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Chuck’s Commentary - New Polling Portends A Midterm Wipeout + Trump Is Focused On ALL The Wrong Things · The Chuck ToddCast

0:00
Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
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Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
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Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
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Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
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Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is
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Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
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Speaker 1: own plan for 20 minutes. It's free. There's no pressure.
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Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4200. Hello there and
2:18
Speaker 1: welcome to the Wednesday episode of the Chuck Todd cast.
2:21
Speaker 1: You just got the Super Tuesday with Chris Eliza. And
2:26
Speaker 1: I am enjoying this rhythm now, and especially with the
2:29
Speaker 1: midterms coming up. You know, the second we hit publish
2:33
Speaker 1: on our Super Tuesday episode. We got a little interesting
2:36
Speaker 1: nugget out of Gavin Newsom and things like that. So
2:40
Speaker 1: having the ability to update and sort of continue this,
2:46
Speaker 1: what I look at it as a long running conversation
2:48
Speaker 1: I'm having with you folks. And you're checking in with me.
2:51
Speaker 1: I'm hopefully checking in with you. And hopefully I'm talking
2:54
Speaker 1: about the issues that you're curious about, like you read something.
2:57
Speaker 1: What does that mean? And hopefully I'm on that mark.
3:00
Speaker 1: And of course, if I'm not, Uh, I hope you
3:03
Speaker 1: write in and tell me, um, where I'm missing the mark, but, um,
3:07
Speaker 1: we are thrilled here at the world headquarters of the
3:10
Speaker 1: Czech podcast, uh, at our growing, um, listener base, subscriber base,
3:15
Speaker 1: watching me. I say it's listeners, it's viewers, it's all
3:17
Speaker 1: of these things. Um, and on socials are the amazing
3:22
Speaker 1: audience we're building and I've gotten on Facebook. So I just, uh,
3:25
Speaker 1: as always, I am grateful. I appreciate it. Um, I'm
3:30
Speaker 1: well aware that in some ways these are very personal decisions.
3:33
Speaker 1: And these can be, you know, as much as I
3:37
Speaker 1: think I'm talking to hundreds of thousands and millions of
3:40
Speaker 1: people at the same time. These are very intimate one-on-one relationships.
3:45
Speaker 1: And who you choose to listen to on your AirPods
3:48
Speaker 1: or your headphones is you got a wide variety of
3:53
Speaker 1: places to go. So I appreciate you spending a few
3:55
Speaker 1: minutes with me. So hello and thank you. Look, it's
4:00
Speaker 1: a Wednesday episode. I got my top five list. I'm
4:03
Speaker 1: going to touch on presidential politics and including the interesting
4:07
Speaker 1: declaration that Gavin Newsom made as he was fly fishing
4:11
Speaker 1: with my friend Jake Tapper. And when he said that
4:16
Speaker 1: he would not run for president if Kamala Harris ran
4:18
Speaker 1: for president. I want to get I want to I
4:20
Speaker 1: want to talk more about that, but I'll do so
4:24
Speaker 1: when we get to my top five list, because I'm
4:25
Speaker 1: going to put somebody in the front runner position that
4:28
Speaker 1: nobody else has. And I'll explain my rationale when I
4:32
Speaker 1: get there. You'll just have to wait, right? But hey,
4:37
Speaker 1: the beauty of these top five lists, when you do them,
4:39
Speaker 1: is you can update them. But I will let you
4:41
Speaker 1: know where I think things stand now. And of course,
4:44
Speaker 1: I'll take you questions. But look, I'm going to spend
4:47
Speaker 1: a lion's share of my time on essentially the three
4:52
Speaker 1: biggest issues that are dominating American politics at the moment, right?
4:56
Speaker 1: The war in Iran and its terrible economic consequences that
5:00
Speaker 1: we're all facing at the moment. The midterm elections and
5:04
Speaker 1: a very important New York Times-Siena poll that is the
5:09
Speaker 1: best national poll we've gotten post-Labor Day yet. And so
5:12
Speaker 1: I'm going to spend a lot of time with it
5:13
Speaker 1: because I know how much work Nate Cohn, who's the
5:16
Speaker 1: director of this poll, has put in. As I've said
5:19
Speaker 1: before about the New York Times-Siena surveys, these are as
5:21
Speaker 1: much about using the current feelings of this electorate and
5:30
Speaker 1: making sure they're forecasted towards what is a realistic electorate
5:37
Speaker 1: going into November. And the electorate that they paint so
5:40
Speaker 1: far is one that is borderline blue tsunami. And I'm
5:46
Speaker 1: going to get to that in a few minutes. But look,
5:48
Speaker 1: I want to begin just simply with how out of
5:51
Speaker 1: touch President Trump is at the moment. And his constant
5:54
Speaker 1: obsession over everything that isn't impacting everyday Americans, right? He's
5:59
Speaker 1: dismissive of all the concerns about AI and say, just
6:03
Speaker 1: trust me. Well, for a man who has done nothing
6:07
Speaker 1: but so distrust in just about every institution he's ever
6:11
Speaker 1: laid his hands on, the idea that now anybody is
6:14
Speaker 1: going to trust him, I think is a joke. This
6:16
Speaker 1: is the ultimate Chicken Little. of American politics, right? He
6:20
Speaker 1: has said so many times what not to trust, what
6:22
Speaker 1: sky is falling, et cetera, et cetera, that now when
6:24
Speaker 1: he's begging people to trust him, everybody's going, really, you?
6:28
Speaker 1: We're going to trust something you have to say? You
6:30
Speaker 1: have never said a truthful statement when talking about anybody
6:33
Speaker 1: other than an aside every once in a while. I
6:38
Speaker 1: guess he does accidentally tell you the truth when he
6:41
Speaker 1: doesn't mean to at times. But I want to begin
6:45
Speaker 1: with something that We're kind of treating as a shrug,
6:51
Speaker 1: and we really shouldn't. The blatant politicization of the FBI
6:55
Speaker 1: and the Department of Justice. I mean, Todd Blanch, the
7:00
Speaker 1: confirmed Attorney General, the United States Senate, in all of
7:04
Speaker 1: its supposed wisdom, consented to having the President's personal attorney,
7:11
Speaker 1: who apparently has no idea how separation of powers should work,
7:16
Speaker 1: played White House Press Secretary on Tuesday in the Rose Garden.
7:20
Speaker 1: The fact that the White House asked him to do
7:23
Speaker 1: it is an attempt to essentially delegitimize the Office of
7:28
Speaker 1: the Attorney General. And the fact that the Attorney General
7:30
Speaker 1: agreed to do it is him participating in the delegitimization
7:34
Speaker 1: of the Office of Attorney General. But I guess fortunately
7:39
Speaker 1: or unfortunately, it's not news anymore that Trump has made
7:45
Speaker 1: the office of the attorney general and the person that
7:47
Speaker 1: holds the job an illegitimate figure when it comes to
7:51
Speaker 1: the rule of law. Certainly, he's a spokesperson. He certainly
7:54
Speaker 1: knows how to be the president's lawyer. But that was,
7:59
Speaker 1: it was an abomination that he even participated in it.
8:04
Speaker 1: And for somebody, I do think at some point in
8:07
Speaker 1: his legal career, he really did have high aspirations. It's
8:11
Speaker 1: clear he wanted to be attorney general and probably had
8:14
Speaker 1: a idealistic view of what the Department of Justice should be.
8:20
Speaker 1: And I'm guessing about 80% of the time he is
8:22
Speaker 1: allowing the rule of law to win the day in
8:26
Speaker 1: the Justice Department. But on the 20% of stuff that
8:28
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is watching and cares about, he is absolutely
8:36
Speaker 1: harming this institution that is going to take a generation
8:39
Speaker 1: to fix, right? I mean, the harm that has been
8:41
Speaker 1: done to the Pentagon, the harm that is being done
8:44
Speaker 1: to the public's ability to trust anything out of the
8:46
Speaker 1: Department of Justice. And then that clown show that is
8:49
Speaker 1: the guy who runs the FBI. I mean, where do
8:53
Speaker 1: you even begin? John Kennedy, Republican senator from Louisiana was like,
8:58
Speaker 1: explain this whole bestiality thing. The fact that bestiality and
9:02
Speaker 1: recruitment for the FBI are even in the same sentence, man,
9:06
Speaker 1: we have way lost the plot. We have way lost
9:10
Speaker 1: the plot here. You put a clown in charge of
9:16
Speaker 1: the FBI, don't be surprised if he turns the whole
9:18
Speaker 1: thing into a circus. I know that that was the
9:22
Speaker 1: little softball tee up that you can do. But Patel
9:26
Speaker 1: really is just, this whole thing is an embarrassment. And
9:29
Speaker 1: I have no doubt, FBI recruiting is probably quite difficult.
9:34
Speaker 1: If you take it very seriously and you wanna be
9:37
Speaker 1: a G-man and you wanna do the right thing, You
9:41
Speaker 1: don't believe Kash Patel's FBI is on the up and up.
9:45
Speaker 1: It's hard to believe that Kash Patel's FBI is on
9:48
Speaker 1: the up and up. But ask yourself if you've got
9:51
Speaker 1: to lower the standards of what's on somebody's background check.
10:00
Speaker 1: you're probably not doing a good job recruiting future FBI agents.
10:05
Speaker 1: But here was the thing. We had Todd Blanch performing
10:08
Speaker 1: the duties of a White House press secretary as the
10:10
Speaker 1: confirmed head of the Department of Justice. And you had
10:14
Speaker 1: Kash Patel on Capitol Hill just making an utter fool
10:17
Speaker 1: of himself. Frankly, look, I'm not going to sit here
10:19
Speaker 1: and say I love, you know, I don't think the
10:23
Speaker 1: Democrats who are understandably outraged, and I think there are
10:26
Speaker 1: plenty of Republicans who are embarrassed by Patel. John Kennedy
10:30
Speaker 1: strikes me as he's a bit embarrassed about this Patel. Like,
10:33
Speaker 1: you know, there's like, you don't feel like you have
10:35
Speaker 1: to defend every dumb ass decision that Trump has made
10:39
Speaker 1: in the personnel department, right? But this is just another
10:43
Speaker 1: day in Trump's Washington. We've just burned down the credibility
10:49
Speaker 1: of the Department of Justice. So it's already burned down.
10:52
Speaker 1: So sure, let them play press secretary in the Rose Garden.
10:58
Speaker 1: And again, I don't know, what are we supposed to do?
11:06
Speaker 1: All the hand wringers, all those Senate Republicans who knew better,
11:09
Speaker 1: didn't have the guts to stand up. when it was
11:12
Speaker 1: time not to confirm a clearly unqualified person to the
11:15
Speaker 1: Department of Defense. And they didn't have the guts to
11:18
Speaker 1: stand up when it was clearly time. I mean, essentially,
11:21
Speaker 1: Susan Collins voted against Blanche because her vote wasn't needed.
11:29
Speaker 1: Everybody else went along for this ride. And, you know, look,
11:35
Speaker 1: this is not about Blanche. I do think him, the individual, look,
11:40
Speaker 1: he's clearly weak. Because if you can't stand up to
11:44
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, I just find you weak. If you don't
11:48
Speaker 1: have the ability to do it because you care more
11:52
Speaker 1: about your job title or you care more about your access,
11:59
Speaker 1: you're screaming weakness. It's just incredibly weak. And it's just
12:06
Speaker 1: such a disappointment. And you just sit there and you're
12:08
Speaker 1: just like, how did we get here? What happens when
12:12
Speaker 1: we have a real, I mean, we already feel like
12:14
Speaker 1: the FBI doesn't know what it's doing when Patel is
12:18
Speaker 1: calling the shots. We've had embarrassing situations, whether it's what
12:22
Speaker 1: happened to my friend's mother or the shooting of Charlie Kirk,
12:28
Speaker 1: Patel's behavior and decision-making has been questionable at best. And
12:34
Speaker 1: that's just the high profile stuff. We don't know what
12:36
Speaker 1: we don't know here. And then you know, what's truly
12:40
Speaker 1: offensive is that he's decided to go up there and
12:43
Speaker 1: treat this like this is some sort of social media show.
