you're gonna be spending
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: with family, but I'm also mindful that you're going to
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: want to put your headphones in and listen to something
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: while you maybe take a break from family. Anyway, with that,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: I'll see in forty eight hours. Thanks for listening, and
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: until we upload again.