12:46
Speaker 1: And that, you know, and look, I'm not saying the
12:49
Speaker 1: senators aren't being performative themselves, and I wish they weren't. Like,
12:52
Speaker 1: I want the dry type of questioning where, you know,
12:57
Speaker 1: in order to make the clown be the clown, don't
13:03
Speaker 1: try to out entertain the clown. That would be my
13:05
Speaker 1: advice to Cory Booker and others who I think I
13:10
Speaker 1: get it. It's just I there are times I watch
13:13
Speaker 1: this Blanche and Patel shit show. And I want to
13:17
Speaker 1: punch a hole in drywall. But all I'm going to
13:21
Speaker 1: do is add more work to myself and apparently nothing's
13:23
Speaker 1: going to happen here. But this is this, you know,
13:27
Speaker 1: we'll see maybe these guys when there is when they
13:31
Speaker 1: realize their budgets are controlled by the other party. Maybe
13:35
Speaker 1: they'll behave differently. I don't know. But I start with that.
13:39
Speaker 1: It's just the whole thing. And then imagine you're a
13:44
Speaker 1: Republican running in this tough political environment. Diesel has hit
13:52
Speaker 1: another record. Every day we're hitting a new record of
13:54
Speaker 1: diesel fuel in this country. Saudi Arabia is basically paralyzed
13:59
Speaker 1: from being able to ship out any, participate at all
14:02
Speaker 1: right now in the energy markets for the next couple
14:04
Speaker 1: of weeks. All that is doing is driving up anxiety
14:08
Speaker 1: on Wall Street, driving up anxiety in the energy markets,
14:11
Speaker 1: driving up anxiety on the roads. Right. And what's Donald
14:16
Speaker 1: Trump focused on on Tuesday afternoon? He's outraged that he
14:21
Speaker 1: can't put his name on the Kennedy Center. That's essentially
14:26
Speaker 1: what he's he's throwing a hissy fit that the government
14:30
Speaker 1: has decided not to allow this president to put his
14:33
Speaker 1: name on somebody else's tombstone. I mean, how sad and
14:39
Speaker 1: pathetic is it that he is dying? And I apologize
14:43
Speaker 1: for using that word, that he's consumed with putting his
14:49
Speaker 1: name on somebody else's memorial. Washington is a town full
14:54
Speaker 1: of memorials. We have the Lincoln Memorial. That is our
14:56
Speaker 1: memorial to Abraham Lincoln. We have the Washington Monument, our
15:00
Speaker 1: memorial to George Washington. We have the FDR Memorial. We
15:05
Speaker 1: have an MLK Memorial. And yes, we have a John F.
15:09
Speaker 1: Kennedy Senator for the Performing Arts, which is Washington's memorial
15:13
Speaker 1: to that dead president. I mean, is Donald Trump going
15:18
Speaker 1: to start? I guess at this point, he's going to
15:21
Speaker 1: try to figure out how to put his name on
15:22
Speaker 1: the Lincoln Memorial, his name on the Jefferson Memorial, on
15:25
Speaker 1: the Washington Monument. And maybe we should be thankful he's
15:29
Speaker 1: only trying to put his name on one of the
15:33
Speaker 1: memorials here in Washington. I notice he isn't bothering to
15:38
Speaker 1: put his name on the Vietnam Memorial. And I know
15:41
Speaker 1: that's for the Vietnam dead, but of course, you know,
15:44
Speaker 1: he did everything he could to avoid serving his country.
15:48
Speaker 1: But at some point he'll remember which foot had the
15:54
Speaker 1: bone spur. But I say all this because it's, if
16:02
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is the only answer left for Republicans to
16:06
Speaker 1: try to salvage the midterms, right? That was the point
16:08
Speaker 1: of the midterm convention last week. That is the point
16:11
Speaker 1: of all this money that's been dropped in a lot
16:14
Speaker 1: of these races. He's doing a terrible job helping his
16:18
Speaker 1: fellow Republicans with messaging. Instead of worrying about the cost
16:23
Speaker 1: of the Iran war, instead of worrying about how the
16:25
Speaker 1: Iran war is going sideways, instead of worrying about how
16:28
Speaker 1: the financial costs that are hitting everyday Americans, instead of
16:31
Speaker 1: worrying about the anxiety people have about AI. He's basically
16:36
Speaker 1: given double shooters to everybody on this. And instead, what
16:39
Speaker 1: is he consumed with? Putting his name on somebody else's
16:43
Speaker 1: dead president's memorial. That's what he's consumed with less than
16:48
Speaker 1: 50 days to go before the midterms, where his party
16:52
Speaker 1: is on the precipice of losing control of both the
16:55
Speaker 1: House and the Senate. That's how much he cares about
16:58
Speaker 1: the Republican Party. It's amazing to me that Republican office
17:03
Speaker 1: holders stay loyal to him when the last thing he is,
17:09
Speaker 1: is loyal to the Republican party. He is not loyal
17:13
Speaker 1: at all to the party. So he couldn't be more
17:16
Speaker 1: off message. And then Democrats got handed an interesting little,
17:22
Speaker 1: I don't know, call it a helping hand or something from,
17:25
Speaker 1: I guess somebody who's becoming a reliable ally to the Democratic,
17:30
Speaker 1: at least, campaign to defeat the Republican majority, and that's
17:33
Speaker 1: Thomas Massey. And he may be bitter at Trump, and
17:36
Speaker 1: he may be bitter about a lot of things, but
17:39
Speaker 1: he introduced, which is a special privilege that any member
17:42
Speaker 1: of Congress can do, he introduced articles of impeachment against
17:45
Speaker 1: the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth. This is the type of
17:48
Speaker 1: headline that will make it all over the country. This
17:51
Speaker 1: will break through a little bit. But what it really
17:54
Speaker 1: breaks through on is It brings the Iran war front
17:59
Speaker 1: and center. And, you know, in some ways, the reason
18:04
Speaker 1: we're in the folks are feeling economically so insecure is
18:09
Speaker 1: due to this war with Iran. A Republican has introduced
18:16
Speaker 1: articles of impeachment on Pete Hexeth, right? So it allows
18:19
Speaker 1: this to be, hey, even a Republican is unhappy with
18:24
Speaker 1: how this war is being conducted. And again, You know,
18:27
Speaker 1: I was on CNN on Tuesday, and this is the
18:30
Speaker 1: point I made, and Scott Jennings was also on the panel,
18:32
Speaker 1: and he said, well, let me tell you about Thomas Massey.
18:36
Speaker 1: He's just bitter and all these things. That stuff all
18:38
Speaker 1: may be true. That isn't going to be in the
18:43
Speaker 1: coverage of this story. It may be like the last
18:47
Speaker 1: paragraph of the coverage, but it ain't going to be
18:48
Speaker 1: in the headline. You know, it may be, you know,
18:52
Speaker 1: Republican critic of Trump introduces articles of impeachment but it
18:57
Speaker 1: will still be Republican on Republican political crime here. And it,
19:03
Speaker 1: I think gets at what is the truly the softest
19:07
Speaker 1: spot what's going on here. You know, part of that
19:09
Speaker 1: same conversation that we had is how, um, Kristen Soltis Anderson,
19:13
Speaker 1: a Republican pollster who you've, I've had on this podcast,
19:16
Speaker 1: she goes, Hey, I'm getting a lot of 2006 vibes.
19:19
Speaker 1: And you've heard me talk about how similar things are
19:23
Speaker 1: with 2006 and that midterm cycle. Um, Pretty much the
19:28
Speaker 1: only distinction now between 06 and 26 is that the
19:32
Speaker 1: Democratic Party slate of candidates aren't all super sort of
19:39
Speaker 1: center left, right? Like that round of recruiting had a
19:44
Speaker 1: lot of candidates that, quote, fit the state, fit the district, right? This...
19:50
Speaker 1: midterm election has at least enough of the socialist wing
19:54
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party to at least give the Republicans
19:57
Speaker 1: an opportunity to try to paint Democrats as out of
20:00
Speaker 1: the mainstream and that, hey, if you put Democrats in
20:03
Speaker 1: charge— we' ve seen the advertising already— if you put Democrats in charge
20:06
Speaker 1: of then you're gonna get the extreme wing of the
20:09
Speaker 1: Democratic Party is gonna be in charge. But in a
20:12
Speaker 1: midterm election, I go back to what I said the
20:15
Speaker 1: other day, look, if one side is making the case
20:19
Speaker 1: for status quo because the other person is gonna bring
20:22
Speaker 1: too much change, trust me, the voter who's unhappy with
20:26
Speaker 1: the status quo is gonna roll the dice on change.
20:29
Speaker 1: And if any political party should know that about its voters,
20:34
Speaker 1: it's this version of the Republican Party, The only reason
20:37
Speaker 1: Donald Trump got there twice, let alone once, is because
20:41
Speaker 1: he was the only change candidate both times that he
20:45
Speaker 1: ran for president. Right. One was that clearly Clinton was
20:48
Speaker 1: status quo. He was the only alternative. He was the
20:51
Speaker 1: only change alternative available on the ballot. 2024, Kamala Harris
20:55
Speaker 1: went out of her way to run as status quo.
20:58
Speaker 1: She would refuse to run away from Joe Biden and
21:04
Speaker 1: she paid the political price. for that, and Donald Trump
21:07
Speaker 1: was the change candidate. It's the same situation that we're
21:10
Speaker 1: here now. So I just think any time there is
21:14
Speaker 1: a story that reminds the public with less than 50
21:18
Speaker 1: days to go that this war is not done, and
21:22
Speaker 1: this war is the reason why we've had this, why
21:26
Speaker 1: the markets are feeling shaky, why the energy markets are
21:30
Speaker 1: in turmoil, and, you know, we're probably going to after
21:37
Speaker 1: this podcast posts, we're probably going to see an interest
21:41
Speaker 1: rate increase simply because of what's happened already with inflation.
21:47
Speaker 1: And that is now having to anticipate what is going
21:50
Speaker 1: to be even a bigger inflation number, I'm guessing, that
21:54
Speaker 1: we're going to see next month. And that one's going
21:58
Speaker 1: to come out with just days to go before election day.
22:03
Speaker 1: So there really isn't a lot of good news out there.
22:07
Speaker 1: And Donald Trump is intentionally not on message. He is
22:12
Speaker 1: way off message, worrying more about relitigating the 2020 election
22:18
Speaker 1: with his crankiness about the Supreme Court and putting his
22:23
Speaker 1: name on somebody else's tombstone. He is not focused on
22:28
Speaker 1: lowering costs for you. He is not focused on making
22:32
Speaker 1: America secure for you. And he's certainly not concerned about
22:35
Speaker 1: what AI may do to you and your family. And
22:39
Speaker 1: that is something that if I were a Republican running
22:42
Speaker 1: for office, it's time to cut bait on Trump. I
22:46
Speaker 1: get it. I know you want his voters, but I'm
22:48
Speaker 1: about to show you a poll where his voters aren't engaged.
22:52
Speaker 1: And if you're trying to appeal to independent voters, you
22:56
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Speaker 1: am a customer. Which brings me to what I think
24:47
Speaker 1: was the most interesting development in the midterms today. And
24:51
Speaker 1: that is the release of this, one of our few
24:54
Speaker 1: good polls. Look, there is so few good polls these days.
24:58
Speaker 1: And those that I know are working really hard to
25:02
Speaker 1: get their weightings right, to get their sample correct. There's
25:05
Speaker 1: only a handful of them. There's Bill McInturff and Jeff
25:09
Speaker 1: Horwitz that get to do the NBC News poll a
25:12
Speaker 1: couple times a year. Wish they got to do it more.
25:15
Speaker 1: That's not my decision anymore, unfortunately. Actually, maybe it's fortunately.
25:25
Speaker 1: And there's just not a ton of good national polling
25:28
Speaker 1: out there. But this New York Times-Santa poll is quite good.
25:33
Speaker 1: And there's a few things that I thought were interesting
25:36
Speaker 1: because the likely voter electorate is where I'm going to
25:39
Speaker 1: focus here for a minute. And look, the headline number
25:41
Speaker 1: was the Democrats had an eight-point lead in the generic.
25:44
Speaker 1: And it was actually a little bit north of eight points.
25:48
Speaker 1: To me, the big story within there was the break
25:52
Speaker 1: on independents. Democrats had a 23-point lead in the generic
25:57
Speaker 1: ballot among independents. Just to give you some context about
26:04
Speaker 1: the independent vote and the importance of it. Look, independents
26:08
Speaker 1: are obviously a growing constituency. You've heard me rant and
26:12
Speaker 1: rave about why American voters are choosing not to register
26:16
Speaker 1: with either of the major parties. And so independent voters
26:19
Speaker 1: really do decide these national elections. So in 2016, Trump
26:24
Speaker 1: won independents by six points and he won the presidency.
26:28
Speaker 1: In 2018, Democrats won independence by 12 points, and they
26:35
Speaker 1: won control of the House. In 2022, Democrats actually won independence,
26:41
Speaker 1: but by only two points. And because of the narrow
26:46
Speaker 1: trading range, you had redistricting that seemed to favor Republicans.
26:52
Speaker 1: It was a very small trading range. It was enough.
26:56
Speaker 1: It wasn't enough independence for Democrats to overcome what was
27:01
Speaker 1: already a built-in Republican advantage in the map, and they
27:04
Speaker 1: won there. And while Harris won independence by three points
27:09
Speaker 1: in the presidential, three points is table stakes, right? Because
27:13
Speaker 1: the more people identify as Republican, or at least in 24,
27:17
Speaker 1: more people identified as Republican, as Democrat. So in order
27:21
Speaker 1: to be even on par, they have to win independence
27:24
Speaker 1: by about two or three points. And in order to
27:26
Speaker 1: win the presidency, they needed to win independence by somewhere
27:29
Speaker 1: closer to eight to 10. So I'm just giving you
27:31
Speaker 1: those ranges there, 23 points. Now, I look at the
27:37
Speaker 1: independent crosstab this way. The generic Democrat is sitting at
27:41
Speaker 1: 57 and the Republican numbers at 34, everybody else undecided.
27:45
Speaker 1: Do I think this 23 point margin will be what
27:48
Speaker 1: it is on election day? I don't. The question though
27:51
Speaker 1: is even if the Democrats If this number, if this 57%
27:55
Speaker 1: number is accurate, it means they will have a larger
28:00
Speaker 1: share of independence this cycle than they did in 2018
28:05
Speaker 1: when they won 40 seats in the House. And I
28:08
Speaker 1: don't think they're just going to win it by 14.
28:11
Speaker 1: If they won 18 by 12, I think this is
28:13
Speaker 1: going to be closer to 18, 19, or 20 points.
28:14
Speaker 1: We're sitting at 23 here. And that's, you know, this
28:21
Speaker 1: is why I think when you look at this huge
28:26
Speaker 1: canyon here that Republicans are dealing with among independents, cutting
28:31
Speaker 1: bait on Trump, if you're in a swing area, either
28:34
Speaker 1: a swing district or a swing state, might be better
28:37
Speaker 1: politics than you realize. Because, you know, when you go
28:40
Speaker 1: into this poll, Republicans are behind on every issue but one. Ironically,
28:47
Speaker 1: it was AI. They were sitting at a 42-40 advantage there.
28:53
Speaker 1: Democrats led on every issue. They led on the economy.
28:55
Speaker 1: They led on the war. They led on immigration. They
28:58
Speaker 1: led on every single. Now, a Republican might argue, well,
29:03
Speaker 1: this Times poll was weighted with a Democratic advantage. That
29:10
Speaker 1: is correct. Each electorate is a unique and different electorate.
29:15
Speaker 1: And what this New York Times poll is indicating Trump's
29:19
Speaker 1: base is not turning out. And if Trump's base doesn't
29:23
Speaker 1: turn out, Democrats are going to win and they're going
29:28
Speaker 1: to win a lot of races. The electorate that the
29:31
Speaker 1: New York Times is painting here with this likely electorate,
29:35
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris would have won the popular vote by about
29:37
Speaker 1: three points. So that's right now this advantage. It's a
29:44
Speaker 1: combination of more Democrats are enthusiastic about voting than Republicans.
29:49
Speaker 1: More Democratic voters have already made a decision than Republicans.
29:53
Speaker 1: Democrats are winning a huge share of independence. And you
29:57
Speaker 1: put all those things together and there's a chunk of
29:59
Speaker 1: Republican voters. that aren't showing up. And you put all
30:04
Speaker 1: of that together, and this is why the Times is
30:08
Speaker 1: projecting right now an electorate that favors Democrats somewhere in
30:12
Speaker 1: the eight-point range. And what does that mean? It means
30:16
Speaker 1: 15 to 25 House seats, and it means four to
30:20
Speaker 1: six Senate seats. We could have an individual quirky thing
30:24
Speaker 1: here or there, but if that's the environment we're looking at,
30:29
Speaker 1: D plus eight, that is how Sherrod Brown wins Ohio.
30:33
Speaker 1: That is how Maine happens. That is how Alaska happens.
30:37
Speaker 1: And it may be how Texas happens. May not be
30:41
Speaker 1: enough for Iowa. I don't know if it's enough for Kansas.
30:45
Speaker 1: but it starts to put you, and it may make
30:48
Speaker 1: it where Mike Rogers can't win in Michigan. Abdul El-Sayed
30:52
Speaker 1: may underperform the Democratic vote, but if you've got a
30:57
Speaker 1: flood wall that is D plus eight in Michigan, maybe
31:01
Speaker 1: it's D plus 10, well, that will provide enough padding
31:06
Speaker 1: for Abdul El-Sayed to hang on. And then your numbers,
31:10
Speaker 1: and that's how Democrats get to picking up five or
31:13
Speaker 1: six Senate seats because they hold all that. And it's
31:16
Speaker 1: in that environment that I'm skeptical that a John Sununu
31:20
Speaker 1: can pull off an upset in New Hampshire. It's interesting
31:26
Speaker 1: in the Senate battles, the two best Republican candidates are
31:33
Speaker 1: in the two hardest states that Republicans are targeting for
31:37
Speaker 1: the Senate races, right? They kind of have mediocre to
31:41
Speaker 1: below average candidates in Michigan and Georgia, which were always
31:45
Speaker 1: their two best targets. And I would say it's a
31:47
Speaker 1: big recruiting fail. You know, obviously they were hoping for
31:50
Speaker 1: Brian Kemp, but are you telling me that there was
31:54
Speaker 1: nobody in between Brian Kemp and this Mike Collins guy?
31:58
Speaker 1: And in Michigan, I think they'd have been better off
32:00
Speaker 1: with John Jaynes as their Senate nominee and trying to
32:03
Speaker 1: rerun Mike Rogers. And he's just, you know, I don't,
32:07
Speaker 1: he's tried to reinvent himself a couple of times. He
32:10
Speaker 1: was a non-Trump Republican, then he's been sort of a
32:12
Speaker 1: fake Trump Republican. And I think that that hasn't been. Meanwhile,
32:17
Speaker 1: Republicans found two really good candidates in Minnesota and New Hampshire,
32:21
Speaker 1: Michelle Tafoya, the former ESPN broadcaster, and John Sununu in
32:24
Speaker 1: New Hampshire. Just a tough year for a Republican to
32:28
Speaker 1: win in a lean blue state, right? If this were
32:31
Speaker 1: 2022 and the political environment of 2022, Tafoya and Sununu
32:37
Speaker 1: and those two, that would be, we'd be talking about
32:39
Speaker 1: them as much as we talk about Ohio, as much
32:41
Speaker 1: as we talk about Maine and Texas. But there is
32:44
Speaker 1: a little irony here is that the Republicans did a
32:46
Speaker 1: better job of recruiting their second tier targets, but totally, frankly,
32:51
Speaker 1: shit the bed on their on Georgia, number one. And
32:55
Speaker 1: I think they I think they turned out to make
32:59
Speaker 1: the wrong call with Rogers. We'll see. He is not run.
33:03
Speaker 1: You know, there's been some criticism that Abdul El-Sayed hasn't
33:06
Speaker 1: tacked to the center enough. I mean, there's Mike Rogers.
33:09
Speaker 1: He's not really made a compelling case to win over
33:14
Speaker 1: supposedly these Haley Stevens primary voters that he thinks he
33:16
Speaker 1: can win over. So I just don't see it there.
33:22
Speaker 1: But this New York Times poll, it sets the electorate
33:26
Speaker 1: what it is. And it's a pretty good timing, right?
33:29
Speaker 1: So we got the big ad spending, the Republican advantage
33:32
Speaker 1: on ad spending, right? They have dropped that big bank
33:37
Speaker 1: roll on all of these races this week. We've got
33:40
Speaker 1: this Times poll that sort of sets the benchmark survey
33:45
Speaker 1: of where this election stands right now in mid-September, which
33:50
Speaker 1: means in two weeks, in three weeks, when we get
33:53
Speaker 1: another Times poll, when we're able to compare apples to apples,
33:58
Speaker 1: we'll see, did this ad campaign make any inroads? And
34:03
Speaker 1: I think the ways to look at it, as I
34:04
Speaker 1: told you yesterday, it's less about whether the Republican number
34:07
Speaker 1: improves It's about whether the Democratic number starts to come down, right?
34:12
Speaker 1: I think that that's the, you know, that's pulling Democrats
34:15
Speaker 1: back into undecided because ultimately that's, you're not gonna, you're
34:20
Speaker 1: probably not gonna get full flip, but that's what you'll
34:22
Speaker 1: know whether this ad campaign that basically questions whether are
34:27
Speaker 1: you sure you wanna elect these folks, right? If that
34:31
Speaker 1: is having any impact at all, then you'll start to
34:33
Speaker 1: see some shifts into undecided. So this is why I
34:37
Speaker 1: love this poll. And the timing of this poll, because
34:40
Speaker 1: it does give us essentially a benchmark to take a
34:45
Speaker 1: look at. But there's just not any good news for
34:50
Speaker 1: Republicans in this Times poll. And again, for those of
34:54
Speaker 1: you that have followed me a long time, I've not
34:56
Speaker 1: been a huge fan of the Times polling in the past,
34:59
Speaker 1: but what Nate Cohn is doing over there now, what
35:02
Speaker 1: he's done with Sienna, where it's sort of one part survey,
35:05
Speaker 1: one part making sure That he's got the correct forecast
35:08
Speaker 1: coming so that he doesn't let his poll get a
35:11
Speaker 1: little outlawry like we see either with the Harris Harris
35:15
Speaker 1: poll on the Republican side or sometimes in Quinnipiac on
35:17
Speaker 1: the Democratic side. He is he's so to have an
35:22
Speaker 1: eight point lead now for the Democrats and I like
35:25
Speaker 1: the electorate that looks like the way it does. This
35:30
Speaker 1: this is smack in the blue wave. And the only,
35:35
Speaker 1: and I tell you, when you look in the crosstabs,
35:40
Speaker 1: the difference between blue wave and blue tsunami for Democrats
35:43
Speaker 1: is gonna be turnout among voters under 45. Because when
35:46
Speaker 1: you look at it, right, voters over 45, this is
35:49
Speaker 1: kind of a 50-50 race. Democrats narrowly lead among 65 plus,
35:54
Speaker 1: generic Republicans lead among my age group, Gen X, that
35:58
Speaker 1: 45 to 64. It is with millennials, double digit lead,
36:03
Speaker 1: and Gen Z even bigger lead? That is the question mark, right?
36:09
Speaker 1: It's not about, we know how those young voters are
36:11
Speaker 1: gonna vote. The question is how many of them are
36:14
Speaker 1: showing up? What is the turnout level? And the bigger
36:17
Speaker 1: the turnout is among voters under 45, the closer to
36:21
Speaker 1: blue tsunami that we're gonna get. If somehow, and this
36:25
Speaker 1: will be interesting to see, if I were sitting, if
36:29
Speaker 1: I were in the dirty tricks office of the Republican Party,
36:33
Speaker 1: I'd be looking for ways to demoralize young voters and
36:37
Speaker 1: try to get them not to be engaged. I don't
36:39
Speaker 1: know if they're going to get there. I think that
36:43
Speaker 1: all of the things that you might be able to
36:47
Speaker 1: disillusion younger voters about trumps disillusion them more, right? And
36:52
Speaker 1: I think that this feeling that, hey, we need a check.
36:57
Speaker 1: And that's the most powerful message in politics in any
37:00
Speaker 1: given year, but especially one where people feel like they
37:03
Speaker 1: can't trust this current administration, 50% believe. Times asked various
37:10
Speaker 1: sort of if this type of questions and if that
37:14
Speaker 1: type of questions, let me read a couple of them
37:16
Speaker 1: to you here, but essentially saying, what's more important to you,
37:21
Speaker 1: electing somebody that will support Trump's agenda or electing somebody
37:25
Speaker 1: that will provide a check on Trump And no matter
37:30
Speaker 1: how they've asked that, it comes across advantage with, no, no, no, no,
37:36
Speaker 1: we need to put a check on the Republican Party.
37:45
Speaker 1: And that is, I think, everything about this. This isn't
37:50
Speaker 1: a hard closing message for Democrats to come up with.
37:53
Speaker 1: It is an extraordinarily hard message. closing message for Republicans
37:57
Speaker 1: to have to. And I don't know what they're going
37:58
Speaker 1: to come up with other than Democrats are crazy. They're
38:01
Speaker 1: going to end up letting the socialists in charge. They
38:04
Speaker 1: can try it. It's basically the closing argument Democrats made
38:09
Speaker 1: against Trump, the two times that they've lost to him.
38:13
Speaker 1: And it didn't work. When you're on, I go back
38:16
Speaker 1: to when voters want change, they're not going to calibrate
38:22
Speaker 1: what kind of change that they want. When they have
38:24
Speaker 1: soured on the status quo, they'll take anything. Anything in
38:30
Speaker 1: their minds will be better than this. And in all
38:33
Speaker 1: of these cases, Trump's numbers are worse now than they
38:35
Speaker 1: were in 2018. And we already saw what the 2018
38:38
Speaker 1: midterm were. So look, like I said, two things caught
38:43
Speaker 1: my attention with this poll. The big one is that
38:46
Speaker 1: independent number and that independent gap, that even if if
38:50
Speaker 1: everything about this times poll is true and they don't
38:52
Speaker 1: win a single another independent in the undecided category, they
38:57
Speaker 1: still will win independence by a larger margin than they
38:59
Speaker 1: did in 2018 when they won over 40 seats. And
39:03
Speaker 1: I think it's likely, and that assumes a minimum of
39:07
Speaker 1: a 14 point advantage about independence. The closer they get
39:10
Speaker 1: to 20, the closer they get to tsunami. And then
39:13
Speaker 1: the other thing is how important young voters are going
39:17
Speaker 1: to be to Democrats being able to turn what is
39:20
Speaker 1: an opportunity for a blue wave into something that's even
39:24
Speaker 1: more substantial. They have all the support that they would
39:29
Speaker 1: want among voters under 45. The question is, are they
39:34
Speaker 1: going to show up? And if they show up, it's
39:38
Speaker 1: going to be a wipeout. Pure and simple. Hey, this
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Speaker 1: nuggets I want to bring up before I get to
41:25
Speaker 1: a quick Todd talk here. J.D. Vance campaigned in Kansas
41:30
Speaker 1: on Tuesday for Roger Marshall. And it was the sort
41:34
Speaker 1: of what he did. He went after how Adam Hamilton,
41:38
Speaker 1: who was a Methodist pastor, practices his faith. And this
41:44
Speaker 1: is not the first time Vance has done this, right?
41:46
Speaker 1: I mean, shoot, he lectured the Pope about Catholicism, right?
41:51
Speaker 1: I think this is very dangerous territory for a politician
41:54
Speaker 1: to go on. When you start to question how somebody
41:56
Speaker 1: practices their faith, people get their back up. And I
42:00
Speaker 1: think attacking people on, you know, at a time, you
42:03
Speaker 1: would think if you care about where religion is going, right?
42:08
Speaker 1: You know, more Americans are not participating in religious services
42:13
Speaker 1: on a weekly basis than ever before. And if you
42:19
Speaker 1: believe that Americans need more faith, why attack when somebody
42:25
Speaker 1: is preaching for Americans to have more faith? That's what
42:30
Speaker 1: Vance did. I don't think this, I think that's an,
42:33
Speaker 1: first of all, it's un-American. And it's like, talk about
42:36
Speaker 1: somebody totally disconnected with the history of this country. You know,
42:41
Speaker 1: he didn't merely say, I disagree with the pastor and
42:47
Speaker 1: some of his, and some of how he's interpreted the Bible.
42:51
Speaker 1: He basically said that his version of Christianity is not Christianity. Well,
42:56
Speaker 1: last time I checked, there's a lot of versions of Christianity.
42:59
Speaker 1: There's a lot of versions of Islam. There's a lot
43:01
Speaker 1: of versions of Judaism. But Christianity has probably more flavors,
43:05
Speaker 1: a little more Baskin Robbins on the Christianity scale than
43:08
Speaker 1: there is with Judaism or Islam. But there are a
43:11
Speaker 1: lot of different ways people practice their faith. Do you
43:14
Speaker 1: know what this country was founded on, Mr. Vice President?
43:18
Speaker 1: It was founded by a bunch of people who felt
43:20
Speaker 1: as if the state wouldn't allow them to practice their
43:24
Speaker 1: faith the way they wanted to practice their faith. This
43:29
Speaker 1: country was founded on the idea of pluralism. And when
43:32
Speaker 1: it came to religious, religious pluralism. You know, you're going
43:36
Speaker 1: to let people be when it comes to their faith.
43:40
Speaker 1: And the fact that he attacked it, like, look, and
43:42
Speaker 1: I get, you know, look, Vance is trying to acquire
43:45
Speaker 1: an identity. He's been somebody that's constantly, you know, identity
43:50
Speaker 1: one was hillbillyology. Then he sort of morphed into identity two,
43:56
Speaker 1: which was the Peter Thiel techno thing. millennial conservative. Now
44:02
Speaker 1: he's become a culture warrior with another evolution with Trump.
44:08
Speaker 1: And he's not natural at this. So he's trying to
44:15
Speaker 1: find moments where he can look like he is a
44:19
Speaker 1: committed culture warrior. And what he's done in religion I
44:27
Speaker 1: really think borders on the offensive to a lot of Americans.
44:31
Speaker 1: And sometimes he treats it like a dorm room fight
44:35
Speaker 1: and whatever. But I thought this was the wrong, you know,
44:42
Speaker 1: it was just, this was a decision. And it must
44:46
Speaker 1: tell me that somebody told him, hey, this Hamilton's having
44:49
Speaker 1: an impact on believers and a lot of maybe religious
44:55
Speaker 1: groups The Kansans are open to supporting him. And so
45:03
Speaker 1: the decision was made, you've got to delegitimize him. You've
45:05
Speaker 1: got to delegitimize his faith. You've got to delegitimize his
45:08
Speaker 1: views of Christianity. If he becomes president of the United
45:15
Speaker 1: States and he's a heartbeat away, a cheeseburger away, this
45:21
Speaker 1: is how he's going to practice the presidency? He's going
45:24
Speaker 1: to divide Americans on faith like this? We already have
45:29
Speaker 1: this problem. I think we shouldn't be, you know, and
45:32
Speaker 1: I've got my own views of how much, I think
45:35
Speaker 1: there's too much religion in our political life, but it
45:38
Speaker 1: is what it is. We're a democracy. And if this
45:41
Speaker 1: is what the voters want to appoint, that's fine. But
45:44
Speaker 1: the inability to respect it is pretty damaging. And those
45:49
Speaker 1: kind of intentional, to do intentionally divide like this and
45:54
Speaker 1: intentionally divide Somebody who's, you know, practicing their faith. You
46:03
Speaker 1: may not agree with their version of Christianity. Some Catholics
46:07
Speaker 1: don't agree with Mormons. Some believe that Mormons are not
46:11
Speaker 1: part of Christianity. Mormons certainly feel like they're a part
46:15
Speaker 1: of Christianity. But the point is, it's religious bigotry. Pure
46:22
Speaker 1: and simple. And I guess it's a tell about how
46:27
Speaker 1: nervous Republicans are that Hamilton might win over some swing
46:30
Speaker 1: voters and that his faith is sort of– it makes–
46:36
Speaker 1: reassures them that maybe Hamilton isn't going to go off
46:40
Speaker 1: the deep end on culture. But it just– I just
46:45
Speaker 1: thought it was beneath the office of the vice presidency.
46:49
Speaker 1: but I know I just opened my podcast with how
46:52
Speaker 1: we've like destroyed any sort of respectful ways that any
46:57
Speaker 1: part of the executive branch runs, right? Particularly Department of Justice,
47:01
Speaker 1: the FBI. So why shouldn't the vice president go into
47:05
Speaker 1: the gutter like this in the religious bigotry? But to
47:08
Speaker 1: go down that road, to question the authenticity of somebody's
47:13
Speaker 1: religious belief at this stage, I think another way to
47:19
Speaker 1: look at this is, guess what? Kansas is in play.
47:24
Speaker 1: Let me close with my sort of third straight podcast
47:31
Speaker 1: expressing some frustration. But I have a prescription on how
47:36
Speaker 1: do we deal with this AI anxiety. Now, Donald Trump
47:40
Speaker 1: had his own answer for Americans. And I can't believe
47:42
Speaker 1: he said, He declared the only controller guardrails that AI
47:48
Speaker 1: needs is, quote, a strong and smart high IQ president.
47:52
Speaker 1: And actually, he added that the United States has one
47:54
Speaker 1: of those in spades. I think we'd all love to
47:57
Speaker 1: see what his IQ actually is. But, you know, well, well, well,
48:02
Speaker 1: there you go. But imagine being a guy that says, no, no, no, no,
48:07
Speaker 1: just trust me. Is there a worse messenger imaginable for
48:12
Speaker 1: an argument that begins with the words? Trust me. This
48:17
Speaker 1: is a guy who has spent the better part of
48:18
Speaker 1: a decade teaching millions of Americans not to trust any institutions.
48:23
Speaker 1: Don't trust the government. Don't trust the media. Don't trust
48:27
Speaker 1: the intelligence community. Don't trust scientists. Don't trust election administration officials.
48:33
Speaker 1: Don't trust judges. Don't trust experts. If somebody tells you
48:39
Speaker 1: something you don't want to hear, assume they've gotten an agenda, right?
48:44
Speaker 1: And now we are confronting a technology that even some
48:47
Speaker 1: of the people building it tell us they cannot completely predict.
48:50
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's answer is, don't worry, trust me. Yes, you're
48:55
Speaker 1: supposed to trust Donald Trump. You can't spend a decade
49:00
Speaker 1: telling Americans to trust nobody and then suddenly demand trust
49:04
Speaker 1: for yourself. And frankly, I'm not particularly interested in replacing
49:08
Speaker 1: trust Trump with trust Silicon Valley either, because those guys
49:11
Speaker 1: have their own trust problem. And this is where I
49:14
Speaker 1: find this entire AI conversation increasingly maddening, right? Look, I
49:20
Speaker 1: see it. I use AI. We're all fascinated by it.
49:24
Speaker 1: It is. And I'm not interested in the choice being it's,
49:30
Speaker 1: you know, accelerate AI development or destroy the machines. but
49:37
Speaker 1: I'm not interested in being told that the machines are coming.
49:40
Speaker 1: There's nothing any of us can do about it. So
49:42
Speaker 1: everybody climb aboard and hope the people driving know where
49:45
Speaker 1: we're going. Especially when the people driving occasionally turn around
49:50
Speaker 1: and say, by the way, we're not entirely sure where
49:53
Speaker 1: we're going either. That's essentially what Dario Amadei of Anthropic
50:00
Speaker 1: is warning about the risks from increasingly powerful AI. And
50:05
Speaker 1: Sam Altman and Elon Musk are also warning about it.
50:08
Speaker 1: But they're not so nervous about it that they're stopping
50:11
Speaker 1: what they're doing, right? Trump, meanwhile, is just saying, well,
50:15
Speaker 1: this is just a hoax. The Chinese are involved. And
50:18
Speaker 1: maybe that's the case. But I don't think the Chinese
50:22
Speaker 1: want AI to go rogue either. I think we underestimate
50:28
Speaker 1: China's concerns and nervousness. Because if AI gives intellectual freedom
50:34
Speaker 1: to their population, watch out. So oddly enough, they're concerned
50:40
Speaker 1: about AI safety, but not for the same reasons we
50:44
Speaker 1: should be concerned about AI safety. But why does this
50:50
Speaker 1: debate have to come down to choosing which powerful entity
50:53
Speaker 1: we're supposed to trust? Trump says trust Trump, which again,
50:58
Speaker 1: you just ask Americans, they don't trust him. Majority of
51:01
Speaker 1: Americans don't trust Trump to tell us the truth about
51:04
Speaker 1: what's in his wallet, let alone about how he's managing AI.
51:09
Speaker 1: The AI companies say, trust us when we tell you
51:12
Speaker 1: there are dangers. And the skeptics say, don't trust the
51:15
Speaker 1: companies because regulation could protect the companies that already dominate
51:19
Speaker 1: the industry. Well, guess what? I don't trust any of
51:22
Speaker 1: these folks. I don't trust the AI companies. I don't
51:25
Speaker 1: trust Trump. I don't trust any individual entity here, right?
51:31
Speaker 1: And that's the whole point. You know who else didn't
51:33
Speaker 1: trust anybody? James Madison, who was writing the Constitution, the
51:38
Speaker 1: whole point was to create a whole series of checks
51:41
Speaker 1: and balances. So you didn't have to decide who to trust,
51:44
Speaker 1: but there was essentially enough checks and balances where everybody
51:51
Speaker 1: would check each other. So maybe the first question Washington
52:00
Speaker 1: needs to answer isn't, how do we regulate artificial intelligence?
52:03
Speaker 1: I don't know if we're ready to answer that yet.
52:06
Speaker 1: But the first question is much simpler. What do we know?
52:10
Speaker 1: And what don't we know? And who, other than the
52:13
Speaker 1: people building these systems, is allowed inside the room to
52:17
Speaker 1: find out? Because that's, we actually know how to do this.
52:22
Speaker 1: We do it in other industries all the time. Think
52:24
Speaker 1: about food. We don't have a food safety system where
52:27
Speaker 1: a meatpacking company sends Washington an email once a year saying,
52:31
Speaker 1: everything looks good here. Trust us. We have inspectors and
52:34
Speaker 1: they're embedded in these companies. People whose job is to
52:38
Speaker 1: go inside, be like an employee, look around, understand the process,
52:42
Speaker 1: make sure the rules are being followed, find problems before
52:45
Speaker 1: they blow up. And that's the principle we need to
52:49
Speaker 1: be borrowing here for AI. We need independent technical experts
52:58
Speaker 1: who have actual continuing access to the so-called frontier AI
53:02
Speaker 1: development systems. People who understand the technology, people with appropriate
53:07
Speaker 1: security clearances, people that can protect legitimate proprietary information. Not
53:13
Speaker 1: everything should be an NDA. People don't work for the
53:15
Speaker 1: company they're inspecting, and they need full access. What can
53:20
Speaker 1: this model actually do? What has the company discovered that
53:24
Speaker 1: it can do? What happened during testing? What safeguards worked?
53:29
Speaker 1: What failed? And that's where we ought to begin. Inspection
53:34
Speaker 1: before prescriptions. knowledge before regulation. And I'd like to see
53:41
Speaker 1: real congressional hearings on AI, not the five-minute speeches that
53:45
Speaker 1: are masquerade as questions so that 30 members of Congress
53:48
Speaker 1: can chop them into social media fundraising clips. We need
53:53
Speaker 1: hearings whose purpose is actually to educate the American public.
53:58
Speaker 1: I want to see a hearing that starts incredibly basic,
54:03
Speaker 1: Because we need to bring everybody into this conversation. I
54:06
Speaker 1: do not want to hear, well, it's complicated. It's hard
54:09
Speaker 1: to explain. Bullshit. If it's hard to explain, you're not
54:12
Speaker 1: doing a good enough job explaining it. So start with
54:16
Speaker 1: an LLM. What is it? And then what happens when
54:20
Speaker 1: I type into one? What actually happens? How does this work?
54:24
Speaker 1: Explain it to me like I'm a 10-year-old. I'm just
54:29
Speaker 1: a caveman, as Phil Hartman's great character once said. But
54:33
Speaker 1: even I know that the more complicated you make an answer,
54:38
Speaker 1: the more you don't want me to know the truth.
54:43
Speaker 1: I want to see hearings that explain how this works
54:46
Speaker 1: to the American public. And then when somebody says, well,
54:49
Speaker 1: ordinary people couldn't possibly understand this, then I want my
54:53
Speaker 1: member of Congress to ask again and tell this person,
54:56
Speaker 1: then explain it in American. Because everything is understandable if
55:01
Speaker 1: somebody explains it correctly. And I keep coming back. There's
55:07
Speaker 1: one of my favorite movies that sort of captured a
55:13
Speaker 1: moment like this is the movie Contact. It was a
55:18
Speaker 1: Jodie Foster movie, I think late 90s, early aughts. I
55:21
Speaker 1: can't remember now everything, you know, and I don't want
55:24
Speaker 1: to admit stuff is as old as it might actually be.
55:27
Speaker 1: But the basic premise, right? A lot of people probably
55:29
Speaker 1: remember that the signal from outer space and the giant machine, right?
55:33
Speaker 1: But go back and watch what happens after humanity realizes
55:37
Speaker 1: that this signal from outer space is real. Suddenly, the
55:42
Speaker 1: movie portrays it as this is simply no longer a
55:45
Speaker 1: science story. It became a government story, a political story,
55:48
Speaker 1: an ethical story, a religious story. Remember Matthew McConaughey's character
55:52
Speaker 1: in that movie? Who speaks for humanity? What does this
55:55
Speaker 1: discovery mean for faith? What happens to institutions built around
55:59
Speaker 1: assumptions about humanity's place in creation? The government in contact,
56:05
Speaker 1: the movie, doesn't have all the answers. That's the point.
56:08
Speaker 1: But they hold these tremendous congressional hearings or they portray
56:12
Speaker 1: it this way. And what's interesting is back then, the
56:17
Speaker 1: assumption was the government would likely understand that something transformative
56:22
Speaker 1: has happened and that society needs institutions capable of asking
56:27
Speaker 1: the questions before everyone understands the consequences. And I keep
56:33
Speaker 1: thinking that we're living through our own version of this moment,
56:37
Speaker 1: except it's not, you know, we're not receiving the machine's
56:41
Speaker 1: instructions from Vega. We're building the machine ourselves. And somehow
56:45
Speaker 1: that has made us less curious about the consequences. There's
56:49
Speaker 1: nothing AI isn't going to change. From education to medicine,
56:54
Speaker 1: to war, to privacy, to how we work, to relationships,
56:58
Speaker 1: to religions. What happens when people start taking questions about
57:04
Speaker 1: grief and morality and purpose to an LLM instead of
57:08
Speaker 1: a rabbi or a priest or a pastor or an imam?
57:13
Speaker 1: What happens when a machine can convincingly imitate somebody you
57:16
Speaker 1: loved who died? AI doesn't have to become conscious for
57:22
Speaker 1: any of those questions to matter. Human beings simply have
57:28
Speaker 1: to start treating it as if it is. And then
57:30
Speaker 1: there's this other piece of the trust problem, Silicon Valley.
57:33
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you another TV show. If you
57:35
Speaker 1: haven't seen the TV show, The Audacity, watch it. It's
57:42
Speaker 1: on Netflix. It's an AMC production. Yes, it's television. Yes,
57:47
Speaker 1: it's exaggerated. It sort of does for Silicon Valley what
57:50
Speaker 1: House of Cards did for politics. Made people like me go, well,
57:53
Speaker 1: that's not really, that's an exaggerated version. Okay. Exaggerated version, right?
58:01
Speaker 1: So in Audacity, just like in House of Cards, the
58:05
Speaker 1: villains are drawn very broadly. I'm sure there are people
58:09
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley who watch it just like I watched
58:11
Speaker 1: House of Cards and said, come on, we're not totally
58:14
Speaker 1: like that. Okay, maybe you're not. But that's not what
58:18
Speaker 1: should worry you about this show. What should worry you
58:21
Speaker 1: is that the caricature is recognizable. Because an awful lot
58:24
Speaker 1: of Americans increasingly look at Silicon Valley and see a
58:28
Speaker 1: small collection of extraordinarily wealthy, Slightly strange people living inside
58:34
Speaker 1: their own culture who suddenly have enormous power over everybody
58:38
Speaker 1: else's lives. The engineers may see themselves building the future.
58:45
Speaker 1: A lot of the rest of the country sees people
58:47
Speaker 1: they don't know, don't understand, and don't necessarily trust deciding
58:52
Speaker 1: what happens to their jobs, their children's future, their privacy,
58:58
Speaker 1: their relationships, and their information. That's the problem. And Silicon
59:05
Speaker 1: Valley can't solve it by saying, trust us, we're the
59:08
Speaker 1: smart people. How'd that work out during COVID? And Donald
59:14
Speaker 1: Trump can't solve it by saying, trust me, I'm the
59:16
Speaker 1: smart president. We've heard that one before too. Now, this
59:21
Speaker 1: is why democratic societies build institutions because you can't trust
59:25
Speaker 1: a single individual. You don't trust the king and you
59:28
Speaker 1: don't want to trust the company. We create systems that
59:31
Speaker 1: allow us all to verify what both of them are
59:33
Speaker 1: telling us. Another place Washington ought to begin. Create an
59:38
Speaker 1: independent AI inspection capability, put serious technologists in it, give
59:42
Speaker 1: them access, give them independence. Give them the ability to
59:45
Speaker 1: tell Congress and the public what we know and what
59:48
Speaker 1: we don't know and what questions nobody has been able
59:50
Speaker 1: to answer yet. Then let's create other broad institutions around it.
59:56
Speaker 1: A public-private advisory council on education and children. This is
1:00:00
Speaker 1: gonna transform how we, I mean, we went through this
1:00:03
Speaker 1: with social media and did nothing about it. We're not
1:00:06
Speaker 1: gonna let AI do this again, are we? And we
1:00:09
Speaker 1: need to focus on the impact on jobs, the impact
1:00:12
Speaker 1: on privacy, national security, the law, faith. And we need
1:00:19
Speaker 1: to see engineers at the table, teachers at the table,
1:00:22
Speaker 1: parents at the table, workers at the table, regular retail
1:00:26
Speaker 1: business owners, clergy, ethicists, civil libertarians, national security folks, and
1:00:34
Speaker 1: a variety of ordinary Americans that I have not name-checked
1:00:39
Speaker 1: what they do for a living. This is going to
1:00:43
Speaker 1: happen to all of us. And like I said, we've
1:00:47
Speaker 1: run this experiment once. Social media. Technology first. Business model second.
1:00:54
Speaker 1: Consequences somewhere like 58th on the list. And years later,
1:01:00
Speaker 1: we held earrings asking, how did this happen? We yelled
1:01:04
Speaker 1: at Mark Zuckerberg, go apologize to what you did, right? Well,
1:01:09
Speaker 1: this time, the warning lights are blinking before we've destroyed
1:01:14
Speaker 1: the minds of young people. The people building AI are
1:01:19
Speaker 1: publicly telling us they're worried. They didn't do that when
1:01:22
Speaker 1: they were building social media. They are doing it now.
1:01:30
Speaker 1: So why are we waiting? You know, we're really good
1:01:33
Speaker 1: at investigating catastrophes after they happen. We assemble a terrific commission,
1:01:37
Speaker 1: 9-11 commission, one of the better things that Washington's done.
1:01:41
Speaker 1: But it was an after-action report, right? We find the documents,
1:01:45
Speaker 1: we interview everybody, we discover that all sorts of people
1:01:48
Speaker 1: saw warning signs and we shouldn't have missed this, shouldn't
1:01:50
Speaker 1: have missed that, and we should do this, we should
1:01:52
Speaker 1: do that. And then we produce a beautiful report explaining
1:01:55
Speaker 1: exactly what we should have done before the disaster. How
1:01:59
Speaker 1: about we do it in the other order this time.
1:02:04
Speaker 1: Let's not wait for an AI version of a catastrophe
1:02:07
Speaker 1: that forces us to have the 9-11 commission for AI.
1:02:11
Speaker 1: Let's build the institutions now. Let's have the commission before
1:02:15
Speaker 1: there's a meltdown. Let's find out what's happening. Let's get
1:02:18
Speaker 1: people inside the room. Let's help explain this to Americans.
1:02:26
Speaker 1: We're all, we just want our own agency. Silicon Valley
1:02:31
Speaker 1: has taken away so much from us. They want us
1:02:36
Speaker 1: to go along for the ride. But we don't want
1:02:40
Speaker 1: to be taken for one. I'm not anti-AI. I'm pro-technology
1:02:50
Speaker 1: and pro-future. But let's bring everybody along. And let's do
1:02:55
Speaker 1: it before we blow something up that we regret that
1:02:59
Speaker 1: we blew up. We made all these mistakes with social media.
1:03:03
Speaker 1: We literally can just apply all of these terrible lessons
1:03:10
Speaker 1: that we learned and apply it to as we build
1:03:14
Speaker 1: this new technology. But that would be logic. And as
1:03:19
Speaker 1: I said, when the orange haired man came down the escalator,
1:03:23
Speaker 1: sometime after that, we banned logic in Washington and we're
1:03:27
Speaker 1: all the worst for it. We can do better, but
1:03:32
Speaker 1: we need leaders to meet this moment, and we don't
1:03:34
Speaker 1: have the leaders. Nobody in Silicon Valley knows how to
1:03:37
Speaker 1: meet this moment. Nobody in Washington is meeting this moment.
1:03:42
Speaker 1: It takes us, the people, to meet this moment. We
1:03:46
Speaker 1: have to demand it, and you've been demanding it in
1:03:51
Speaker 1: the only ways you know how to do, as I've
1:03:53
Speaker 1: been saying. You've been doing it to ballot box, and
1:03:56
Speaker 1: you've been doing it in which part of the The
1:03:59
Speaker 1: fact that you choose not to register in either party.
1:04:03
Speaker 1: But you're going to have to say it louder. Because
1:04:07
Speaker 1: at some point they will hear you. But you're going
1:04:10
Speaker 1: to have to speak once again at the ballot box.
1:04:26
Speaker 1: All right, now it's time for my top five list
1:04:29
Speaker 1: for the week. And so I thought I'd dabble into
1:04:30
Speaker 1: presidential politics. Before I get there, I want to talk
1:04:34
Speaker 1: about what Gavin Newsom said to my friend Jake Tapper.
1:04:37
Speaker 1: And I thought it was a very interesting comment he
1:04:40
Speaker 1: made about, you know, that he's not going to run
1:04:43
Speaker 1: if Kamala Harris runs for president. Now, there are plenty
1:04:49
Speaker 1: of ways that somebody may want to read subtext into that.
1:04:54
Speaker 1: Does Gavin Newsom already think she's not going to run
1:04:56
Speaker 1: and he thinks that's safe to say? Does Gavin Newsom
1:04:58
Speaker 1: think that if they both run, they both blow up
1:05:01
Speaker 1: each other's candidacy anyway, so it's no good? Does he
1:05:04
Speaker 1: realize that if it's him and Kamala, that the most
1:05:07
Speaker 1: important constituency in Democratic politics, African-American voters, are going to
1:05:12
Speaker 1: punish him for not showing deference to the former vice president?
1:05:16
Speaker 1: There's a variety of ways you can read into that.
1:05:21
Speaker 1: My point is, I think he gave the right answer.
1:05:25
Speaker 1: And I think that is the right way to think
1:05:26
Speaker 1: about this. And I think of Gavin Newsom, like, do I? Look,
1:05:30
Speaker 1: I think Gavin Newsom's best chance at a Democratic presidential
1:05:33
Speaker 1: nomination was 2024. Right. Some of you know I've gone
1:05:38
Speaker 1: through my what ifs over the years that, you know,
1:05:41
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton's best chance at the presidency was the year
1:05:43
Speaker 1: she didn't run, 2004. I believe that the best chance
1:05:48
Speaker 1: Chris Christie had to become president had he been in 2012.
1:05:52
Speaker 1: which he thought at the time was a cycle too soon.
1:05:54
Speaker 1: I think we've all learned it's never a cycle too soon.
1:05:59
Speaker 1: And I think that Gavin Newsom's best chance was to
1:06:06
Speaker 1: follow in the footsteps of his political hero, Bobby Kennedy,
1:06:11
Speaker 1: the father of the one that serves in the Trump administration,
1:06:15
Speaker 1: and challenge a sitting president. But I understand that that
1:06:21
Speaker 1: was a That was a tough decision and one he
1:06:25
Speaker 1: chose not to do. I do think a California Democrat
1:06:31
Speaker 1: is going to have a hard time playing in the
1:06:33
Speaker 1: middle of the country. When I see, look, this is
1:06:40
Speaker 1: a reminder that he is thinking about this very carefully.
1:06:44
Speaker 1: He's self-aware. He's correctly understanding the where the Democratic electorate
1:06:53
Speaker 1: may be right now. And I just thought it was a,
1:07:01
Speaker 1: it's a reminder to myself to be careful underestimating them.
1:07:06
Speaker 1: Like I said, it is easier to make the case
1:07:10
Speaker 1: that Gavin Newsom's not gonna be the Democratic nominee for
1:07:12
Speaker 1: president than it is to make the case. It is
1:07:14
Speaker 1: hard to make the conventional case. But there's always one
1:07:17
Speaker 1: thing I never wanna, that does matter in presidential politics is,
1:07:22
Speaker 1: Are you willing to do the things you need to
1:07:24
Speaker 1: do to win? Are you going to listen? You know,
1:07:29
Speaker 1: I watch, for instance, take Tallarico in Texas. You know
1:07:33
Speaker 1: what impresses me as a candidate? He's not being stubborn.
1:07:36
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, that non-binary comment is, you know, it's
1:07:41
Speaker 1: been taken out of contest and that's weird and I'm
1:07:42
Speaker 1: not going to stand by it or I'm not going
1:07:43
Speaker 1: to stand by this meat comment or whatever. Like he is,
1:07:47
Speaker 1: he just is not allowing, he's not, you know, a
1:07:50
Speaker 1: lot of times, You know, when people get caught saying
1:07:55
Speaker 1: something that was probably something that was politically inconvenient, they
1:08:01
Speaker 1: want to defend why they said it. You know, what
1:08:04
Speaker 1: do they say about when you're in a hole, stop digging?
1:08:09
Speaker 1: And Tallarico has shown me that he is, look, he
1:08:12
Speaker 1: will not get caught digging. Anytime he has been, somebody
1:08:16
Speaker 1: has tried to put him on the defensive on something
1:08:18
Speaker 1: he said previously, He literally pivots it back to Paxton,
1:08:22
Speaker 1: pivots it back to Koss, and just says, hey, my,
1:08:25
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, some of my, you know, comments were
1:08:29
Speaker 1: either taken out of context or, you know, that was
1:08:32
Speaker 1: kind of a nutty thing to say. I don't know
1:08:34
Speaker 1: what I was thinking or whatever. And I get the
1:08:40
Speaker 1: sense that Gavin Newsom has this gene in him. Now, look,
1:08:45
Speaker 1: like I said, I have a lot of, I think he's,
1:08:48
Speaker 1: I think his record in California is tough to sell.
1:08:50
Speaker 1: I don't think Americans outside of California think it is
1:08:55
Speaker 1: an affordable place to live. I think it's more affordable.
1:09:00
Speaker 1: than people realize if you live there. But it does
1:09:01
Speaker 1: like those gas prices are high and the cost of
1:09:04
Speaker 1: living does seem high, particularly if you live in San
1:09:07
Speaker 1: Francisco and that homeless problem, all these things. And I
1:09:10
Speaker 1: think the picture people that don't live in California get
1:09:14
Speaker 1: of California is one that's just going to be a
1:09:16
Speaker 1: stereotype that's going to be hard for him to overcome.
1:09:23
Speaker 1: But the man wants it, and he seems to be
1:09:29
Speaker 1: trying not to make any mistakes. Which brings me to
1:09:35
Speaker 1: my top five list at the moment. And I know,
1:09:40
Speaker 1: and I think the last time I did this, I
1:09:42
Speaker 1: had AOC in the one slot. And I believe it
1:09:44
Speaker 1: for a variety of reasons, as I said at the time.
1:09:47
Speaker 1: One is I do think that if she does run,
1:09:51
Speaker 1: she sucks up all the oxygens. kind of what Trump
1:09:55
Speaker 1: did to the 2016 Republican field. And I don't think
1:09:58
Speaker 1: we all saw that coming. And this time, I think
1:10:01
Speaker 1: we will probably more likely see it come. But I
1:10:03
Speaker 1: think just the amount of attention she got for sharing
1:10:11
Speaker 1: with the public the process of freezing her eggs and
1:10:14
Speaker 1: how much attention she got from that, it's just a
1:10:16
Speaker 1: reminder that there is just, in the same way there
1:10:18
Speaker 1: was with Trump, there's a huge fascination and just her
1:10:21
Speaker 1: everyday movements could be dominant in this attention economy. But
1:10:27
Speaker 1: the question is whether, has presidential politics been changed so
1:10:30
Speaker 1: much that the attention economy is what will matter? That
1:10:36
Speaker 1: is what happened in the Republican side of things. We
1:10:39
Speaker 1: did not yet have seen that happen on the Democratic
1:10:41
Speaker 1: side of things, right? You could argue Bernie Sanders won
1:10:44
Speaker 1: the attention economy primary in 16, but lost the nomination.
1:10:48
Speaker 1: You could argue that Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders and
1:10:51
Speaker 1: everybody else won the attention economy of 2020, but Joe
1:10:55
Speaker 1: Biden ended up with the nomination. I think if Democrats
1:11:01
Speaker 1: win control of both of the House and Senate, and
1:11:04
Speaker 1: especially if Abdul El-Sayed is seen as sort of, even
1:11:09
Speaker 1: if he won, but it was underperforming, I think the
1:11:13
Speaker 1: front runner to begin this thing is Pete Buttigieg. I
1:11:20
Speaker 1: don't think people fully appreciate that his organization is more mature,
1:11:26
Speaker 1: not just more mature than what it was before, but
1:11:28
Speaker 1: it's more mature than anybody else running at the moment
1:11:31
Speaker 1: in the shadow campaigns. I'm talking about all the governors,
1:11:33
Speaker 1: whether it's Brett Skirbashir, Moore, Shapiro, you name it. I
1:11:40
Speaker 1: think that when you think of, if you look at
1:11:42
Speaker 1: who the winning candidates can be for these 2026 races,
1:11:48
Speaker 1: an Ossoff in Georgia, a Tallarico in Texas, a Turek
1:11:52
Speaker 1: in Iowa, even a Troy Jackson in Maine, an Adam
1:12:02
Speaker 1: Hamilton in Kansas, the veterans that are running both in Montana.
1:12:12
Speaker 1: Pete Buttigieg is the one Democrat that candidates in all
1:12:17
Speaker 1: those places, are comfortable standing next to. And that matters.
1:12:21
Speaker 1: Biden was that person in 2018. And certainly there are
1:12:26
Speaker 1: places where Bernie is being invited that not a lot
1:12:28
Speaker 1: of other Democrats get invited either. And I think Bernie
1:12:31
Speaker 1: has his own connection with the electorate that is different than, frankly,
1:12:36
Speaker 1: a standard socialist adjacent candidate. I think Bernie Sanders can
1:12:42
Speaker 1: go places that AOC cannot, for instance, at least as
1:12:46
Speaker 1: far as the 2026 midterms are concerned. And so in
1:12:50
Speaker 1: my top five at the moment, and what I'm trying
1:12:52
Speaker 1: to do is projecting it out based on if Democrats sweep,
1:12:57
Speaker 1: I think it's Buttigieg that's the front runner. It's sort
1:13:01
Speaker 1: of the institutional front runner. And then we'll see what
1:13:04
Speaker 1: AOC does. And if she does, she's, you know, if
1:13:09
Speaker 1: the Democrats, you know, will their primary process change to
1:13:14
Speaker 1: the point where the attention economy matters as much as
1:13:18
Speaker 1: on the ground organizations? That has not always been the case, right?
1:13:24
Speaker 1: We know what happened on the Republican side of things.
1:13:27
Speaker 1: Can she be that transformative in how her primary works?
1:13:31
Speaker 1: That would be, you know, and so I'm putting Pete
1:13:35
Speaker 1: in my one slot, AOC in the two slot. And
1:13:39
Speaker 1: then I think there's a bit of a gap. I
1:13:41
Speaker 1: think if you're going to make me do three, four,
1:13:43
Speaker 1: and five, I'm going to put Gavin in the third
1:13:45
Speaker 1: spot because he certainly has higher name ID than any
1:13:48
Speaker 1: of the other governors that are looking at running. His
1:13:51
Speaker 1: name ID is higher than Beshear, than Moore, than Shapiro,
1:13:53
Speaker 1: than Pritzker. He is, of all the Democrats who've never
1:13:58
Speaker 1: run for president before, he probably has, only AOC has
1:14:02
Speaker 1: probably a higher name ID than Gavin Newsom. So I
1:14:05
Speaker 1: think you have to say he starts in the third
1:14:08
Speaker 1: slot there. And then number four, I would put Mark Kelly.
1:14:13
Speaker 1: I think he's another one that in this political environment
1:14:19
Speaker 1: has been <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL>
1:14:36
Speaker 1: And so I think he's had a, I think he's
1:14:37
Speaker 1: had a better 26 than, than people have given him
1:14:40
Speaker 1: credit for. And then I'm going to put Bashir in
1:14:43
Speaker 1: my fifth slot because he's the DGA chair. And if
1:14:45
Speaker 1: Democrats do well nationally, they're going to do well in
1:14:48
Speaker 1: these governor's races. You know, and if a couple of,
1:14:51
Speaker 1: you know, what if a Democrat wins the governor's race
1:14:53
Speaker 1: in Florida? What if a Democrat actually pulls an upset
1:14:56
Speaker 1: in Texas? You're going to have a new Democratic governor
1:14:59
Speaker 1: likely in Iowa that very much is kind of in
1:15:03
Speaker 1: the Bashir mold, right? Now, what's interesting about my list
1:15:08
Speaker 1: is that you could argue I had, I have sort
1:15:10
Speaker 1: of two more on the conservative sort of center left
1:15:16
Speaker 1: side of the island, Kelly and Bashir. I have sort
1:15:23
Speaker 1: of mainstream liberal in Gavin Newsom. And I guess Pete,
1:15:26
Speaker 1: you would put in there, who I think sort of
1:15:27
Speaker 1: has the temperament of a center-left, but the policy positions
1:15:31
Speaker 1: of a mainstream liberal. And then one socialist adjacent. I
1:15:34
Speaker 1: guess she's a member of the DSA in AOC. But
1:15:38
Speaker 1: that's my top five at the moment. Pete, AOC, Gavin, Kelly,
1:15:44
Speaker 1: Mark Kelly, and Andy Bashir. Probably doesn't look like what
1:15:48
Speaker 1: Polymarket looks like or Cal Shee or any of those
1:15:51
Speaker 1: other places. But that's where I see things, particularly based
1:15:56
Speaker 1: on where I, where this environment appears to be headed
1:15:59
Speaker 1: in 26 and what will seem to be the most
1:16:01
Speaker 1: appealing going in to 28. All right, we're going to
1:16:15
Speaker 1: start with Michael R. He goes, longtime listener, proud resident
1:16:18
Speaker 1: of Maryland's fourth congressional district. Believe that's PG County. Parts
1:16:23
Speaker 1: of PG County. And Michael writes, given the political environment
1:16:27
Speaker 1: and candidate quality this cycle, could Democrats have made solidly
1:16:30
Speaker 1: red states like Kentucky and Louisiana more competitive with recruits
1:16:33
Speaker 1: like Andy Beshear or Mitchell Andrew? Louisiana in particular feels
1:16:36
Speaker 1: like a missed opportunity. Love the show, Michael R. Well, look,
1:16:41
Speaker 1: I think would John Bel Edwards... have been a potentially
1:16:45
Speaker 1: good candidate in Louisiana? Maybe. And I guess in hindsight,
1:16:50
Speaker 1: if you knew Cassidy was going to, but I don't
1:16:52
Speaker 1: know if Julia Letlow is an unelectable conservative in Louisiana. Like,
1:16:58
Speaker 1: I don't think she's too mega E. There were people
1:17:01
Speaker 1: that could have been to the, to the right of
1:17:03
Speaker 1: her that might've done that. I think the better question
1:17:07
Speaker 1: is Andy Beshear in Kentucky. Now, It probably ends up
1:17:14
Speaker 1: about as successful as Phil Bredesen was, a Democratic governor
1:17:18
Speaker 1: of Tennessee who ran for the Senate and came up short.
1:17:22
Speaker 1: But it would have been highly competitive, would have had
1:17:26
Speaker 1: a bunch of money. So, you know, it's a fair ask.
1:17:35
Speaker 1: But as I hope you hear me saying this before,
1:17:41
Speaker 1: Voters are willing to cross party lines on governor because
1:17:44
Speaker 1: governor's races are personal to people. Senate races are jersey colors.
1:17:50
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, there's a ton
1:17:52
Speaker 1: of voters who say to themselves, well, you know, which
1:17:55
Speaker 1: side of the Supreme Court am I going to be on?
1:17:58
Speaker 1: You know, we've turned the Senate into some sort of
1:18:01
Speaker 1: parliamentary system in some point. And so I think that
1:18:05
Speaker 1: we don't see candidate as much as we do. But
1:18:11
Speaker 1: You know, look, I think Republicans nominated a very electable
1:18:14
Speaker 1: Republican in Andy Barr and Andy Beshear would have had
1:18:17
Speaker 1: a hard time, I think, being able to paint Andy
1:18:21
Speaker 1: Barr as outside the mainstream the way he successfully did
1:18:26
Speaker 1: to Matt Bevin, for instance, or even the attorney general,
1:18:31
Speaker 1: the former attorney general that he beat. But, you know,
1:18:36
Speaker 1: I guess you could say and, you know, who knows,
1:18:39
Speaker 1: maybe you suggested that Mitchell Andrew for Louisiana State. He's
1:18:43
Speaker 1: an interesting candidate, and you're right. But I'll tell you,
1:18:48
Speaker 1: I think Mitch Landrieu ought to run for governor in 27.
1:18:52
Speaker 1: I think this Governor Landrieu is more concerned about LSU
1:18:56
Speaker 1: football than he is about running the state. And if
1:18:59
Speaker 1: LSU football is a disaster, does not end well this year,
1:19:02
Speaker 1: I actually think it's going to make him vulnerable in 27. Now,
1:19:06
Speaker 1: if LSU and Lane Kiffin win the national title... Maybe
1:19:09
Speaker 1: it's harder to run against Landry for being more obsessed
1:19:13
Speaker 1: with LSU football than with worrying about health care in
1:19:17
Speaker 1: rural Louisiana. But that is something I am curious about.
1:19:23
Speaker 1: I think Landry has been way too caught up in
1:19:26
Speaker 1: worrying about LSU athletics and not focused enough on governing
1:19:32
Speaker 1: the state for what it's worth. Next question. Cam. from
1:19:38
Speaker 1: Virginia's 8th district right here. I started listening years ago
1:19:43
Speaker 1: for your political analysis and now I find myself enjoying
1:19:45
Speaker 1: the sports conversations too. It's a nice balance. Thanks. As
1:19:48
Speaker 1: a sports fan, what do you make of James Franklin
1:19:49
Speaker 1: and Virginia Tech's first two outings and how do you
1:19:51
Speaker 1: think they'll impact the rest of the ACC, especially our Hurricanes?
1:19:55
Speaker 1: I also appreciate your thoughtfulness and willingness to shift your
1:19:56
Speaker 1: perspective when the data changes. And as someone who isn't
1:19:59
Speaker 1: a fan of excessive gambling in sports, that you take
1:20:02
Speaker 1: the time to slowly read the help numbers at the
1:20:04
Speaker 1: end of the ads. I do. I actually take that seriously.
1:20:08
Speaker 1: I want people, look, I do. I gamble what I
1:20:15
Speaker 1: can afford, but it's gambling. I don't pretend it's a
1:20:18
Speaker 1: side hustle, but it's a way to make money. It
1:20:21
Speaker 1: is more a competition with myself. That's how I view
1:20:24
Speaker 1: sports gambling. Do I know this stuff as much as
1:20:27
Speaker 1: I think I do? You know, how good is my gut?
1:20:30
Speaker 1: I'm going to put my money where my mouth is.
1:20:33
Speaker 1: But I view it as almost a competition with myself
1:20:37
Speaker 1: on that front. But I appreciate you noticing that. I
1:20:40
Speaker 1: do intentionally, I can't stand the idea that the helpline
1:20:44
Speaker 1: numbers are always spit through. But you asked a question
1:20:49
Speaker 1: about Franklin. Look, James Franklin is a monster recruiter. And
1:20:54
Speaker 1: this is an underrated, the Mid-Atlantic is an underrated region.
1:20:58
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting, Virginia Tech, And Penn State basically have,
1:21:04
Speaker 1: between the two of them, dominated recruiting in this region
1:21:07
Speaker 1: from essentially New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and even parts of
1:21:12
Speaker 1: North Carolina. You know, and they've out-recruited UVA and all
1:21:17
Speaker 1: that stuff. And then Virginia Tech sort of fell off.
1:21:19
Speaker 1: And Franklin at Penn State kind of vacuumed up all
1:21:22
Speaker 1: of it. And I think, and then whatever he didn't
1:21:27
Speaker 1: vacuum up, Clemson was coming up a little bit to
1:21:29
Speaker 1: get some of this. some of these quality athletes in
1:21:32
Speaker 1: the Mid-Atlantic region. Look, I think Franklin, he's only, he
1:21:38
Speaker 1: improves every program he shows up in. He may not
1:21:41
Speaker 1: have met the expectations that Penn State fans had, but
1:21:46
Speaker 1: he brought them to an elite level and they weren't
1:21:49
Speaker 1: at an elite level when he got there. So I
1:21:53
Speaker 1: know he's going to make Virginia Tech better. And that
1:21:56
Speaker 1: makes me nervous because when Virginia Tech's good, Blacksburg's a
1:21:59
Speaker 1: hard place to play. I've been there with Enter Sandman.
1:22:06
Speaker 1: When you look at Miami's schedule, one of the games
1:22:09
Speaker 1: that I'm like, okay, if Miami runs into a problem,
1:22:18
Speaker 1: if this Wake Forest game were in October on a Friday,
1:22:23
Speaker 1: I'd be more worried about it than it being our
1:22:26
Speaker 1: our third game of the year. And the fact that
1:22:28
Speaker 1: we've yet, we've only had Thursday or Friday games. So
1:22:30
Speaker 1: I don't think it's an oddity for us at the moment.
1:22:33
Speaker 1: So I'm, I'm glad this Friday night game with wakes
1:22:36
Speaker 1: happening in the week that it's happening, but this is
1:22:39
Speaker 1: one of those that could easily in October and the
1:22:42
Speaker 1: way that I think Louisville was a Friday night game that,
1:22:44
Speaker 1: that sort of bit us in the, you know, what
1:22:46
Speaker 1: an SMU is a Saturday game. So that Virginia tech
1:22:51
Speaker 1: game has been one I've been a little nervous about
1:22:54
Speaker 1: this year. Um, because look, he, he's, I'll be, look,
1:23:02
Speaker 1: if Virginia tech does to Maryland, what I expect them
1:23:04
Speaker 1: to do, then I won't be the only one starting
1:23:07
Speaker 1: to get a little nervous about the Virginia tech Miami game.
1:23:10
Speaker 1: Cause here's another thing. Virginia tech cares about the Miami rivalry.
1:23:15
Speaker 1: Miami has always, you know, thought, you know, we, again,
1:23:17
Speaker 1: you know, the way rivalries work, right. When you have these,
1:23:20
Speaker 1: you know, I think if you ask some Virginia Tech fans,
1:23:23
Speaker 1: they would care more about beating Miami than they do UVA.
1:23:27
Speaker 1: And then when they sort of took a step back,
1:23:30
Speaker 1: then UVA mattered to them again. But there was a
1:23:33
Speaker 1: time when I think they cared about beating Miami more
1:23:35
Speaker 1: than they cared about beating UVA. Now, Miami's never seen
1:23:40
Speaker 1: Virginia Tech as its chief rival, right? They see, you know,
1:23:43
Speaker 1: it's Florida State. And of course, we think Notre Dame's
1:23:46
Speaker 1: a bigger rival than Notre Dame thinks we are, right?
1:23:48
Speaker 1: That sort of thing. So, but I am glad for
1:23:53
Speaker 1: the ACC that James Franklin is a coach in the ACC.
1:23:58
Speaker 1: It's good for strengthening the ACC. He's a good recruiter.
1:24:01
Speaker 1: He's going to improve. He's going to expand the top
1:24:05
Speaker 1: tier of the ACC. And we can get six or–
1:24:08
Speaker 1: I'd like to see the ACC get to six or
1:24:10
Speaker 1: seven deep before Miami leaves for another conference. I have kid.
1:24:16
Speaker 1: But I definitely think that there was an A-plus hire.
1:24:22
Speaker 1: by the administration of Blacksburg. And I suspect if he
1:24:27
Speaker 1: chooses to, James Franklin finishes coaching career, highly successful at
1:24:33
Speaker 1: Virginia Tech. And what's interesting is if he has the
1:24:36
Speaker 1: same success that he had at Penn State, they might
1:24:41
Speaker 1: give him a statue in Blacksburg. All right, Tom in Maine,
1:24:48
Speaker 1: 2nd District writes, hey, I'd like to donate a couple
1:24:49
Speaker 1: of campaigns, but I'm hesitant because I don't want to
1:24:52
Speaker 1: be bombarded with endless solicitations from other campaigns and political
1:24:56
Speaker 1: groups afterward. Is there a way to make a political
1:24:57
Speaker 1: donation while keeping your information from ending up on every
1:25:00
Speaker 1: fundraising list imaginable? Thank you. Yeah, don't give more than $ 199.
1:25:07
Speaker 1: You do not have to give any information to a
1:25:11
Speaker 1: campaign if you give less than $ 200. It is federal
1:25:16
Speaker 1: law that they have to get your employer name, address,
1:25:20
Speaker 1: all those things for anybody that gives $ 200 or more.
1:25:24
Speaker 1: So that's the simplest way for me to tell you
1:25:28
Speaker 1: is you can give less than, now they're gonna wanna
1:25:34
Speaker 1: have your name in case you give more than once.
1:25:36
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, you know, you give
1:25:39
Speaker 1: five or six $ 199 contribution, you've crossed the threshold. But
1:25:43
Speaker 1: I've got plenty of colleagues and friends over the years
1:25:46
Speaker 1: who don't want to show up in the FEC list,
1:25:49
Speaker 1: don't want to show up on other people's lists. And
1:25:52
Speaker 1: on federal campaign spending, just give, essentially, you give up
1:25:56
Speaker 1: to $ 1 less than the magic number that it takes
1:26:00
Speaker 1: that you have to, they have to get your information,
1:26:02
Speaker 1: which is in this case, $ 200. So don't give more
1:26:05
Speaker 1: than $ 200. $ 199 is your max. You don't have to
1:26:10
Speaker 1: give up any of your personal information. on that. I
1:26:14
Speaker 1: hope that helps. Steve W. in Colorado's first district, all right,
1:26:18
Speaker 1: heart of Denver, writes, and longtime listener, second time writer,
1:26:21
Speaker 1: last week you made a compelling argument that pardoning Nixon
1:26:23
Speaker 1: ultimately hurt the country by helping establish the idea that
1:26:26
Speaker 1: a president could escape accountability. And I can't help applying
1:26:29
Speaker 1: that to our current situation. That's exactly why I do
1:26:34
Speaker 1: the time machine. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Steve.
1:26:37
Speaker 1: If Democrats take control of Congress in November, but still
1:26:39
Speaker 1: lack the Senate votes needed to convict after an impeachment,
1:26:42
Speaker 1: should they pursue impeachment over conduct they believe is unlawful anyway,
1:26:46
Speaker 1: or would that ultimately do more harm than good? So
1:26:51
Speaker 1: I think what you do is you pursue the investigations
1:26:54
Speaker 1: without calling them impeachment. And you do all of these reports.
1:27:01
Speaker 1: And you, you know, first it's about maybe the crypto
1:27:04
Speaker 1: money and the building fund money. And all of, you know,
1:27:08
Speaker 1: you start to, you sort of systematically do it. You
1:27:12
Speaker 1: look at how DHS was managed. You look at what's
1:27:14
Speaker 1: happening at the Kennedy Senator, you know, all these things.
1:27:18
Speaker 1: And you put out these very, you need to have
1:27:20
Speaker 1: these very public hearings and these very public reports. And
1:27:23
Speaker 1: they need to be matter of fact. The reports can't
1:27:26
Speaker 1: be overly, they, you know, they can't have political documents,
1:27:31
Speaker 1: hyperbolic language, all of that. And then you lay it
1:27:37
Speaker 1: out there. And you hope that there's a Thomas Massey
1:27:47
Speaker 1: still left in the Republican Party and he won't be
1:27:49
Speaker 1: gone in the next Congress. But I do think if
1:27:54
Speaker 1: you're going to pursue impeachment, you better have bipartisan support
1:27:58
Speaker 1: going in. The second impeachment of Trump, the reason a
1:28:03
Speaker 1: lot of people thought it might be successful is you
1:28:05
Speaker 1: had Liz Cheney, you had 10 Republicans sign on to that.
1:28:10
Speaker 1: And the assumption was every one Republican, you know, there
1:28:13
Speaker 1: was five more that didn't have the guts to do it,
1:28:18
Speaker 1: but shared the sentiment. But that's the only, you know,
1:28:25
Speaker 1: what you do is you want to overwhelm with information
1:28:30
Speaker 1: and facts and reports. And they need to be, you know,
1:28:35
Speaker 1: they can't be done in back rooms. They've got to
1:28:38
Speaker 1: be very public. And then you start connecting the dots.
1:28:43
Speaker 1: And like, here we are. Because here's the, I mean,
1:28:47
Speaker 1: to be totally politically cynical here, here's the reason to
1:28:51
Speaker 1: do it and not call it impeachment. It's essentially the
1:28:55
Speaker 1: indictment you would issue if J.D. Vance chooses to seek
1:28:59
Speaker 1: Trump's third term. This is what the first two terms brought.
1:29:04
Speaker 1: And it basically just lays out the case. So I
1:29:08
Speaker 1: don't think it's a waste of time. But I will
1:29:13
Speaker 1: say this, I'd vote count before I pursued a third impeachment.
1:29:18
Speaker 1: And at a minimum, don't do it in the House
1:29:21
Speaker 1: unless there's a bipartisan majority. And more than one is
1:29:26
Speaker 1: bipartisan in this case. Eight to 10 is eight to 10.
1:29:29
Speaker 1: Especially if it's a diminished majority, that would be a
1:29:32
Speaker 1: a bigger deal. But that's how I would pursue it.
1:29:37
Speaker 1: All right, last question for the episode. Jason Woodbury from
1:29:43
Speaker 1: Minnesota's 4th District chimes in. First-timer and Packers part owner here.
1:29:48
Speaker 1: Nice to see a Minnesotan be a Packers owner. I
1:29:52
Speaker 1: have got a lot of grumpiness about that. I appreciate
1:29:56
Speaker 1: the go-pack sentiment there, but it's ugly in Packer land
1:30:00
Speaker 1: right now. Germany's far right AFD just had a major
1:30:03
Speaker 1: electoral showing amid economic anger over energy prices tied to
1:30:05
Speaker 1: the Iran war and a weaker Germany with a stronger
1:30:08
Speaker 1: far right would seemingly benefit Putin. Is it possible the
1:30:11
Speaker 1: Iran war was ultimately served Russia's interest more than America's?
1:30:14
Speaker 1: And how should we think about claims that this outcome
1:30:16
Speaker 1: was intentional? Wow. Well, it's interesting that you say it
1:30:20
Speaker 1: benefited Russia. I actually think, don't, I do not agree
1:30:24
Speaker 1: that it's benefited Russia. I think it's benefited China. Here's
1:30:28
Speaker 1: why I don't think it benefited Russia because Russia, Iran's
1:30:31
Speaker 1: an important war weapons manufacturer and essentially, you know, provide,
1:30:38
Speaker 1: you know, help. They've been helping with Russia's drone operation
1:30:42
Speaker 1: and all of that. And now that they have to
1:30:44
Speaker 1: worry about their own effort, that takes away from how
1:30:47
Speaker 1: they can help the Russians. So I'm not as convinced. Sure,
1:30:53
Speaker 1: you know, the war has given them some some relief
1:30:57
Speaker 1: on oil sanctions, right? They've been able to make a
1:31:00
Speaker 1: few extra bucks and I get where you're going there.
1:31:04
Speaker 1: But to me, the unequivocal winner in this decision is China, right?
1:31:09
Speaker 1: China now is the stable global partner, right? I mean,
1:31:13
Speaker 1: you know, between the tariff war that he launched against
1:31:18
Speaker 1: our allies all over the world and this Iran war,
1:31:21
Speaker 1: he has made our allies in the Gulf start to
1:31:26
Speaker 1: think they need to start to make their own relationships.
1:31:29
Speaker 1: It's made our allies in the West start to think
1:31:32
Speaker 1: they need to make their own. I mean, my goodness,
1:31:33
Speaker 1: Canada's thinking about joining the EU. That's a direct result
1:31:40
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump's trade war and just bizarre attacks on Canada.
1:31:49
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many own goals with Trump and
1:31:53
Speaker 1: this economy. Canada is probably as big of an own
1:31:56
Speaker 1: goal as there's been. And this, again, do I expect
1:32:01
Speaker 1: the next president to repair 70% of this? Yeah, I
1:32:06
Speaker 1: hope so. But this stuff takes so much longer to
1:32:10
Speaker 1: repair than we realize. And this damage, this is why
1:32:15
Speaker 1: sometimes I watch this, whether it's this ridiculous Blanche guy
1:32:19
Speaker 1: doing a performing as press secretary. Just like whatever credibility
1:32:24
Speaker 1: was left at the Justice Department, he just pissed away
1:32:28
Speaker 1: into the concrete floor of the Rose Garden. And what
1:32:35
Speaker 1: we've done to destabilize Europe, which does in its own way,
1:32:42
Speaker 1: certainly accrue to Putin's benefit. But I mean... You know,
1:32:48
Speaker 1: I was talking with somebody who's quite familiar with how
1:32:51
Speaker 1: the Chinese really view Trump. And one person was joking
1:32:55
Speaker 1: with me that his nickname in China is something having
1:32:58
Speaker 1: to do with like, you know, the Trump is like
1:33:00
Speaker 1: the nickname they give him is gift is essentially it
1:33:03
Speaker 1: stands for the word gift because they view Trump has
1:33:05
Speaker 1: been a gift to China. He has been an enormous
1:33:10
Speaker 1: gift to China. If you believe this is a world
1:33:12
Speaker 1: that is dividing in between those with the West and
1:33:15
Speaker 1: those with China, Donald Trump has basically abdicated America's leadership
1:33:24
Speaker 1: of the West, made the West feel leaderless a bit.
1:33:30
Speaker 1: I think Mark Carney, in some ways, is at least
1:33:34
Speaker 1: the philosophical leader of the West. And yet, what is
1:33:38
Speaker 1: everybody doing? Trying to figure out how to forge a
1:33:44
Speaker 1: working relationship with China. China's been the big winner in
1:33:48
Speaker 1: all of this. And I get the question you're asking,
1:33:55
Speaker 1: that the outcome was intentional. I don't know. I get it.
1:34:03
Speaker 1: If it is, it's a hell of a game. It's
1:34:07
Speaker 1: a hell of an operation that's been run against the
1:34:09
Speaker 1: United States. Yeah. But regardless whether it's intentional or not,
1:34:22
Speaker 1: the outcome is the same, which is Russia's hand is
1:34:27
Speaker 1: short-term strengthened by all of this dystopia. But, you know,
1:34:32
Speaker 1: he's going to fall sooner than you think. Putin's going
1:34:39
Speaker 1: to be taken out by his own people. I'm more,
1:34:42
Speaker 1: you know. Ukraine's bringing this war into the heart of Moscow.
1:34:47
Speaker 1: I am pretty optimistic that Putin's days truly are numbered.
1:34:55
Speaker 1: But the real winner in all this is China. All right,
1:34:59
Speaker 1: on that upbeat note, I will see you in 24 hours.
1:35:05
Speaker 1: I won't waste my time hand-wringing about the Packers. But
1:35:10
Speaker 1: let me just throw out this one question with you
1:35:12
Speaker 1: about the Packers. If the Jets beat the Packers in
1:35:15
Speaker 1: week two, is that a fireable offense? I'm just asking.
1:35:21
Speaker 1: I'm just asking. All right. I'll see you in 24 hours.